It is the last time that hits the hardest tho, cause its THEN you know the actual full story. And the vocals tell the story of the dragonsong war. You cannot have the lyrics earlier due to spoilers
@@Medinaxz I do wish the leitmotifs would go back to being more subtle or that there where more pieces where it wasn't incorporated though. It sounds great, but its starting to feel like each piece isn't its own thing and more that they are all versions of other songs.
@@Ninheldin I mean, the point of the leitmotifs is to be everywhere. Shadowbringers and Footfalls especially are integral to every aspect of their respective expansions, and it makes sense that they're melted into everything in one form or another.
The tracks here are all by Nobuo Uematsu, who I believe you do know well - but after the first expansion, Masayoshi Soken took over as main composer for FF14 - and boy howdy you should check out some tracks from the Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker expansions. A much more mixed style of composition when compared to Uematsu's orchestral pieces; plenty of electric guitar and wild instrumentation. His work is so outstanding that he is now the main composer for the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 as well.
He has done a couple of Soken's songs, like he watched the Primals version of To the Edge in one of the most recent streams. I think he saw the original version of that song as well.
Soken actually took over during 2.0, so anything new (not taken from 1.0, Dragonsong from HW and Revolutions from SB being the big exception) is generally going to be Soken. This includes Good King Moggle Mog on display here.
“In the same fleeting moment, thou must live, die, and know.” One of my favorite lyrics ever, period. A simple but powerful statement that anyone can interpret differently. Something about the way Answers leaves off with that, it feels so powerful. It feels like the song just told you a grand story, and made a point with it.
@@Blitzwaffen oh of course, I’m well aware of that and how cool it is! But what I think is really brilliant about it is that it requires 0 story context to still have a lot of poignant meaning :)
So, fun fact with the "This is Halloween" comparison, Good King Moggle Mog is based on the Moogle theme from FF5, which came out in late 1992, almost a full year before Nightmare Before Christmas came out! So while the influence is indeed possible, this actually may be a full on coincidence!
The FFXIV community is rabid for music reactions. And it has maybe the largest OST of any game, with new stuff added every 4 months, so you could be getting requests for years 😛
I hate it man. So many new Orchestrion scrolls i still have to get 😂😂 i think i got like 150 or so and i'm looking at the orchestrion list and feel like i miss more then half the music available
I highly recommend watching the actual A Realm Reborn trailer. Answers hits so much better with the visuals lining up with the beats of the song, which they don't do in the lyrics version (the lyrics version wanted to add Flames of Truth with is an additional cutscene not present in the original version, so it desynched the video from the audio).
The cinematic uses a slightly shortened version of Answers, the Flames of Truth was used since the original would be too short for the full song, you are right that it results in the song not being lined up correctly with the visuals.
Answers was always one of my favorites. But given the context of the most recent expansion, Endwalker and its conclusion to a 10 year story, its is impossible to hear this song without that new context, and not shed a tear.
YEAH, seriously, like... this song always hit hard, but after Endwalker, knowing how incredibly specific so many of the lines actually are... just completely wild
It’s a masterpiece of story telling. The only other instance of this degree of musical story-telling would be Howard Shore’s work on TLotR trilogy. Just my opinion 🙂
@@MalkuthSephiraYeah, nice to know that I was right in distrusting what the female voice was saying in the lyrics. On a downside, the retcon really made Dragonsong’s lyrics quite hypocritical in nature, like “Why break trust; why turn the past to dust. This I fear i’ll never know” considering what she did, I think she knows a lot about those things already, considering she was the one who did all those things.
I did not cry to Answers before experiencing Endwalker. I can't not cry hearing it now. The pairing of powerful music to brilliant, resonating storytelling is a hell of a drug.
Though "your answer" was a nice nod to it.... combined with her words during the fight. But as much as i loved all the main themes, "Flow" just kinda hits me different...
Good King Moggle Mog triggers PTSD for anyone who played ARR back in the day... Thornmarch Extreme was an incredibly difficult boss encounter you tackled with 7 random people who suck just as bad as you do, we had to spend hours upon hours upon hours listening to that goddamn song 😂
My first multi-wipe was yesterday (i’m a sprout) on Whorleater Extreme. It took me a while to figure out that big water spout = express ticket to the briny depths. Shoutout to the guys for telling me tips like to focus the adds down
@@Wolvenworksif you want more tips, the moves "arms length" and "sure cast" will make you immune to most knock backs and on that fight you can use a dash to save yourself (red mage "corps a corps")
Don't be ashamed for loving music and letting it move you. I'm a grown man too! I cried because of this game! I'd say its weirder if you don't get at least emotional once.
If you enjoyed these, I highly recommend a few other FF14 songs. Flow, In the Balance, and Footfalls. Soken who is in charge of the music for a long time now, has a skill of making a lot of different genres of music for the game.
After listening ot Answers for more than I decade now, I just realized what the layered vocals do. In the beginning, (28:30) Susan Calloway answers to the chorus in each exchange. Near the end, it's the opposite! The Chorus is actually answering Susan! (34:48) Can't believe I never caught this before.
I could explain why that is from a story stand point but it would be heavy spoilers, so if you haven't played Endwalker.... spoiler warning . . . . . . The choir in the beginning is the Ancients asking why they must be deprived of their paradise/utopia where Hydaelyn/Venat is just 1 of the many, her voice being drowned out by those summoning Zodiark. The lone voice of reason in a sea of chaos. Near the end she's long since become Hydaelyn, the guiding light of the world. Now her voice carries literally the weight of the world behind it. But those questions and thoughts still remain in the hearts and minds of the people. Regardless, this song is an absolute masterpiece, I can't hear it without tearing up a little, It's been this way since I first heard it, but now knowing the full story behind the narrative, it carries so much more weight.
The questions are always two-syllables, and the answers are one-syllable and yes, they're swapped between the two chorus sections. A neat little touch. I don't think it's spoilery to say that Ms. Calloway plays the role of Hydaelyn in this song (the lyrics make that obvious, "to all my children" etc), the song starts out with people praying to Hydaelyn seeking answers and she nudges them and then later on in the song, she's like "what did you learn from this?" and the chorus responds and then at the very end of the song, she and the chorus simultaneously agree on what the Answer really is: In one fleeting moment, a life is born, and in one fleeting moment, the life returns to the star to be born anew and during that same fleeting moment, Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.
The thing about Answers, is that it is played early on in the game in its entirety during the ending credits and it's played in the trailer for ARR, and then as you play the game, you hear various renditions of it in instrumental and its leitmotifs are re-used many times in the game. The lyrics, though, feel like there's a deeper meaning and it has left players scratching their heads for almost TEN YEARS and then FINALLY in Endwalker, they give us a cutscene where this song plays and hoo boy did they nail you upside the head with what this song was REALLY about the whole time and it has reduced many a youtuber to tears, and has left many a jaw agape with amazement and surprise.
because until you arrive at lvl87+ you know nothing of emotional damage ;) _Thou must live die and know_ as quest title spoils a bit but you are not prepared
@@rivenoakhonestly it feels like once you hit that quest they start finding more ways to hit you in the feels. My personal favorites being the quests Her Children, One and All and You’re Not Alone
@@MugenHeadNinja Oh good luck with it. It plays a lot more throughout the expansions but the most memorable is the one mentioned. They just LOVE to twist the pain in.
