Yeah had a listen to the FFVI, VII and X arrangements and out of the three I'd rank VII to be both the most enjoyable and technically intricate of all of them. There are sequences of dissonance here and there in VII that I'd perhaps consider a bit too excessive and long for my taste, but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed all of its movements, especially in the first two movements where there's some fantastic exploration and surprisingly fresh rearrangement of the One Winged Angel themes (because let's face it - I think we've all heard One Winged Angel in vanilla forms a million fucking times), and the interplay between Tifa and Aerith's themes in the second movement (as well as Sephiroth's towards the end!) made for a very, very satisfying dramatic climax.
VI's arrangement was similarly brilliant imo. Way to start off the bat with a Dancing Mad motif
But my favorite part of VI's arrangement was probably the many little variations and plays on Kefka's theme and the creative use of the orchestra to emulate his little laugh.
I enjoyed the FFX arrangement (especially that solid performance on Decisive Battle and a beautiful take on Besaid, probably my favorite track from the original game) and Benyamin Nuss turns it into a great piano concerto, but I thought FFVII and VI's pieces were more enjoyable and more focused. For a twenty minute track I felt it meandered a lot more than the other pieces.
Also, being more Hamauzu-focused on the piano concerto probably explained the oddly long-ish and very vanilla segment on Thunder Plains
I think it's exactly the style and type of article we should be aiming for. One small thing: there's a typo in the first paragraph - "countinuous".
Well done with the review, Tets!!
