Late Bloomer
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Val the Moofia Boss
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Don't throw punches if you can't take them. If you want to be treated like a professional than shut your mouth and be one.
The backlash against Sena is of his own making. He applied to voice a girl character, and lo and behold he can't do it convincingly and it interrupts a lot of people's experience. And then he starts talking fluff on social media.
It seems that Yoshi-P is either being fed misinformation from the English community coordinators as to what is going on, and/or is willfully ignorant and is straight up lying about why players don't like things. But I'm sure he doesn't need someone to translate into English what's going on here. I imagine these criticisms are being reported on the Japanese forums too.
Vyvian
Educated
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Yoshida knows exactly what the issues are he's just not gonna throw his team under the bus publicly.
I've been less than pleased with Yoshida lately but we won't really know either way until we see the patches and if certain characters fade into the background or not or if the writing changes indicating a change in MSQ duties.
There's still the Kate problem, she was fine at her job when she had Koji to tard wrangle her but now that she's in control it's only going to get worse.
I've been less than pleased with Yoshida lately but we won't really know either way until we see the patches and if certain characters fade into the background or not or if the writing changes indicating a change in MSQ duties.
There's still the Kate problem, she was fine at her job when she had Koji to tard wrangle her but now that she's in control it's only going to get worse.
Thalstarion
Educated
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I think he's wanted out of the game for a while now. Even in the early years he implied that he'd rather take a step back and let someone else take over. Unfortunately he appears to have made some terrible choices on that front. Koji was fine - though he lost favour in the eyes of the nuttier elements of the community due to his dirty jokes some of which were later removed by Kate. Soken is also fine, though understandably he had health issues to wrestle with. Ishikawa is a mixed bag and too prone to retconning existing lore and sidelining characters and factions who deserve to be front and centre so she can steal that lore and prop up her blorbos instead. Not surprising given she's a fujoshi, I suppose.
I'm still annoyed that Garlemald was unceremoniously destroyed. I know a lot of people, myself included, who only invested in FFXIV due to the promise of an MMO inspired by the Ivalice games. Garlemald had the biggest potential for that. I loved how FFXII didn't destroy the Empire at the end of the game but instead left it intact with the concession of a free Dalmasca and strong ties between the new Emperor and the game's protagonists.
I'm also annoyed that Yoshi-P didn't put his foot down and allowed the game to be infested by lewd venues. One look at the FFXIV tag on Twitter shows a staggering amount of people who do not invest in the game for the actual game but because they mod it to be utterly unrecognisable. Which would be one thing if they kept it behind closed doors and to themselves, but they do not and they treat you as weird if you don't have Mare installed too. Now everything from furniture to glamour is so far removed from the classic fantasy vibes that it's just genuinely off-putting to me.
I do think Kate is largely to blame for the infantile style. Though Yoshi-P seems to have been mind broken by the pandemic and certain real world conflicts as he keeps citing them in interviews as a reason for wanting 'relaxing' content. Weird, honestly - such things have been going on all over the world for longer than any of us have been alive. Though he's probably the sort of guy to take the mainstream media at face value and work himself up into a frenzy at their command.
I'm still annoyed that Garlemald was unceremoniously destroyed. I know a lot of people, myself included, who only invested in FFXIV due to the promise of an MMO inspired by the Ivalice games. Garlemald had the biggest potential for that. I loved how FFXII didn't destroy the Empire at the end of the game but instead left it intact with the concession of a free Dalmasca and strong ties between the new Emperor and the game's protagonists.
I'm also annoyed that Yoshi-P didn't put his foot down and allowed the game to be infested by lewd venues. One look at the FFXIV tag on Twitter shows a staggering amount of people who do not invest in the game for the actual game but because they mod it to be utterly unrecognisable. Which would be one thing if they kept it behind closed doors and to themselves, but they do not and they treat you as weird if you don't have Mare installed too. Now everything from furniture to glamour is so far removed from the classic fantasy vibes that it's just genuinely off-putting to me.
I do think Kate is largely to blame for the infantile style. Though Yoshi-P seems to have been mind broken by the pandemic and certain real world conflicts as he keeps citing them in interviews as a reason for wanting 'relaxing' content. Weird, honestly - such things have been going on all over the world for longer than any of us have been alive. Though he's probably the sort of guy to take the mainstream media at face value and work himself up into a frenzy at their command.
Vyvian
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I kind of expected Garlemald to get sidelined entirely for awhile because Yoshida seemed to bristle when fans talked about them being cool or understanding them.
I feel like he wanted Garlemald to be seen as "evil" by the community and when people kept asking for Garlean themes and content he would always kind of recoil and act surprised.
I fully believe it's a reason why they assassinated Varis' character so badly in the later Stormblood patches. If you recall he was seen as a brutal but also honorable leader and his men looked up to him a great deal but then they just turned him into a complete idiot with no sense of honor or decency at all.
I feel like he wanted Garlemald to be seen as "evil" by the community and when people kept asking for Garlean themes and content he would always kind of recoil and act surprised.
I fully believe it's a reason why they assassinated Varis' character so badly in the later Stormblood patches. If you recall he was seen as a brutal but also honorable leader and his men looked up to him a great deal but then they just turned him into a complete idiot with no sense of honor or decency at all.
Thalstarion
Educated
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I think he was also scared of the unhinged elements of the community that flooded the game right around the time the weird Twitter/Tumblr crowd became the most vocal portion of the fandom. Before that point, Garlemald was being built up in the background in such a way as to suggest that it would get its own expansion. It had many fans, many of us who posted regularly on the official forum, only to have the deranged nutters regularly threaten to kill us for being 'fascists'.
I also do not think he understands the appeal of Garleans and how - much like the Blood Elves of WoW - a race prioritising their own after nearly being wiped out and vowing to do whatever is necessary to survive is inherently more sympathetic than a bunch of juiced up self proclaimed 'heroes' who are granted every special power and are even brought back from the dead as opposed to suffering any real, meaningful losses.
Even in the context of the story, Varis losing Regula - a guy he grew up with and served alongside in battle for decades as his best friend - was far more tragic than Haurchefant who just wanted to bang the player character and knew the Warrior of Light for a few weeks or months at most. Of course, neither the game itself or the community acknowledge that and seemed to actively avoid following up on any of the original plot hooks established for Garlemald.
It's the same with how he approached FFXVI. Dion proved to be a fairly popular character but he was aligned with the Empire and never wavered in his loyalty to it. He wasn't present in the DLC and Yoshi-P deflected away from him in interviews. Unfortunate as Dion was one of the more tolerable aspects of the game.
I also do not think he understands the appeal of Garleans and how - much like the Blood Elves of WoW - a race prioritising their own after nearly being wiped out and vowing to do whatever is necessary to survive is inherently more sympathetic than a bunch of juiced up self proclaimed 'heroes' who are granted every special power and are even brought back from the dead as opposed to suffering any real, meaningful losses.
Even in the context of the story, Varis losing Regula - a guy he grew up with and served alongside in battle for decades as his best friend - was far more tragic than Haurchefant who just wanted to bang the player character and knew the Warrior of Light for a few weeks or months at most. Of course, neither the game itself or the community acknowledge that and seemed to actively avoid following up on any of the original plot hooks established for Garlemald.