Dragonsong is one of the most emotional pieces of music I've ever heard, though a big part of that is the story behind it in the game, which is simply put a heart-rending masterpiece as far as videogame storytelling goes. It's one of the few tracks on the FF14 soundtrack that was composed by the great Nobuo Uematsu, who's widely lauded as one of the greatest video game composers and even one of the greatest overall contemporary composers! Though his protégé Masayoshi Soken has taken up the flag magnificently and composed dozens of incredibly memorable pieces for FFXIV as well! Truly one of the greatest videogame soundtracks out there, though after 4 massive expansions the full OST does have a large enough sample size to have some misses as well 😅
Also, for someone that had 0 clue what happened in ff14 1.0, the opening cinematic to ARR and the Answer song were so good I actually felt for the unknown characters on screen.
What's really crazy about "Answers" is that it was written back around 2012 and the full meaning of its lyrics weren't clear until the release of Endwalker 9 years later. It's unclear just how much of the story they had planned out back then, but the payoff for this song is so satisfying, especially for someone who's had it on their playlist for the last decade.
They’ve said that they really didn’t have a direction until towards the end of Stormblood. Like, the WoD arc in post Heavensward was just the devs going “You know what’s be cool?” And Yoshi-P was just like “Yeah that sounds great. We’ll figure out what it means later.” I don’t think this lack of forethought diminishes what they did with the story at all, though. If anything I feel it’s a testament to the writing ability of Ishikawa-San to pull all of those events together and make them all feel like they meant something by the end. It actually improves the replayability (or watchabllity) of the MSQ so you can see all the little things that were picked up and expanded on. A masterclass in story writing to be sure!
@@Teslo_In_FinalFantasy Another plus is that by putting something like that into the story that would raise questions, they could observe how fans were speculating and potentially find guesses from fans that gave them ideas.
I think it's important to understand that they did NOT plan all the way til Endwalker that early. The story of FF14 back then was very much "throw a ton of ideas out there and see which ones work the best." Answers was recontextualized in Endwalker, but that doesn't mean that they had ANY idea of what they were going to make that song mean.
@@Teslo_In_FinalFantasy They had a lot of general notes and aims for later content each step of a way. The team works such that they leave a lot of seeds to use later while having a direction for the immediate stage being handled, solidifying the writing as they move forward one step at a time. That way they have flexibility and can avoid writing themselves into a corner. They knew how they wanted to take things and how certain things were going to go, but kept the execution up in the air until it was the next thing to depict.
My personal favourite part of Answers is that, although it feels like the true meaning lies after the events in Endwalker, you can also interpret the meaning of the song differently for every single time its played throughout the story, and it fits so well every time. Intentional or not it's a masterpiece of a song.
I would strongly recommend checking out later tracks such as Tommorow and Tommorow, Brute Justice Mode (The Primal's Version is very good), Flow and many more if you look into Endwalker and Shadowbringers. Also the newest tracks for the raids are amazing too like Under the Moonlight, In the Balance, The Tireless One. All composed by Masayoshi Soken and his amazing team. He's doing the OST for FFXVI too and there's to be sure many more amazing bangers to listen too, just 3 more days xD
FFXIV spoils us for choice. There are so many tracks that aren't just good or great, but PHENOMENAL, and you could pick one completely blindly at random and immediately fall in love. Soken is coming into his own as a legend, and just from 14's gravitas alone, as wild as that is. And the team around him is just as talented and hard working, and the results in these amazing tracks really shows!
Going through HeavensWard as a Dragoon gave me a whole new feeling for this song, Cause you can feel the Emotion that Ratatoskr was feeling as she died and the Pain that the First Brood was feeling with Her Death.
Really? I was dragoon and it completely ruined the experience because of the inconsistencies between the dragoon quest that takes place at the same time and the main story. They clearly decided to abandon whatever happened in the dragoon one in favor of a different estinien and it was so jarring to see
Heyyyyy, I'm the one who recommended Good King Moggle Mog in the stream! So glad I was able to catch this whole segment of the stream, since FFXIV is probably my favorite game of all time :D (also yes, hi its me, same name as on Twitch, you may or may not recognize me)
Dragonsong is an emotional rollercoaster if you've played the game. You first hear it without the lyrics. It swells in you with feeling of "Heck yeah, let's kill some badguys!" And then you play the through Heavensward. Quests, Dungeons, and Trials. All bringing you to better understand both sides of the 1000 year war. All culminating into a final fight. And then you hear Dragonsong again. And now you hear the lyrics.
Answers is so freaking good, players first heard it when introducing in Realm Reborn - and several expansions later - same song, same words, but we now know infomartion which quite drastically change the whole vibe of song
Yesss ff14 has such amazing music! This one (dragonsong) is such a powerful meaning and tells ya the story behind heavesword (the expansion this song is from). You hear the non lyric verson throughout the expansion, but when you get to the end and you're waiting for the queue to fight the main boss, it hits you with the lyrics, and i bawled while waiting it was such a powerful moment
Honestly watching your journey through the world of videogame OSTs is just a really joyous experience and I hope it's going well for you now. Final Fantasy music makes me sentimental lol
"Answers" is such a moving piece, and the scene represents one of the more interesting moments in gaming as a whole, in my opinion. To my understanding, the original release of Final Fantasy XIV was plagued with problems of all kinds, a lot of people loved it but at the time it was also just hard for a lot of people to run the game (I was one of those who couldn't play it even though I wanted to). The game didn't last long, less than 2 years, and they brought the story to a climax, which is represented in this trailer.. The rare scenario where the protagonists, the players, they fail. FFXIV - A Realm Reborn isn't just some expansion to an MMORPG it's literally take two. They fired the whole team from the original version and brought in their 'good team' and remade the whole game. Kept the ending to the first try canon, and used it to push the story forward on a game fans would (and *could*) enjoy.
It's even deeper than that! The team brought in to rebuild the world was FORCED (clockwork orange style) to play HUNDREDS of hours of WoW (and other mmo's to perhaps, but the idea was only what was extremely successful and popular at the time) so they would actually have a fucking clue what it was they were making and how to make it fun and good because the team that made the original version of FFXIV was comprised nearly exclusively of people who had never played any mmo in their entire lives (and the physical game world was third party outsourced and you can still find screenshots of how terrain was copy pasted in dozes of places). They were determined to make things right and build an mmo AHEAD of it's time instead of coming out the gate with outdated game design (cough cough FFXI). And what do we have today? An mmo that actually exceeds WoW in terms of subscriber base AND critical reviews (not sure about after dragonflight though) and game design as well as vastly less player toxicity.
By the way, Answers was composed long before the 1.0 was released and can be heard in the intro segment. It was repurposed for the Battle of Carteneau (the Answers cinematic) cinematic that ended 1.0's story. Then the song was repurposed multiple times throughout the game ending with one of the most banger cut scenes in the game, Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.
Very few people were "fired" most were moved or moved of their own accord. Square is a HUGE company with some of the most gifted designers in their fields of expertise. The higher ups responsible were moved to other projects (both producer and director) and one man (Naoki Yoshida) was brought on to be both producer and director. But many of the designers and people crafting the game remained. Though some went to work on Final Fantasy 15 since the toolset being made for FFXIV was using this toolset as well.
