The Black Mages

The Black Mages is not a game soundtrack per se. Rather; it’s a collection of Final Fantasy combat tunes in an instrumental rock style.
Actually, to be precise, the collection is not called Black Mages. Black Mages is the name of the band, and the album doesn’t really have a name.
The band was formed by Nobuo Uematsu – the man behind a lion’s share of the music for most of the Final Fantasy games and many others.
The tunes on the album are all very energetic, but then again what would you expect form music played during combat. Most of them have a hard rock vibe to them, but some feature some synthesizers which make them sound a bit more like progressive metal. To be honest the synthesizers can sound a bit cheesy at times, but on the other hand it gives the pieces a very Japanese feel.
The most dominant instrument in all the compositions is a strong electric guitar that is doing a particularly good job in the bridge battle theme from Final Fantasy V as well as two FF IV themes included on the CD.
All the tunes are easily recognizable - like the theme from FF VII that plays during the helicopter-robot boss fight on the Shinra building – and even though they sound differently than the original versions (not surprising, considering most of the original pieces were in MIDI format) everyone that played any of the FF games will feel warm and fuzzy inside while listening to the CD.
Those of you who didn’t play any FF game should still pick this one up. This album will make you turn your volume all the way up, maybe even help annoy your neighbors and it’s a perfect collection to listen to while driving. Careful though, it may be directly responsible for some speeding tickets.
I must admit that this disc frequently finds its way to my CD player and has been doing so for almost two years now. It’s that good, and it just doesn’t get old.