It's the same with how he approached FFXVI. Dion proved to be a fairly popular character but he was aligned with the Empire and never wavered in his loyalty to it. He wasn't present in the DLC and Yoshi-P deflected away from him in interviews. Unfortunate as Dion was one of the more tolerable aspects of the game.
Val the Moofia Boss
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New interview where Yoshida asks players not to unsub because long term content is coming... maybe next year in 7.3 given that we are going 4+ months in between patches.
Thalstarion
Educated
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He has no consistent stances whatsoever. Even between interviews he'll say one thing and then contradict himself the next, all in the desperate appeasement of the dregs of society that flock to the game to promote their disgusting modbeast degeneracy.
A great many players who were actually invested in the game and story identified the issues years ago. They asked, politely and constructively, for more content with staying power and yet he failed to provide it. Worse yet, he clearly had plans for more Eureka and Bozja style content but decided to scrap it in favour of the slop he's put out in the form of Dawntrail.
At this point he's pretty much dug himself a giant hole to sit in. The modbeast crowd don't want anything that'll distract them from hanging out in their 'venues'. The super casual crowd who have a panic attack if they ever have to interact with another player will screech endlessly that they're 'missing out' if more Bozja/Eureka style content is implemented.
Many veteran players have since left the game altogether for various reasons. Many of whom have no intention of ever returning. Combined with Square Enix as a whole losing favour due to doubling down on ESG/DEI and catering almost exclusively to autogynephiles, he must be getting desperate.
There's credible theories that he wants out of the project and doesn't care much for FFXIV these days but he's bound by contract and gets a lot of favours/perks by flying all over the world to attend 'exclusive' events. Reading between the lines, though, he seems completely oblivious to any meaningful feedback which isn't helped by the nutty English localisation team being comprised of danger hair freaks. I certainly wouldn't trust them to translate any meaningful feedback correctly - and certainly, their track record has been to double down on ensuring that Yoshi-P and the rest of the team are distracted by requests for gpose nonsense and gender unlocked gear.
The game is also a decade old at this point and doesn't appear to be inclined to invest in meaningful improvements. Even the graphics update is very safe and sanitised without really addressing any of the complaints that have been floating around for years...such as how jarring it is for Highlander men now to have proper eyebrows or better facial options.
At any rate, I doubt he'll learn any lessons and the patch content/next expansion is inevitably going to double down on the subversive shitlib narratives and tropes whilst the new English localisation lead continues to hire deranged nutjobs like Wuk Lamat's English VA. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before one of the few reasonable individuals still tied to the game is cancelled by the batshit elements of the community for the 'crime' of wrong think like Susan Calloway (the original singer of Answers/Dragonsong/Revolutions). In itself that was interesting timing given that Soken had his ex-Only Fans thot, Amanda Achen, lined up to replace her not only in FFXIV but at Distant Worlds as well.
At least she fits in better with the game's current community, I guess.
A great many players who were actually invested in the game and story identified the issues years ago. They asked, politely and constructively, for more content with staying power and yet he failed to provide it. Worse yet, he clearly had plans for more Eureka and Bozja style content but decided to scrap it in favour of the slop he's put out in the form of Dawntrail.
At this point he's pretty much dug himself a giant hole to sit in. The modbeast crowd don't want anything that'll distract them from hanging out in their 'venues'. The super casual crowd who have a panic attack if they ever have to interact with another player will screech endlessly that they're 'missing out' if more Bozja/Eureka style content is implemented.
Many veteran players have since left the game altogether for various reasons. Many of whom have no intention of ever returning. Combined with Square Enix as a whole losing favour due to doubling down on ESG/DEI and catering almost exclusively to autogynephiles, he must be getting desperate.
There's credible theories that he wants out of the project and doesn't care much for FFXIV these days but he's bound by contract and gets a lot of favours/perks by flying all over the world to attend 'exclusive' events. Reading between the lines, though, he seems completely oblivious to any meaningful feedback which isn't helped by the nutty English localisation team being comprised of danger hair freaks. I certainly wouldn't trust them to translate any meaningful feedback correctly - and certainly, their track record has been to double down on ensuring that Yoshi-P and the rest of the team are distracted by requests for gpose nonsense and gender unlocked gear.
The game is also a decade old at this point and doesn't appear to be inclined to invest in meaningful improvements. Even the graphics update is very safe and sanitised without really addressing any of the complaints that have been floating around for years...such as how jarring it is for Highlander men now to have proper eyebrows or better facial options.
At any rate, I doubt he'll learn any lessons and the patch content/next expansion is inevitably going to double down on the subversive shitlib narratives and tropes whilst the new English localisation lead continues to hire deranged nutjobs like Wuk Lamat's English VA. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before one of the few reasonable individuals still tied to the game is cancelled by the batshit elements of the community for the 'crime' of wrong think like Susan Calloway (the original singer of Answers/Dragonsong/Revolutions). In itself that was interesting timing given that Soken had his ex-Only Fans thot, Amanda Achen, lined up to replace her not only in FFXIV but at Distant Worlds as well.
At least she fits in better with the game's current community, I guess.
I'm just watching from the sidelines until 8.0 is around the corner.
Part of me just doesn't want to give up hope, even though I fully expect Japanese Todd Howard to disappoint yet again.
Shadowbringers ruined the game, and they've been unrelenting in sticking to that direction.
The writing was still good, and it completely carried what was left of the game until the end of Endwalker.
But Endwalker's Post-Game dropped the ball, and from what I hear Yawntrail was a complete fumble.
With the narrative no longer captivating the audience, just about everyone can now see the rotten foundation that has been left to fester.
That's 5 full years they could've and should've spent fixing the game.
Instead squandered on an unnecessary graphical update and ruining all the old content so game journalists can get carried through it.
At this point I am completely despondent about the state of the game, I suspect I won't even give 8.0 a chance if by some miracle they actually make the game fun again.
Part of me just doesn't want to give up hope, even though I fully expect Japanese Todd Howard to disappoint yet again.
Shadowbringers ruined the game, and they've been unrelenting in sticking to that direction.
The writing was still good, and it completely carried what was left of the game until the end of Endwalker.
But Endwalker's Post-Game dropped the ball, and from what I hear Yawntrail was a complete fumble.
With the narrative no longer captivating the audience, just about everyone can now see the rotten foundation that has been left to fester.
That's 5 full years they could've and should've spent fixing the game.
Instead squandered on an unnecessary graphical update and ruining all the old content so game journalists can get carried through it.
At this point I am completely despondent about the state of the game, I suspect I won't even give 8.0 a chance if by some miracle they actually make the game fun again.
Vyvian
Educated
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Dawntrail has really shaken my faith in Yoshida that's for sure. Especially recent interviews where he appears to be completely out of touch with why people hated the story and Wuk Lamat specifically.
My cope is that he doesn't want to publicly throw his team under the bus but I'm not so sure anymore. I would not be surprised at all if the only western feedback he gets his heavily filtered by the DEI-infested localization and community teams.
The Japanese absolutely hate Wuk Lamat and the DT main story so there is some hope there since he does personally read Japanese forums and feedback but that raises another issue, even if he wants to course correct who would do it?
He's gutted the actual talented people from the FFXIV team to work on SE's next AAA flop. Koji was "promoted" so he doesn't directly control localization anymore, Ishikawa is rumored to be working on the next mainline FF game or some other AAA project.
