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Final Fantasy VII got shafted again

VillainFan42

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Okay, so just to start, Smash Ultimate looks freaking great. However, I was unbelievably disappointed to see that Final Fantasy VII has only 2 songs. Again.

I should clarify- Final Fantasy is my favorite series. Final Fantasy X was one of my first games I ever played and one I still love to this day, Final Fantasy VI is my favorite game of all time, and while VII is not my favorite game in the series, I still like it, and accept that it's become the face of the series, more or less. I adore Final Fantasy. And I own soundtracks for at least half of the main games, so you know I love the music in it as well.

So when I saw the Smash Direct and noticed that Final Fantasy once again had only two freaking songs, that was just a slap in the face. With Wii U/3DS, I get it. Cloud was kind of a last-minute addition, there were licensing issues, I get it. But by this game's very nature, Cloud was clearly meant to be in it from the start, and still we only have two songs. The Final Fantasy series, which has the best music in all of gaming, is represented by a measly two songs.

I don't blame Sakurai or Nintendo for any of this. Sakurai is a freaking miracle worker, and if he could've gotten more songs, I have no doubt that he would have. I'm guessing there were issues with Square Enix, but from what I can gather, even THEY have issues with FF's music. Or maybe they're just being stingy, who knows? Either way, as a longtime fan of the series, this is just disgraceful. And just to throw salt in the wound, as of the E3 build, Cloud still doesn't have an English voice actor, while Marth does. I understand there were some issues with his voice actor because he's a union actor, but still, it's kind of a slap in the face.

To get to the point, the game releases in 4 months, and not knowing as much as I should about game development, I want to ask people more knowledgeable than I am: Is it already too late? Would they still be able to record English audio for Cloud and add more songs if they did manage to work out the issues? I don't even necessarily want remixes. There are plenty of songs from FF7 I'd be okay hearing in their original state- Bombing Mission, Crazy Motorcycle, Birth of a God, J-E-N-O-V-A, and Jenova Absolute, to name a few. We saw in the direct that FF only had two songs in that build, so does that 100% guarantee there won't be any more added in the final release?

I know beggars can't be choosers, and I should be happy Cloud is even in Smash Bros at all. But considering the love and attention the other 3rd party series are getting musically, I kind of take it personally that the music of my favorite series is so criminally underutilized. If worst comes to worst, and two songs is really all we're getting, I might just end up modding or hacking or whatever the game just so I can add more Final Fantasy music to it. There will be a way to do that, right? There has to be.

I'm sorry for getting overemotional about this. I'm aware it's probably not Sakurai's fault, but one of the greatest video game soundtracks only having 2 songs in this game is just unacceptable.
 

Apollo500

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Agreed. I'm holding out on some vague hope the rest are just locked behind CDs or something, but realistically Squeenix is just being ridiculously stingy again. I mean, come on, not even J-E-N-O-V-A at the very least?
 

TBone06

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I think there could be a possibility of them saving any new info for another direct. IF Square has another character, I can see them doing a presentation similar to the one they did for Castlevania and revealing all sorts of new info, AT's, and whatnot, including content from Final Fantasy. I could be completely wrong, but it's just a thought.
 

VillainFan42

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I think there could be a possibility of them saving any new info for another direct. IF Square has another character, I can see them doing a presentation similar to the one they did for Castlevania and revealing all sorts of new info, AT's, and whatnot, including content from Final Fantasy. I could be completely wrong, but it's just a thought.
If Square has another character, it'll most likely be Geno. If by some impossible chance thay add another FF rep, I could see it being one of two people: A generic Black Mage (since he has appeared in Mario sports games before and is pretty iconic), or Zack as an echo of Cloud.

Yeah, that's wishful thinking on my part, but I can dream, can't I?
 

TBone06

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If Square has another character, it'll most likely be Geno. If by some impossible chance thay add another FF rep, I could see it being one of two people: A generic Black Mage (since he has appeared in Mario sports games before and is pretty iconic), or Zack as an echo of Cloud.