Goddamnit, this game is making me cry again and I’m not even playing it rn 😂 Susan Calloway sang “Answers” freakin’ *perfectly* and she never fails to make me emotional.
23:44 ARR = A Real Reborn, which is FF14 2.0, 14 1.0 was so bad they actually killed it and built it from the ground up, fun fact about that song, as the servers neared shutdown on 1.0 the moon that the dragon comes out of is seen getting nearer to the planet. On the day the servers shut down anyone who was still there, got this cut scene as the world was devastated, your character getting teleported by the old mage guy into the future where you would be safe to fight another day. ARR aka 2.0 came later and opened with the same, and that is where the current game starts. They canonically burned the servers to the ground, and made it a part of the story.
Dragonsong is a song lamenting and recounting the events and treachery that led to an ongoing war between a host of dragons and a human nation. We hear the leitmotif for the song baked in throughout much of the soundtrack for the expansion, but we only hear the full song at the finale, during the fight against Nidhogg (see below). Originally peace was brokered when a human and a dragon fell in love, but after two hundred years, paranoia and opportunistic greed drove the king of the humans to slay a dragon - Ratatoskr - and steal its magical eyes under the pretense of an audience of unity. The dragon's sibling Nidhogg tried to seek vengeance, but partly failed and nearly died in the attempt thanks to the humans' newfound power. What followed was an ongoing thousand years of war, with the humans erasing and rewriting the betrayal to put the blame on the dragons. The war is ended when the true history is exposed and Nidhogg, who has grown completely unmoving in his determination to wipe out all of the humans, is laid to rest by the player after he nearly destroys the human nation. The song is sung by Ratatosk, and ends with her asking why the humans did all of the things that they did. "Why break trust, why turn the past to dust? Why must you let go of the life you were bestowed? This, I fear, I'll never know."
Awh yeah I've been waiting for you to talk about music from one of my favorite games! This game has more tracks that make me cry than any other game I've ever played.
I mean the main music for Good King Moggle Mog is from 1994, the idea to make it whimsical is the homage but the music itself is original. Besides this whimsical fits moogles to a T since 1990.
The compositions for FF14 are just pure magic. You hear so many of them in different arrangements throughout the game just doing everyday things, but the real power is most definitely reserved for the title themes of each expansion. Despite hearing similarly themed tracks over and over again by doing repeated activities, the music never grows stale, which is a testament to just how much care they put into making something truly timeless.
WIsh he would listen To The Edge, the background alone on that song is just such an empowering thing. Knowing that Soken composed it while in the hospital dealing with cancer is mind-blowing.
These songs never fail to make me tear up. Purely the arrangements are gorgeous but also the memories connected to it make them hit harder :3 Thank you so much for your insights!!! I hope you will listen to some songs from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail as both games have gorgeous tracks and super interesting compositions. For example Gilded Runner from Genshin that has a mathematical structure (don't wanna say too much and spoil it but it's quite stunning) and Wildfire from Honkai (which is a boss theme, but more correctly people call it a theme the boss hears seeing the protagonists). In any case I can't wait to see and hear more reaction from you, Geebz! 😊
I can tell you really know what you're doing, as you knew you were driving us to say "NOO" at that part in Answers right as I said NO. Really liking your stuff.
I like a relatively slow vibrato that doesn't start right at the beginning of a note. It's perfect in Dragonsong. Watching the trailer for ARR years after my first time playing FFXIV made me play the whole game a second time. The visuals and the music go together perfectly. Makes me cry every time.
One of my favorites. I got to watch this performed by Susan Calloway in Chicago during the Final Fantasy Distant World concert and is a whole other level listening to this live. Wife and I were both in tears. :)
If you haven't, I would actually recommend watching the End of an Era cinematic. Answers was made to sync up absolutely perfectly with it and it just makes the song hit that much harder.
I can't believe they didn't suggest either Flow or Flow Together from XIV as well. One is more classical while the other (Flow Together) is like a soft rock version of the former. Both are great though.
Fun Fact: @13:56 . they did that to honor the game Kingdom hearts. Square enix and Disney company work on together and " The Night before Christmas land". Disney Allow them to change the song up for the King Moogle fight. that's why song sound like that.
I still remember the first time I heard dragonsong in it's entirety towards the end of the expansion after the cutscene. It was one of the first times experiencing a track in a game which caused me to pause and just bask in the sheer orchestral grace of it all. I was actually thankful that the recruitment timer was taking longer than usual. If there was ever an option that would let me go back and experience that again even once, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
It's the intro of a Patch with in the game. The Character that is portrayed as the main one, is in fact a place holder for the player's character that they play in the game.
Nobuo is one of the greatest composers I could imagine. BUT in the end the story writers of most Final Fantasy games combined with those unbeliveable tracks potentiate the impact of emptions to a whole new level. Exactly this stuff is something that movies can only scratch the surface on in my opinion, because of the really long time you invest to get conected to a story and characters in games like Final Fantasy and the fact that you arent only a "viewer", but you take part with your actions in this story. FFXIV as an MMORPG may be an extreme case, but if you imagine that you follow a story over a couple of houndreds (!) of hours with really dramatic, sad, joyfull or in general emotional peaks combined with those masterpieces of music, you maybe able to imagine how often those moments give me goosebumps or even tears in my eyes only hearing those songs. Thats why I love this channel as I can visit someone who has never really gotten into the gaming world experiencing at least one of the most important aspects, the beautiful soundtracks. Thank you for sharing those moments, I love it.
The thing with the Good King Moggle Mog song is that you fight all those moogles that are named, then they come back with the King, and the way they are named in the song is the order you defeat them before defeating the King...so its a good song that also gives you the way to fight them
This is the ballad of the main story of the first expansion (Heavenward) of the re-release of Final Fantasy 14 (A Realm Reborn). They really know how to tug on the heartstrings in this game.
Can't help but tear up when I hear these songs. They're not tears of sadness, nor happiness. It's just tears because of emotional intensity. One of absolute best video game soundtracks of all time, and I mean the top two or three.
What I really love about Answers is that in the first half it's all positive and hopeful and the second half is the opposite, not a galaxy brain take but the main reason I love that aspect is the attention to detail, mainly when they do the "Suffer (feel)" bit, in the first half it's the deeper voices followed by the main singer and in the 2nd half when things take a darker turn the singers switch places to better drive home the 2 opposing themes of the song.
When you get the opportunity, you should listen to FF14's To The Edge and Fleeting Moment back to back, they're both composed by Masayoshi Soken who took the role of musical director and composer from Nobuo Uematsu and the man is wild, a musical phenomenon I'd say. Some of his best work can be heard all over the Shadowbringers and Endwalker expansions.
Revolutions - FFXIV Stormblood theme, also by Uematsu and sung by Calloway. Beautiful lyrics, and a song style that is different than the previous two. Soken takes over for the Shadowbringers theme, then Erdwalker's ("Footfalls"). I think you'd enjoy the varying styles & how they fit the story of the lyrics, plus the shift when Soken steps up as Uematsu's successor.
So glad you are covering FF14! The game has so many great tracks, anything you pick for the future will be great. I recommend "Footfalls", "Shadowbringers", or "The Final Day"!
