Final Fantasy XIV

[Yankee Zulu]

The only class that feels unique is blue mage, and it's restricted from being used in most content. Classes are used for neither archetype nor niche protection, they might as well just be cosmetic with how much they actually matter due to how similar they are.
Agreed, **** game, one of the worst MMOs I've played with very few redeeming qualities.

I thought you didnt like weeb ****. Or is it because FF14 left you traumatised?

[rusty_shackleford]

I thought you didnt like weeb ****.

weebshit is too effeminate now, the earlier jap stuff is alright, my favorite JRPG is Lufia 2 for the SNES.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New treasure map dungeon came out today. Spent a couple hours farming them. Unfortunately it went back to the usual formula of eviscerating some nonthreatening trash mobs in seconds. Never saw a challenging boss appear. Not sure if I will do more of these. Wish the devs had continued down the route of the previous Elpis treasure map dungeons where you fight more challenging bosses. Never died to them, but they were more engaging and was fun doing them for a couple hours day after day. Watching cool boss monsters get summoned is also more interesting than watching if a door will open so you can get on a flightpath to a copypaste of the arena you were just on.

[Finarfin]

New treasure map dungeon came out today. Spent a couple hours farming them. Unfortunately it went back to the usual formula of eviscerating some nonthreatening trash mobs in seconds. Never saw a challenging boss appear. Not sure if I will do more of these. Wish the devs had continued down the route of the previous Elpis treasure map dungeons where you fight more challenging bosses. Never died to them, but they were more engaging and was fun doing them for a couple hours day after day. Watching cool boss monsters get summoned is also more interesting than watching if a door will open so you can get on a flightpath to a copypaste of the arena you were just on.

I gotta tell you man, i started playing FF XI on a private server and that **** is fun. Even tho it's a NA server, I don't lag and it's actually nice defeating mobs since they could easily rip you apart. And the soul, man. It oozes soul. The menu, the character models, the creation menu with the different musical themes for each gender and race. Sure the UI and controls are **** but the rest makes up for it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I gotta tell you man, i started playing FF XI on a private server and that **** is fun. Evem tho it's a NA server, I don't lag and it's actually nice defeating mobs since they could easily rip you apart. And the soul, man. It oozes soul. The menu, the character models, the creation menu with the different musical themes for each gender and race. Sure the UI and controls are **** but the rest makes up for it.

Yeah, I played 200 hours on Horizon a couple years ago, and also played retail FF11. The community feel of FF11 and the feeling of travelling the world and slowly progressing was addictive, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and effort into a private server that would forever be content and feature locked, and would inevitably be strangled by mod drama, which at the time I was hearing lots of ominous things about Horizon's team on discord and in the Horizon general on 4chan.

[Finarfin]

I gotta tell you man, i started playing FF XI on a private server and that **** is fun. Evem tho it's a NA server, I don't lag and it's actually nice defeating mobs since they could easily rip you apart. And the soul, man. It oozes soul. The menu, the character models, the creation menu with the different musical themes for each gender and race. Sure the UI and controls are **** but the rest makes up for it.

Yeah, I played 200 hours on Horizon a couple years ago, and also played retail FF11. The community feel of FF11 and the feeling of travelling the world and slowly progressing was addictive, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and effort into a private server that would forever be content and feature locked, and would inevitably be strangled by mod drama, which at the time I was hearing lots of ominous things about Horizon's team on discord and in the Horizon general on 4chan.

Try out Nasomi. I haven't heard any negative things about it so far and it is running for a while now. (2012-2013 I think) @Kalarion got me into it, kek.

[Kalarion]

I gotta tell you man, i started playing FF XI on a private server and that **** is fun. Evem tho it's a NA server, I don't lag and it's actually nice defeating mobs since they could easily rip you apart. And the soul, man. It oozes soul. The menu, the character models, the creation menu with the different musical themes for each gender and race. Sure the UI and controls are **** but the rest makes up for it.

Yeah, I played 200 hours on Horizon a couple years ago, and also played retail FF11. The community feel of FF11 and the feeling of travelling the world and slowly progressing was addictive, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and effort into a private server that would forever be content and feature locked, and would inevitably be strangled by mod drama, which at the time I was hearing lots of ominous things about Horizon's team on discord and in the Horizon general on 4chan.

Your brothers are here.

White man, come home!

www.nasomi.com

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Kalarion @Finarfin Alright I installed Nasomi. Spent some fiddling trying to get the controller to work. /drawdistance setworld 50 doesn't seem to be working here, will need to do more research on that. Made a Tarutaru warrior. Decided to start in Sand'oria this time. Got to level 5. Bought a Chariot Band. Ready to go hiking to Konschtat or Dunes or get on a boat to Mhaura to Bubirumu or wherever we want to start EXPing.

[Finarfin]

@Kalarion @Finarfin Alright I installed Nasomi. Spent some fiddling trying to get the controller to work. /drawdistance setworld 50 doesn't seem to be working here, will need to do more research on that. Made a Tarutaru warrior. Decided to start in Sand'oria this time. Got to level 5. Bought a Chariot Band. Ready to go hiking to Konschtat or Dunes or get on a boat to Mhaura to Bubirumu or wherever we want to start EXPing.

