Your Hands

One sunny day a couple of months ago I was going about my entire online routine of checking all forums and social networking websites while sipping my morning coffee, which must of resembled primordial ooze. It didn’t take long to realise that 80% of my Facebook friends page and twitter feeds were filled with statements which all had the following things in common.

1. One Leona Lewis’ song was going to feature as the main theme for the international release of Final Fantasy 13.
2. ‘They’ didn’t like it.

While the fanboys reacted calling it a ‘travesty’ and that they mourned the loss of Uematsu composing the soundtrack I sat back and watched these arguments get blown out of proportion. Was I the only one who thought that a British singer having been chosen to supply a song for the biggest J-RPG franchise in the world something to be proud of?

Leona Lewis’ career began after she won the 2006 X-Factor reality TV contest by singing “Over the Rainbow” landing her a £1 million record deal. Since then she has become the first British female artist to reach number 1 the US billboard charts for 10 years in 2008 and has been a rising star ever since.

The song itself “My Hands” from her second album “Echo” is one of her better singles. While those of you who dislike the song and her music might see that as a sign that proves “she’s crap” I disagree. The fans reaction wasn’t about the song or the artist it was about infringement on the 100% Japanese version of Final Fantasy that everyone was expecting.

As gamers grow older they start to become savvier in their use of technology and as a result they watch with eager anticipation everything that is said about a game due to be translated and released locally by first watching the feedback of the original version. They want an untouched version of the game, although in their language admittedly and are so eager to write off a game if it has been modified in any way and to an extent I agree with that notion.

The problem with the inclusion of “My Hands” into Final Fantasy 13 is that it doesn’t really matter. The song isn’t played over the starting credits and it doesn’t affect gameplay in any way. Going back to the song itself I can see why it was included into the International release and that’s because it DOES FIT into the story and with a certain character. Theme songs in Final Fantasy are generally played over pivotal points in the story where the main character is granted an epiphany or it’s played over the ending cut scene or credits.

The music to Final Fantasy titles is always something I’ve found I go back to more than the game, I rarely replay a Final Fantasy title after completion but I will continue listening to the soundtrack for years afterwards and the inclusion of Leona Lewis’ song into a Final Fantasy title won’t hamper my enjoyment of the game and it shouldn’t hamper yours. If you would prefer the original soundtrack just stick the original song “Kimi ga Iru Kara” by Sayuri Sugawara over the top but will the ending have as much meaning to you, wouldn’t being able to see and hear the conclusion in your language make the ending a bit more personal?

Games are becoming universal as such localisations are going to be made. Yakuza 3 pops up here due to certain sections having been cut out of the non Japanese release but that kind of makes, I mean one of the sections was a Japanese history quiz. How many people would have aced that?

You also want to know something? The reason they chose an already existing song was because they didn’t have the ability to record the original theme in English.

“On FFXIII Square Enix is using a Leona Lewis song to accompany the Western release. Given your view on globalisation, you aren’t changing the content of your game but changing the outskirts of it to cater for different markets. Is that an important step?”

“Previously such content was Japanese artists – and remained that way for the Western releases. It is an important point – we were very conscious of it in our decision-making. It would have been better if the American team could generate the material from scratch but the lack of team led us to strategically go with Leona.”

Taken from the interview with Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada:

http://www.develop-online.net/features/724/Final-Countdown