Masayoshi Soken on Following Uematsu's Legacy and Paying Homage to the Franchise
- ⚡Xe⚡
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
Masayoshi Soken recently shared insights into his approach to game composition in a series of interviews ahead of the Distant Worlds concert in London. Soken discussed the evolution of his work, the influence of past Final Fantasy music, and his personal connection to the legacy of Nobuo Uematsu.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Soken spoke about following in the footsteps of Nobuo Uematsu, the legendary composer of many early Final Fantasy games. He shared his perspective on how he approaches the challenge of living up to such an iconic legacy:
"Personally, I think Final Fantasy music is Uematsu-san's music. Sometimes, when I get stuck on what song I should create next and I need some hints, I find myself thinking 'what would Uematsu do?' It feels more like I am just taking the flow from Uematsu-san and bringing that flow into the games of this era. I find it hard to express, but that's how I feel about it."
In a separate interview with PCGamesN, Soken explained Final Fantasy XIV's approach to incorporating elements from past Final Fantasy games, specifically referencing Final Fantasy IX in the Dawntrail expansion:
"I think this is a very unique approach to Final Fantasy XIV. In terms of taking past works and elements of them, we don’t think it’s good to cut a piece of it for the game content. That’s something we find very important when we are going to pay homage to a past work. For this time in the use of Roses of May, there is a reason behind it, so we haven’t just cut out a part of it without reason. In the future as well, we’d like to avoid simply bringing an element in because we can. We want to pay respect to the legacy players of Final Fantasy, but also because we’ve also played Final Fantasy, and when we see that an element is being simply cut and pasted onto something else, we feel that we really need to take precious care of past content, and it’s something that has developed into somewhat of a habit.”
In an interview with Forbes, Soken shared a personal anecdote about his own early experience with Final Fantasy VII, offering a glimpse into his journey toward becoming a Final Fantasy composer:
“There are too many moments to count, but there’s one story that springs to mind. At around the same time as the PlayStation One was released, I owned a Sega Saturn because I wanted to play Virtua Fighter 2. I then found out that Final Fantasy VII was only going to come out on the PS1—I was so disappointed. Now, that little boy who was sad has ended up working at Square Enix making music for Final Fantasy games. It’s weird how life works.”
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-⚡Xe⚡
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