Oh noes....
Val, we were trying the last hour to get vergil into the game but there were errors all the time, and then Rusty said Nasomi is practically dead since only 40 people are on it and 1400 on Horizon, so we kinda switched. Should've told you earlier. (Why are you not in chat )

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Oh darn, I'll doublecheck if I still have Horizon installed.

[Finarfin]

Oh darn, I'll doublecheck if I still have Horizon installed.

Sorry again Val.

[Vergil]

There should probably be a separate FFXI thread.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

FF11 thread created here

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thoughts on the FF14 Blu-Ray Soundtrack Albums

I don't think 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.

► Show Spoiler

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 *** 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)

Starting with this album, you can press a button and to display comments from the composer, but they are written in Japanese, and again on Windows 11 you're blocked from snipping the text, so you can't easily throw them into an image to text converter and then paste that into deepl. Sadly most of the comments are fluff ("Oh, I don't have anything to say here" or "I was behind schedule and had to cram to get this one out"), but sometimes the composer talks about techniques or talks about instruments you had never heard of before and their unique capabilities.

This song has become the "face of FFXIV" for me personally. I was in the middle of developing both "old FFXIV" and "new FFXIV" at the same time and was extremely busy. I'm going to make a 10-second PV for the 2012 Gamescom event, can you do the sound effects? (Are you serious? Can you spare the time for production?)" - "Sorry! (Hey, can you do that with just sound effects?)" → "I'm so sorry, it turned out to be a 45-second video clip. (Can you do it with just sound effects?)" → "I'm super sorry, it's now 3 minutes long (Gah! You have to make a song!)" → "Sorry! I have to write a song!

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.

Sea!
Sea! Han! Catamaran! FUNDOSHI! Then, there is nothing else but Japanese drums! (There was no "fundoshi" in particular, but let's just pretend there was!) The second half of the song was created before the first half, which of course strengthened the Japanese flavor, but the appearance of Yugiri, played by Satrina, was the most important factor in pushing the Japanese flavor.

It is no exaggeration to say that this song was written for "Ninja Job"! As expected, I received an order for a song with a calm yet slightly tense atmosphere in a purely Japanese style. I made it exactly as it was. With a lot of energy. The shakuhachi is the only Japanese instrument that has a long release and can play a scale, so I always have a hard time creating changes in melody and tone.
Speaking of when the ninja was already implemented, no matter what F.A.T.E. I went to, it was always a ninja! Ninjas in any instance dungeon! Ninjas around you even when you are resting in town ! Ninjas on retainer ! Ninjas in inns! I don't remember anything else!
I don't remember anything else!

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.

In the extra menu, there are orchestral arrangements of "Torn from the Heavens" and "A New Hope", and they are also included in the MP3 folder. There is also a bonus video showing the sound team at their cubicles, but the dialogue isn't subtitled in English so I don't know what they're saying.




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.
  

First half of "Worm's Tail" is too bombastic/noisy, second half when the signature melody plays is great.

"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.

The extras are a 5 minute video of the live rock cover of "Locus" at Tokyo Fanfest 2018, and Soken doing a silly cover of "A Father's Pride" on an otamatone. Nothing to write home about.


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

[Vergil]

Considering giving this another go.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Considering giving this another go.

If you are on Brynhildr server, Crystal datacenter, I'll add you as a tenant to my house so you can teleport there and use the chocobo stables to recolor your chocobo, armor repair NPC right inside, and a training dummy in the yard.

[Vergil]

Considering giving this another go.

If you are on Brynhildr server, Crystal datacenter, I'll add you as a tenant to my house so you can teleport there and use the chocobo stables to recolor your chocobo, armor repair NPC right inside, and a training dummy in the yard.

Yea I don't ever want to interact with another member of this shithole again sorry

EDIT: I was iron depleted when I wrote this jk

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I joined a fresh run of the new 24 man boss fight to see the inside. Got to glimpse the second phase arena. It was neat, but after 30 minutes I got bored and remembered why I don't raid in FF14. It's the same issue as when I did the 8 man raids during Shadowbringers, which is that the fights have binary pass/fail mechanics where every single player needs to do every single mechanic correctly every single time, or else a lot of people die, which means you do not have enough people to survive the upcoming mechanics. So rather than persevere to the end like in a WoW raid fight, instead the survivors just leap off of the edge of the arena to wipe and reset. And you do this over and over and over. It doesn't matter whether you do your part right. The odds are that when you have 24 people and it only takes one person making one mistake to end the attempt, then you're going to have to do this over and over again many, many times until the stars align and you get that one flawless run where nobody dies, and then it becomes a question of DPS.

[Vergil]

@Val the Moofia Boss I made a character and will try to add you when the stars align and we're both online since Japanese people don't know how to do friend request in a multiplayer game.
Also I got the glamourer mod so I can wear whatever outfit I want dont tell mr enix <3

[Vergil]

Also I'm having a lot of fun collecting every skill once I complete the level 10 quest for each guild. Started as puglist and just moved on from thaumaturge to gladiator.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Vergil I am on now

[Vergil]

@Vergil I am on now

I just logged off to go to work

[Vergil]

@Nooneatall hurry up and make a Miqo'te named Nyanatall or I'll send you to fat camp.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Fagnal Fagtasy 14
This game looks nice but God do I wish the quests were more interesting

► Show Spoiler

Are you using reshade? The default game has a grey desaturated tint to it. I would recommend using Desperius' gameplay preset to tweak the colors a little with hardly any performance loss.