Always good to see you discover things im familiar with. Appreciate your insights. If i can recommend any songs from FfXIV, i'd say listen to Metal brute justice. The composer from FFXIV has a band called the primals that does rock covers of FFXIV songs and do a great metal brute justice. I also really like scream but i'd prefer the former.
Susan Calloway. A beautiful voice and a beautiful person. She sent a personalized birthday message with a signed poster to me, after my wife contacted her through social media. I’d been having a rough time health wise at that time, and my wife thought a message from Susan would cheer me up. Between my wife’s thoughtful idea and Susan taking the time to create a small something just for me, I was incredibly touched. It absolutely made me feel better.
If I remember correctly the Good King Moggle Mog track was specifically to be fun and lighthearted as well as Disney-esque (it's also entirely possible they got Disney's blessing since Square has worked with Disney closely for the Kingdom Hearts series) since originally the patch that it played in came out not long after a tsunami so they swapped the story from fighting Leviathan (lord of the waves and all that) to Moggle Mog and brought the Leviathan stuff later.
I dont know if its me but I feel like the Lyrics for Answers is YoshiP telling the FFXIV Community "You Asked, and here is Our Answer" with the Choir as the Community, and the Female Lead being the Development Team. And the Cinematic plays into that too with all the Named Characters we see being the Devs fighting to keep the Game and Bahamut being the Community, and the Mega Flair at the End being YoshiP ending the FFXIV 1.X to focus on ARR
Close in the Distance is absolutely phenomenal, one of the most memorable videogame moments of my entire goddamn life. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about it just stopped playing and listened for several loops when it reached its crescendo!
"Tell us why, given life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?" then later on, "In the same fleeting moment thou must live, die, and know." These two lines in a "video game" song resonated to such a degree, that I started to mentally go down a path that questioned everything. My upbringing, my morality, my life. We are given this miracle, this life, we experience so many good things, and even more bad things. All those victories and losses, successes and failures, what do they mean before Death? Why do we go through all this, if in the end, our fate is to die. It took me years of just observing people and the world to come to a conclusion. Everyone has their own answer. Many people may have the same answer, but many others have another, so on and so forth. Once I came to this conclusion, the question changed. "What is your answer?" .... And I don't know what my answer is. I hope, before I leave this world, I find it. Even if it is in my final moments, I would wish for that simple peace. I'm afraid, because some people never find their answer, and I don't want to be them.
When I heard the Shadowbringer music I had to add it to my phone. Then I got an in game house and had to get music player for it to put the music on it. Now I listen to most the songs and select need to the orchestration rolls in rewards. The music rolls are a big part in this game.
As an Ishgardian Dragoon (Ishgard being the first song's setting) This is one of the INCREDIBLY rare ways to make her, a Dragonsong War Veteran, turned disgraced Dragoon.... THis is the only song that can actually make her cry. On the musical side of things, in High School I was a trumpet player. And I had something of a rival. He was classically trained, I had raw talent. An interesting combo there (And sounds pretty conceited when put that way, but not sure the phrase I'd use otherwise) Vibrato can be a very difficult thing to do, even in with a wind instrument. I was able to pull the vibrato when necessary out of the diaphragm, so it sounded natural, and typically in tune. My rival however? He would actually wiggle the trumpet while playing to do it. And the difference was night and day.
Answers is so amazing. One of my favorite aspects is how, in the beginning, the deep male voices overpower her voice during the call and answer phrases. And then, at the end, they switch. And to me, it feels like despair at the beginning, and by the end, hope is overcoming despair.
To give you the best idea of what this song is about, this was the first expansion after the rerelease. We've been exiled in the game, and headed to a nation at war with dragons as our only escape. They are unwelcoming, and we are mourning the loss of friends, and what we think is the loss of one of our nations beloved liege's. The cutscene you watched was primarily our welcome to this city. The song has a double meaning, because in the back story of the is about the rise of this warring nation and the war of dragons, that was at one point almost ended, until the treachery of some of the nations leaders caused the war to rage on. It's sort of a double storied song because history is repeating itself in our time, a circle of betrayal is causing the war against the dragons to come to a culmination. FF14 has one of the best soundtracks because its really good at enhancing and telling the story. If you haven't done so yet, I highly recommend you check out the sound track to God of War Ragnarok. IMHO it's a soundtrack masterpiece, and Bear Mcreary the composer will be the new John Williams.
Oh man, my favorite FFXIV Let’s Play is awol from its usual time, so this is a delight to see. I hope he does more XIV music bc Soken is a fucking genius. XVI is also acceptable as that’s coming out this week lmao.
Glad you're getting around to ffxiv music! Soken is known for doing a large variety of styles so there are a lot of unique tracks within the game. I highly suggest listening to some of the newer stuff, especially from the "pandaemonium" raids (hic svnt leones. one amongst the weary, and scream are personal stand outs for me) as well as anything from shadowbringers and endwalker. Definitely the game I'm most interested in seeing your commentary about
There are two phases to the moggle mog fight. First phase, you're fighting a sequence of the lesser moogles. And in the transition of the phases, Moggle Mog comes out of the ground, to a nice leat silly drum beat. I always tell people to dance in that transition, or we die. And guess what happens when people are too stuck up to dance? We die! Every.. single.. time.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
The big thing with Dragonsong is you hear it all throughout the story. But you don't hear the lyrics until the last time it plays.
It is the last time that hits the hardest tho, cause its THEN you know the actual full story. And the vocals tell the story of the dragonsong war. You cannot have the lyrics earlier due to spoilers
Soken is someone who enjoys using leitmotifs in his music. If you listen to the music from other expansions, you can hear the same parts.
@@Medinaxz I do wish the leitmotifs would go back to being more subtle or that there where more pieces where it wasn't incorporated though. It sounds great, but its starting to feel like each piece isn't its own thing and more that they are all versions of other songs.
@@Medinaxz This is Nobuo though. But yeah that is true
@@Ninheldin I mean, the point of the leitmotifs is to be everywhere.
Shadowbringers and Footfalls especially are integral to every aspect of their respective expansions, and it makes sense that they're melted into everything in one form or another.
The tracks here are all by Nobuo Uematsu, who I believe you do know well - but after the first expansion, Masayoshi Soken took over as main composer for FF14 - and boy howdy you should check out some tracks from the Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker expansions. A much more mixed style of composition when compared to Uematsu's orchestral pieces; plenty of electric guitar and wild instrumentation. His work is so outstanding that he is now the main composer for the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 as well.
Masayoshi Soken is an absolute legend !
He has done a couple of Soken's songs, like he watched the Primals version of To the Edge in one of the most recent streams. I think he saw the original version of that song as well.
Soken realized we all love a really good bassline and he's been unstoppable since.
Soken actually took over during 2.0, so anything new (not taken from 1.0, Dragonsong from HW and Revolutions from SB being the big exception) is generally going to be Soken. This includes Good King Moggle Mog on display here.
@@Kuripants also that we love when an absolute madman just goes in on a piano
“In the same fleeting moment, thou must live, die, and know.”
One of my favorite lyrics ever, period. A simple but powerful statement that anyone can interpret differently.
Something about the way Answers leaves off with that, it feels so powerful. It feels like the song just told you a grand story, and made a point with it.
crying! Crying again!!
