Eyes on Me – Faye Wong (1999)

Despite being a mystical Mecca of video gaming to most Western gamers, Japan hasn’t really seen a great deal more game-related songs make their mark on pop music. Still, it may hold the honour of having the only song specifically made for a game become a chart hit. 

Composed by the legendary Nobou Uematsu and sung by Chinese songstress and superstar Faye Wong, ‘Eyes on Me’ serves as one of the main themes in Final Fantasy VIII.

It peaked at #9 in the Japan Hot 100 chart and sold over 500,000 copies sold, making it the highest selling video game-related single released in Japan at the time.

I personally could never get into the Playstation-era Final Fantasy games (too much style over substance for my taste) so I asked the Citizen Game staff for their thoughts on ‘Eyes on Me’. Here’s what they had to say:

‘The worst Uematsu tune. Utter turd. Game is good though’ – Rich

‘Didn’t find FF VIII’s music to be as memorable as other FF titles’ – Joe

‘It’s dogshit’ – Paul

‘It all sounds the same to me’ – Mark