Nobuo Uematsu is one of the most acclaimed composers of video game music the world has yet known; his work on the Final Fantasy series is globally recognised, and with good reason.
However, even Nobuo is humble enough to know when he's witnessing true greatness, and a social post from Game 'n Lärm has reminded us of one such moment.
The clip is taken from a 2010 interview with Uematsu in which the incredible impact of Quintet's ActRaiser is discussed. Released soon after the arrival of the Super Famicom in 1990, this mixture of action and 'God Sim' remains a firm favourite with players – so much so that it received a remake a few years back.
However, it was the game's stunning soundtrack – composed by the equally esteemed Yuzo Koshiro – that really made Uematsu sit up and take notice.
During the interview, the composer is asked about a common story that suggests ActRaiser's music influenced his work on Final Fantasy IV:
"Yes, that's true. However, rather than calling it an influence, the music for FFIV was already almost finished by the time ActRaiser was released.
And when ActRaiser finally came out, we were all like, “It’s out!" It may have been the first RPG released on the Super Famicom. Our first RPG on that console was highly anticipated, and of course, we wanted it to be a success. ActRaiser was released before our game, and its sound was completely different from ours.
In that respect, our work was clearly inferior in terms of sound quality. So when the sound programmer and I listened to the sounds of ActRaiser, it gave us goosebumps.
We kept saying to ourselves, “We’ll never be able to reach that level.” I remember that we then went back to our office and completely reworked the sound design of FFIV. But even after that, the final result was still inferior to ActRaiser. It was a game that was truly outstanding in terms of sound design."
Koshiro himself was asked about this back in 2019 by Red Bull Music Academy, and relays an amusing ancedote regarding the Final Fantasy legend's facial hair:
"He was composing the soundtrack for Final Fantasy 4 at that time, and he decided to rework it. Not everything, but he changed the tones of the PCM sound completely. That’s what I was told. Here is an interesting story. He grew a [beard] at the time because after he was so surprised by the sound of ActRaiser he decided not to shave it until he could create sounds like those in ActRaiser. That’s why he grew a long beard. He liked how he looked with his beard. Since then, his beard became his style."