Ranking Every Final Fantasy By Their Soundtrack

Final Fantasy OST: Tracks - 36, Composer(s) - Nobuo Uematsu

The original Final Fantasy was designed as developer Hironobu Sakaguchi's swansong, as had it failed he would've left the gaming industry. Composer Nobuo Uematsu was already on Square's payroll at the time, crafting the odd game soundtrack whilst he worked in a music rental shop. Sakaguchi brought him on board for his project, beginning a process that would see him turn his side job into a full time career and eventually immortalise him in the world of music.

Much like Final Fantasy II, a sizable volume of the game's soundtrack was short jingles. Almost all of the lengthier pieces, however, were excellent, epitomising the commitment of Sakaguchi and his team to put everything they had into the making the game a success. Series staples like 'The Prelude', the 'Opening Theme' and 'Victory' made their debuts and have appeared in some capacity in every game since, whilst the 'Menu Screen' that cut into whatever was playing whenever the menu was opened was thankfully never repeated.

'Chaos Shrine', 'Sunken Shrine', 'Mt. Gulg' and 'Ruined Castle' are all beautiful dungeon themes and it's annoying that most subsequent games chose to use just one or two themes for each slog rather than unique pieces such as these. Elsewhere the somewhat quirky 'Matoya's Cave' has lived long in people's memories and 'Cornelia Castle' has always been the perfect accompaniment to the series' first ever scene.

The overall lack of tracks is the only thing really keeping the game down, as any further additions in the same vein would've massively upped the soundtrack's calibre.