Old Composer Reacts to Final Fantasy 7 Airbuster Boss Fight & Zelda Gerudo Valley OST | Twitch Edit 

🙏As per usual, THANK YOU so much for your time/comments. I'm beginning to get the fact that I have been playing remakes sometimes and not the original. Obviously becuase I don't have a clue but I thank you for your continued guidance while I educate myslef on this journey through video games osts :) AWWWRIGHT!!

"Gerudo Valley" was such a left-field song that everyone has grown to love. It was the theme song for the desert area in the game, but rather than a typical "Egypt" feeling song that was common in most games, Koji Kondo instead busts out flamenco music!

Gerudo Valley is an ABSOLUTE CLASSIC

That legend of zelda track has stuck with me for decades. It was made on the Nintendo 64, and way ahead of the times. The orchestral flamenco version is jaw dropping.

FF7:R does this a lot. It teases the listener with the unresolved tunes or old tunes hidden in the background until, at the third phase, it hits you with the original melody. Those were all those sick guitar riffs you listen behind the more bombastic stuff.

The Gerudo Valley reaction reminds me that the Super Smash Bros. games (which are essentially a celebration of video games themselves) had a some of music where they got video game composers make their own arrangements of iconic music by different conposers. Gerudo Valley is one of those, as it was originally composed by Koji Kondo (who is famous for his work on Nintendo games like the Legend of Zelda and Super Mario) but for Smash Bros. they had Rio Hakamoto make an arrangement (he is known for his work for Namco, specifically on the Tekken series). And there are several similar cases.

I didn’t even notice the Dream Theater until you pointed it out, but that’s spot on, especially for Remake. The original Final Fantasy 7 came out in 1997 on the PlayStation 1, so the first FF7 Airbuster used basically midi instruments. Maybe I liked DT so much because of songs like this! Side note, my dad’s a drummer who’s only a few years younger than you, always loved Rush, Yes, etc, but never liked Dream Theater cuz it had “too much math” 🤣🤣

Gerudo Valley has an orchestral arrangement in the 25th Anniversary symphony (alongside game specific movements and a medley of Zeldas most iconic songs) due to its outstanding popularity and that version of it with the original audio on the original CD released with the game Skyward Sword is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. In one of the moments where the trumpets are going off with the high flairs you can hear one of them totally flub the note and I always find it funny

These 2 songs are really loved by the community of those games!

He does have a band. They're called The Black Mages. Uematsu is on keys 😎

Love how he talks about how the music works in tight unisons because that's what these battles were about working in tandem in attacks. The music matches the combat feel

The pure kinetic energy of The Airbuster theme in the back while you fight the titular boss is one of the most magical moments I've had in a game in awhile personally. The whole FF7 Remake soundtrack had no business being as good as it is, they could've easily just did like a basic sound quality update of the original FF7 songs and called it a day but they truly went above & beyond for each and every track.

I want to put into perspective how iconic this soundtrack is for many gamers. The big bad's theme "One-Winged Angel" is considered by many to be one of the greatest villain themes of all time, it is in literal competition with other Uematsu villain themes and no one else's by many people's estimations. The song is roughly six or seven minutes normally. For the Remake they gave it this off the wall chaotic five minute introductory rearrangement. It's a song so popular it needed its own introductory music.

What is interesting about Final Fantasy is that it has such a long legacy (over 15 games) and despite the fact that they are usually completely separate from one another (different worlds and characters) they love to find ways to reference each other, especially in the music. This song is a remake of a song from Final Fantasy 7 from 1997, but the original song also references or shares little similarity's to music from earlier games (specifically Final Fantasy 4 from 91). It gives the games this shared sonic palette that they tend to draw from, sort of like a particular regional quinine that regularly uses many of the same base ingredients but depending on the ratios they are used in and what else gets mixed in (maybe some metal, maybe some more classical or renaissance elements, maybe something more dancy/techno) you can end up with very different tasting dishes in the end, while them still feeling familiar.

So glad you're reacting to some Ff7! The original came out when I was 13 Edit: it's funny that the notes you say sound weird or off aren't notes used in the original, they were trying to put some extra flair I suppose, which is done throughout but only a few times they missed the mark a bit

I got chills when the Airbuster finally got stunned and the Choir started going ham right when I was going ham on the boss. 😮

Thanks for bringing the Twitch streams to RU-vid! It's just, somewhere in your snap edit the audio got mixed up: at 16:35 it jumps back to the audio of 16:05.

the truly great thing about Gerudo Valley is that it makes you want to *learn* the guitar.

