University College Dublin

An Coliste Ollscoile, Baile tha Cliath

Dissertation Tile:
The Narrative and Immersive Role of Music In Computer Games
Final Fantasy VII

Student Name:
Patrick Seeber

Student Number:
13380231

Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Music and Mathematics

Supervisor:
Dr Ciaran Crilly

13th May 2016

Ian Mahar, a PHD candidate specialising in neuroscience in McGill Univeristy,
discussing the concept that were immersed in computer games through two
different means, either impersonally or personally. To identify impersonally
would mean we identity with the character were playing as (i.e. in Super Mario
Bros. playing as Mario) while personally would mean that youre viewing the
game from the perspective of the character (the Hero in Fable).

Cloud Strife may the be canonical name of our protagonist, however it is

not mandatory in the game to name him or any of the playable characters by
their default names. Across Final Fantasy VII were allowed to make small
decisions, which impact the narrative of the game. The way you reply to certain
characters during optional dialogue moments changes who will interact with you
in certain scenes and how they do so.

Video games as a medium differ from other narrative mediums such as

films, books and television due to the manner we interact with them. While it
may be an on rails experience, in a manner of speaking as one cannot change
the ultimate goal of the narrative, we the player have an actually impact on
where we go. If we want our party to travel to one location before other its our
decision. The goal may be the same but at least weve the choice as to how we get
there, creating a unique experience.

The majority of the way we interact with Final Fantasy VII is through the
in-game engine. However, there our moments where the game cuts to a Full-
Motion Video (FMV) these moments present a different type of immersion.
Theyre used to present scenes, which would be to complex to display due to the
engines lower resolution. The game is introduced in an FMV. It begins by
presenting us with an image of the life-stream, the planets very conscious,
moving as it fades into a shot of Aerith praying in a back alley. As she walks out
into the streets of Midgars slums the camera pans up, showing the metropolis
city and our title card. We then pan to another part of the city as a train arrives
into a station. The members of AVALANCE after assault the conductors waiting at
the platform then Cloud departs. As this scene plays out, were treated to the
work titled Opening-Bombing Mission. Opening features a dramatic string
build up, based on a simple 7-note motif. This is a clear departure from Final
Fantasys bygone days with Nintendo. The characters have transitioned from 2D
avatars walking around the screen in 4 directions, to fully 3D avatars. They look
like actually people and wander the screen in every direction. The music is
reflective of this as well. These swells in volume, extended over such long
periods would have been impossible with the technical limitations of the SNES.
When the title screen eventually bursts onto the screen the music climaxs with
the orchestra as a whole presenting a triumphant major chord. As we pan back
to the train, the music begins a diminuendo with the orchestra becoming less
intense. The orchestra fades out to just the bass, as it begins a much more
intense, semi quaver line using a new motif. As the battle between heros and
villains begins the horns accent certain beats with elaborate chords, setting the
stage for the battle thats about to begin, the mission at hand.

___________________________
 Composers for visuals mediums are presented to write themes for certain
situations. The game aspect of Final Fantasy revolves around battling monsters,
demons and antagonists so that we may progress our story and help the non-
playable characters we meet with their issues. For that we need music unique to
the gaming formant, Battle music. While we have already analysis the final boss
theme One-Winged Angel there are many other tracks in the game synonymous
with conflict. As we explore the world map wild monsters will assault our party,
and upon these encounters the trackLet the Battles Begin! will sound. Acting as
our Call-to-Arms this short work is essentially a rock tune.