Hiroi, the lead writer of DT, is a proven bust that should've remained on the side-story bench. Stunning to me Yoshida even put him in charge of DT in the first place. Dawntrail was meant to be the launchpad of the next 10 years of FFXIV storyline, why he would put an untested guy in charge of that is beyond me. Logic dictates he would put the best of who he has there to make sure people were hooked and locked in for the next 10 years and if Hiroi is that right now then it's a grim sign for the future of the game.
My cope is that he doesn't want to publicly throw his team under the bus but I'm not so sure anymore. I would not be surprised at all if the only western feedback he gets his heavily filtered by the DEI-infested localization and community teams.
The Japanese absolutely hate Wuk Lamat and the DT main story so there is some hope there since he does personally read Japanese forums and feedback but that raises another issue, even if he wants to course correct who would do it?
He's gutted the actual talented people from the FFXIV team to work on SE's next AAA flop. Koji was "promoted" so he doesn't directly control localization anymore, Ishikawa is rumored to be working on the next mainline FF game or some other AAA project.
Hiroi, the lead writer of DT, is a proven bust that should've remained on the side-story bench. Stunning to me Yoshida even put him in charge of DT in the first place. Dawntrail was meant to be the launchpad of the next 10 years of FFXIV storyline, why he would put an untested guy in charge of that is beyond me. Logic dictates he would put the best of who he has there to make sure people were hooked and locked in for the next 10 years and if Hiroi is that right now then it's a grim sign for the future of the game.
Big_poppa_pump
Literate
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- Oct 20, 2024
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- 44
I played XIV mostly as a hater of MMOs, I had a group of friends who kinda got me into it and I already enjoyed Final Fantasy as a series. I think personally I love Shadowbringers it is a top 5 FF story for me, I could honestly care less for most of the other MMO aspects though so I barely have any say on this "endgame" talk however I like this mentality, I have done a few of the side Raid questlines and some completed some extremes however I cant diss Yoshi Ps quote if the game does not interest you drop the sub, and come back when something new is there. Its clear the game is entering its final stages and a new Final Fantasy MMO has to be in the works. Final Fantasy XI is still alive and taking subs so if people wanna stay they will.
Not really, they've always sent those out.
It just looks more plentiful because mogtomes have become a permanent fixture of every 'end-of-patch' cycle since endwalker.
Plus there was the whole marketing blitz for Dawntrail in June/July.
Falksi
Arcane
Thalstarion
Educated
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He's doing it again, the utter moron:
Data4
Arcane
It's not rocket science. Get normal people to voice your characters and avoid controversy.He's doing it again, the utter moron:
Val the Moofia Boss
Scholar
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I think these Japanese devs don't care. Fans have tried to warn companies such as Atlus and Falcom for years about what the English localizers are doing, and they don't do anything. 
Val the Moofia Boss
Scholar
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Review of the FF14 Blu-Ray Soundtrack Albums
I am not sure how many people will care about this, but I will shoot anyways. I think FF14's OST is overrated - it does not have a high hit rate like a Falcom OST - but there are 60 to 100 songs on each album, so even with a low hit rate that's still a lot of good songs. I am not good at articulating my thoughts on the individual parts of a song, so I usually won't bother. This is more of a review of the albums themselves than the tracks on them.
The first album, Before Meteor, contains music from the original 1.0 incarnation of the game. Most of the music was by the inseparable duo of Nobuo Uematsu and Tsutomu Narita, which are pleasing to listen to. Uematsu does the compositions which Narita arranges/synthesizes. Narita would later go on to compose his own stuff in Granblue Fantasy without Uematsu. The tracks are overall longer compared to what comes in later albums, are not as noisy, and have nice synthesizers. They are almost atmospheric while still being melodic. You also have some stuff by Naoshi Mizuta (composer for the FFXI expansions) in there. This has been the best album so far, and it says a lot that Uematsu's cutscene music is still being used 10 years later, though sadly you can only listen to the same dozen or so cutscenes tracks so many times over the course of a 400+ hour long visual novel. Seldom are new new cutscene tracks created, and not in enough quantity.
You can right click the blu-ray disc in file explorer, open it in a new window, and there is a folder of MP3s ready and waiting for you to copy onto your computer. You can also go to the extra menu and there are instructions to connect to a port download the songs from Square's servers, but they are MP3s just like the ones you already have on the disc you're using to read those instructions so I don't understand what is the point of that.
A nice thing about the first two blu-ray albums is that they had illustrations and concept art being shown while the music is playing. Some of these illustrations are higher rez than anything I can find by reverse image searches or browsing wikis or boorus online. Some of the images, I can't find online anywhere, not even at low rez. Unfortunately, downloading them is a pain in the ass since I am using Windows 11 and can't printscreen while using PowerDVD. I have to take a picture with my phone and then copy that onto my computer.
My favorite tracks:
The second album, A Realm Reborn, contains music from the 2.0 relaunch of the game. By this point Uematsu and Narita are gone and only make one song here and there, usually a vocal trailer song that may or may not play in the actual game. This is where Masayoshi Soken comes in, who people online seem to think is the only guy composing FFXIV's OST. Doesn't help he's the only one who gets shown on livestreams or interviews or put on stage at Fanfest. He has put out some good stuff, but compositionally his music tends to focus too much on repeating a single melody/phrase over and over which can quickly become grating, unlike Uematsu's tracks which tend to have multiple different parts to them. Also, Soken's music tends to be a little "noisy", as in there is too much stuff going off too often. I'm mainly thinking of his orchestral sounding tracks here. His synth/electronic styled tracks sound good, though.
Sadly the other composers don't get talked about anywhere near as much. Here are a few of the people on the FFXIV sound team:
The gold gradient version looks way better than the solid blue.
The third album, Before the Fall, contains music added in the 2.1 through 2.55 patches. This is the first blu-ray disc so far not to display any illustrations or concept art or character designs showing during the music. Instead it only shows pan overs of ingame screenshots, which I found to be disappointing and seems to be the trend going forward.
Starting with this album, there are bonus videos in the extra submenu. This one has a 47 minute long piano recital of FFXIV tracks by Keiko Osaki from one of the fan festivals. It would have been nice if these had been in the MP3 folder too, even if it's just concert quality. Maybe they're on that new FFXIV piano arrange album I haven't gotten to yet. Also, Masayoshi performs a silly skit. There is also a video of the band concert where they do rock covers of the boss themes. The King Moogle Mog skit featuring Koji Fox (the lead English localizer, is also the vocalist for several songs) was fun.
My favorite tracks:
The silver gradient version is the winner here.
The fourth album, Heavensward, contains tracks added at the launch of the titular 3.0 expansion. Now this is where I as a player of the game have a complaint. Soken rehashes the same theme with hardly any real variation a lot in several tracks which you hear over and over ingame. Whenever you visit the city of Ishgard, whenever you're doing a Heavensward dungeon boss fight, or when you're going through the story and hear the same melody in cutscenes over and over. It isn't bad to experience when listening to it on an album, though.
I forgot how nice the HW battle theme "Melt" was. Probably my favorite normal battle theme in the game, though again (as typical with Soken music) it's too short and needs more parts rather than just being the same tune playing throughout. It's a shame that you hardly get to hear the normal battle music in the game, since you only fight mobs when going through the story and you obliterate them in 10 seconds, and if you do come back to a zone after beating the story, it's usually to do FATEs which have their own music playing.
Oddly, this album does not have the first track from the benchmark trailer, even though other FFXIV albums contain tracks that only appeared in trailers outside of the game.
