My Gaming Audio History: Final Fantasy Legend (1990)

Crossing mediums from the NES to the Game Boy for this entry on the first handheld RPG I played, Final Fantasy Legend.  I've learned that this is actually from a different line of games, Saga, but as a young player growing up in North America, I didn't know about Saga.  This game fit in well with what I knew to be Final Fantasy: towns, talking to NPCs, battles, raising stats, etc.

Who created the audio experience?  Nobuo Uematsu.  Amazing to return to Uematsu right after a Team Fat game-- Maniac Mansion.  Here melody is the focus and tracks are so classically shaped, clean, and balanced.  I do think Uematsu is at his finest in early games like this.  My favorite tracks are definitely the Prologue, with a beautiful, balanced structure.  Wipe Away Your Tears is also easily a favorite, again, another exquisite Uematsu melody that simply pours out longing within the confines of the Game Boy audio.  I especially appreciate the slight ritardando at the end of the loop.  Also, the way that the main theme and Wipe Away Your Tears come back in the final track during the closing cutscenes of the game is rather like a finale in a musical, bringing back the best numbers from the show.  Really amazing detail and such beautiful music for one of the first handheld RPGs.  A much more eloquent ending that the NES Final Fantasy.

Two things strike me as I study through this game again.  First of all, I hear a remarkable cross-game Uematsu similarity.  In the Epilogue track, there are high background alternating pitches (1:34-1:43) that reminded me immediately of the Ancient Forest Temple track from Final Fantasy 7 (first 8 seconds).  Give it a listen-- you'll hear it.  They're even in the same key!

The second fact to catch my eye/ear is the amount of music compared with the gameplay.  The longplay I see online of this game takes over 7 hours.  There are just shy of 12 minutes of music in this game.  That's about a 6:225 minute music to gameplay ratio.  Perhaps even more stunning, over four minutes of the game music comes in the last half hour or so of game play (Warrior's Ascent, The Top Floor, Enraged Battle, and Epilogue)!!!  While games have almost always saved some music as an endgame reward, I think decisions like this show how new the gaming genre was and how composers weren't yet sure how to balance the music throughout the game.

Below are my detailed notes as usual.  These notes were compiled using this soundtrack.

-Prologue: 64 sec.  E major.  Intro (4) A B.  The B theme uses material from the Intro.  Love the canonic voices of the intro.
-Main Theme: 44 sec.  G major.  A B C (9).  Through-composed.  Fascinating that such a regular piece has that one extra measure at the end of it, which adds to the feeling of resolution at the end of the loop.
-Town Theme: 47 sec.  G major.  A B Really like the melodic emphasis on the rising Major 7th interval as well as the use of flat sixth scale degree in the melody in the second half of A.  The end of the loop uses a bIII-V resolution that just seems so "Uematsu."  Not sure what I mean here, but more to think about...
-Battle Theme: 35.5 sec.  C minor.  A B C.  Very musically regular.  Patterns and sequences make the motivic material memorable.
-Victory (Eat the Meat):  16 sec.  C major.  Intro Fanfare (2) A.  Fascinating that the intro fanfare has the same whole tone motion and feeling (bVI-bVII-I) as the original NES game, although here the motion is technically bIII, IV, V.
-Bandit Cave: 48 sec.  E minor.  A A' A''  i-bII-bVII.  A bass vamp begins this tune, the second A adds a melody, the third A is the same melody with a slight change at the end of the loop for a more definitive ending.
-Hurry Up!: 34 sec.  A minor.  A B B'.  The use of bII in this piece toward the end of the loop and it's A minor tonality remind me of the over world theme for FF IV, which was just a few months away from this game.
-Fierce Battle: 43 sec.  A minor.  Intro A A B.  Intro doesn't repeat in the loop.  The A sections have irregular measures (4+3).  Slightly longer than the normal battle theme, perhaps because these battles likely last a bit longer?  Plays with a Picardy third at the ends of phrases in the A sections.
-Requiem: 27 sec.  D minor (Picardy third).  Intro (2) A.  Opposite motion from the introduction's intro, which ascended, this intro descends!  Beautiful, balanced classical phrase.
-Forbidden Tower: 36 sec.  F minor.  A B C.  Really interesting use of bII here, as well as Uematsu's beloved  bVI-bVII-i.
-Wipe Your Tears Away: 66 sec.  E minor.  A A' B.  Such a beautiful, longing melody.  Love the slight ritard at the end of the loop.
-Warriors Ascent: 35.5 sec.  F minor.  Intro (4) A B  Intro Eb minor material doesn't repeat with the loop.  The A section is basically a rising sound... imitating the name of the track?
-The Top Floor: 22 sec.  C.  A A' (down whole step).  A simple short loop that teeters between major and minor.
-Enraged Battle: 52 sec.  A minor.  Intro (6) A A B B.  Intro doesn't repeat with loop.  A section is in A minor, B section is in the relative major, C.
-Epilogue: 2:25.  B major--> E major.  Reuses the main theme of the game.  The music is synced with a slide show of various scenes and bosses in the game.  Requiem?  Main theme in B, Wipe Away Your Tears in E minor, then to major, main theme in A, then back to E.  Moment of Final Fantasy 7?  In the Ancient Forest temple, I hear a similarity here.  Beginning of this reminds me the celebration music at the end of Star Wars 1.