‘I’m a medieval otaku, after all’: Legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu says FF9’s soundtrack is some of his best work—even if it’s more popular overseas

To celebrate last year’s 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy 9, Famitsu (via Automaton) spoke with its creators about the lasting impact of FF9’s return to more traditional fantasy. Looking back on its production, legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu said FF9 features some of his favorite compositions—even if he’s convinced it’s more popular outside of Japan.

“When I go abroad, I get the impression that there are a lot of FF9 fans,” Uematsu said. “I feel like people overseas mention FF9 more often than people in Japan.”

Asked whether he believes FF9’s medieval fantasy setting—following FF7 and FF8 skewing toward a more modern, belt-heavy aesthetic—is responsible for its greater popularity abroad, Uematsu only said “I wonder.” But its middle ages theming did help him produce some of the best videogame music he’s composed.

“Personally, I think there are a lot of songs from FF9 that I like,” Uematsu said.

That might not sound like strong praise for his own work, but Uematsu said listening to his own work as it plays in-game generally makes him miserable.

“I can listen to something that someone else has arranged for an orchestra, but when it comes to the music that plays in the game, I’m not satisfied. From the moment I make it, I don’t want to listen to it anymore,” Uematsu said. “It’s too embarrassing and I can’t bear to listen to it. I listen to it so much during debugging.”

Given that he’s his own harshest critic, it says a lot that Uematsu thinks FF9’s “melody and chord movement are good.” He also expressed a particular fondness for its final boss music, which features the results of some unconventional music direction.

“I wanted the voice of the dead at the beginning, so I asked the synthesizer operator, Keiji Kawamori, to ‘go to hell and record it,'” Uematsu said. “He said, ‘Okay,’ and the next day he came up with something amazing.”

While he said it had been “fun to shift gears” for Final Fantasy’s sci-fi departures—unsurprising, given his recently-shared frustration over game music getting “less weird”—FF9 offered a welcome return to form.

“I was happy to return to something medieval with FF9,” Uematsu said. “I am a medieval otaku after all.”

It’s a phase we all go through, though Uematsu’s seems to be pretty long-lasting. In an interview with a Japanese magazine just before FF9’s release in July 2000 (translated here by Shmuplations), he recalled traveling to Ireland during the production of FF7 and seeing an inspiring recording of the musical Riverdance.

“I watched the video of Riverdance over and over again, and every time I watched it, I cried, it was so wonderful,” he said. “The opening theme of FF9 is closer to Early Music (Medieval and Renaissance music) than Irish folk music, though. Early Music is a kind of bridge between Irish music and classical music. At first, I was thinking of using Early Music for the entirety of FF9, but that would probably be going too far.”

Uematsu composed both the opening theme and fanfare in the Early Music style, and the familiar ground of classic fantasy also made it easier for him to compose early in development, even before much of the game had been built.

“FF7 and FF8 had a very different atmosphere from the previous FF games, so I drew more inspiration from the story and visuals there,” he said. “But for FF9, I was less bound by that and the music came more naturally. To be honest it was more fun for me this time.”

In Famitsu’s 25th anniversary interview, Uematsu said that the development of Final Fantasy 9 had offered him an opportunity that would likely fill his fellow medieval otakus with envy: He and his wife traveled overseas for inspiration. Unfortunately he didn’t have a Riverdance-caliber revelation on that trip.

“I thought it would be a good idea to get a feel for the atmosphere of Europe, so my wife and I went on a tour of old castles,” Uematsu said. “But we were surrounded by college students and we were the only elderly people there. It was pretty tough.”