Soken was so overworked, he didn't have time to write comments, so he has Takada write comments instead. They're a little more interesting than the comments on the prior two albums:
My favorite tracks:
The fifth album, The Far Edge of Fate, contains tracks added in the 3.1 through 3.55 patches for the Heavensward expansion. Starting with this release, if you open the plastic packaging, there is a cardboard bonus code wrapped around the spine of the album, which you can redeem on the FFXIV website to get a minion/pet ingame. In this case, you can get a minion of the big bad of Heavensward, Nidhogg, who has a really cool design. Sadly the minion's head is oversized and he looks a little too cartoony for me to use. Wish it had looked more real/serious like the minion of his father Midgardsomr. I'll just stick with my Moogle. The prior albums also had this cardboard wrap around, but the minions for them were retired so no code was printed on them.
This album also has a 44 minute long video of a piano recital at Tokyo Fanfest 2016 by pianist Keiko Osaki. I liked the covers of Answers (featuring Susan Calloway) and Borderless. Unfortunately they were not included in the MP3 folder, which is disappointing. Masayoshi Soken also shows up for a couple of silly skits.
These are - to my knowledge - the most highly produced soundtrack albums for a game ever produced. I own World of Warcraft soundtracks, but they don't have the snazzy presentation of pan overs of illustrations or screenshots, subtitled lyrics, composer comments, bonus videos, easy access to the MP3 files, etc. You just put it into the disc tray and it plays songs and you press the fast forward or skip buttons and that's it. Nor do the WoW soundtracks actually have all of the tracks; they only have some of the expansion launch tracks (no patch albums) and only one variation of that track rather than all of the variations. Pretty disappointing for the biggest MMO and highest grossing game of all time.
My favorite tracks:
If there was a patch album, should it have been a gold or silver gradient?
The sixth album, Stormblood, contains tracks from the titular 2nd expansion. The nice thing about this release is that it doesn't just contain the launch tracks like the A Realm Reborn and Heavensward albums, but also contains the patch tracks up through 4.3. The next album, Shadowbringers, doesn't actually start at Shadowbringers but at the patch 4.4 tracks, so there is no 4.1 through 4.5 Stormblood patch album like with 2.1 through 2.5 Before the Fall or 3.1 through 3.5 Far Edge of Fate. So you're saving $50. Wow! Sure would have been nice if you only had to pay $50 for X.0 expansion albums that include all the patch tracks too! The entire soundtrack would have cost half! But no. The Shadowbringers album doesn't contain any 5.X patch tracks, so you're back to paying $50 for X.0 expansion albums and then another $50 for X.1 through X.5 patch albums.
Admittedly Square has strong business incentive to do this, not just to get another $50/make twice as much money, but to have a chance at actually selling people an album before they forget about the game. When I taking game dev classes, the instructor told us that DLC has to release within 90 days of a game's launch or else no one will buy it because everyone will have moved on. The Stormblood OST came out over a year after the launch of the expansion, and a month and a half after patch 4.3 released, so the excitement would have worn off of people who played through the expansion the year prior and they might not have cared or known about an album release. Whereas if people beat an expansion and then find out that there is an album they can buy immediately (or is coming out within a few weeks), they would probably be much more likely to spend money.
Starting with this album, the composer comments also have an English translation, so no more having to use the phone to take pictures and then throw them into Deepl.
Some interesting notes:
"Revolutions" is my favorite Uematsu vocal song he's done for FF14, but sadly it never plays in the actual game. Interestingly, the version on the OST has a part in the middle that is completely different from the version on the Youtube trailer.
Curiously, the instrumental version of Revolutions that plays during cutscenes is not on the OST.
There is another completely unused vocal song on the Stormblood OST: a version of Beauty's Wicked Wiles (Lakshimi theme) with a younger voice.
As for extras, there are two short music videos, nothing interesting here.
My favorite tracks:
The seventh album, Shadowbringers, for the titular 3rd expansion. Also contains the tracks from the 4.4 and 4.5 patches of the prior Stormblood expansion.
I forgot how ear grating the ShB battle theme was. Goodness!
I like the piano second half of "To Fire and Sword" (Holminster Switch theme) but the first half is eh.
"Our Fates Alight" by Takafumi Imamura is a great theme. One of the best I've heard on this album. Too bad you hardly hear it ingame, as it is restricted to you using a rare flying mount with the mount music turned on (which means you're not hearing the zone themes). Also sounds like a prototype for the Endwalker arrangement of "The Day Will Come".
My favorite tracks:
The eigth album, "Death Unto Dawn", contains tracks from the Shadowbringers 5.X patches.
Starting with this album, the "Soken's Comment" header is replaced by the more appropriately titled "Musician's comment", given how Soken wasn't composing every single track.
I am reminded by how ear grating the new ShB mid-dungeon boss battle music is (Dissidia remix of Insatiable). They never should have changed it.
This album too has lackluster extras, the most lackluster thus far. It's just the tracks Shadowbringers and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which I already heard on the previous album.
My favorite tracks:
The Ninth album, "Endwalker", containing tracks from the titular fourth expansion.
There are a few tracks I like here, but overall do not love this OST. Most songs are too simple and short, repeating the same melody over and over with little variation on a micro level in instrumentation or feel in the song. Same tone throughout. The Musician's Comments keep complaining about being rushed for time, so perhaps that is responsible for why the FF14 soundtrack usually feels like this. You rarely get 3 or 4+ minute long tracks with a variety of parts like the 1.0 or 2.0 tracks, or like Solid.
I noticed that the Endcaller (Zodiark theme) musician comment was by Soken, and made no mention that it was actually Yoshitaka Suzuki who arranged it from Soken's base Endwalker melody (as per the booklet inside the Blu-Ray). Would have been nice to have read a comment from the actual person who made the track.
Extra 1 is a one hour long recording of Primals concert, where they do some new Shadowbringers songs as well as some old tracks.
Extra 2 is a live action Endwalker music video... when Endwalker already appeared on this album twice!
Extra 3 is a 90 second Chiptune arrange of Endwalker. I don't know why SE thought this song was good enough to warrant being on the album four times. It isn't. If I had to pick, I preferred the first trailer rendition of Endwalker to the vocals in the final release, and this Chiptune version.
My favorite tracks:
The tenth album, "Growing Light", contains tracks from the Endwalker 6.X patches.
Two new people join the sound team, Saya Yasaki and Justin Frieden (our first foreigner?).
There is ergregious padding on this album. Why are "On Blade's Edge", "Finality", "Heroes Forge Ahead", when they were already on the previous? And then we have EIGHT Heavensward tracks reused here: "The Heaven's Ward", "Heroes", "Freefall", "Contention", "Hallowed Halls", "Heavensward", "Dragonsong", and "Primogenitor". And then "Deltascape", "Heartless", "From the Heavens orchestra ver", "eScape", and "Torn from the Heavens concert ver", "Looping in the Deepest Fringes", "Storm of Blood", "Triumph", again from Stormblood? Come on. They knew people expected 60+ tracks at the very least on a FFXIV OST album, but didn't produce that many for the Endwalker patches so now they are just reusing old stuff as filler.
I don't think the horn samples in "Deep Blue" sound very good, certainly not as grandiose as they could have been.
"Sorrow and Loss" sticks out to me more hearing it outside of the game than during an overly drawn out visual novel cutscene when I am fed up with late-stage FF14's story direction.