Don't forget the meaning of the song and the end lyric evolves based on where you are in the story
@@Blitzwaffen oh of course, I’m well aware of that and how cool it is! But what I think is really brilliant about it is that it requires 0 story context to still have a lot of poignant meaning :)
Chattttttt, you did *not* send him to Good King Moggle Mog. Bad chat!
Eh, it's basically This is Halloween by Marilyn Manson
@@MrKnaives danny elfman actually
Naw it was by Frank Zappa
@@TheMansterTruck ah ok.
Lord of all the land (kupo)!
So, fun fact with the "This is Halloween" comparison, Good King Moggle Mog is based on the Moogle theme from FF5, which came out in late 1992, almost a full year before Nightmare Before Christmas came out! So while the influence is indeed possible, this actually may be a full on coincidence!
The FFXIV community is rabid for music reactions. And it has maybe the largest OST of any game, with new stuff added every 4 months, so you could be getting requests for years 😛
I hate it man. So many new Orchestrion scrolls i still have to get 😂😂 i think i got like 150 or so and i'm looking at the orchestrion list and feel like i miss more then half the music available
@@cherrydragon3120 I'm about to make you even sadder... not all the songs from the OST are available as orchestrion rolls in the game. It kills me. :(
Correction, it's in the Guinness book of records for the largest soundtrack of any game in history. And they're 99% superb.
I highly recommend watching the actual A Realm Reborn trailer. Answers hits so much better with the visuals lining up with the beats of the song, which they don't do in the lyrics version (the lyrics version wanted to add Flames of Truth with is an additional cutscene not present in the original version, so it desynched the video from the audio).
The cinematic uses a slightly shortened version of Answers, the Flames of Truth was used since the original would be too short for the full song, you are right that it results in the song not being lined up correctly with the visuals.
Answers was always one of my favorites. But given the context of the most recent expansion, Endwalker and its conclusion to a 10 year story, its is impossible to hear this song without that new context, and not shed a tear.
YEAH, seriously, like... this song always hit hard, but after Endwalker, knowing how incredibly specific so many of the lines actually are... just completely wild
It’s a masterpiece of story telling. The only other instance of this degree of musical story-telling would be Howard Shore’s work on TLotR trilogy.
Just my opinion 🙂
Same. This song used to make me cry before EW, and now after I literally bawl my eyes out.
@@MalkuthSephiraYeah, nice to know that I was right in distrusting what the female voice was saying in the lyrics. On a downside, the retcon really made Dragonsong’s lyrics quite hypocritical in nature, like “Why break trust; why turn the past to dust. This I fear i’ll never know” considering what she did, I think she knows a lot about those things already, considering she was the one who did all those things.
I did not cry to Answers before experiencing Endwalker. I can't not cry hearing it now. The pairing of powerful music to brilliant, resonating storytelling is a hell of a drug.
so true, that song hits so much harder after Endwalker
Though "your answer" was a nice nod to it.... combined with her words during the fight. But as much as i loved all the main themes, "Flow" just kinda hits me different...
"So let there be no way back. From that temptation I sunder us. No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk."
@@twocatsgaming6628 And i loved how they endend it with "Your Answer"
Good King Moggle Mog triggers PTSD for anyone who played ARR back in the day... Thornmarch Extreme was an incredibly difficult boss encounter you tackled with 7 random people who suck just as bad as you do, we had to spend hours upon hours upon hours listening to that goddamn song 😂
Titania in shadowbringers PTSD, Falalalalala ahaahahaahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
It really was, figuring out the order was such an amazing revelation to that fight
@@raven12333 honestly Titania wasnt as hard as most people make her to be...
My first multi-wipe was yesterday (i’m a sprout) on Whorleater Extreme. It took me a while to figure out that big water spout = express ticket to the briny depths.
Shoutout to the guys for telling me tips like to focus the adds down
@@Wolvenworksif you want more tips, the moves "arms length" and "sure cast" will make you immune to most knock backs and on that fight you can use a dash to save yourself (red mage "corps a corps")
Man, I tear up just hearing the music of FF14. I'm a grown man, I swear.
Bro… ditto.
Don't be ashamed for loving music and letting it move you.
I'm a grown man too! I cried because of this game! I'd say its weirder if you don't get at least emotional once.
If you enjoyed these, I highly recommend a few other FF14 songs. Flow, In the Balance, and Footfalls.
Soken who is in charge of the music for a long time now, has a skill of making a lot of different genres of music for the game.
What angel wakes me just for the fun of it :)
To wash away the sad feelings 😊
After listening ot Answers for more than I decade now, I just realized what the layered vocals do. In the beginning, (28:30) Susan Calloway answers to the chorus in each exchange. Near the end, it's the opposite! The Chorus is actually answering Susan! (34:48) Can't believe I never caught this before.
I could explain why that is from a story stand point but it would be heavy spoilers, so if you haven't played Endwalker.... spoiler warning
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The choir in the beginning is the Ancients asking why they must be deprived of their paradise/utopia where Hydaelyn/Venat is just 1 of the many, her voice being drowned out by those summoning Zodiark. The lone voice of reason in a sea of chaos. Near the end she's long since become Hydaelyn, the guiding light of the world. Now her voice carries literally the weight of the world behind it. But those questions and thoughts still remain in the hearts and minds of the people.
Regardless, this song is an absolute masterpiece, I can't hear it without tearing up a little, It's been this way since I first heard it, but now knowing the full story behind the narrative, it carries so much more weight.
The questions are always two-syllables, and the answers are one-syllable and yes, they're swapped between the two chorus sections. A neat little touch. I don't think it's spoilery to say that Ms. Calloway plays the role of Hydaelyn in this song (the lyrics make that obvious, "to all my children" etc), the song starts out with people praying to Hydaelyn seeking answers and she nudges them and then later on in the song, she's like "what did you learn from this?" and the chorus responds and then at the very end of the song, she and the chorus simultaneously agree on what the Answer really is: In one fleeting moment, a life is born, and in one fleeting moment, the life returns to the star to be born anew and during that same fleeting moment, Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.
The thing about Answers, is that it is played early on in the game in its entirety during the ending credits and it's played in the trailer for ARR, and then as you play the game, you hear various renditions of it in instrumental and its leitmotifs are re-used many times in the game. The lyrics, though, feel like there's a deeper meaning and it has left players scratching their heads for almost TEN YEARS and then FINALLY in Endwalker, they give us a cutscene where this song plays and hoo boy did they nail you upside the head with what this song was REALLY about the whole time and it has reduced many a youtuber to tears, and has left many a jaw agape with amazement and surprise.
I just realized, 10 years too late, that the song guides you on how to complete the King Mog fight.
Oh well
Wich one??
@@cherrydragon3120hornmarch EX. On content if you didn't kill adds in the correct order you'd wipe
After finishing Endwalker...how can Answers NOT having you curled up into a ball sobbing on the floor? How?!
because until you arrive at lvl87+ you know nothing of emotional damage ;)
_Thou must live die and know_ as quest title spoils a bit but you are not prepared
@@rivenoakhonestly it feels like once you hit that quest they start finding more ways to hit you in the feels. My personal favorites being the quests Her Children, One and All and You’re Not Alone
It's even more emotional when you've played 1.0.
The song already does that to me and I'm not even past the base game yet :(
@@MugenHeadNinja Oh good luck with it. It plays a lot more throughout the expansions but the most memorable is the one mentioned. They just LOVE to twist the pain in.