Yeah, that's wishful thinking on my part, but I can dream, can't I?
If Geno is the one included, I think SMRPG will absolutely get some representation. If that's the case, I can see them going in depth the way they did for Castlevania. If it is another FF rep, I think Zack is an easy echo, I just don't know if he warrants a spot. A Black Mage would be pretty sweet. IF it were another FF rep, I would definitely want another protagonist like Terra or Cecil, but I think Black Mage serves a purpose. But absolutely you can dream!!
 
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Thanos6

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If FF gets another rep, I think it almost has to be Terra.

Also, as a petty, petty fanboy who has never fully forgiven Square betraying Nintendo with VII, this makes me chuckle in a bitter way.
 

Thinkaman

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Geno is plausible, insofar as he could exist without a stage, and any music he has could be classified in the Mario or Other categories.

But gosh, I don't want to know how much Nintendo had to fork over for those 2 FF7 songs. It was obviously Square's doing.

But hey, THIRTY-SIX Street Fighter tracks?!?!
 

Verde Coeden Scalesworth

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A few things to note;

It appears that the song issue is the writer himself, who helps with the songs in Smash, but doesn't work for Square-Enix anymore. He wrote nearly all the songs himself, including the VII and previous games. It's a legal hurdle because Square-Enix can say no as is, especially since their original writer went to another company. They have a right to be petty about their IP's.

Midgar has a ton of summons. These all require licensing to use per character. It actually has a lot of love put into it.

Cloud's costumes are legitimately bad. I concur. I do wish there were more songs, but if what I said is accurate, it's not surprising at all. Remember, these are all legal hurdles. SE can say no. They aren't required to give lots of content. What they did do is give high quality content for the small amount of content. The lack of an AT is honestly my only major gripe.

FFVII wasn't shafted so much as there's circumstances behind the issue. Also, don't forget that Cloud's mechanic is actually something that took a lot of work to balance, so they worked very hard on him. It's quality over quantity here.
 

VillainFan42

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I'm aware of the screwiness between Square and Uematsu (the composer), and a lot of the licensing issues. It's just... as a fan of the series, this is absolutely infuriating. 34 Castlevania songs, 36 Street Fighter songs... and 2 Final Fantasy songs. I know there is a lot of red tape, I'm just not happy about it.

I'm also aware of the issues with Cloud's English voice actor, but having him stuck in Japanese while Marth finally gets an English voice just seems wrong.
 

TBone06

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I'm aware of the screwiness between Square and Uematsu (the composer), and a lot of the licensing issues. It's just... as a fan of the series, this is absolutely infuriating. 34 Castlevania songs, 36 Street Fighter songs... and 2 Final Fantasy songs. I know there is a lot of red tape, I'm just not happy about it.

I'm also aware of the issues with Cloud's English voice actor, but having him stuck in Japanese while Marth finally gets an English voice just seems wrong.
Would you be able to expand on the so called screwiness between Square and Uematsu? I haven't heard anything about it, and I'm not the most educated on the topic.
 

VillainFan42

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To make a long story short, Nobuo Uematsu was the composer for the first 10 Final Fantasy games (and therefore VII), he left Square Enix and they're not really on the best of terms. At least that's my understanding. I could be completely wrong.

...Look, I shouldn't be whining about this. Sakurai and everyone else did the best they could with what they had, but... Final Fantasy is my favorite series, so it's kind of personal for me. I shouldn't be so immature and entitled.
 
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TMNTSSB4

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Considering Cloud was a dlc character, he and the representation in Smash 4 definitely wasn’t much of a last minute thing, but this smells like a Square Enix problem (they probably only want those two songs and one stage for all of Final Fantasy). And to think Sonic/Bayonetta/Ryu had it bad music wise, but now Street Fighter is deipfinitely getting more remixes (please Guile Theme PLEASE!!!!), and Sonic/Bayonetta will gain more songs from their series (Fist Pump and All I Am please, don’t see Fly Me To The Moon happening) even if they don’t get remixes...but RIP to more songs fro Final Fantasy
 

TBone06

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To make a long story short, Nobuo Uematsu was the composer for the first 10 Final Fantasy games (and therefore VII), he left Square Enix and they're not really on the best of terms. At least that's my understanding. I could be completely wrong.