It is getting a little old reading all of these musician's comments about "we were overworked and had a tight deadline". Would have been nice if they gave us more actually insightful information as to what they were thinking or the construction of the song or techniques employed.
Extra 1 is a concert cover of Scream
Extra 2 is a concert cover of Flow
My favorite tracks:
I am not sure how many people will care about this, but I will shoot anyways. I think FF14's OST is overrated - it does not have a high hit rate like a Falcom OST - but there are 60 to 100 songs on each album, so even with a low hit rate that's still a lot of good songs. I am not good at articulating my thoughts on the individual parts of a song, so I usually won't bother. This is more of a review of the albums themselves than the tracks on them.
The first album, Before Meteor, contains music from the original 1.0 incarnation of the game. Most of the music was by the inseparable duo of Nobuo Uematsu and Tsutomu Narita, which are pleasing to listen to. Uematsu does the compositions which Narita arranges/synthesizes. Narita would later go on to compose his own stuff in Granblue Fantasy without Uematsu. The tracks are overall longer compared to what comes in later albums, are not as noisy, and have nice synthesizers. They are almost atmospheric while still being melodic. You also have some stuff by Naoshi Mizuta (composer for the FFXI expansions) in there. This has been the best album so far, and it says a lot that Uematsu's cutscene music is still being used 10 years later, though sadly you can only listen to the same dozen or so cutscenes tracks so many times over the course of a 400+ hour long visual novel. Seldom are new new cutscene tracks created, and not in enough quantity.
You can right click the blu-ray disc in file explorer, open it in a new window, and there is a folder of MP3s ready and waiting for you to copy onto your computer. You can also go to the extra menu and there are instructions to connect to a port download the songs from Square's servers, but they are MP3s just like the ones you already have on the disc you're using to read those instructions so I don't understand what is the point of that.
A nice thing about the first two blu-ray albums is that they had illustrations and concept art being shown while the music is playing. Some of these illustrations are higher rez than anything I can find by reverse image searches or browsing wikis or boorus online. Some of the images, I can't find online anywhere, not even at low rez. Unfortunately, downloading them is a pain in the ass since I am using Windows 11 and can't printscreen while using PowerDVD. I have to take a picture with my phone and then copy that onto my computer.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Prelude - Remembrance | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Nail of the Heavens | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | The Twin Faces of Fate - The Theme of Ul'dah | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Twilight over Thanalan | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Pennons Aloft | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Phantoms on the Lake | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Horizons Calling | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | No Quarter | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | With these Hands | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | When a Tree Falls | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Sacred Bonds | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Fragments of Forever | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Tranquility | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Nemesis | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Maelstrom Command | Naoshi Mizuta | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Dreams Aloft | Ryo Yamazaki | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Quick as Silver, Hard as Stone | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Meteor | Ryo Yamazaki | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | The Rider's Boon | Tsuyoshi Sekito | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Breaking Boundaries | Masayoshi Soken | Tsuyoshi Sekito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Relics | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Agent of Inquiry | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Steel Reason | Nobuo Uematsu | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Fallen Angel | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 1.0 BEFORE METEOR | Answers | Nobuo Uematsu | Vocalist is Susan Calloway |
The second album, A Realm Reborn, contains music from the 2.0 relaunch of the game. By this point Uematsu and Narita are gone and only make one song here and there, usually a vocal trailer song that may or may not play in the actual game. This is where Masayoshi Soken comes in, who people online seem to think is the only guy composing FFXIV's OST. Doesn't help he's the only one who gets shown on livestreams or interviews or put on stage at Fanfest. He has put out some good stuff, but compositionally his music tends to focus too much on repeating a single melody/phrase over and over which can quickly become grating, unlike Uematsu's tracks which tend to have multiple different parts to them. Also, Soken's music tends to be a little "noisy", as in there is too much stuff going off too often. I'm mainly thinking of his orchestral sounding tracks here. His synth/electronic styled tracks sound good, though.
Sadly the other composers don't get talked about anywhere near as much. Here are a few of the people on the FFXIV sound team:
- Yoshitaka Suzuki (Bayonetta, and did some Metal Gear Solid stuff. Most recognizable for the epic choir tracks like the Shinryu theme "Worm's Tail" or the Zodiark boss theme "Endcaller")
- Tsuyoshi Sekito (did the awesome powermetal tracks for The Last Remnant composer)
- Ryo Takahashi (various anime OSTs)
- Ken Ito (has done a lot of doujin albums)
- Yukiko Takada (according to VGMDB, FFXIV was the first thing he ever composed for)
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Prelude - Rebirth | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Torn from the Heavens | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | A New Hope | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Sultana Dreaming | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | On Westerly Winds | Masayoshi Soken | The Raincatcher Gully part later on. | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Wailers And Waterwheels | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Serenity | Masayoshi Soken | The last part | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Nemesis | Nobuo Uematsu | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Where the Heart Is | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Where the Hearth Is | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Thunderer | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Intertwined | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Through the Gloom | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Penitus | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | The Maker's Ruin | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.0 A REALM REBORN | Flight | Masayoshi Soken |
The gold gradient version looks way better than the solid blue.
The third album, Before the Fall, contains music added in the 2.1 through 2.55 patches. This is the first blu-ray disc so far not to display any illustrations or concept art or character designs showing during the music. Instead it only shows pan overs of ingame screenshots, which I found to be disappointing and seems to be the trend going forward.
This album also has a seemingly repeat songs from the prior two albums. According to the translated comment, the "Rise of the White Raven" here has been updated with a new violin sample. Not sure if that's true for the other repeat songs.
Starting with this album, there are bonus videos in the extra submenu. This one has a 47 minute long piano recital of FFXIV tracks by Keiko Osaki from one of the fan festivals. It would have been nice if these had been in the MP3 folder too, even if it's just concert quality. Maybe they're on that new FFXIV piano arrange album I haven't gotten to yet. Also, Masayoshi performs a silly skit. There is also a video of the band concert where they do rock covers of the boss themes. The King Moogle Mog skit featuring Koji Fox (the lead English localizer, is also the vocalist for several songs) was fun.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Persistence | Nobuo Uematsu | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Blades | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Game Theory | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Out of the Labyrinth | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Shattered | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | A Light in the Storm | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 2.5 BEFORE THE FALL | Sport of Kings | Nobuo Uematsu | Masayoshi Soken |
The silver gradient version is the winner here.
The fourth album, Heavensward, contains tracks added at the launch of the titular 3.0 expansion. Now this is where I as a player of the game have a complaint. Soken rehashes the same theme with hardly any real variation a lot in several tracks which you hear over and over ingame. Whenever you visit the city of Ishgard, whenever you're doing a Heavensward dungeon boss fight, or when you're going through the story and hear the same melody in cutscenes over and over. It isn't bad to experience when listening to it on an album, though.
I forgot how nice the HW battle theme "Melt" was. Probably my favorite normal battle theme in the game, though again (as typical with Soken music) it's too short and needs more parts rather than just being the same tune playing throughout. It's a shame that you hardly get to hear the normal battle music in the game, since you only fight mobs when going through the story and you obliterate them in 10 seconds, and if you do come back to a zone after beating the story, it's usually to do FATEs which have their own music playing.
Oddly, this album does not have the first track from the benchmark trailer, even though other FFXIV albums contain tracks that only appeared in trailers outside of the game.