"In the same fleeting moment, thou must live die and know" 😭
Dragonsong is one of the most emotional pieces of music I've ever heard, though a big part of that is the story behind it in the game, which is simply put a heart-rending masterpiece as far as videogame storytelling goes. It's one of the few tracks on the FF14 soundtrack that was composed by the great Nobuo Uematsu, who's widely lauded as one of the greatest video game composers and even one of the greatest overall contemporary composers! Though his protégé Masayoshi Soken has taken up the flag magnificently and composed dozens of incredibly memorable pieces for FFXIV as well!
Truly one of the greatest videogame soundtracks out there, though after 4 massive expansions the full OST does have a large enough sample size to have some misses as well 😅
Also, for someone that had 0 clue what happened in ff14 1.0, the opening cinematic to ARR and the Answer song were so good I actually felt for the unknown characters on screen.
I remember hearing the lyrics for the first time in the Trial....
I had to take a break before starting the fight. 😢 twas too good
What's really crazy about "Answers" is that it was written back around 2012 and the full meaning of its lyrics weren't clear until the release of Endwalker 9 years later. It's unclear just how much of the story they had planned out back then, but the payoff for this song is so satisfying, especially for someone who's had it on their playlist for the last decade.
They’ve said that they really didn’t have a direction until towards the end of Stormblood. Like, the WoD arc in post Heavensward was just the devs going “You know what’s be cool?” And Yoshi-P was just like “Yeah that sounds great. We’ll figure out what it means later.” I don’t think this lack of forethought diminishes what they did with the story at all, though. If anything I feel it’s a testament to the writing ability of Ishikawa-San to pull all of those events together and make them all feel like they meant something by the end. It actually improves the replayability (or watchabllity) of the MSQ so you can see all the little things that were picked up and expanded on. A masterclass in story writing to be sure!
@@Teslo_In_FinalFantasy Another plus is that by putting something like that into the story that would raise questions, they could observe how fans were speculating and potentially find guesses from fans that gave them ideas.
I think it's important to understand that they did NOT plan all the way til Endwalker that early. The story of FF14 back then was very much "throw a ton of ideas out there and see which ones work the best." Answers was recontextualized in Endwalker, but that doesn't mean that they had ANY idea of what they were going to make that song mean.
@@Teslo_In_FinalFantasy They had a lot of general notes and aims for later content each step of a way. The team works such that they leave a lot of seeds to use later while having a direction for the immediate stage being handled, solidifying the writing as they move forward one step at a time. That way they have flexibility and can avoid writing themselves into a corner. They knew how they wanted to take things and how certain things were going to go, but kept the execution up in the air until it was the next thing to depict.
My personal favourite part of Answers is that, although it feels like the true meaning lies after the events in Endwalker, you can also interpret the meaning of the song differently for every single time its played throughout the story, and it fits so well every time. Intentional or not it's a masterpiece of a song.
i haven't heard Answers in a long time, and it brought me to tears after the years i've put into the game
I never thought about it before, but this does feel very Nightwish. I would LOVE to see them cover this.
I would strongly recommend checking out later tracks such as Tommorow and Tommorow, Brute Justice Mode (The Primal's Version is very good), Flow and many more if you look into Endwalker and Shadowbringers. Also the newest tracks for the raids are amazing too like Under the Moonlight, In the Balance, The Tireless One. All composed by Masayoshi Soken and his amazing team. He's doing the OST for FFXVI too and there's to be sure many more amazing bangers to listen too, just 3 more days xD
FFXIV spoils us for choice. There are so many tracks that aren't just good or great, but PHENOMENAL, and you could pick one completely blindly at random and immediately fall in love. Soken is coming into his own as a legend, and just from 14's gravitas alone, as wild as that is. And the team around him is just as talented and hard working, and the results in these amazing tracks really shows!
Going through HeavensWard as a Dragoon gave me a whole new feeling for this song, Cause you can feel the Emotion that Ratatoskr was feeling as she died and the Pain that the First Brood was feeling with Her Death.
Really? I was dragoon and it completely ruined the experience because of the inconsistencies between the dragoon quest that takes place at the same time and the main story. They clearly decided to abandon whatever happened in the dragoon one in favor of a different estinien and it was so jarring to see
Heyyyyy, I'm the one who recommended Good King Moggle Mog in the stream! So glad I was able to catch this whole segment of the stream, since FFXIV is probably my favorite game of all time :D (also yes, hi its me, same name as on Twitch, you may or may not recognize me)
I'm surprised no one suggested "To the Edge". It is a very special song that holds a tooooon of meaning, and not just for the game.
☝☝☝
The WoL fight theme? Yeah...
This
The original melody to King Mog's song is a direct translation from the old chiptune moogle theme from the 80's final fantasy
Dragonsong is an emotional rollercoaster if you've played the game. You first hear it without the lyrics. It swells in you with feeling of "Heck yeah, let's kill some badguys!"
And then you play the through Heavensward.
Quests, Dungeons, and Trials. All bringing you to better understand both sides of the 1000 year war. All culminating into a final fight.
And then you hear Dragonsong again.
And now you hear the lyrics.
They made it just HIT at the end of Heavensward!
Dude, this games OST is god tier
Answers is so freaking good, players first heard it when introducing in Realm Reborn - and several expansions later - same song, same words, but we now know infomartion which quite drastically change the whole vibe of song
Yesss ff14 has such amazing music! This one (dragonsong) is such a powerful meaning and tells ya the story behind heavesword (the expansion this song is from). You hear the non lyric verson throughout the expansion, but when you get to the end and you're waiting for the queue to fight the main boss, it hits you with the lyrics, and i bawled while waiting it was such a powerful moment
Sitting on the destroyed bridge of faith waiting for it made me feel for Nidhogg as a character.
Answers hits so much harder after Endwalker when you have the backstory that fully contextualizes it.
Honestly watching your journey through the world of videogame OSTs is just a really joyous experience and I hope it's going well for you now.
Final Fantasy music makes me sentimental lol
"Answers" is such a moving piece, and the scene represents one of the more interesting moments in gaming as a whole, in my opinion. To my understanding, the original release of Final Fantasy XIV was plagued with problems of all kinds, a lot of people loved it but at the time it was also just hard for a lot of people to run the game (I was one of those who couldn't play it even though I wanted to). The game didn't last long, less than 2 years, and they brought the story to a climax, which is represented in this trailer.. The rare scenario where the protagonists, the players, they fail.
FFXIV - A Realm Reborn isn't just some expansion to an MMORPG it's literally take two. They fired the whole team from the original version and brought in their 'good team' and remade the whole game. Kept the ending to the first try canon, and used it to push the story forward on a game fans would (and *could*) enjoy.
get goosebumps & tears each time i hear / see it
It's even deeper than that! The team brought in to rebuild the world was FORCED (clockwork orange style) to play HUNDREDS of hours of WoW (and other mmo's to perhaps, but the idea was only what was extremely successful and popular at the time) so they would actually have a fucking clue what it was they were making and how to make it fun and good because the team that made the original version of FFXIV was comprised nearly exclusively of people who had never played any mmo in their entire lives (and the physical game world was third party outsourced and you can still find screenshots of how terrain was copy pasted in dozes of places). They were determined to make things right and build an mmo AHEAD of it's time instead of coming out the gate with outdated game design (cough cough FFXI). And what do we have today? An mmo that actually exceeds WoW in terms of subscriber base AND critical reviews (not sure about after dragonflight though) and game design as well as vastly less player toxicity.