For battle with Boss monster, the heavy metal track Still More Fighting
is played.
 Prelude is the piece synonymous with the Final Fantasy series. Acting as
the music when exploring the over world in the original Final Fantasy, it has
since gone on to appear in every game in the franchise. It is never actually heard
within the actually game; rather it is heard during the optional opening credits
that are played before the new/load game screen. This work is essentially what
immerses us into the game. It lets us know that were playing a Final Fantasy
game, acting as the separation between the real world around us, and the fantasy
one in front of us. The composition of the piece itself is not particular complex, as
its just a series of pentatonic scales running up and down the keyboard in three
octaves. After about two minutes of this a violin begin to play a melody over this
progression.
Cloud Strife

Cloud is the protagonist of our story. Born in the mountain village of Nibelheim,
he left his home at the age of sixteen, to prove his worth by joining Shin-Ras elite
military group SOLIDER. For the majority of our story he talks about earning
the elite rank of SOLIDER first class, as he acts cold, calm and cocky when acting
in battle. In truth he is living in a fugue state, basing this demeanour and story on
that of his friends Zacks whom Cloud watches die. When his true personality
returns we see a person is timid, introverted and full of self-doubt yet he still
caring, compassionate and honourable, willing to risk of life to defeat Sephiroth
and save the planet.

Clouds primary theme is the Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII. This work is also
used to represent the concept the Planet. There is a leitmotif taken from this
work, which is used throughout the score to either symbolise a moment of
emotionally weight for Cloud, the presence of power of nature and the Planet or
the absence of such.

The progression of the work is based on the progression of the story

The work begins, suggesting the key of G with the main motif in its first
appearance in a major key, but we quickly switch to an atonal chord progression
of Fm to Dbm. The sense of gloom this evokes is a reflection of the slums of
Midgar weve just escaped. This darkness is enhanced by the use of a crescendo
between the two dissonant chords and slow minim to crochet movement which
emphasises the despair felt in the theme. This pattern is then repeated beginning
on F minor with the two chords following being Dm and Bb, uplifting the work.
The melody time however begins on the fourth of F minor, Bb and while the
melodic shape is held, the intervals between the notes are changed. Finally the
melody is performed one last time with a more atonal progression. The melody
again begins on G but uses the Lydian mode. The introduction concludes on a D
major chord and were prepared for the main melody to present itself properly
in E major.

The rhythm in this section is extremely simple. The melody is performed

in minims and crochets while the bass holds semibreves outlining the chord. The
theme uses wide leaps as seen going between our first two chords, the melody
skips a perfect 5th. Central to the games plot is the value of life, nature and
pantheism, which this motif is often used to present. This made all the more
evident though the harmonies provided. Brief mode switch to the relative minor
suggest __________. This section also ends with a ii-bVII-V chord progression
setting up our imperfect cadence. This final progression has the melody
performed by the strings while the horns accompany along with a gradual
crescendo, serves to prepare the listener for the more full orchestra repletion of
the phrase.

The repetition of the melody now moves the melody up an octave while
the 2nd violins harmonise the melody. The lower strings expand on the
accompaniments rhythm, accenting beats 1 and 4. A fortissimo makes the work
feel grander and more _________

Following the repeated section, the dynamics drop down again to piano,
as the marimba begin to take over the melody with a harp preforming the broken
chords in quavers in a progression of ii-I-IV-I. The clarinet performs a counter-
melody in conversation with the marimba. After eight pars the melody is then
traded off to the violins as they perform a variation on the previous eight bars,
with the same melody but a progression of ii-I-IV-V7. The violins then repeat the
previous eight bars with a crescendo into a perfect cadence that leads us into our
new section along semi quaver runs in the harp and a cymbal crash on the last
beat.

Our new section has a rather interesting tonality. We go to the key of G

major, the relative major of our parallel minor (E minor). The instrumentation
also thickens with more strings, timpani rolls and the horns taking the
countermelody.

This sections ends with the strings ringing out an extended vi (Em) chord
while the lower woodwind perform a descending melody performs yet another
mode switch as we now arrive briefly in G minor.
Sephiroth

Sephiroth is our antagonist. He is a man, brought into the world as a result of

science. At his birth he was injected with the cells of an alien named Jenova.
These cells, combined with his training from birth by Shin-Ra, resulted in him
becoming the worlds hero. On a mission with Cloud and Zack, he discovered the
process, which brought him into the world, beginning a decent into madness.
Developing something of an Oedipus complex, he became obsessed with his
mother Jenova. Trying to honour her legacy, he burnt down Nibelheim and went
insane. During the plot of the game his personality shows him as a homicidal
psychopath, solely attempting to fulfil his messiah complex and becoming a
living god.