Soken was so overworked, he didn't have time to write comments, so he has Takada write comments instead. They're a little more interesting than the comments on the prior two albums:
- A new person was brought onboard the sound team, Takada. Soken asked him if he could arrange 5 songs in one week, when normally that would take a month.
- The sound team was constantly pressed for time. They're worried that the songs aren't good enough.
- For some songs, they're so pressed for time that they're just straight up reusing stuff they recorded earlier, such as piano music in the Dravania dungeons.
- Eventually they tell management to scale back the orders.
- Soken is working late into the night.
- By the time they begin work on the 3.1 patch alliance raid music, the team is in poor physical health. They begin devoting an hour every day to muscle training.
- The original Bismarck music was thrown out and then overhauled for use as the Alexander song, Locus.
- The Ishgard pillars songs were originally meant to be used for the Foundation. They were originally darker, but then Takada arranged them and made them "classier" so they got used for the top level instead.
- They wanted to make the final zone, Azys Lla, a little more special than your typical field zone, so they made the music sound more like dungeon music, but not as fast tempo.
- There were only supposed to be three Alexander songs for 3.0, but after making them Soken felt uneasy and decided to make Metal overnight.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Heavensward | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Solid | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki, Masayoshi Soken | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Melt | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Descent | Masayoshi Soken | Ryo Takahashi | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Nobility Sleeps | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Lost in the Clouds | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Coming Home | Yukiko Takada | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Landlords | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Unbreakable | Masayoshi Soken | Ryo Takahashi, Masayoshi Soken | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Dragonsong | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | Vocalist is Susan Calloway |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Locus | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.0 HEAVENSWARD | Nobility Obliges | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada & Masayoshi Soken |
The fifth album, The Far Edge of Fate, contains tracks added in the 3.1 through 3.55 patches for the Heavensward expansion. Starting with this release, if you open the plastic packaging, there is a cardboard bonus code wrapped around the spine of the album, which you can redeem on the FFXIV website to get a minion/pet ingame. In this case, you can get a minion of the big bad of Heavensward, Nidhogg, who has a really cool design. Sadly the minion's head is oversized and he looks a little too cartoony for me to use. Wish it had looked more real/serious like the minion of his father Midgardsomr. I'll just stick with my Moogle. The prior albums also had this cardboard wrap around, but the minions for them were retired so no code was printed on them.
This album also has a 44 minute long video of a piano recital at Tokyo Fanfest 2016 by pianist Keiko Osaki. I liked the covers of Answers (featuring Susan Calloway) and Borderless. Unfortunately they were not included in the MP3 folder, which is disappointing. Masayoshi Soken also shows up for a couple of silly skits.
These are - to my knowledge - the most highly produced soundtrack albums for a game ever produced. I own World of Warcraft soundtracks, but they don't have the snazzy presentation of pan overs of illustrations or screenshots, subtitled lyrics, composer comments, bonus videos, easy access to the MP3 files, etc. You just put it into the disc tray and it plays songs and you press the fast forward or skip buttons and that's it. Nor do the WoW soundtracks actually have all of the tracks; they only have some of the expansion launch tracks (no patch albums) and only one variation of that track rather than all of the variations. Pretty disappointing for the biggest MMO and highest grossing game of all time.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Fiend | Masayoshi Soken | Vocalist is Dan Inoue | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Down the Up Staircase | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Revenge Twofold | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | The Kiss | Yukiko Takada | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | The Ancient City | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Metal - Brute Justice Mode | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | Vocalists are Masayoshi Soken and Koji Fox |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Apologies | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Only the Dead | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Tears for Mor Dhona | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | The Gauntlet | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | He who Continues the Attack | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Equilibrium | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 3.5 THE FAR EDGE OF FATE | Scale and Steel | Masayoshi Soken | Sachiko Miyano |
If there was a patch album, should it have been a gold or silver gradient?
The sixth album, Stormblood, contains tracks from the titular 2nd expansion. The nice thing about this release is that it doesn't just contain the launch tracks like the A Realm Reborn and Heavensward albums, but also contains the patch tracks up through 4.3. The next album, Shadowbringers, doesn't actually start at Shadowbringers but at the patch 4.4 tracks, so there is no 4.1 through 4.5 Stormblood patch album like with 2.1 through 2.5 Before the Fall or 3.1 through 3.5 Far Edge of Fate. So you're saving $50. Wow! Sure would have been nice if you only had to pay $50 for X.0 expansion albums that include all the patch tracks too! The entire soundtrack would have cost half! But no. The Shadowbringers album doesn't contain any 5.X patch tracks, so you're back to paying $50 for X.0 expansion albums and then another $50 for X.1 through X.5 patch albums.
Admittedly Square has strong business incentive to do this, not just to get another $50/make twice as much money, but to have a chance at actually selling people an album before they forget about the game. When I taking game dev classes, the instructor told us that DLC has to release within 90 days of a game's launch or else no one will buy it because everyone will have moved on. The Stormblood OST came out over a year after the launch of the expansion, and a month and a half after patch 4.3 released, so the excitement would have worn off of people who played through the expansion the year prior and they might not have cared or known about an album release. Whereas if people beat an expansion and then find out that there is an album they can buy immediately (or is coming out within a few weeks), they would probably be much more likely to spend money.
Starting with this album, the composer comments also have an English translation, so no more having to use the phone to take pictures and then throw them into Deepl.
Some interesting notes:
- Wing and a Prayer was originally made for a demo video that didn't happen, but was reused as the Falcon porter theme.
- Cradle was originally supposed to be used for Kugane, but it didn't mesh with the story so it was reused as a town theme.
- Heroes of the Stormblood was supposed to be the Rhalgr's Reach music but wound up being too gung-ho and was nearly scrapped, but was instead reused as cutscene music.
- The nighttime songs are usually piano and they were able to make one per day.
- According to the comment on the "Gates of the Moon" track, it sounds like there is a very different version of the Doma Castle theme that isn't on the soundtrack, and I can't find the video of Yoshi-P talking over this Doma Castle theme on the official FF14 youtube channel.
- Soken had difficulty with Beauty's Wicked Wiles (the Lakshimi theme) because he basically done the exact same thing for Sophia.
- On the notes for "Liberty or Death" (Ala Mhigo dungeon theme), Soken says that most requests towards the end of Stormblood was for something dramatic, but if everything was dramatic then the parts that were supposed to stand out wouldn't, so he tried to find spots to ease the tempo of the music.
- After hearing that horror story of how Toy Story 2 was almost lost during production and only saved because one employee had a backup of the movie files at home, you'd think everyone would be making multiple copies of their projects just in case.
"Revolutions" is my favorite Uematsu vocal song he's done for FF14, but sadly it never plays in the actual game. Interestingly, the version on the OST has a part in the middle that is completely different from the version on the Youtube trailer.
Curiously, the instrumental version of Revolutions that plays during cutscenes is not on the OST.
There is another completely unused vocal song on the Stormblood OST: a version of Beauty's Wicked Wiles (Lakshimi theme) with a younger voice.
