A break from the past: Final Fantasy XVI’s composer on ushering in a new era

Masayoshi Soken has quietly ripped up the rulebook for the latest edition of Square Enix's epic series

If we have to bring the old world crashing down in order to build us a new one," says Cid, Final Fantasy XVI's gravel-voiced deuteragonist in the first act of the game, what say you? Are you with me?"

Cid delivers this dramatic line as a musical refrain that any Final Fantasy player will recognise ascends and descends ominously in the background. It's the most recent interpretation of the series' famous Prelude, originally played by a simple digital harp working its way up and down a scale. Legend has it that this number was a last-minute addition to the very first game in the series (more than 35 years ago) by composer Nobuo Uematsu. It took about 10 minutes to create, and has since been performed by orchestras all over the world, and used in the games bearing the indomitable Final Fantasy brand.