Original Composition: Nobuo Uematsu
Arrangement: Nobuo Uematsu
Vocals: Risa Ohki

Tracks (translations of all songs at The Opera House):

1. Prelude 2. The Promised Land 3. Mon Petit Chat (My Little Cat) 4. Toki no Hourousha (The Wanderer of Time) 5. Hikari no Naka e (Into the Light) 6. Esperança Do Amor (The Hope of Love)

7. Voyage 8. Au Palais de Verre (In the Palace of Glass) 9. Once You Meet Her 10. Pray 11. Não Chora Menina (Don't Cry Little Girl)

What I'm about to say might constitute heresy in game soundtrack fandom, considering how highly Final Fantasy: Pray is regarded in such circles, but...I didn't much care for Pray. I don't dislike it, and the CD does have its moments, but, as a whole, I found its contents generally unremarkable. Perhaps I'm at a disadvantage to be objective here, since I bought Pray with the great expectations raised by its - sequel? successor? - in the Final Fantasy Vocal Collections series, Final Fantasy: Love Will Grow. I actually picked up the second Vocal Collections disc before the first, and I was immediately enraptured by its vibrancy and creativity with which old FF favorites were transformed into clever, atmospheric, and beautiful songs and the wide range of styles its arrangements encompassed. I expected to find the roots of Love Will Grow's creative energy in its much-praised forebear, so my expectations were, admittedly, high - but they still didn't come very close to being fulfilled. To put it bluntly: Pray is quite inferior to Love Will Grow. The inobtrusive and unoffensive instrumentation of the tracks is all very similar, and many of the songs are just bland. Risa Ohki's voice is, for the most part, as angelic as it was (or, to be more precise, would be) in Love Will Grow, but the unchallenging songs she performs aren't the best showcase for them and don't allow her to show much range, and the lyrics seem to be considered a less essential part of the music here than in Love Will Grow, less clever, less beautiful, and those of the English songs are mostly nonsensical Engrish. Pray's Latin-influenced track, "Esperança Do Amor", lacks the spice and verve of Love's "Estrelas". "Once You Meet Her" is pointless and insipid. The a cappella version of the FF "Prelude" is pleasant but fails to impress to the degree that it should. And the CD's eponymous vocal arrangement of the Final Fantasy main theme on track 10 (which seems to be the "grand finale" slot for the Vocal Collections discs, with track 11 being sort of an encore) is sung with such dutiful, puffed-up self-importance and forced, deafening "awe", at a syllable-by-syllable, unfluid pace reminiscent of the U.S. national anthem, that it repulses; in a way, "Pray", meant to be the CD's showpiece track, turns out to be its worst through its hokey, Hollywoodized emoting. The CD's more capable songs range from notably enjoyable to merely passable. Most on the latter end are too unsubstantial to add up to anything significantly memorable, like "The Promised Land", which has a powerful chorus and good bells (reminds me of Tibet, for some reason - but then, they are singing about a Shangri-La) but little else outstanding, or the laid-back French-provincial "Mon Petit Chat", which is not the kind of tune that grabs me personally but is nice for a song of its type. Pray does, however, turn in a bold rendition of FF6's "Tina" in "The Wanderer of Time", due in more or less equal parts to the strength of the melody, the flutes, and Risa Ohki's vocals (it's not as good as the "Tina" arrangement on Grand Finale - which was a singularly magnificent piece - and is a bit repetitive, but it's a formidable track nonetheless), and a quietly touching, simple song about unrequited love set to FF4's "Theme of Love" (though the bridge goes on a bit too long, and the piece, for the most part nicely restrained, slips into melodrama at the end). And, though I've complained about the CD's lack of innovation, we do get a most interesting, quite successful experiment to recreate a French chanson de geste in "Au Palais de Verre", the track with perhaps the richest instrumentation of the CD, convincingly Middle Ages with a slightly modern flair. But, again, truth be told, do not make the impression that LVG's songs did - save for "Não Chora Menina", an arrangement of FF6's "Kids Run through the City Corner" using only guitar and Ohki's voice, so gentle and serene and beautiful, an utter contrast to the overwrought "Pray". The rest, however, is mostly...pleasant, but not much more than that. Pray's one of the more respectable arranged CD's out there. But I'd unhesitatingly recommend Love Will Grow first.

Notes:
1. The Opera House website translates track 8's title as "In the Crystal Palace". This is incorrect; "verre" means "glass", not "crystal".
2. More on "Au Palais de Verre" - I hear that the lyrics obliquely relate the story of one of the unreleased NES FF's. Anyone know if that's true?

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