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Album Information Reviewer Rank
Final Fantasy: 20020220 Music from Final Fantasy
Published by: DigiCube
Release Date: May 09th 2002

Composed by: Nobuo Uematsu
Arranged by: Shiro Hamaguchi, Masashi Hamauzu

2 Discs, 25 Tracks
Catalog: SSCX-10065~6
89

Reviewed by: demalavor

Don't be fooled by the title, this isn't Nobuo's 20020220th Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy 20020220 is the Final Fantasy concert which took place on February 02, 2002. The highly anticipated concert was a smash hit, everyone knew a CD was bound to follow. Well here it is folks, the CD version of that very same concert, and its good, oh yes, it is very good.

To start things off, I have to say the vocals in both Liberi Fatali and One Winged Angel are simply stunning. If you thought these songs were good before, wait until you hear them live, you will not believe how much better they sound. The singers for both those songs is the G.Y.A, sorry, I have no idea what that stands for. There are two more vocal tracks, Melodies of Life and Suteki Da Ne. I have never been a fan of melodies of life, but Emiko Shiratori did a top notch job singing the song live. Suteki Da Ne on the other hand, received a lesser fate from the voice of Rikki. Suteki Da Ne is one of my favourite game vocals, although not many agree with me, but, the live version could have been sung better. Rikki's voice sounded off pitch, and was wavering in a few spots. She would be singing in a lower tone at one moment then the next her voice would raise higher. I was much disappointed with Rikki's live rendition of Suteki Da Ne.

Well, what to talk about next. Next comes the quality of the music. The orchestra arrangements for every single song are simply amazing. Shiro Hamaguchi did an amazing job with arranging these songs to orchestral pieces. Aerith's theme will still make you cry, Man With the Machine gun will still pump you up and Theme Of Love will make you want to go play FF4 for the hundredth time. Tina's theme orchestrated is simply jaw dropping. When I first heard this song, I nearly wet myself. It starts out nice and slow, then gets bolder and bolder as it goes. By the end of the song you got a full blazing orchestra pumping Tina's Theme to your ears, it’s amazing. Vamo' alla Flamenco is so good you will pass out the first time you hear this. The man playing the Acoustic Guitar in this deserves a medal, a whole bunch of medals. The ending to Vamo' alla Flamenco is so powerful, it will knock you out of your chair.

My only few gripes of this album are that almost all the songs on here have already been orchestrated in one Final Fantasy Compilation or another. This isn't too much of a problem considering the songs are now live and a few little twists and turns were thrown in here and there. Another problem, is that the volume on most songs is a little too low, but you get this with almost every live orchestral album. My last concern with Final Fantasy 20020220 is the clapping. The guy who turned the applaud thing on and off must have been drunk. People will be clapping, then the clapping will almost stop, then start right back up again. Rinse and repeat that about three times per each song. After One Winged Angel there is literally over one minute of clapping.

Well there you go, my views on Final Fantasy 20020200, The Music From. I gave you the things I liked best, and the things that were bad about it. All in all, it is probably one of my favourite Final Fantasy Albums, and is greatly worth your money, or bandwidth if you’re one of the people who download everything and buy nothing. Sorry if this review seems kind of, well, noobish, this is my first review. I shall be writing more, I just decided to start with this album. If anyone has any tips on how I could make my reviews better, feel free to point them out.

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