Sephiroth has several themes associated with him. The main one is Those
Chosen by the Planet, a short ambient piece with a dark timbre due to its heavy
percussion, low-register chorus and accenting bells. The leitmotif we best
associated with Sephiroth comes from here, which is based on a system of three
chords, played twice, before a set of four chords. This leitmotif appears in all the
themes relevant to Sephiroth. It appears with no variations in the works Can
You Hear the Cries of the Planet and .

As Sephiroth is the final boss we face in the game, those two battles each
have their own unique music used for their encounter. It is the second of these
themes I will be analysing, with the work entitled One-Winged Angel, as it is
arguably the work best associated with this game, and often credited as the
finest of Uematsus works.

Bars Section

1-35 A (intro)
36-52 B (verse)
52-59 C (chorus)
60-67 B1 (second verse)
68-79 D (instrumental passage)
80-91 E (instrumental passage)
92-102 F (instrumental passage)
103-122 G (bridge)

When our work begins, the bass instruments and timpanis perform a
system of crochets alternating with the interval of a diminished fifth, a pattern
based on the famous introduction to Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. This
diminished chord is prolonged across a substantial section of the work, giving
the piece a usual timbre. After four bars the violins play a brief passage are
characteristically reminiscent of the second movement of the work The Murder
by Bernard Herrmann, famous for its use in the film Pyscho during the shower
scene. After eight bars the clarinets then enter, performing a series of
descending, melodic minor (using the raised 6th and 7th degrees) passages. This
alternates with the violins playing chords on the beat, accenting the diminished
chord tones. There is a significant amount of chromatics in the work. This is
largely due to the mode switches Uematsu uses to take chords from D major. As
the previous 8 bars begin to repeat themselves, the clarinet passages are ended
by the horns ringing out chords with intense volume swells, taking advantages of
the new technology available to expand the range of dynamics available. These
are further accented

When our C-section begins the choir enters and we can first hear
synthesised vocals. The tonality of the section seems to primarily be our global
key of D minor, though many of the passage suggest a tonality of the D octatonic
scale. The libretti/lyrics (depending on how you interrupt the work) for this
work are primarily borrowed from the medieval work Estuans interius, taken
from Carmina Burana, sung in the original Latin. Much of the power of this
chorus is due to the dissonance in the orchestra beneath it, and the accent on the
word Sephiroth which features a perfect fifth harmony, otherwise known as a
power chord between the voices. The chorus alternates its passages with a
short response phrases, the first time though by the strings, and the second time
by the horns playing over the strings (who also provide a short countermelody
to the chorus). As the tonality of this section alternates between more diatonic,
consonant passages and the chromatic, dissonant ones, the piece as a whole
seems to develop a certain power, embodying the feelings of dread, terror and
malice that Sephiroth is meant to represent for the player.

From here section B repeats again, however this time to maintain the
listeners interest, Uematsu adds a variety of details in the instrumental
accompaniment. The horns countermelody is a bit more developed, the
alternating passages between the chorus and orchestra are more interesting as
the strings play a descending, syncopated phrase and the lower string line
becomes a more active with an ascending, chromatic, walking bass line which
functions as a cadence point when it arrives on D#, as we modulate back to E
minor.

As we move into section F, our E minor tonality is quickly expanded upon.

A new melody theme is introduced. The first note of the melody in the second
chord is a Bb i.e. the blue note of the scale. The raised 6th and 7th then begin to
appear across the melody, though the pedal bass is only to suggest I-V in this
section. A counter-melody plays against our second theme based on the first
melody.

