Ranking Every Final Fantasy Composer

Works – VII: Advent Children, VII: Before Crisis & Last Order, VII: Crisis Core, Type-0, Dissidia, Dissidia 012, Dissidia NT

The Compilation Of Final Fantasy VII is the only ‘collection’ of games within the series that wasn’t predominantly left to one composer for consistency’s sake, as both MMOs and their expansions, the Ivalice Alliance and the XIII trilogy were all worked on by many but steered by one individual.

Advent Children, Dirge Of Cerberus and Crisis Core are all therefore quite different from a musical standpoint, though the latter did share its composer with Turks-themed mobile spinoff Before Crisis and animated short Last Order, Takeharu Ishimoto.

On these, he made his mark with tunes such as ‘Theme Of Elfe’ and its two variants and ‘Last Order’, before hitting much higher notes on the Zack-themed prequel.

Beautiful violin piece ‘Burden To Bear’ is an instant standout, as are the many spins on the ‘Crisis Core Theme’ and ‘Price Of Freedom’, the latter of which he would repurpose for several elements of his Final Fantasy Type-0 soundtrack, amongst them Machina’s theme.

Said soundtrack is far better than it has any right to be given the iffy overall quality of the game. Many of the various ‘War’ themes that score battles hit the mark (though many do miss it), whilst the character of Rem is uplifted by her melancholic pair of character themes.

Another now-ex Square-Enix employee (having left in 2017), Ishimoto also curated all three Dissidia soundtracks. His library is vast.