Masayoshi Soken has earned himself a popularity as one of the crucial iconic composers in videogames. Over greater than a decade working with FF14, his title has grow to be nearly as synonymous with the collection because the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, and that success led him to tackle the function as lead composer for Ultimate Fantasy 16. After I requested him whether or not he’d repeat the problem of dealing with two video games on the identical time sooner or later, nevertheless, he was adamant that he’d “by no means wish to do something like that once more.”
I had the pleasure to talk with Soken forward of the latest Distant Worlds live shows in London, which featured a spread of music from the Ultimate Fantasy collection with specific concentrate on FF14 and 16. After discussing which entry from the beloved RPG collection he’d prefer to see extra of in Ultimate Fantasy 14, I turned the dialog to the challenges of engaged on the MMO’s Dawntrail enlargement alongside the sixteenth mainline entry.
Soken tells me that he discovered the composition work for the MMORPG, and likewise the general course of, fully totally different from that of FF16. “I can’t actually provide you with a particular instance, primarily due to the sheer quantity of labor that was wanted, however by way of the spirit that went into the creation of 14 and 16, I’d say that it was very totally different. Really, I anticipated it to not be that totally different,” he muses, “however I discovered that it was, certainly, very totally different. If I have been to place it into only a few phrases I’d say that 14 has selection and 16 requires tales.”
The character of the tasks meant that Soken and his staff ended up needing to work on each video games concurrently. “I’d be very sincere in saying that I by no means wish to do something like that once more,” he says. “Every single day was a extremely horrible hell – actually one thing past your creativeness of hell. However there’s a motive why I used to be in a position to obtain it.
“Previously I labored on A Realm Reborn whereas engaged on [Final Fantasy 14] 1.0,” Soken recollects. On the time, Sq. Enix saved the unique iteration of the MMO operating whereas it was quietly growing its alternative – turning a failed first try into one of the crucial beloved and critically acclaimed multiplayer video games ever. “I had the expertise of engaged on two huge video games [at once], so I simply didn’t surrender this time both.”
Regardless of succeeding this time as he did again then, Soken notes that “The quantity of labor that [he] needed to do was fully totally different. You may think about earlier than it was [on] PS3, however now we’re on PS5, so all of the issues I needed to make have been simply fully totally different in dimension.”
With that in thoughts, would Soken tackle a possible Ultimate Fantasy 17 if he was nonetheless busy with 14? “In the event that they mentioned, ‘Would you do it concurrently?’ I’d simply say no, I don’t wish to.” After a second’s pause, he continues: “In the event that they requested me, ‘Is it that you just don’t wish to do it?’ I’d say no. It’s a troublesome, troublesome query. If I had two our bodies, I’d do each.”
With Dawntrail simply the beginning of a possible ten-year plan for Ultimate Fantasy 14, and Soken each beloved by gamers and seemingly nonetheless very a lot enamored with the challenge himself, it appears unlikely that he’d be stepping away from the MMO any time quickly. Maybe Sq. Enix must discover themselves another choice to steer the subsequent mainline recreation within the collection, in that case, though solely time will inform.
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