Section E is based on a pattern alternating between IV7-i (we can see the
movement of Bb-B in the top voice of the chord). An additional dissonance
coming from the raised 6th during the E minor passages, acting as a passing
cadence back to D minor to add some non-tonal chords. The horns end this
passage as they assert themselves in with two trumpets performing in an
interval of a major sixth, with the root as E. This used to mirror the call of the
chorus when they chant Sephiroth. The horns then perform a brief, syncopated
rhythm leading us into the next section. This section also marks the beginning of
Uematsus large build up across the remainder of work for a return to our chord
of I.

The flutes then take over the melody from here with a phrase based on
semi-quavers and quavers. Compressing the value of the rhythms make the piece
feel as though its escalating in intensity. The marimba uses its lower register to
play a semi quaver pattern, alternating between the root note and the remaining
chord tones implying E minor. The next bar the E root raises a major 6th,
implying a C# diminished 7th chord. The strings also contribute by accenting the
chord in quavers. After all this the rhythmic changes to 6/8 for three bars. The
dynamics drop down to a piano just as we were halfway through our dynamic
build up, restarting it. The chords played in this section are all minor 7th with
little regard for our E minor tonality. We then return back to 4/4 as the flute
takes over the melody against the remainder of the orchestra, its rhythm
evoking the feeling of 6/8. This only last two bars however as section F closes
with an extremely homophonic, block harmony section. This two bar passage is
based upon two crochets followed by a triplet the length of a minim, into a
semibreve. It slows down our build up, but the triplet functions to keep up our
suspense and the contrast makes the chords feel heavy, powerful and vicious.
The first time through the bass line descends while the second time it ascends as
we hold on the chord of C minor (6/3). Each chord is marked fortepiano, with the
final chord fortissimo ending our build-up.

Section G, our final section is based on another build up, in the orchestra
and dynamics. The idea begins with a chromatic line played by the lower register
of the piano and the basses in the choir. Ever four bars a new element is added.
Firstly the violins come in playing a harsh F note with a grace note before it,
reminiscent of classic horror movie soundtracks. Next the remaining voices
being a counter melody against the basses. The final four bars, the voices begin
to crescendo as the horns double their melody. We hear one final chant of
Sephiroth in the chorus and the tune begins its loop back to the first B section.
Aerith Gainsborough

Aerith is a playable character in Final Fantasy VII. She is the last of an

ancient race people from the Planet, known as Cetra. An extrovert, shes
cheerful, upbeat and optimistic despite the perils of their journey and he
unfortunate upbringing. Born at the Icicle Inn, on the Planet northern continent
while her family was on the run from Shin-Ra, he father was murder, while her
and her mother were brought back to the Shin-Ra headquarters for
experimentation. The two managed to escape but Aeriths mother was killed in
the process and a woman passing by agreed to adopt Aerith and keep her safe.
Aerith then grew up in the slums of Midgar, becoming exceptionally street smart,
and her Cetra heritage resulting in her having a deep connection with nature. As
such she can be seen as a contrast to Sephiroth, the two paralleling our theme or
nature vs. man.

Aeriths Theme is the work associated with her. It appears three times in
full across the story, first when her adoptive mother tells her about her past, the
scene of her death and when the heros discuss her sacrifice and prepare for
their final assault against Sephiroth. Another work associated with Aerith is
derived from the main motif of her theme, entitle Flowers Bloom in the Church,
and is played during her proper introduction to Cloud. The work The Great
Northern Cave, feature her motif as a counter melody in the bassoon. This work
replaces Clouds theme as the over world music after her death and while it
primarily used to give across a sense of hopelessness and despair, Aerith motif
shows her spirit accompanies the party after their death and that there is still
hope of defeating him.