There was a mariachi version of Gerudo Valley being performed at a wedding that I saw on youtube at some point. It was pretty good.

Check out the 8 Bit Big Band. They are a Grammy award winning jazz ensemble from Berkeley that do fantastic arrangements of video game music. Their Tetris, Snake Eater and Luigi’s Mansion are some of my favorites but they’re all great.

I recommend checking more of the Ocarina of Time - its main gameplay element requires player to play short snippets of magical songs - these songs are limited by available buttons to 6 (I think) tones - this is reflected in whole soundtrack

By the way the original game is very beloved so when they remade it to youre watching and hearing now they went really crazy everything was on point it was amazing

I would love to hear you go through this whole soundtrack. It really is amazing. It won best game soundtrack at the 2020 game awards.

Oh nice I was waiting for your reaction and analysis on this one because its my favorite track in this game

Aww man, I suggest Airbuster! I’m sure others did too. Thank you for sharing your passion!

Dude, my first ever concert was Foreigner and Styx. XD

Just found this channel, love what you are doing here!

You should react to FF7 original OST.

I remember me and my brother falling in love with music when we heard Gerudo Valley for the first time, a fantastic game.

Oh man, I missed another stream. Shame on me not paying attention to my twitch alerts, I like watching you live. Still, appreciated that you upload these to RU-vid! You're rocking it, Geebz. Keep it up dude

Geebz, you never yap too much. You are a lovely and wholesome person!

I have a feeling he would love the air valkyrie song in this game as well.

Ocarina of Time has an official orchestra performance called Hyrule Symphony a couple months after the game's release. It includes Gerudo Valley.

nobuo uematsu is more than a guru, he is legendary if you manage to do a complete review of his best work through the years its immersive unparalleled if you take a dive.

Oh yes! The Airbuster, the whole Final Fantasy 7 Remake OST is amazing, one of the best ever! I would recommend listening the the whole soundtrack, but it's like 5 hours, if not 8, I don't remember haha. Also, thank you for uploading these streams for us on RU-vid! I don't really watch livestreams, so it is greatly appreciated!

This kind of editing of the stream is perfect for RU-vid imo, please keep it! Also great music selection, love to hear your thoughts on that.

Those Who Fight Further is unrelentless, it hits all the spots in your brain that release the good stuff.

Just found this video from this composer! awesome videoes!

These reactions are awesome. I loved the original OST & the remake, but I never thought of it being Dreamtheater inspired. The composer, Nobuo Uematsu, also had his own metal band (in which he played keyboard) called The Black Mages where they do covers of his music from the Final Fantasy games, including this one. They're definitely worth checking out.

I think OoT's Gerudo Valley and Spirit Tracks' Overworld are so popular due to the personality the style of music itself has. It's the reason I love swing, myself!

One of my favorite songs period! Gerudo Valley!

I saw one of the Twitch commenters suggest the Retro Remix Revue cover of Gerudo Valley, and now I'm going down a rabbit hole of the artist's covers

I love the ff7r (and intergrade!) ost sm. Played the original, which also has some solid tracks that I'm super excited to see redone (specifically cosmo canyon & cid's theme). The airbuster is one of my favorites from the remake so far, and I'm glad you took some time to listen to it :))))

So, an interesting note about the original Final Fantasy 7: The original Playstation, which FF7 came out on, was one of the first consoles to use CD storage (and the first of its kind to reach widespread adoption, with condolences to the Philips CD-i, TurboGrafx 64 and Sega Saturn), which dramatically expanded the auditory and graphical options available to the game's development team compared to the cartridges of previous console generations. In particular, the ability to use live music recordings, including orchestral and choral tracks, meant that Playstation games could have much more varied and detailed soundtracks than other consoles before it, no longer limited to a handful of audio channels. As far as games were concerned, most people had *literally* never heard anything like Final Fantasy 7 before. It may seem quaint now, but at the time people were completely blown away by FF7's soundtrack, and while some may argue about whether it has the *best* soundtrack in gaming, it's hard to argue that it's not one of the most influential.

You could react to nothing but Final Fantasy music for all of 2023 and still not run out. Nobuo Uematsu and Masayoshi Soken (who does the music for the on-going MMO Final Fantasy 14) are both musical geniuses. The boss music in FF14 is just out of this world. Some of my favorites being Shiva, Sophia, and Titania. Soken also like to have fun with the community. One of the most recognizable songs in the previous expansion is the song from a zone called Ratika Greatwood, and he trolled the fans live in person with a very interesting instrument. I hope someone can send you the in-game version and then his live version.