As for extras, there are two short music videos, nothing interesting here.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Storm of Blood | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Prelude - Long March Home | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Beyond the Wall | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Looping in the Deepest Fringes | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | On High | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | With Giants Watching | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | The Garlean Territorial Anthem for Gyr Albania and Surrounding States - The Measure of Our Reach | Masayoshi Soken | Sachiko Miyano | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Triumph | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Crimson Sunrise | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Liquid Flame | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | The Open Box | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Westward Tide | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Far East of Eorzea | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Harmony | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Heroes of Stormblood | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Crimson Sunset | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Deception | Masayoshi Soken | Hiroki Masutani & Masayoshi Soken | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Alienus | Masayoshi Soken | Hiroki Masutani | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | The Worm's Tail | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | The Measure of His Reach | Masayoshi Soken | Sachiko Miyano | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Revolutions | Nobuo Uematsu | Tsutomu Narita | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Indomitable | Yukiko Takada | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Ultima's Transformation | Hitoshi Sakimoto | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Iroha | Naoshi Mizuta | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Unbreakable (Duality) | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | A Battle Decisively | Nobuo Uematsu | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Seven Hundred Seventy-Seven Whiskers | Yukiko Takada | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 4.0 STORMBLOOD | Wasshoi, Wasshoi! | Yukiko Takada |
The seventh album, Shadowbringers, for the titular 3rd expansion. Also contains the tracks from the 4.4 and 4.5 patches of the prior Stormblood expansion.
I forgot how ear grating the ShB battle theme was. Goodness!
I like the piano second half of "To Fire and Sword" (Holminster Switch theme) but the first half is eh.
"Our Fates Alight" by Takafumi Imamura is a great theme. One of the best I've heard on this album. Too bad you hardly hear it ingame, as it is restricted to you using a rare flying mount with the mount music turned on (which means you're not hearing the zone themes). Also sounds like a prototype for the Endwalker arrangement of "The Day Will Come".
- The notes on the Doman Mahjong theme, "Doman Distractions", identify it as the original Doma Castle dungeon song mentioned on the Stormblood album notes.
- original arrangement for paradisaical predicaments is "hard to miss"
- Keiko did all the of the nightime piano arranges for the ShB zone themes, except for the Tempest.
- Seems like on the notes for every other song, he's talking about how he had to make the song at the last minute.
- "Dangerous Words" was supposed to be a one off trailer song (for the Hrothgar reveal trailer) that wasn't going to play in the actual game, but then the event team asked for the song to be fleshed out for implementation in the game.
- The first version of the Kholusia day theme, "A World Divided", had a tin whistle, but when they listened to it ingame, you could hear the thud of the character's footsteps, so they replaced it with a gentle wooden flute.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | A Land Long Dead | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Battle | Nobuo Uematsu | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Ending | Kenji Ito | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Sunrise | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Doman Distractions | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | A Pall Most Murderous | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Shadowbringers | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Four-fold Knowing | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | The Dark Which Illuminates the World | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Sands of Amber | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | No Greater Sorrow | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Paradisaical Predicaments | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Insatiable | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | On Our Fates Alight | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | High Treason | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Fierce and Free | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | What Angel Wakes Me | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Unwound | Masayoshi Soken | Kenichi Kuroda | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Reprise | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Sands of Blood | Masayoshi Soken | Keiko Osaki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Tears in the Rain | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Mortal Instants | Masayoshi Soken | Ken Ito | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | Invincible | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.0 SHADOWBRINGERS | A Long Fall | Masayoshi Soken |
The eigth album, "Death Unto Dawn", contains tracks from the Shadowbringers 5.X patches.
Starting with this album, the "Soken's Comment" header is replaced by the more appropriately titled "Musician's comment", given how Soken wasn't composing every single track.
I am reminded by how ear grating the new ShB mid-dungeon boss battle music is (Dissidia remix of Insatiable). They never should have changed it.
This album too has lackluster extras, the most lackluster thus far. It's just the tracks Shadowbringers and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which I already heard on the previous album.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Metal - Brute Justice Mode (Journeys) | Masayoshi Soken | THE PRIMALS | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | A Fine Air Forbiddeth | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Starlight de Chocobo | Nobuo Uematsu | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Alien Manifestation (From NieR-Automata) | Keiichi Okabe, Keigo Hoashi | Keiichi Okabe, Keigo Hoashi | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Song of the Ancients - Atonement (From NieR-Automata) | Keiichi Okabe | Keiichi Okabe | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Weight of the World - Prelude Version | Keiichi Okabe, Nobuo Uematsu | Keiichi Okabe | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Floundering in the Depths | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Hearthward | Masayoshi Soken | Yukiko Takada | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Twice Stricken | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Primal Angel | Nobuo Uematsu, Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Footsteps in the Snow | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Return to Oblivion | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Gangos | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Wind on the Plains | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Blood on the Wind | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Unrest (Zodiac Age Version) | Hitoshi Sakimoto | Hitoshi Sakimoto | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Discord- Imperial (Zodiac Age Version) | Hitoshi Sakimoto | Hitoshi Sakimoto | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Battle with an Esper (Zodiac Age Version) | Hitoshi Sakimoto | Hitoshi Sakimoto | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Life and Death (Zodiac Age Version) | Hitoshi Sakimoto | Hitoshi Sakimoto | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | To the Edge | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Eternal Wind (Shadowbringers) | Nobuo Uematsu | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | The Black Wolf Stalks Again | Nobuo Uematsu | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | Giving Chase (Zodiac Age Version) | Hitoshi Sakimoto | Hitoshi Sakimoto | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 5.5 DEATH UNTO DAWN | The Queen Awakens | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura |
The Ninth album, "Endwalker", containing tracks from the titular fourth expansion.
There are a few tracks I like here, but overall do not love this OST. Most songs are too simple and short, repeating the same melody over and over with little variation on a micro level in instrumentation or feel in the song. Same tone throughout. The Musician's Comments keep complaining about being rushed for time, so perhaps that is responsible for why the FF14 soundtrack usually feels like this. You rarely get 3 or 4+ minute long tracks with a variety of parts like the 1.0 or 2.0 tracks, or like Solid.
I noticed that the Endcaller (Zodiark theme) musician comment was by Soken, and made no mention that it was actually Yoshitaka Suzuki who arranged it from Soken's base Endwalker melody (as per the booklet inside the Blu-Ray). Would have been nice to have read a comment from the actual person who made the track.
Extra 1 is a one hour long recording of Primals concert, where they do some new Shadowbringers songs as well as some old tracks.
Extra 2 is a live action Endwalker music video... when Endwalker already appeared on this album twice!
Extra 3 is a 90 second Chiptune arrange of Endwalker. I don't know why SE thought this song was good enough to warrant being on the album four times. It isn't. If I had to pick, I preferred the first trailer rendition of Endwalker to the vocals in the final release, and this Chiptune version.
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | The Ewer Brimmeth | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | The Day Will Come (Endwalker) | Nobuo Uematsu | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | The Labyrinth | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Unbowed | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Shade's Delight | Takafumi Imamura | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | On Blade's Edge | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | One Small Step | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Endcaller | Masayoshi Soken | Yoshitaka Suzuki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | What Comes of Despair | Daiki Ishikawa | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Heroes Forge Ahead | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Sky Unsundered | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Miracle Works | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Your Answer | Nobuo Uematsu | Takafumi Imamura, Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Echoes in the Distance | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Dynamis | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Of Countless Stars | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Carrots of Happiness | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Roads Less Travelled | Masayoshi Soken | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.0 ENDWALKER | Endwalker (Chiptune Version) | Masayoshi Soken |
The tenth album, "Growing Light", contains tracks from the Endwalker 6.X patches.
