noiseordinance

Virt, you have alway been a stud. Been enjoying your work for years. Glad you're still at it!

I'd like to post some personal information about the significance of this album, even if it's odd and completely out of left field. Final Fantasy IV was an amazing game to me as a kid. It completely revolutionized RPGs and shaped my preferences for gaming as a whole. When I read about plans to release Final Fantasy VI in EGM, it was quite the exciting prospect... "a sequel to my favorite SNES game ever!" I would buy any magazine that had any tidbit of news about it... I'd draw countless pictures of Mog balancing on his dagger. I would daydream about the day I'd finally get my hands on Final Fantasy VI. Shortly before it was released, I had some "family instability" that resulted in placement within an orphanage for a couple years... A giant prison-like building surrounded by a 15-foot barbed wire fence. In fact, we shared a fence with the juvenile correctional facility next door and the hoodlums there would literally taunt us through the fence. Anyways, I digress. A family friend eventually acquired the rights to get me out on a 4-hour release for Christmas morning to make it a little more special for me. As luck would have it, her son got FFVI for Christmas and I spent all 4 hours watching him play it. I returned to my "prison" later that day, but the music stuck with me and literally echoed in my head for the two years that followed. When I was released and finally reunited with family, I borrowed FFVI from the same friend who let me watch him play it years earlier. Even though it was already a couple years old, he still had a hard time parting with it because it was such a special game. I played through it day and night, loving every second. I had built these tremendous expectations of the game, and it far-exceeded all of my hopes. tldr; The soundtrack of FFVI will always be tremendously special to me. For me, it represented the depression of being taken away from my friends and family, the small taste of freedom on that Christmas morning, and the eventual return to normalcy of my childhood. How fitting for a sound track that also has themes of depression, despair, hope, and victory! Similar to my expectations of FFVI the game, you guys have far exceeded any expectation I had for a re-envisioning of the soundtrack. As someone who attempts audio production in my own free time, I'm blown away / in awe of this release. It's incredibly special to see so many folks with a similar love for this soundtrack, combined with superb musicianship, creativity and audio engineering skills. This is a huge step up from the already-amazing FFVII re-envisioning in every category. Absolutely professional-grade sound and a great mixture of genres. Also, I'm not typically a fan of vocals added to VG remixes. However, the vocals on Tastes Like Victory and On the Run are perfect (as well as various others with subtle vocal nuances). The processing is very atmospheric, and they are placed just right in the mix... not so quiet that you can't hear them or make out the vocals, and also not so up-front that they capture too much attention. In fact, I see them as a fantastic extension of the other instruments. The album is just amazing overall. Thanks so much to all who poured love into this. To me, this is one of the most important things that has ever happened to video game music.