By the way, Answers was composed long before the 1.0 was released and can be heard in the intro segment. It was repurposed for the Battle of Carteneau (the Answers cinematic) cinematic that ended 1.0's story. Then the song was repurposed multiple times throughout the game ending with one of the most banger cut scenes in the game, Thou Must Live, Die, and Know.
Very few people were "fired" most were moved or moved of their own accord. Square is a HUGE company with some of the most gifted designers in their fields of expertise. The higher ups responsible were moved to other projects (both producer and director) and one man (Naoki Yoshida) was brought on to be both producer and director. But many of the designers and people crafting the game remained. Though some went to work on Final Fantasy 15 since the toolset being made for FFXIV was using this toolset as well.
Goddamnit, this game is making me cry again and I’m not even playing it rn 😂
Susan Calloway sang “Answers” freakin’ *perfectly* and she never fails to make me emotional.
23:44 ARR = A Real Reborn, which is FF14 2.0, 14 1.0 was so bad they actually killed it and built it from the ground up, fun fact about that song, as the servers neared shutdown on 1.0 the moon that the dragon comes out of is seen getting nearer to the planet. On the day the servers shut down anyone who was still there, got this cut scene as the world was devastated, your character getting teleported by the old mage guy into the future where you would be safe to fight another day. ARR aka 2.0 came later and opened with the same, and that is where the current game starts. They canonically burned the servers to the ground, and made it a part of the story.
Been waiting for this
Dragonsong is a song lamenting and recounting the events and treachery that led to an ongoing war between a host of dragons and a human nation. We hear the leitmotif for the song baked in throughout much of the soundtrack for the expansion, but we only hear the full song at the finale, during the fight against Nidhogg (see below).
Originally peace was brokered when a human and a dragon fell in love, but after two hundred years, paranoia and opportunistic greed drove the king of the humans to slay a dragon - Ratatoskr - and steal its magical eyes under the pretense of an audience of unity. The dragon's sibling Nidhogg tried to seek vengeance, but partly failed and nearly died in the attempt thanks to the humans' newfound power. What followed was an ongoing thousand years of war, with the humans erasing and rewriting the betrayal to put the blame on the dragons.
The war is ended when the true history is exposed and Nidhogg, who has grown completely unmoving in his determination to wipe out all of the humans, is laid to rest by the player after he nearly destroys the human nation.
The song is sung by Ratatosk, and ends with her asking why the humans did all of the things that they did.
"Why break trust, why turn the past to dust? Why must you let go of the life you were bestowed? This, I fear, I'll never know."
Awh yeah I've been waiting for you to talk about music from one of my favorite games! This game has more tracks that make me cry than any other game I've ever played.
I mean the main music for Good King Moggle Mog is from 1994, the idea to make it whimsical is the homage but the music itself is original. Besides this whimsical fits moogles to a T since 1990.
The compositions for FF14 are just pure magic. You hear so many of them in different arrangements throughout the game just doing everyday things, but the real power is most definitely reserved for the title themes of each expansion. Despite hearing similarly themed tracks over and over again by doing repeated activities, the music never grows stale, which is a testament to just how much care they put into making something truly timeless.
Love your analysis 🥰
... and amidst deepest despair, light everlasting.
Never clicked so fast. The decomposed and one of my favorite all time games?
WIsh he would listen To The Edge, the background alone on that song is just such an empowering thing. Knowing that Soken composed it while in the hospital dealing with cancer is mind-blowing.
These songs never fail to make me tear up. Purely the arrangements are gorgeous but also the memories connected to it make them hit harder :3 Thank you so much for your insights!!!
I hope you will listen to some songs from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail as both games have gorgeous tracks and super interesting compositions. For example Gilded Runner from Genshin that has a mathematical structure (don't wanna say too much and spoil it but it's quite stunning) and Wildfire from Honkai (which is a boss theme, but more correctly people call it a theme the boss hears seeing the protagonists).
In any case I can't wait to see and hear more reaction from you, Geebz! 😊
I can tell you really know what you're doing, as you knew you were driving us to say "NOO" at that part in Answers right as I said NO. Really liking your stuff.
Shadowbringer, and Footfall are both amazing as well. They both are from the trailers to their expansions (Shadowbringers, and Endwalker.)
ayyy we love this game, some of the newest raid music is pretty dope
yeah, if we crack open the ff14 rabbit hole, there will certainly not be a lack of material :P
I like a relatively slow vibrato that doesn't start right at the beginning of a note. It's perfect in Dragonsong.
Watching the trailer for ARR years after my first time playing FFXIV made me play the whole game a second time. The visuals and the music go together perfectly. Makes me cry every time.
Yeah, her voice is flawless... and she sounds just as good, if not better, live. Truly an inspired choice of vocalist by Mr. Uematsu.
One of my favorites. I got to watch this performed by Susan Calloway in Chicago during the Final Fantasy Distant World concert and is a whole other level listening to this live. Wife and I were both in tears. :)
That last "never know" in dragonsong brings tears to my eyes.
If you haven't, I would actually recommend watching the End of an Era cinematic. Answers was made to sync up absolutely perfectly with it and it just makes the song hit that much harder.
Great video as always dude! Be awesome to see your reaction to the new Final fantasy music.
I can't believe they didn't suggest either Flow or Flow Together from XIV as well. One is more classical while the other (Flow Together) is like a soft rock version of the former. Both are great though.
Fun Fact: @13:56 . they did that to honor the game Kingdom hearts. Square enix and Disney company work on together and " The Night before Christmas land". Disney Allow them to change the song up for the King Moogle fight. that's why song sound like that.
Throwing my hat in for “ink long dry” from FFXIV.
I still remember the first time I heard dragonsong in it's entirety towards the end of the expansion after the cutscene. It was one of the first times experiencing a track in a game which caused me to pause and just bask in the sheer orchestral grace of it all. I was actually thankful that the recruitment timer was taking longer than usual. If there was ever an option that would let me go back and experience that again even once, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
It's the intro of a Patch with in the game. The Character that is portrayed as the main one, is in fact a place holder for the player's character that they play in the game.
Nobuo is one of the greatest composers I could imagine. BUT in the end the story writers of most Final Fantasy games combined with those unbeliveable tracks potentiate the impact of emptions to a whole new level. Exactly this stuff is something that movies can only scratch the surface on in my opinion, because of the really long time you invest to get conected to a story and characters in games like Final Fantasy and the fact that you arent only a "viewer", but you take part with your actions in this story. FFXIV as an MMORPG may be an extreme case, but if you imagine that you follow a story over a couple of houndreds (!) of hours with really dramatic, sad, joyfull or in general emotional peaks combined with those masterpieces of music, you maybe able to imagine how often those moments give me goosebumps or even tears in my eyes only hearing those songs.
Thats why I love this channel as I can visit someone who has never really gotten into the gaming world experiencing at least one of the most important aspects, the beautiful soundtracks.
Thank you for sharing those moments, I love it.
i hope he reacts to Your Answer, that would be so fitting man. he's gonna have fun with your answer.