Two new people join the sound team, Saya Yasaki and Justin Frieden (our first foreigner?).
There is ergregious padding on this album. Why are "On Blade's Edge", "Finality", "Heroes Forge Ahead", when they were already on the previous? And then we have EIGHT Heavensward tracks reused here: "The Heaven's Ward", "Heroes", "Freefall", "Contention", "Hallowed Halls", "Heavensward", "Dragonsong", and "Primogenitor". And then "Deltascape", "Heartless", "From the Heavens orchestra ver", "eScape", and "Torn from the Heavens concert ver", "Looping in the Deepest Fringes", "Storm of Blood", "Triumph", again from Stormblood? Come on. They knew people expected 60+ tracks at the very least on a FFXIV OST album, but didn't produce that many for the Endwalker patches so now they are just reusing old stuff as filler.
I don't think the horn samples in "Deep Blue" sound very good, certainly not as grandiose as they could have been.
"Sorrow and Loss" sticks out to me more hearing it outside of the game than during an overly drawn out visual novel cutscene when I am fed up with late-stage FF14's story direction.
It is getting a little old reading all of these musician's comments about "we were overworked and had a tight deadline". Would have been nice if they gave us more actually insightful information as to what they were thinking or the construction of the song or techniques employed.
Extra 1 is a concert cover of Scream
Extra 2 is a concert cover of Flow
My favorite tracks:
| Soundtrack album | Track name | Original composer | Arranger | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Pilgrimage | Nobuo Uematsu, Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | The Map Unfolds | Masayoshi Soken | Daiki Ishikawa | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | A Quiet Moment | Daiki Ishikawa | ||
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Island Paradise | Daiki Ishikawa | Saya Yasaki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Subterranean Sanctuary | Daiki Ishikawa | Masayoshi Soken | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Cradle of Hope | Masayoshi Soken | Takafumi Imamura | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Festival of the Hunt (Endwalker) | Nobuo Uematsu | TomoLow | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Fleeting Moment | Masayoshi Soken | Saya Yasaki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Starsbreath | Masayoshi Soken | Justin Frieden | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Voidcast Savior | Nobuo Uematsu | Saya Yasaki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Sorrow and Loss (Endwalker) | Nobuo Uematsu | Saya Yasaki | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Kingdom of Baron | Nobuo Uematsu | Justin Frieden | |
| FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 6.5 GROWING LIGHT | Polygons of Inquiry | Masayoshi Soken | Saya Yasaki |
Val the Moofia Boss
Scholar
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2022
- Messages
- 1,227
7.1 MSQ thoughts
Not sure if I am going to do the FF11 Alliance Raid yet, given that my FF11 Horizon group is so very nearly close to defeating the Shadowlord. Just need to help a couple linkshell friends finish farming their artifact gear, and then we are ready to straight to Zvahl and fight him.
Spent an hour trying to replace my house's ceiling and glitch/float up these phasmascape skylights and the new botanical loft and getting everything juuuuust right.
I need to find time to do the other four Dawntrailer rolequests, also looking forward to checking out the new Pelupelu Beast Tribe area since it is set in a scenic location, and I saw a screenshot of a nice looking interior. But otherwise it seems like that is going to be it.
I have been warming up "to the futuristic urban city suddenly teleported next the medieval kingdom and 30 year time bubble" idea. The idea of culture shock as the futuristic people try to adjust to life in the greater outside fantasy wilderness is interesting.
This windy forest with an electric thunderstorm overhead is neat.
The maze on the second dungeon boss was a little neat. The second half of the third boss fight where the center of the circular arena falls and you spend the rest of the fight having to run around the outer circumference was novel.
I slashed the ultimate evil Endsinger and the metal coffin of Sphene with my sword. I have carved through the magically protective scale hides of First Brood dragons. Why would I need a passcode to open a metal bar door? I could just slice it.
Krile, you have only known a medieval fantasy world your whole life. You have only spent two days in Alexandria. How do you even know what computer encryption is?
This is an okay anime filler episode.
The Dawntrail dungeon boss music is a little too dramatic for saving the wild buffalo from predators.
Koana offering his life to save a wild buffalo was narmy.
Where did he pull the huge sniper rifle from? Kinda funny but a little out of place since the story was trying to be more uptight and serious and not overtly funny.
Okay, kinda interesting story hook at the end with the imposter. Shame that's it. Just 3 hours of visual novel, a 15 minute corridor dungeon, and a 10 minute solo duty. That's it for 4.5 months until April. Cute dead waif is apparently back from the dead. No stakes and no tension.
This windy forest with an electric thunderstorm overhead is neat.
The maze on the second dungeon boss was a little neat. The second half of the third boss fight where the center of the circular arena falls and you spend the rest of the fight having to run around the outer circumference was novel.
I slashed the ultimate evil Endsinger and the metal coffin of Sphene with my sword. I have carved through the magically protective scale hides of First Brood dragons. Why would I need a passcode to open a metal bar door? I could just slice it.
Krile, you have only known a medieval fantasy world your whole life. You have only spent two days in Alexandria. How do you even know what computer encryption is?
This is an okay anime filler episode.
The Dawntrail dungeon boss music is a little too dramatic for saving the wild buffalo from predators.
Koana offering his life to save a wild buffalo was narmy.
Where did he pull the huge sniper rifle from? Kinda funny but a little out of place since the story was trying to be more uptight and serious and not overtly funny.
Okay, kinda interesting story hook at the end with the imposter. Shame that's it. Just 3 hours of visual novel, a 15 minute corridor dungeon, and a 10 minute solo duty. That's it for 4.5 months until April. Cute dead waif is apparently back from the dead. No stakes and no tension.
Not sure if I am going to do the FF11 Alliance Raid yet, given that my FF11 Horizon group is so very nearly close to defeating the Shadowlord. Just need to help a couple linkshell friends finish farming their artifact gear, and then we are ready to straight to Zvahl and fight him.
Spent an hour trying to replace my house's ceiling and glitch/float up these phasmascape skylights and the new botanical loft and getting everything juuuuust right.
I need to find time to do the other four Dawntrailer rolequests, also looking forward to checking out the new Pelupelu Beast Tribe area since it is set in a scenic location, and I saw a screenshot of a nice looking interior. But otherwise it seems like that is going to be it.
Vyvian
Educated
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2023
- Messages
- 337
My question is:
Does the time bubble still effect passage of time or was it a one-time thing when it manifested in The Source?
People moving in and out of it willy nilly could be quite odd if it's the former and if it was answered in-game already I seem to have forgotten it.
People moving in and out of it willy nilly could be quite odd if it's the former and if it was answered in-game already I seem to have forgotten it.
Val the Moofia Boss
Scholar
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2022
- Messages
- 1,227
IIRC time was moving faster inside the dome up until Zoraal Ja and his fleet of airships exited the dome to attack Tuliyolal. Their crossing caused the dome to change to move at the same speed as the Source.
Yuber
Educated
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2023
- Messages
- 201
Remove the homogenization and the shallowness of the game and I will start playing again.
So disgusted by this casual approach. Classes are pathetic for years already, every fucking tank is the same, does not matter which I play.
Tanking felt so much better in ARR/HW -.- What a shitty game this become unreal. C A S U A L
So disgusted by this casual approach. Classes are pathetic for years already, every fucking tank is the same, does not matter which I play.
Tanking felt so much better in ARR/HW -.- What a shitty game this become unreal. C A S U A L
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