Music of the Final Fantasy series

The soundtracks of the *Final Fantasy* video games, along with the various arranged, compilation, and soundtrack albums they’ve inspired, make up the music of the *Final Fantasy* series. This music can be anything from subtle background pieces to emotionally charged compositions that weave together leitmotifs for characters and situations. The franchise includes a core series of numbered games and spin-offs like *Crystal Chronicles* and the *Final Fantasy Tactics* series.

For the first nine main games, Nobuo Uematsu composed every soundtrack by himself and also directed the production of many albums. Starting with *Final Fantasy X* and continuing with the spin-offs, a range of composers—including Masashi Hamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Kumi Tanioka, and Yoko Shimomura—took over. Almost every main-series *Final Fantasy* game has had a soundtrack album released, and many have also inspired orchestral, vocal, or piano arrangement albums. Square Enix and outside groups have produced several compilation albums that pull tracks from multiple games. Sheet music from the original soundtracks has been arranged for piano and published by DOREMI Music Publishing, while Yamaha Music Media has published sheet music from the piano albums. The franchise’s music has been performed live many times, including at the Orchestral Game Music Concerts, Symphonic Game Music Concerts, the *Play! A Video Game Symphony* and *Video Games Live* tours, as well as dedicated *Final Fantasy* concert tours like *Dear Friends* and *Distant Worlds*.

Several themes appear frequently across the series. Most games open with a piece called "Prelude," which started as a simple, two-voice arpeggiated theme based on a short Bach piece and has evolved into a complex melodic arrangement in newer games. It has been called as recognizable in gaming as the *Super Mario Bros.* theme or *Sonic the Hedgehog*’s title screen pop. A victory fanfare played after battles in the first ten installments is also one of the series’ most recognized pieces. The mascots Chocobos and moogles each have their own themes; the chocobo theme is rearranged in a different musical style for each game, usually with a title ending in "de Chocobo," while the moogle theme, "Moogle's Theme," first appeared in *Final Fantasy V*. The chocobo theme inspired the spin-off *Chocobo* series, whose soundtracks are stylistically ba