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Yamazaki also helps arrange “God of War.” It’s a theme that features a style closer to Hamauzu’s atmospheric battle themes from Final Fantasy X. Arranged by both Masashi Hamauzu and Ryo Yamazaki, it’s quite similar to the way “Blinded of Light” progresses featuring a focus on violin, bold orchestral and piano passages, and a bit of a funk rock groove before the loop. “Knight of the Goddess” is one of the battle themes that’s featured in the beginning of the game. I’ll get to the vocal version of this theme a bit later. This theme shows up again as “Final Fantasy XIII-2 ~Future~,” largely keeping the same format as the “Wish” counterpart, however, the second half of the theme focuses more on woodwinds, providing a very lighthearted interpretation of the theme. In my opinion, it’s a much more beautiful composition than its predecessor’s counterpart. This is an exquisite theme focusing on endearing piano melodies, romantic strings accompaniment, and brass flourishes and counter-harmonies that bring a lovely texture to the piece. The main theme for this game, “Final Fantasy XIII ~Wish~,” once again serves as the basis for Serah’s theme. This exhilarating theme stands as one of Hamauzu’s best on the soundtrack. Following that, “Beautiful Heroes” definitely reminds me of “Prelude to Final Fantasy XIII.” It’s a blend of more militaristic tones mixed with more stunning violin passages. There are no gigantic orchestrations here like the last score and this remains true for much of the rest of the soundtrack. The album opens with “Final Fantasy XIII-2 Overture.” Rather than the militaristic approach to “Prelude to Final Fantasy XIII,” this theme is a bit more ethereal and dark in nature, focusing on ambient synthesizers, choral samples, and some impressionistic strings work to create a very mysterious atmosphere with a hint of beauty. The opening sequences and battles in the game focus primarily on those dealing with Lightning. Given this varied approach, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is most assuredly going to split the fan base, as the last direct sequel did, but is the soundtrack an accomplished one overall? BodyĪlthough the composer for Final Fantasy XIII, Masashi Hamauzu has a limited role on this soundtrack providing roughly one quarter of the tunes, primarily in soundscapes and styles originating in the prequel, rather than going the contemporary route of his co-composers. The soundtrack itself focuses on a variety of styles - offerings both vocals and instrumentals, ranging from soundscapes and styles present in Final Fantasy XIII to contemporary ones, mainly by the new composers. However, in addition, Mitsuto Suzuki and Naoshi Mizuta would be joining him as co-composers. Unlike the last time, the main composer - in this case, Masashi Hamauzu - was brought back to reprise his role. Skip ahead a number of years and we are brought to the recently released sequel of Final Fantasy XIII. Opinions were split due to the overall style, focusing more on electronic music, and forgoing many of the themes from the original that made it so popular. Rather than utilize the main composers for Final Fantasy X, they opted to go with Takahito Eguchi and Noriko Matsueda to craft the soundtrack for the Final Fantasy X-2. The last time that Square Enix did a direct sequel, many found the soundtrack to be subpar, in a variety of aspects.