Nobuo Uematsu
Final Fantasy Vinyls

Listening notes

Released in 2012 on Square Enix Music under catalog number SQEX-10353~7, Final Fantasy Vinyls is a box set collecting music composed by Nobuo Uematsu across the first ten mainline entries in the Final Fantasy series. The set spans five records, each identified by a color designation: Green, Orange, Red, Purple, and Black.

The tracklist is organized thematically rather than strictly by game. The Green record opens with the title theme from the original Final Fantasy and draws from entries I, II, IV, V, VII, VIII, IX, and X. The Orange record similarly ranges across the series, featuring field and exploration cues including the Chocobo Theme and Tina's Theme from Final Fantasy VI. The Red record is devoted entirely to standard battle themes, moving chronologically from Final Fantasy I through X and presenting one or two battle tracks per installment. The Purple record shifts toward quieter, more melodic material, gathering town and character themes such as Celes's Theme from Final Fantasy VI and Fisherman's Horizon from Final Fantasy VIII. The Black record collects boss and climactic battle music, including The Extreme from Final Fantasy VIII and the Decisive Battle from Final Fantasy V known as ビッグブリッヂの死闘.

Coverage is not uniform across the series. Final Fantasy III, for instance, appears on the Orange and Black records but is absent from Green. Final Fantasy XI and XII are not represented anywhere in the set. The genres listed for the release — spanning chiptune, classical, contemporary, electronic, and video game music — reflect the compositional range Uematsu worked across during the years these games were produced, from early hardware-constrained compositions to later orchestral and electronic works.