Hey Geebz!!! I discovered both your channels a few days ago and have been binging as much as I can since then. If I can make a recommendation, I'd love to see you react to the soundtrack for Guilty Gear Strive. The whole game is steeped in rock and metal influence, and the OST is no different. There's hard rock, metalcore, prog rock, even pop and jazz, and each song has vocals. The music of Guilty Gear is highly beloved by the community and whenever there is a major tournament the attendees will often sing along, it's so much fun. It'd be my dream to hear your take on the whole thing, but if you needed a curated list I would be more than happy to make one for you! Can't wait for more videos regardless, keep being awesome!

final fantasy 7, i've played that, clicks video instant nostalgia

Oooh you did Gerudo Valley! f you have the time, you should look into the Super Smash Bros arrangement of it, it's a more updated version and, in my humble opinion, a perfected version of the song. Thank you so much for yet another video, see you in the next one!

Great video game music on the channel lately. 👍 Really liking it.

the tone you felt was weird at 5:13 and again at 6:45 is because they like to sneak in the original Final Fantasy theme in their newer songs, and that is one place it got snuck in.

yea!

FInal Fantasy VII (original ) OST is my favourite of all time. Even though there's been concerts, fan covers and remixes with the same pieces over the years, It was pure heaven to hear (some of) the same music with proper orchestra and reimagined. I definitely recommend listening to the original OST to compare. My other favourite OSTs that I really hope you check out are Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (I think this is a must for this channel) and one that often gets overlooked is Soul Calibur II - damn amazing soundtrack.

Uematsu actually was a huge Dream Theater fan during the time FF7 came out

Give a listen to "To Heal" from Jeremy Zuckerman. Great piece of music from an animated series I really enjoy!

Gerudo Valley was a desert area. Link enters the valley on horseback thus the recurring baseline. Koji Kondo is a master. All of the music from Ocarina of Time was amazing.

Hey Geebz!!! I'm so sad I missed out on another stream, I'm going to catch one I've of these days!! I wanted suggest for you if this is something you're interested for a cleaner twitch experience - if you're using OBS there is a ducking feature hidden in the limiter/compression settings! In case you want a slight ducking effect when you're talking over the track! Happy to help if you need it. Keep it up, this is one of my favourite music reaction channels lately

Something funky happened to the audio around 16:45! A few seconds of the audio was getting replaced with what was playing about half a minute earlier.

This is awesome awwright! Cant wait for them to release part 2 of the remake! Yes, the original game was one game on 3cd. The remake will be multiple parts and the first remake is roughly only the 1st cd of the original.

Definitely some Nightwish vibes in that Airbuster Boss Theme too!

Oh hell yeah. some more zelda

Uematsu is a self-taught pianist (by ten or twelve) who actually got a degree in English because music was not seen as a smart career in Japan when Uematsu was going to school. He wanted to compose music though and he started out in advertisements in Japan before signing on with Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) to do music for the company. Squaresoft's big innovation to games is that they compartmentalized and had a head over every aspect. Music was Uematsu's while HIronobu Sakaguchi did the story. Contrary to popular belief Final Fantasy was not called such because it was going to be Squaresoft's final game. The company was doing okay, but Sakaguchi wanted the alliteration of two F sounds but Fighting Fantasy was already taken. Though he did later admit because several of the games he directed were no successful Final Fantasy might have been his last game before he gave it up. So Uematsu was using chipsets to create the Final Fantasy score which became an instant success. For instance his song "Theme of Love" from Final Fantasy IV was so popular it got introduced into school music curricula in Japan, and to this day is still used as the "warm up" song for prominent Japanese musicians. He is a man who always relished the next big innovation in game tech and he has never thought video games were beneath him. For a time he was the leader and keyboardist of The Black Mages that progified several Final Fantasy staples. I recommend you look into their version of "Maybe I'm a Lion" if you want to see one of the best ones.

That shaka with the Mahalo put me into shock

I’m so sad I keep missing these streams, I’m doing 12 hour shifts on a oil drilling rig :(

FF music is in another level, all the ost from remake is so good.

Thank you for this, I love FF7 ❤

ty :D

I was raised on video game music. An underrated, seldomly touch zone...that IS the best zone. In video games you have true musical freedom👊😎!

Brilliant stuff Geebz. I'd like to suggest a less well known track - Hyperblast Redux (Go Down) from Unreal Tournament 2004. In my humble opinion one of the very best first person arena shooters along with Quake 3. Definitely some good strings going on in the mix which you'll likely appreciate.