Aeriths theme Bars

1-4 establish the main melody in the piano and strings embellish (I-v6/4)
5-10 proper orchestra entrance which now resolves to the tonic (I-v-bVI-iv-
I)
11-22 repeition of the orchestral entrance but with the addition of the
clarinet and marimba (vi-iii6/4-IV6/4-I-iii6/4-IV6/4-iii6/4-IV6/4)
Proper cadence B section for the work as we make way for a new melody (I-
IV-vi7-IV6-iii-vi-V6/4-IVsus2 root-IV-ii-I)
Piano (Quite) section based on B section with heavy variations
Repetition of beginning but with perfect cadence

Soft piano beginning with simple rhythms gives across a sense of delicacy,
fragility and purity thats reflective of Aerith
Tonic to dominant movement is bitter sweet as the dominant is a minor chord.
Melody is mostly based on arpeggios ends on the dominant
Repeat introduces the strings and brass. Variation on the previous melody as it
adds additional semi quaver. Bar 7 and 8 goes to the parallel minors relative
major and more dynamic effect to take full effect of the orchestra. More active
bass line.
Quiet clarinet solo enters at bar 10 after the perfect cadence. Marimba and short
choral vocals accompany. Less dense texture and dynamic. Rhythm becomes a
lot more dragged out. Harmony mainly alternates between iii-IV causing a
tensor rhythm. Builds up to the full orchestra taking a rest bar the flutes and
violins, who take the notes leading back into the climax where the whole
orchestra comes in. The texture is dense, extremely homophonic with more
decorative melody as the bass (tuba) leads us into the dominant as the melody
goes towards the submediant. The three leading notes are then repeated and
instead jump up to the tonic, which leads to the ii chord. This is in place of V-I.

Final section the flute takes the melody while the orchestra fade out to just the
strings, creating an extremely thin texture and an V7 arpegiios leads back into
the reprise as the work begins its loop.

Exceptionally dramatic film-esc music

On December 4th, 2007 the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra began a
worldwide concert tour entitled Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy VII.
The tour continues still today, and performs Uematsus works from the Final
Fantasy series as a whole.

The first score Uematsu works on for the company then known as Square was for
the game Cruise Chaser Blassty.

Hironub Sakaguchi believed the original Final Fantasy would be the end of a
disappointing career in games development. He asked his friend Uematsu to
compose the sound track for him. The game was to be released on the Nintendo
Entertainment System (commonly known as the NES or Famicom in Japan).
Chiptune music other wise known as 8-bit music, is music that is produced
though synthesized methods, traditionally PSG(programmable sound generator)
sound chips as were used in the NES.
The famicom sound card processed 5 different channels for audio. One
instrument will occupy one channel; therefore Uematsu was initially limited to
five different instruments running at once. However, the channels are not all
identical. Two channels are referred to as pulse wave channels, which were
most commonly used for melodies. This is due to the availability of three
different voices for melodies in these channels. One channel is refered to as a
triangle wave, which was typically used for a pieces bass lines. This channel was
incapable of dynamics or volume control of any kind and only processed one
voice. One channel was refered to as the noise channel. It was commounly used
as percussion as this channel as the audio wave for tracks produced in this
channel being reminiscent of the static older televisions would produce. It is
however capable of producing 16 pitches, each with two modes, for a total of 32
voices. The final channel was used for sampling.

