Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Album Review: OC Remix's Final Fantasy 2: Rebellion


Final Fantasy 2: Rebellion
A Final Fantasy 2 OC Remix Album

Written by Careless


From the first haunting notes to its impressive jazzy conclusion Rebellion is a professional, hard hitting wave of nostalgia and quality music. Paying homage to arguably one of the most obscure chapters in the Final Fantasy series (FF2 premiering in the US for the first time in 2003!), each of the 21 tracks is a different artist’s interpretation of Nobuo Uematsu’s early work. If you have never heard the Original soundtrack it’s certainly worth a listen and contains some of Uematsu’s best pre-SNES work.

If you like rock or metal covers there is no shortage. Rebellion boasts tracks like Dr. Manhattan’s arrangement of The Last March, Bonker’s Rebel Dream, Kidd Cabbage’s Battle, Viking Guitar’s Torchlit, IanFitC’s Imperial Rapture, and Tuberz McGee’s Personification of Evil. As an OC Remix compilation album Rebellion also delves into other genres of music like dubstep, flamenco-folk, and some that are more difficult to classify. On the whole Rebellion is a very satisfying listen and there’s so much diversity from one track to the next that you’ll never feel stagnant. My only personal distaste stems from the talking elements which take place on top of some tracks which I otherwise found enjoyable. It’s worth noting that some of the arrangements also delve into other works by Uematsu, and that many of them are over 6 minutes in length. My personal favorite tracks are a FF 1-3 solo piano arrangement by PacificPoem titled Dawn of Heroes, Brandon Strader’s Castellum Infernum, some1namedjeff’s Preluematsude, and Bonker’s Rebel Dream.

In conclusion:

If you’re looking for new music Rebellion definitely worth checking out! Even if you think OC Remix might not be your thing, there are some really dynamic songs on here that you’ll want in your collection.


Final Fantasy 2: Rebellion will be available on June 8th at: http://rebellion.ocremix.org/