...Look, I shouldn't be whining about this. Sakurai and everyone else did the best they could with what they had, but... Final Fantasy is my favorite series, so it's kind of personal for me. I shouldn't be so immature and entitled.
Thanks for explaining. You're allowed to have opinions. Don't feel bad about feeling bummed about it. You're not alone.
 

Oddball

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If Square has another character, it'll most likely be Geno. If by some impossible chance thay add another FF rep, I could see it being one of two people: A generic Black Mage (since he has appeared in Mario sports games before and is pretty iconic), or Zack as an echo of Cloud.
I think they'd be better off using the generic Fighter (or Warrior of Light if you prefer) as an echo of CLoud rather than using Zack. Sure it won't be exactly accurate, but it makes for a better character choice.
 

SirCamp

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Makes me think about that "leak" that claims Terra will be playable. On the very slim off chance that that "leak" ends up holding true, it could be that they don't want to hint towards that with any change to the music roster from 4. Might rouse suspicions if there were suddenly more songs and particularly if they came from a different FF.

Having said that it is likely just the legal issues that prevent us from getting more FF music goodness. Especially because I'd be a bit surprised if we got another Square Enix character and it wasn't either Geno or a character from Dragon Quest. As much as there is support for any number of SE characters it's ultimately up to them who they deign to allow Sakurai to use in the game, so it could be that they just wanted to keep it to FF characters and as a result we get Terra. The one thing going against Geno's inclusion I think is that Square Enix doesn't really stand to gain anything from allowing his use. Which might potentially make a second FF more likely. So maybe Terra isn't as farfetched as I thought. Either way though, we'll really just have to wait and find out.
 
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Chiroz

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Makes me think about that "leak" that claims Terra will be playable. On the very slim off chance that that "leak" ends up holding true, it could be that they don't want to hint towards that with any change to the music roster from 4. Might rouse suspicions if there were suddenly more songs and particularly if they came from a different FF.

Having said that it is likely just the legal issues that prevent us from getting more FF music goodness. Especially because I'd be a bit surprised if we got another Square Enix character and it wasn't either Geno or a character from Dragon Quest. As much as there is support for any number of SE characters it's ultimately up to them who they deign to allow Sakurai to use in the game, so it could be that they just wanted to keep it to FF characters and as a result we get Terra. The one thing going against Geno's inclusion I think is that Square Enix doesn't really stand to gain anything from allowing his use. Which might potentially make a second FF more likely. So maybe Terra isn't as farfetched as I thought. Either way though, we'll really just have to wait and find out.
You do know that advertisement is not the only reason and is probably not even the most important reason to allow a character to be included right?

Almost definitely Nintendo is paying royalties to 3rd parties, as in paying for every game that's sold. So allowing any character is more money in your pocket for no work. And you don't have to worry about things like: "Bad representation" or "Making sure your IP is used accurately" because it's Smash, it's already proven to be a great game that basically only gives companies good rep (well, maybe Bayonetta has something to say about that last one, lol).

As for if it's too late. I can tell you that music is normally done by the end of a game's cycle, although from how I see Nintendo manages their games, I doubt they wait until the end. IP Licensing though is normally done ASAP, and when a game is less than half a year away there's practically 0 chance for negotiation of an IP (unless you're just going to re-skin your game to that IP and not make a faithful game to the source material). That said Smash is literally UNIQUE, no other game has more than 2-3 IPs that are not owned by the father company that I know of. So no IP negotiation window of any other company is ever going to be accurate to whatever is going on in Nintendo/Smash.

Still, I don't think there's any plans to get more FF music, they probably already tried to get it when they included Cloud and were unable to get more music in that original deal so what would make them try again if they already went through a long process and did not manage to get it. And those who would point to SF and such, I would wager that they did get all the rights for SF songs from the very beginning but only included 2 as DLC because there was no reason to spend the time to get in more (do remixes and such) if they knew they were making the new game anyways.
 
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Zapp Branniglenn

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I would have liked more FF7 content in the form of songs. Zack echo, sure why not. But if we're talking another SE newcomer, I'd just be upset if it were another Final Fantasy character from a different game. I like many final fantasy games, but they already got their fighting game crossover series - that isn't dead anymore! Plus Noctis has already been done in Tekken so i'd rather any other Square game get represented. Geno, Frog, and Sora being my top picks, whichever is the most realizable.