While NESs files are referred to as 8-bit and SNES is referred to as 16-bit,
these words actually mean very little. Rather, they specify the types of
processors used in the console and the amount of information able to be stored.
This gives us a concept of the quality of the files, how many files may be used at
once and the length of the files. Even still the channels of the console werent all
reflective of this. The sample channel of the NES only used 1-bit, hence it didnt
have much space available for creating sounds. In fact if the NES audio files were
all truly 8-bit the range of volumes/dynamics would be 256, instead as the bit
value for the channel volume was only 4, it meant there were only 16 possible
volumes (including silence). This impacts the creation of the music in a multitude
of ways. The actual discrepancy for volumes in a truly acoustic instrument is
huge. A computer would read a substantial amount of micro variations leading
up between a passage with crescendo from piano to forte. With so few variations
in volume these passages will come across as unnatural. If you go from volume
3, to 2, to 1, and then 0, and you dont do this quickly, you wont hear a smooth
fade out at all. The volume will distinctly jump between those values, with no
means for a smoother fade
The NES and SNES both ran on cartridges. The Playstation however used the new
compact disk (CD). This higher quality allowed composer to record in the studio
as opposed to being limited to
Games on the Nintendo console suffered from a serve lack of space. Hence why
real instruments were not recorded, and the absence of voice acting was purely
due to the lack of memory available on cartridges. In fact the original cartridge
for the game Sonic the Hedgehog contained a famous 3-second audio clip of a
full chorus singing the word Sega (the producers of the game). This took up
over an eighth of the cartridges entire memory. With the PlayStation, there was a
whole new realm of possibilities. Early games on the console such as
Tomb Raider, Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot, blew critics away with
their fully voice acted games with real, recorded orchestras. Uematsu however,
opted not to use a live orchestra and as a result of Final Fantasy VIIs
considerable size (roughly 600,00 words of dialogue, in comparisons the Lord of
the Rings trilogy has about 455,125 words.) the game lacks both of these things.
The story is told with text boxes and the music was recorded using MIDI.

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communication protocol

to allow to different electronic instruments, computers and other pieces of
technology to communicate with one another, created in the 80s. An example of
MIDI can be found in guitar effects pedals as it is commonly used so that when
several MIDI pedals are communicating with one another, you can turn them all
on by activating one instead of having to activate them all individually. When one
records in MIDI it actually means that the performance is recorded i.e. the notes
played, how hard they were played, vibrato etc. is recorded but the music itself
is not. The performance then may be modified to enhance the quality of it, the
sounds produced or simply to modify it to act in ways, which are impossible to
use without computers. It became commonly used for video game music on
desktop computers as MIDI files are relatively small and it would simply tell the
sound card what to do, rather then having to reproduce actual recordings. MIDI
was not used on previous Final Fantasy games, as Nintendos consoles did not
support MIDI files.

An interesting controversy occurred with the launch of the games re-

release on the PC platform Steam. The MIDI files in this version of the game
linked to different variations on the same sounds. So for example, whenever the
oboe was playing it would still perform the same notes in the same place with
the same intended performance. However the sound used for the oboe would
have a different timbre to the one used in the original release and was of a much
lower quality, leading to an outrage from those who purchased the re-release
until the original soundtrack was original patched into the game.
If you go from volume 3, to 2, to 1, and then 0, and you dont do this
quickly, you wont hear a smooth fade out at all.
Prelude as recongnizable in gaming circles as the Super Mario Bros. theme
Shin-Ra

Shin-Ra Inc. is an electric power company, whom essentially run the

world of Final Fantasy VII. Harvesting the life-stream, they supply the world with
Mako for energy and have a monopoly on the market. With that they went on to
become a megacorporation, their reach extending into the military with
SOLIDER, space exploration and infrastructure, as Shin-Ra run the city of Midgar.
Theyre influence is what drives the plot of the entire game as AVALANCE eco-
terrorist actions are to preserve the life stream and the Planet. Theyre
experiments to create the perfect warrior resulted in Sephiroth, the man whom
almost destroyed the world. Theyre desire for power resulted in the death of
Aeriths family and her unpleasant upbringing in the slums they created.

Shin-Ra has a particular leitmotif associated with them, based on an

ascending minor scale. It is a perfect reflection of our theme of man vs. nature.

The Shin-Ra theme is an extremely ambient piece of music; a slow, heavy

drumbeat plays behind an ominous piano, a chorus and heavily modulated
woodwinds that our playing the Shin-Ra motif.

Percussion is symbolic of Shin-Ra and what they represent, power,

dominance and authority.
We first here Shin-Ra theme and at the moment we meet President
Shinra.

Shin-Ra Motif Short rising minor scale

Meeting President Shinra menacing

Climbing the plate to Midgar heroic
Infiltrating Shinra HQ tranquil this theme is literally just the motif
beginning on different notes

Heavy percussion is Shinra