History Creator / NobuoUematsu

[floatboxright:Influences:Music/TheCarpenters, Music/DeepPurple, Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer, Music/EltonJohn, Music/KingCrimson, Music/LedZeppelin, Music/PaulMcCartney, Music/PinkFloyd, Music/StevieWonder, Music/{{Yes}}

Has [[AwesomeMusic/NobuoUematsu his own Crowning Music of Awesome page]].

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The use of katakana for some of his song titles has resulted in occasional title confusion in English. The theme for Zozo from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is usually translated as "Slam Shuffle" (including in official releases), but there is good reason to suspect that it may have been intended to be translated as "Slum Shuffle", since Zozo is a slum. The katakana for the two words is the same (スラム, ''suramu''). Additionally, the ''Music/FinalFantasyIX'' song "Rose of May" is frequently mistranslated as "Loss of Me". Other English titles don't correspond to their Japanese titles at all, which is sometimes for the better ("Devil's Lab" was "Magitek Research Facility", "Tenderness in the Air" was "Town Theme", "Fate in Haze" was "Cave Theme", "Another World of Beasts" and "Illusionary World" were both "Phantom Beast World") and sometimes arguably not ("Mad Dance of the Ominous Star" is arguably an even cooler title than "Dancing Mad", and "Tower of an Evil God" is definitely cooler than "Kefka's Tower").

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The soundtrack to Zozo from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is usually translated as "Slam Shuffle", but there is good reason to suspect that it may have been intended to be translated as "Slum Shuffle", since Zozo is a slum. The katakana for the two words is the same (スラム, ''suramu'').

He reunited with Hironobu Sakaguchi for ''VideoGame/TheLastStory''.

* DarkReprise: It's extremely common for character themes to get darker arrangements to highlight tragic events in the characters' past. For a few examples from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', "Locke's Theme" gets a minor-key rearrangement as "Forever, Rachel"; "Setzer's Theme" gets the more subdued "Epitaph" to highlight his tragic past; "Coin of Fate" is a slower and sadder rearrangement of "Edgar and Sabin's Theme"; "Awakening" is a more subdued version of "Terra's Theme" (which also has a subdued version in the game opening); "Celes' Theme" is a tempestuous version of "Aria di mezzo carattere" that plays during [[spoiler:Celes' AttemptedSuicide]]; and of course, Shadow's spaghetti western-styled theme gets a dramatic, tragic orchestral rearrangement when he is [[spoiler:DrivenToSuicide]] in the finale. From ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', "Flowers Blooming in the Church" gets rearranged as "Aerith's Theme" for [[ItWasHisSled that scene]]; "Cid's Theme" gets a minor-key rearrangement as "Launching a Dream into Space"; "Red XIII's Theme" gets a more dramatic rearrangement as "The Great Warrior" (and is also worked into "Cosmo Canyon"). Nearly every game contains multiple examples of this.

* RockMeAmadeus: He's quite fond of quoting Music/JohannSebastianBach in particular. Examples appear in "Golbeza, Clad in Darkness" and "Dancing Mad" amongst other songs.

* DarkReprise: It's extremely common for character themes to get darker arrangements to highlight tragic events in the characters' past. For a few examples from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', "Locke's Theme" gets a minor-key rearrangement as "Forever, Rachel"; "Setzer's Theme" gets the more subdued "Epitaph" to highlight his tragic past; "Coin Song" is a minor-key rearrangement of "Edgar and Sabin's Theme"; "Awakening" is a more subdued version of "Terra's Theme" (which also has a subdued version in the game opening); "Celes' Theme" is a tempestuous version of "Aria di mezzo carattere" that plays during [[spoiler:Celes' AttemptedSuicide]]; and of course, Shadow's spaghetti western-styled theme gets a dramatic, tragic orchestral rearrangement when he is [[spoiler:DrivenToSuicide]] in the finale. From ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', "Flowers Blooming in the Church" gets rearranged as "Aerith's Theme" for [[ItWasHisSled that scene]]; "Cid's Theme" gets a minor-key rearrangement as "Launching a Dream into Space"; "Red XIII's Theme" gets a more dramatic rearrangement as "The Great Warrior" (and is also worked into "Cosmo Canyon"). Nearly every game contains multiple examples of this.

He considers the soundtrack of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' to be his [[MagnumOpus favorite]].

* RecurringRiff: There are several throughout his work on the ''Final Fantasy'' series:

** The "Victory Fanfare" had identical melodies in all games until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', and even in that game it made a cameo as the chocobo racing victory theme (as well as a minor-key DarkReprise for chocobo racing losses), and also reappeared with the same melody in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX''. Moreover, even ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII''[='=]s fanfares open with the same notes.

* BilingualBonus: When his work gets adapted for vocal arrangements, they are frequently in many different languages. Languages used have included Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, and French.

* EpicRocking: With "Dancing Mad" (at around seventeen minutes on the OST) and the ending theme of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' (at around twenty-one) standing out as the top examples.

* {{Instrumentals}}: Most of his stuff. Starting from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', there is usually at least one song that contains lyrics (although the limitations of the technology at the time meant that the SNES couldn't actually produce vocal sounds), but the majority of his work is still instrumental. However, some of the songs also have vocals added in their arranged versions ("Dancing Mad" and "My Home Sweet Home" are two good recurring examples of this), and Earthbound Papas' albums actually contain more tracks with vocals than without.

* LoudnessWar: His game soundtracks don't get this for the most part, but most of the Black Mages' material was badly brickwalled. It got less severe on each of their releases, though, to the point where only a couple of songs on the third album were noticeably affected, and doesn't affect Earthbound Papas' material too badly (''Dancing Dad'' even comes out to a highly respectable [=DR9=]).

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Since leaving SquareEnix in 2004, Uematsu has worked as a freelancer, composing for such projects as ''VideoGame/BlueDragon'', ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'' and ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl''. He also had a rock band, called ''The Black Mages'', which played heavy rock covers of his ''Final Fantasy'' songs, as well as another band called ''Earthbound Papas'' ([[IThoughtItMeant no relation to]] [[Videogame/EarthBound the game]]). For the past decade, Uematsu has also been arranging his work for orchestras. He personally travels with the ''Distant Worlds'' concert tour, directed and conducted by fellow game-composer ArnieRoth.

He reunited with Hironobu Sakaguchi for TheLastStory.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Nobuo_Uematsu.jpg

Currently, he and his band have lent their music score to Compile Heart's game called ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaVictory''.

Nobuo Uematsu is one of the most important composers of VideoGame music to date. Ever since starting his career at 1985, he has worked on the soundtracks of over forty games. His best known work is with the ''FinalFantasy'' series, whose main installments all had completely Uematsu-made songs up until the tenth part. However, he returned to the series to compose for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''.