In 1989, an MSX2 version of the first installment that kicked off the extremely popular Final Fantasy franchise was released. It was ported by Microcabin, a game developing and publishing company notable of Xak fame.
While the original Nintendo soundtrack already showcased brilliant compositions by industry legend Nobuo Uematsu, especially considering the technical difficulties and limitations of the era (while using an MSX!), Microcabin's chief composer Tadahiro Nitta did a masterful job at arranging Uematsu's iconic tunes.

Every MSX fan knows that nothing beats real hardware when it comes to hearing the many wonderful soundtracks created on our favorite platform. However, until now these renditions could only be enjoyed - without having to play the game, that is - on YouTube or by means of .KSS files, using for instance an application such as Hoot.
Fortunately, this is a thing of the past now, as MRC user sd_snatcher extracted the original .MCM song files from the game disk and made them available on his page. Finally, you can enjoy this piece of gaming history on a real MSX using Manuel Pazos' MCDRV, which is available here at GitHub.

Relevant link: FRS' MSX Page - Rare MSX Softs

Comments (13)

By Manuel

Ascended (19678)

Manuel's picture

11-08-2017, 10:18

Is that player similar to the player of Micro Musics? I.e. are the data files for Micro Musics the same format (MCM)?

By meits

Scribe (6571)

meits's picture

11-08-2017, 12:15

possibly the dat files are mcm files yes. I wouldn't know why MCCE would encrypt those files.
It would be most comfortable if there was a patch that injected this game into Micro Music.
If not/for now, very great job. I never had any attraction to the game, so there's a lot new notes to explore Smile

By syn

Prophet (2135)

syn's picture

11-08-2017, 14:06

Thanks, great soundtrack

By tfh

Prophet (3426)

tfh's picture

11-08-2017, 14:37

Very nice music indeed.
A shame though that FF1 never got translated on MSX...

By Philip

Champion (380)

Philip's picture

11-08-2017, 19:25

Nice ! This reminds me I really need to get an fmpac again...

By ToriHino

Paladin (925)

ToriHino's picture

11-08-2017, 19:29

tfh wrote:

Very nice music indeed.
A shame though that FF1 never got translated on MSX...

Maybe time to start a crowd translate for this Wink ?

By KdL

Paragon (1485)

KdL's picture

11-08-2017, 20:19

FF1 (MSX2) works very well in R800-ROM mode. I have patched the DISK1 with LogiBOOT 2005 using NORMAL LABEL. Wink

By meits

Scribe (6571)

meits's picture

14-08-2017, 18:33

Man these tunes sound great! Thanks again...

By karloch

Prophet (2159)

karloch's picture

14-08-2017, 23:15

MSX2 version is so colorful compared to NES, and the music with FMPAC the best by far arround that time. A shame the horrible scroll and not getting English localization.

By Giangiacomo Zaffini 2

Champion (300)

Giangiacomo Zaffini 2's picture

27-08-2017, 14:37

After knowing that MCDRV.COM needs to have COMMAND2.COM and MSDOS2.SYS in place near it (at least for the tests that I did on openMSX on a MSX-DOS2 enabled Panasonic FS-A1GT), I can say that I like a lot listening to MCM files!
Final Fantasy tunes are very good.
Micro Cabin did wonders with BGM music and MCDRV driver serves well for it! Congratulations to everyone involved.
I also tried to re-compile MCDRV.COM from sources, but I could made it work.

By meits

Scribe (6571)

meits's picture

26-09-2018, 14:07

While listening to these tunes again now I am wondering if there are more MCM files available.

By sdsnatcher73

Enlighted (4295)

sdsnatcher73's picture

27-09-2018, 19:34

Meits wrote:

While listening to these tunes again now I am wondering if there are more MCM files available.

Of course there are, look in the utilities section: http://msxcartridgeshop.com/VientoSur/

By meits

Scribe (6571)

meits's picture

28-09-2018, 01:12

thanks a lot for the link