Music of Final Fantasy XII

Music Of Final Fantasy XII

The music of the video game Final Fantasy XII was composed primarily by Hitoshi Sakimoto. Additional music was provided by Masaharu Iwata and Hayato Matsuo, who also orchestrated the opening and ending themes. Former regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu's only work for this game was "Kiss Me Good-Bye", the theme song sung by Angela Aki. The Final Fantasy XII Original Soundtrack was released on four Compact Discs in 2006 by Aniplex. A sampling of tracks from the soundtrack was released as an album entitled Selections from Final Fantasy XII Original Soundtrack, and was released in 2006 by Tofu Records. Additionally, a promotional digital album titled The Best of Final Fantasy XII was released on the Japanese localization of iTunes for download only in 2006. "Kiss Me Good-Bye" was released by Epic Records as a single in 2006, and Symphonic Poem "Hope", the complete music from the game's end credits, was released by Hats Unlimited in 2006. An abridged version of the latter piece, which originally accompanied a promotional video for the game, was included in the official soundtrack album.

The soundtrack received mixed reviews from critics; while several felt that it was an excellent album, others disagreed, finding it to be a good soundtrack but lacking in substance. Common complaints about the album were the large number of filler tracks, which seemed to be uninspired and hurt the soundtrack as a whole. However, several reviewers commented on "Kiss Me Good-bye", finding it to be one of the soundtrack's strongest areas. The singles for the soundtrack were very well received by critics, who found them to be very enjoyable but short in duration. The game's soundtrack was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Original Score.