Final Fantasy VII ~ Still More Fighting [Metallic Mix]

for YM2612 + SN76489

by MetallicOrwell

Welcome back to the Orwellian Metal Forge. In this respected establishment, we take (usually) heavy metal-adjacent video game music and adapt it to the Sega Mega Drive, making it faster and heavier, as well as adding new sections with guitar solos and the like. You may hear screams in the background, but don't worry about it--think of it as Rob Halford doing his soaring falsetto vocals. Now, our latest victim here is the boss theme from Final Fantasy VII: Still More Fighting. I know "Those Who Fight Further" is a more accurate translation of the Japanese title, but I'm an oldschool FF7 fan, so I have a fondness for the quirkiness of the original translation ("this guy are sick" and all that). Now, I'd hesitate to call Still More Fighting full-on heavy metal, because while it does have a good, heavy guitar riff as the main motif, there is no lead guitar anywhere on the song; instead, Nobuo Uematsu favored rock organs, synth leads and strings. Respectable choices, and they definitely add a unique flavor to the piece that's very much appreciated.

I have a lot to say about Still More Fighting, but before diving any deeper into how it's composed and how I expanded it, I'd like to rant about something completely pointless and nerdy. I had originally considered covering the Black Mages version of this song, which is excellent, but they took too many liberties for my taste, especially with the drums. In the end, I decided to do my own thing: I'd take the original version and expand it in my own style. So, in order to ensure fidelity to the 1997 version, I took a look at the MIDI files from the old PC port of the game, because I figured they'd have to be pretty spot-on conversions. I opened the XG version of Still More Fighting and saw that the song was in 4/4, but everything was triplets: the drums, bass, rhythm guitar, leads, absolutely everything. That made no sense to me, and I realized transcribing this thing into the tracker format would be an absolute nightmare, because I would have to use note delay effects constantly. Also, composing new sections on top of a sequence that seemed to be fundamentally broken would be a gigantic pain in the ass. Off to a rough start for sure, huh?

Well, a quick Google search revealed a simple truth: Still More Fighting is NOT in 4/4, but rather 12/8. Just listen to the ride cymbals as soon as the drums come in and you'll feel the correct pulse. Sure enough, after using Anvil Studio (which is still very reliable for basic MIDI editing) to quantize the notes, they now fit the new meter perfectly. This begs the question: why on earth was the original file in 4/4? I peeked inside other MIDIs from Final Fantasy VII and they all have the correct time signatures. You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet, for example (which I covered ages ago) is also in 12/8 and the file indicates that. The irregular moments in One-Winged Angel (7/8, 3/8, etc) are also marked correctly. So, why? Uematsu's no fool--he's pretty much the GOAT. Sure, he wasn't classically trained, but by this point he had over 10 years of experience composing hundreds of original pieces for SquareSoft, so there's no way he didn't have a rock-solid grasp on time signatures. Was it somehow more convenient to sequence Still More Fighting in 4/4 even though it's clearly supposed to be in 12/8? If I look at the notes on the piano roll and squint hard, I can kind of see some brief moments where 4/4 makes a little more sense, but 95% of the time 12/8 is the way to go. Everything snaps to the grid perfectly and you don't have to account for everything being triplets. Just why would he do that? It's inexplicable. While I was working on this remix/expansion, I spent half the time enjoying the process, and the other half going crazy over the pointlessness of this little detail.

It feels good to have that out of my system. Anyway, rant over--let's get back on track.

Still More Fighting is primarily in A minor, with some brief sections in C minor and lots of chromatic dissonance. Its general mood is serious yet exciting, like it's encouraging you to kick ass, which is a very specific kind of energy for a boss theme. Final Fantasy IV comes to mind as a good example of the opposite, where the main boss theme makes you feel like you're about to be stomped on by a huge monster or something. I'd say boss themes exist on somewhat of a spectrum, which goes from "panic-inducing" to "fun and exciting", and Still More Fighting is much closer to the "fun" end of the spectrum. It starts with a fairly simple but effective guitar riff (accented with drum hits, of course) before the drums and rock organ come in. Some people might think Uematsu gets his penchant for organs from progressive rock, but personally, I'm feeling Deep Purple here. There's a lot of variety in all the different sections, especially in the drums, which are quite complex. The guitar and bass parts are very distinct from each other as well, and of course we have the rock organ playing either lead melodies or chords throughout the entire piece. In the chorus we layer strings on top of the synth lead melody until the intensity reaches its maximum point, and the song loops. An excellent boss theme all around, as you'd expect from the master.

Because of its somewhat standard structure (intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus), expanding Still More Fighting wasn't that complicated. In fact, the formula I followed was basically the same one Uematsu himself and his pals used when they arranged it for the first Black Mages album, and it's also the same thing S.S.H. always does. You keep it faithful at first, then repeat the same sections while replacing the lead melodies with guitar solos, and finish it off with a bang instead of having it loop. I've done it myself in the past, because there's just something about this style of expansion/arrangement that just works for compositions like this one. So, once the faithful part ends, it's time to metalize this thing. The drums are made more intense while the main riff plays again. Then, the Orwellian Metal Forge kicks into high gear.

When I did Big Arms from Sonic 3, I realized that swapping the bass and guitar can be quite effective, and so that's what I did here. The notes originally played by the bass become the guitar, which adds variety without changing the feel too much. When it was time to come up with the actual guitar and keyboard solos, I just listened to the drums, rhythm section and chords, and placed the notes in a way that felt right. I was feeling pure shred in the first part, but I tried to combine that with a lot of melody so it wouldn't sound like mindless wankery, and I think it turned out alright. We then repeat the other sections from the original song, just with the guitar and bass swapped. Again, it's all about paying attention to what's happening in the song and composing melodies and solos that fit. There were supposed to be guitar harmonies in one part, but they sounded too shrill, so I replaced them with strings. Finally, at the very end, I composed an original section with S.S.H. style riffs and a descending chord progression over the chords and the repeating melody. It sounds perhaps just a little too melancholic to be a perfect fit for Still More Fighting, but on the other hand it feels very MetallicOrwell, so I kept it. We repeat the main riff with a slight variation, and the piece finally ends.

One more detail that stands out: unlike Uematsu, I seem to have no love for rock organs, because there's pretty much none of that in my parts: it's all guitar and synth leads; even the strings weren't originally part of the plan. Oh, well. Time to nerd out some more and explain the sound design--can't forget that.

This uses my metal formula, which is something I've described in the past at least 14 times, so let's make it breezy. On the YM2612, FM 1 is for bass, FM 2 and FM 3 for rhythm guitars panned to each side, FM 4 and FM 5 for leads, and FM 6 for PCM drums. On the SN76489, the square wave channels are used for support, and the noise channel for hi-hats and crash cymbal support. Now, Uematsu's original version of Still More Fighting only really uses one voice for the rhythm guitar, and in fact he never even bothers using power chords, which is baffling. That is not how I do metal: my two full FM channels dedicated to the rhythm guitar are non-negotiable (the second plays fifths to the first for a thicker sound). Of course we have the E. Bass 70 preset, my custom Orwell rhythm and leads, strings, trumpet synth, etcetera. There is a modified version of the Church Organ instrument from DefleMask that brings it closer to the rock organ sound used by Uematsu. I was actually able to fit every note of the chords most of the time by moving some of them over to the PSG's square waves, which sound similar enough with a vibrato and tremolo macro.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, and to be honest, from a compositional standpoint I think it's more interesting than the Black Mages version. You gotta have some balls to compare yourself to Uematsu and his band and declare yourself the winner, I suppose, but humility has never been one of my virtues.

See you around.

 

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