ARR was quickly thrown together and pushed out the door to get a MMO keeping SE afloat with monthly subscription revenue again. The 2.0 story starts picking up around level 30ish, after you fight Titan, but it never rises above being a serviceable vehicle to guide the player through this world of different zones and cultures and neat fights (which have since been powercreeped into the ground, even with level syncing). I started getting invested into the main storyline during the ARR patches, namely with the Ul'dah plot, though the moment to moment gameplay never strays from being mostly "go here, watch cutscene/read dialogue box, occasionally spawn and whack 2 mobs". I would advise skipping the ARR sidequests as they are the least efficient way to level up and most regular sidequests in FF14 are sadly throwaways outside a handful of hubs. The blue icon sidequestlines are generally worth pursuing (Nier and Myths of the Realm were mediocre story wise but should be done anyway to tour the fights and farm transmogs from them), and some of them are actually pretty good (ARR Hildibrand, Samurai 50-60, Eden, Bozja, Werylt, Pandaemonium, Arcadion).

[Vergil]

Are you using reshade? The default game has a grey desaturated tint to it. I would recommend using Desperius' gameplay preset to tweak the colors a little with hardly any performance loss.

Nah I don't normally mess with reshades because they tend to be extremely ugly and eye sore tier.

farm transmogs

Hehe with Glamourer there's no need

As for the rest: I mean it's an MMO so I don't really expect to care much about the story. I wish more was done with the setting to make it feel more interesting though. The plot feels really generic, mind numbing, and none of the characters have been particularly memorable. So far the guild to pique any interest or just be noticeable as far as characters go is pugilist with the master being a ****** old man who is pretending to still be a capable fighter.
It's an MMO I don't expect much from it besides a paper thin excuse to go and kill 10 rats or collect 20 bear asses. As long as the game can look pretty and give me cool outfits to wear it'll keep me around for a while as something to pass the time. It's just with how single player focused it feels (especially as a free trial player, can't even invite people to a ******* party) it would be nice to have something to make it feel less dry to go through.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wish more was done with the setting to make it feel more interesting though.

Hm. I thought that most of the interesting, unique worldbuilding stuff was frontloaded in ARR and Heavensward. You have the pirate haven that is trying to go legit and normalize relations with its neighbors, but is bogged down by bad blood and cultural inertia with a lot of pirate crews still pirating and giving Limsa a bad name. You have the forest dwellers who must abide by the strict, seemingly arbitrary laws of the forest spirits or else be struck down by a bolt of lightning. I suppose Ul'dah isn't very fantastical since it's just an Italian-esque city-state where a bunch of rich people own private militaries but with Islamic architecture. You have the beast tribes which have unique appearances like the Ixal and the Amal'jaa. ARR also has a lot of subzones and miscellaneous locations. Heavensward... well Ishgard is generic gothic knights living in a cool mega castle, but you also have Idyllshire which was a colony built by antagonistic foreign scholars and then abandoned and then taken over by goblins, and FF11/FF14 goblins have a neat spin with the cutesy gas masks. Etc.

After Heavensward, you do not get the same quantity of unique areas as in ARR, and nowhere near as much dense worldbuilding in terms of the number of cultures packed into the locations, and the cultures tend to be less fantastical. Stormblood for example has six zones, three of which is a Turkish desert with a kingdom of people with Scottish accents. Kinda neat but nowhere near as unique as Gridania or Limsa. And then the city and other three zones is generic pacific islands, a copypaste of Edo period Tokyo with no unique spin, Heian period Japan with not much unique going for it, and then a copypaste of the Mongols. For the current expac, I felt like a lot of the quests were "this is what people in Peru/some South American country do! Cook food wrapped in banana peels in underground ovens! Put spacers around reed pillars to keep their stilt villages from rotting!" rather than "this is what people in this imaginative fantasy land do". There are still some neat worldbuilding tidbits and one really unique and cool culture introduced later on, but the overall trend I feel was that the setting felt the most wide open and imaginative at the beginning.

[Vergil]

There's too many women and midges in the main plot that my eyes begin to glaze over. So far the two cities I've done quests for are rules by women.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There's too many women and midges in the main plot that my eyes begin to glaze over. So far the two cities I've done quests for are rules by women.

Male characters get focus in the expansion storylines, typically the leaders and warriors of the new expansion country. Almost all expansion countries are led by men. Lalafell characters fall out of the spotlight after ARR and Heavensward. Hyur, Elezen, and Miqote characters get far and away the most screentime across the whole story thus far.

[Vergil]

Nice only 70 hours of grinding to go first

[rusty_shackleford]

FF14 "annual teaser" image uses fagflag colors masquerading as rainbow(only 6 colors)
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodeston ... 816b9a980a