So many people saying something like "woooow, I'm surprised Konami let them do all this great castlevania stuff. Don't they hate fun?" But that sort of shade ought to be directed toward Square. Yeah they still make games we care about but I feel like they can't even sneeze without Nomura directing.
 

Arthur97

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If Square only let them use two songs in 4, what makes people think they'll use another Square character? They're apparently kind of stingy. Maybe Geno if just because Square probably can't use Geno in anything non-Nintendo related or has no desire to. That and the Mii costume.
 

Thinkaman

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You do know that advertisement is not the only reason and is probably not even the most important reason to allow a character to be included right?

Almost definitely Nintendo is paying royalties to 3rd parties, as in paying for every game that's sold.
Not necessarily; I think it is 99% likely they are paying Square for Cloud, Geno, and the two FF tracks. But the others could be entirely promotional deals.

It is speculated that part of Brawl's Sonic deal was allowing Sega Sports to do Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. The relationships and business deals of all of these entities are very complex.

So allowing any character is more money in your pocket for no work. And you don't have to worry about things like: "Bad representation" or "Making sure your IP is used accurately" because it's Smash
Oh, if only!

Sakurai has complained that roughly a third of his personal time (IIRC) on Smash 4's development was spent on third party negotiations and private presentations. It's a very big deal, with complex corporate structures making sure their multi-million dollar IP is represented according to brand standards every step of the way.

These companies take their brand standards very seriously. This is why most Pokemon, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Cloud have such limited color options. I worked for Warren Specter for awhile, and heard plenty of stories of the effort required to meet Disney's internal branding standards on Epic Mickey.

As for if it's too late. I can tell you that music is normally done by the end of a game's cycle, although from how I see Nintendo manages their games, I doubt they wait until the end.
Music unfortunately does take a back seat in most industry schedules.

However, even if Nintendo did do music at the "end", the end is already over. There is no way a Nintendo-developed S-tier flagship international title is not feature complete less than 4 months before release. That is an appropriate window for debugging, testing online infrastructure, focusing on promotional and marketing materials, and localizing.

This is a large part of how we know that the new and remade stages, items, pokemon, and assist trophies shown in the direct were an exhaustive list; the time for making more has passed. This is why they were bragging about the final numerical totals--because at this point in the timeline, they are done and know what the final totals are. All that is left to reveal are the final characters and modes they are sitting on for promotional purposes.

IP Licensing though is normally done ASAP, and when a game is less than half a year away there's practically 0 chance for negotiation of an IP (unless you're just going to re-skin your game to that IP and not make a faithful game to the source material).
Yup!

Still, I don't think there's any plans to get more FF music, they probably already tried to get it when they included Cloud and were unable to get more music in that original deal so what would make them try again if they already went through a long process and did not manage to get it.
It is nearly certain that the last 2 Smash 4 DLC IP deals and the Ultimates deals were the same deal. Ultimate's development formally began before Cloud and Bayo were released, and was likely being planned at the same time. (This is also why Geno is plausible for Ultimate; we can assume that Sakurai got the character rights for Ultimate for him, just as he did in Smash 4.)

It's harder to say what the deal was with Ryu, in terms of timing.

And those who would point to SF and such, I would wager that they did get all the rights for SF songs from the very beginning but only included 2 as DLC because there was no reason to spend the time to get in more (do remixes and such) if they knew they were making the new game anyways.
Wii U DLC had 6 songs for SF, and 11 for Bayo. (We have a ton more SF music, a little more Sonic music, and seemingly no new Bayo music?)

I think it's safe to assume that these musical additions were simply semi-casual requests more so than renegotiated contracts. We seem to have gotten whatever the parties involved decided to donate.

Whereas Square probably demanded steep royalties, and so Sakurai could only obtain the bare minimum 2 songs. Alas.
 

DarthEnderX

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Agreed. I'm holding out on some vague hope the rest are just locked behind CDs or something, but realistically Squeenix is just being ridiculously stingy again. I mean, come on, not even J-E-N-O-V-A at the very least?
**** Jenova. Final Fantasy has an entire FRANCHISE of amazing music without having to keep dipping into 7 over and over.
 

