I'm dumb. Despite being so magnetized to the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack for several years, now, I'd somehow glossed over this piece that Sakimoto composed for the introductory cinematic. Several of its passages made me experience some of the most intense frisson I've gotten in . . . over a year. Just an incredible piece. Much of the song involves frequent, intense changes of dynamics (giving it a clearer narrative flavor), so you could term it as "cinematic," and that'd be OK, since -- well, yeah, it's for a montage of contrasting scenes! I can't tell how much of the instrumentation is synthetic, but it seems to be the majority. The strings may be the sole exception. Most of it's pretty different from Sakimoto's usual instrumentation. He could've been striving for a higher realism because of the importance (i.e., amount of invested money/effort) the first movie represents. It's so crazy to contrast this with the bulk of efforts from Western videogame composers who utilize the orchestral format/cinematic mode. Sakimoto packs in so much musical ambition and motifs that sing.