Great reactions, as always. It would be good to react to the ORIGINAL tracks whenever they are available to get some point of comparison and context.

this is a kickass song

The original version of the FF7 song here is called in English "Those Who Fight Further". Unfortunately, the version you will most likely find on RU-vid has a glitch in the sound near the beginning of the song. Understand that's aberrant. The remake version is definitely punched up but there's something amazing to me about the original. Maybe it's nostalgia but I love it. Glitched Version here: s6qCnP3ha0w

I think it's fair to say Uematsu is an orchestral guy first. Final Fantasy VII was the first game where his metal influence really shows. So there are 6 games and some Chrono Trigger that show he's more prolific with the more classical stuff. But he is a metalhead too.

Aloha! I was in chat telling you to listen to "Those Who Fight Further" from the original 1997 game for context, because this is an updated arrangement of that all-MIDI track. I don't expect you to know that, so that's why I kept trying to tell you. I felt like a jerk for spamming, but I figured you'd want to know, as a composer and arranger yourself, that this arrangement wasn't the work of the original composer Nobuo Uematsu. It's a very faithful rendition, but I would've appreciated you listening to the original to see where the new version expanded/iterated on it. I just think the technical limitations of older consoles are very important to consider when analyzing these tracks because they informed the composition so heavily. Thankfully, the original versions of these tracks tend to be much shorter (usually only about 1 or 2 mins before looping), so you can listen to them first without spending too much time on them. In the future, just try to look out in chat for people telling you whether or not something is a remix. Loved hanging with you on stream though, and can't wait to see you continue your exciting journey! Hope you feel better soon!

Yo Geebz! You know what'd be great for this channel (besides Chrono Trigger)? The Crypt of the Necrodancer OST !

Metal with strings. Um....freaking Nightwish, please? Lol this is why I love this stuff

I am once again asking you to react to the music from the Metal Gear Solid series!

I'm still here!

I'd love to see you hear the 25th anniversary orchestra edition of gerudo valley.

one of the best in games, live would be great..

GERUDO VALLEY. THE ONLY SONG I CAN PLAY ON GUITAR

Suggestion: listen to Dragon Roost Island from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and then to Rito Village from The Legend of Zelda: A Breath of the Wild (it's basically a variation on Dragon Roost, but different mood). And I also really love this improvised cover: Legend of Zelda Week! - Dragon Roost Duo by David Erick Ramos - Ocarina (Kris on ocarina, David on guitar).

Soemthing I think you would love is to walk through several Zelda compositions over time and then listen to the OST from the most recent Breath of the Wild and listen to how they weave elements from Zelda history into the new breathy arrangements.

He literally reacted to 2 of the bes ost themes of the 2 more legendary games from the n64/psx era

Best boss music in the entire game, and they gave it to a vacuum cleaner.

The latest smash bros game version of it is a master piece.

Gerudo Valley sounded so great... I wish modern songs would try to be this catchy.

World Music, if you enjoyed Airbuster from FF7, you need to check out Valkyrie from FF7 Remake as well. It's amazing!

Uematsu is the reason I like prog-rock. XD This remake theme was perfect.

There's some kickass tunes from the Fire Emblem series. TWIST! There's an idle rendition of the track and an action-version, that seamlessly transition between each other! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-reYVpE8KxZw.html (Idle) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Q4CCWWOoC1M.html (Action) Same composition, two different dynamics. I'm very curious what you think about it:

You should do a live stream of you playing the game from start to finish.

I’m surprised nobody told him about the gerudo valley smash bros ultimate remix

Ah yes, the Airbuster. my favorite song of all time

You should compare Gerudo Valley versions like you did with the Main Theme :) I suggest you take a look at "Gerudo Valley - The Legend of Zelda 30th Anniversary Concert", "Gerudo Valley - Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Orchestra" and my personal favourite(maybe sentiment :D) "Gerudo Valley- Hyrule Symphony". All of them here on youtube :)

May I suggest the Final Fantasy IX OST? It's an absolute masterpiece. Also, a few underrated tracks are from the Xenosaga series. InnerSpace from Episode 1 and Testament from Episode 3. Testament is a bit long and the meat of it comes at like 1:52 in, but it is a fantastic composition. The Castlevania series and MegaMan series are also great choices.

We need to get this man some Ace Combat Zero asap

You should listen to The 8-Bit Big Band version of Gerudo Valley, is with live musicians

Check out the "Mariachi Entertainment System" on youtube once in a while, they do some wonderful fully fleshed out versions of previously MIDI songs.

*cough cough* “Oh shit”😂😂😅

If you want a great flamenco cover of Gerudo valley look up the version by Tee Lopes

the 25th anniversary soundtrack has a different orchestral version of gerudo valley thats more modern which also includes the suite of the main theme you've already reacted to