Teeb147

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I think there's still plenty of time for the music to be added. I don't have pro knowledge on this stuff though.

Imagine Terra getting in and there being FF6's awesome music in it!
 

Spak

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I still think that Red XIII should get a spot. Sure he isn't as well known as some other FF characters, but he could have a super interesting moveset and I don't think they really have anyone else with his model type/shape in the game. It'd make for an interesting addition at the very least in my opinion.
 

**Gilgamesh**

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Geno is plausible, insofar as he could exist without a stage, and any music he has could be classified in the Mario or Other categories.

But gosh, I don't want to know how much Nintendo had to fork over for those 2 FF7 songs. It was obviously Square's doing.

But hey, THIRTY-SIX Street Fighter tracks?!?!
It's actually very expensive to get Square-Enix music..... not to mention they were harshly critical of Sakurai when developing Cloud. They are quite a sensitive company.

Are you a FF fan?
 
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DarthEnderX

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Considering Cloud was a dlc character, he and the representation in Smash 4 definitely wasn’t much of a last minute thing, but this smells like a Square Enix problem (they probably only want those two songs and one stage for all of Final Fantasy).
I'm betting it has more to do with "Square wants to charge them a lot of money for each song", whereas Capcom and Konami are like "Yes! Take whatever you want! The more of our stuff is in Smash, the more of it people will want to buy!" Because Square is weirdly shortsighted a lot of the time.

Which is really disappointing, because I really want a Dragon Quest rep, but if Square was a huge pain in the ass about Cloud, that might not happen.
 
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D

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Nice to see some clarification on what exactly the legal trouble with FF music was.

Having an explanation at least makes it easier to accept that this is the reality. It may not be the preferred result, but at least we have a reason why there's only 2 FF tracks.

Though if I'm to be honest, as much as I would like more FF music, Midgar's track selection disappoints me more because it leaves a stage that's far from a retro stage at only 2 options for music.

Dragon Quest
Kingdom Hearts
Secret of Mana
Other games in the Mana Series
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Cross
Mischief Makers
Octopath Traveler
And of course, Bravely Default

Those are all Square-Enix games too. What's the problem with putting music from them on Midgar?
 

VillainFan42

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I made this original post primarily to vent. I’ve since made peace with the lack of music (since I imagine someone will eventually figure out a way to mod custom music in) but I’m more sore about the voice acting issue.
 
D

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I made this original post primarily to vent. I’ve since made peace with the lack of music (since I imagine someone will eventually figure out a way to mod custom music in) but I’m more sore about the voice acting issue.
It's all good. Personally, being a Sonic fan in 2008 has led me to lose a lot of care about Voice Acting. But to each their own.
 

TMNTSSB4

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I'm betting it has more to do with "Square wants to charge them a lot of money for each song", whereas Capcom and Konami are like "Yes! Take whatever you want! The more of our stuff is in Smash, the more of it people will want to buy!" Because Square is weirdly shortsighted a lot of the time.

Which is really disappointing, because I really want a Dragon Quest rep, but if Square was a huge pain in the *** about Cloud, that might not happen.
Hell it might damage the chance in someone like Sora or somewhat Lara Croft from getting in Smash

However, it does give me slight hope that Sega considers their songs to be remixes in Smash outside of one Sonic song
 

Chiroz

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Not necessarily; I think it is 99% likely they are paying Square for Cloud, Geno, and the two FF tracks. But the others could be entirely promotional deals.

It is speculated that part of Brawl's Sonic deal was allowing Sega Sports to do Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. The relationships and business deals of all of these entities are very complex.



Oh, if only!

Sakurai has complained that roughly a third of his personal time (IIRC) on Smash 4's development was spent on third party negotiations and private presentations. It's a very big deal, with complex corporate structures making sure their multi-million dollar IP is represented according to brand standards every step of the way.

These companies take their brand standards very seriously. This is why most Pokemon, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Cloud have such limited color options. I worked for Warren Specter for awhile, and heard plenty of stories of the effort required to meet Disney's internal branding standards on Epic Mickey.
Yea, but trust me, it's very different when you're working with an already established brand. If you have to decide between some completely new concept and game developer using your IP and some established series that has already proven how they stay faithful to the IP there's a ton of trust that goes into that.

