With Theatrhythm Final Bar Line out now, it’s essentially a “best of” collection of Final Fantasy and Square Enix game songs. There’s so much to it. It got us feeling music this week. So we figured let’s all share some of our favorite songs from the series, to help add to our playlists!
For all of its flaws, I think we can all agree that Final Fantasy XIII had a killer soundtrack. As someone who has been unapologetically a huge Final Fantasy X girlie for like 20 years now, it says a lot that my favorite song from the entire Final Fantasy franchise is from FFXIII. All of the songs that use “Serah’s Theme” as its motif (such as the “Sunleth Waterscape” theme) are just so catchy! It reminds me of when I first turned on Final Fantasy XIII and the excitement around it, considering how long the wait had been. — Stephanie
When I get a question like this my first instinct is to answer “Battle” from Final Fantasy VI, but the trick there is that there’ve been at least five or six different, distinct versions of that theme since the days when I knew the game as Final Fantasy III on the SNES. There’s the original one, with the harsh guitar buzz and deep bass of the SNES’ unique sound chip, the tinnier, more “chippy” rendition delivered by the Game Boy Advance’s hardware, the almost dance-hall-style version found in Dissidia, and the Pixel Remaster version that consciously strives for the original composition, but pulling in real instruments to make up for what used to me emulated with bit-screeches. And there’s even the hard-driving, slower version put out by The Black Mages in their own cover. The piece contains multitudes, and for me will be the iconic Final Fantasy music track.
Well, the iconic music track AFTER Final Fantasy VI’s “The Decisive Battle” (the boss theme), of course. — Josh
There are a ridiculous number of truly amazing Final Fantasy songs out there, many of them doing interesting things, so it’s pretty impossible to pick a single “best” one. I will say that I’m a bit bummed that one of my most loved ones isn’t in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line right away! “Tifa’s Theme” is so haunting, no matter which rendition of the FFVII track you pick, and it’s truly an extraordinary piece. — Jenni
