Of course, nothing but respect for Uematsu, easily one of my top 3 video game composers of all time. However...
These do what I like least about modern orchestral arrangements of midi composition: they bury the melody. Unlike small bands/modern music and midi instrumentation, which bring certain melodic throughlines to the forefront of the sound, lots of the modern orchestra arrangements spread the impact of the instrumentation all around and thin the impact of the melody.
I think Fighting! (the original battle theme) in this thread's boss video is PERFECT. One of the best of these arrangements I've ever heard. It nails the staccato punch of the original midi perfectly, despite being a full orchestra. Compare it to the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds arrangement and tell me which hits as hard as the original.
This is honestly something I'm worried about with Fight On! The original is this kinda dark prog fever dream with cycling electric organs, mean distorted guitar, a small but mighty string and horn section, and a little midi drummer at his kit just absolutely losing it. It rocks. It fucking rocks. Every instrument and melodic line gets its opportunity to scream at the top of the mix.
The only time we've heard FF7R's arrangement of this (to my knowledge) is as a motif at around 2:00 in the newest trailer. And I really hope it is just a motif in a new piece (they seem to be doing that a lot in this and that's fine) because if their straight adaptation of the original song replaces electric keys with strings and electric guitar with horns... man, what a loss.