I've worked on various IP games, including Disney and Nickelodeon and at the very least they would check every friday, it could get to checking us every day. I am certain that does not happen with Sakurai and Nintendo, no matter how much he complains, it's just logical people can trust something they've already seen work several times before.

But yea, obviously there's still a lot of hassle and **** to do.



Music unfortunately does take a back seat in most industry schedules.

However, even if Nintendo did do music at the "end", the end is already over. There is no way a Nintendo-developed S-tier flagship international title is not feature complete less than 4 months before release. That is an appropriate window for debugging, testing online infrastructure, focusing on promotional and marketing materials, and localizing.

This is a large part of how we know that the new and remade stages, items, pokemon, and assist trophies shown in the direct were an exhaustive list; the time for making more has passed. This is why they were bragging about the final numerical totals--because at this point in the timeline, they are done and know what the final totals are. All that is left to reveal are the final characters and modes they are sitting on for promotional purposes.
I agree with most of this, although small changes are still made up until a game's lock which for a game like this I would assume is about 3 months before release. We still have to think that this video has probably been recorded for more than a month too.

Unfortunately a lot of the sound gets clumped into these last few months by most small developers. I assume Nintendo doesn't do anything like that.



It is nearly certain that the last 2 Smash 4 DLC IP deals and the Ultimates deals were the same deal. Ultimate's development formally began before Cloud and Bayo were released, and was likely being planned at the same time. (This is also why Geno is plausible for Ultimate; we can assume that Sakurai got the character rights for Ultimate for him, just as he did in Smash 4.)

It's harder to say what the deal was with Ryu, in terms of timing.

Wii U DLC had 6 songs for SF, and 11 for Bayo. (We have a ton more SF music, a little more Sonic music, and seemingly no new Bayo music?)

I think it's safe to assume that these musical additions were simply semi-casual requests more so than renegotiated contracts. We seem to have gotten whatever the parties involved decided to donate.

Whereas Square probably demanded steep royalties, and so Sakurai could only obtain the bare minimum 2 songs. Alas.
I agree that all of the deals are the same from Wii U to Switch. Ultimate has been proven to at the very least be planned since before DLC was shown (job postings), so it is logical that any contract you're making is actually for the "new game" and not for the old one. I do not think they renegotiated anything. My assumption is that they had rights to all those songs, but probably considered some things not worth their time, like deciding on a list of songs and remixing a bunch of them. They probably considered stuff like that low priority and left it for later and just released the DLC as it was.
 
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AustarusIV

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It's disappointing that we apparently only have two FF tracks in Smash yet again, and not only that they're just the main battle theme and boss theme for FF7. I understand they're some of the most memorable tracks from the game, but I really would've liked to have had J-E-N-O-V-A, Birth of a God, and of course, One-Winged Angel on Midgar, since I vastly prefer listening to them over Let The Battles Begin and Fight On.
 

TMNTSSB4

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Next game Final Fantasy will have atleast 1-2 more songs...if it’s still represented of course
 

FieryRebirth

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Guys, look up the rather niche title: Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. It's a recently released FF fighting/party game done by Square. That is where the FF music is going. Square is unlikely to share the originals/remixes with another third party developer unless...say Sakurai ponies up a lot more and deals with a truckload of avoiding copyright issues.
 
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R0Y

Smash Master
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
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Probably a combo of Square being pretty conservative about what they'll allow and possibly issues we don't know about with regard to Japanese music rights, which I've heard can be a bit of a headache.

In some ways this is inevitably going to be a port of the Wii U release + DLC, and Cloud and the Midgar stage are looking exactly that. It's not new to you, but it is to a fair amount of Switch owners.
 
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Khao

Smash Lord
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Mar 7, 2014
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Lying about my country.
To make a long story short, Nobuo Uematsu was the composer for the first 10 Final Fantasy games (and therefore VII), he left Square Enix and they're not really on the best of terms. At least that's my understanding. I could be completely wrong.
Uematsu is working on the FF7 remake though.
 
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