The thing with the Good King Moggle Mog song is that you fight all those moogles that are named, then they come back with the King, and the way they are named in the song is the order you defeat them before defeating the King...so its a good song that also gives you the way to fight them
Damn I was expecting to hear ”Tomorrow and tomorrow” and ”Flow”. I think those are the best vocal tracks in the game :)
Also, since you've got a metal channel, there's a lot of boss music in this game that you'd probably enjoy!
He'd probably love Sephirot's theme from warring triad.
Rubicante. Titan. Just name some
Endwalker's mid-boss theme is still one of my favorites.
This is the ballad of the main story of the first expansion (Heavenward) of the re-release of Final Fantasy 14 (A Realm Reborn). They really know how to tug on the heartstrings in this game.
Can't help but tear up when I hear these songs. They're not tears of sadness, nor happiness. It's just tears because of emotional intensity. One of absolute best video game soundtracks of all time, and I mean the top two or three.
"You're crying! I'm not crying!" I sure am, sir. o7
I just love how the Good King Moogle Mog is a Homage to Nightmare Before Christmas
What I really love about Answers is that in the first half it's all positive and hopeful and the second half is the opposite, not a galaxy brain take but the main reason I love that aspect is the attention to detail, mainly when they do the "Suffer (feel)" bit, in the first half it's the deeper voices followed by the main singer and in the 2nd half when things take a darker turn the singers switch places to better drive home the 2 opposing themes of the song.
When you get the opportunity, you should listen to FF14's To The Edge and Fleeting Moment back to back, they're both composed by Masayoshi Soken who took the role of musical director and composer from Nobuo Uematsu and the man is wild, a musical phenomenon I'd say. Some of his best work can be heard all over the Shadowbringers and Endwalker expansions.
I love that Dragonsong is literally telling you the history/backstory of Heavensward, given that the dragons pass down their history through song.
Revolutions - FFXIV Stormblood theme, also by Uematsu and sung by Calloway. Beautiful lyrics, and a song style that is different than the previous two. Soken takes over for the Shadowbringers theme, then Erdwalker's ("Footfalls"). I think you'd enjoy the varying styles & how they fit the story of the lyrics, plus the shift when Soken steps up as Uematsu's successor.
So glad you are covering FF14! The game has so many great tracks, anything you pick for the future will be great. I recommend "Footfalls", "Shadowbringers", or "The Final Day"!
I laughed so hard at the part where the fart machine goes off out of nowhere that there were tears flowing down my face.
do you know la hee?
Y'all! Please! Give him some from the new expansions! It's so worth it!
Always good to see you discover things im familiar with. Appreciate your insights. If i can recommend any songs from FfXIV, i'd say listen to Metal brute justice. The composer from FFXIV has a band called the primals that does rock covers of FFXIV songs and do a great metal brute justice. I also really like scream but i'd prefer the former.
Susan Calloway. A beautiful voice and a beautiful person. She sent a personalized birthday message with a signed poster to me, after my wife contacted her through social media. I’d been having a rough time health wise at that time, and my wife thought a message from Susan would cheer me up. Between my wife’s thoughtful idea and Susan taking the time to create a small something just for me, I was incredibly touched. It absolutely made me feel better.
end of era trailer with answers song is still my favourite gaming trailer of all times
Not me trying to sing along to Answers and crying the entire time, especially knowing full context of the song after 6.0...
😭
If I remember correctly the Good King Moggle Mog track was specifically to be fun and lighthearted as well as Disney-esque (it's also entirely possible they got Disney's blessing since Square has worked with Disney closely for the Kingdom Hearts series) since originally the patch that it played in came out not long after a tsunami so they swapped the story from fighting Leviathan (lord of the waves and all that) to Moggle Mog and brought the Leviathan stuff later.
I dont know if its me but I feel like the Lyrics for Answers is YoshiP telling the FFXIV Community "You Asked, and here is Our Answer" with the Choir as the Community, and the Female Lead being the Development Team. And the Cinematic plays into that too with all the Named Characters we see being the Devs fighting to keep the Game and Bahamut being the Community, and the Mega Flair at the End being YoshiP ending the FFXIV 1.X to focus on ARR
Waiting for Flow and Footfalls
That last song is nearly religious in all honesty.
Wait until you hear that the entire song is basically a conversation between the people of all the lands and a goddess.
Flow and Close in the distance are the best IMO
they're all number one.
Close in the Distance is absolutely phenomenal, one of the most memorable videogame moments of my entire goddamn life. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about it just stopped playing and listened for several loops when it reached its crescendo!
Close in the Distance reaction at around 3:39:00 ^^ : twitch tv/videos/1820977908
(and Shadowbringers right after!)
"Tell us why, given life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?" then later on, "In the same fleeting moment thou must live, die, and know." These two lines in a "video game" song resonated to such a degree, that I started to mentally go down a path that questioned everything. My upbringing, my morality, my life. We are given this miracle, this life, we experience so many good things, and even more bad things. All those victories and losses, successes and failures, what do they mean before Death? Why do we go through all this, if in the end, our fate is to die. It took me years of just observing people and the world to come to a conclusion. Everyone has their own answer. Many people may have the same answer, but many others have another, so on and so forth. Once I came to this conclusion, the question changed. "What is your answer?" .... And I don't know what my answer is. I hope, before I leave this world, I find it. Even if it is in my final moments, I would wish for that simple peace. I'm afraid, because some people never find their answer, and I don't want to be them.
Dragonsong makes me wanna cry every damn time! So powerful!
-Slams empty bottle of OJ-
gahdamit, (Tears)
When I heard the Shadowbringer music I had to add it to my phone. Then I got an in game house and had to get music player for it to put the music on it. Now I listen to most the songs and select need to the orchestration rolls in rewards. The music rolls are a big part in this game.
I'm so glad you finally took a bite out of ff14. This is a serious rabbit hole. From heavy metal to free jazz, enjoy the ride.
As an Ishgardian Dragoon (Ishgard being the first song's setting) This is one of the INCREDIBLY rare ways to make her, a Dragonsong War Veteran, turned disgraced Dragoon.... THis is the only song that can actually make her cry.
On the musical side of things, in High School I was a trumpet player. And I had something of a rival. He was classically trained, I had raw talent. An interesting combo there (And sounds pretty conceited when put that way, but not sure the phrase I'd use otherwise) Vibrato can be a very difficult thing to do, even in with a wind instrument. I was able to pull the vibrato when necessary out of the diaphragm, so it sounded natural, and typically in tune. My rival however? He would actually wiggle the trumpet while playing to do it. And the difference was night and day.
This game has such. beautiful. music!
Answers is so amazing. One of my favorite aspects is how, in the beginning, the deep male voices overpower her voice during the call and answer phrases. And then, at the end, they switch. And to me, it feels like despair at the beginning, and by the end, hope is overcoming despair.
To give you the best idea of what this song is about, this was the first expansion after the rerelease. We've been exiled in the game, and headed to a nation at war with dragons as our only escape. They are unwelcoming, and we are mourning the loss of friends, and what we think is the loss of one of our nations beloved liege's. The cutscene you watched was primarily our welcome to this city. The song has a double meaning, because in the back story of the is about the rise of this warring nation and the war of dragons, that was at one point almost ended, until the treachery of some of the nations leaders caused the war to rage on. It's sort of a double storied song because history is repeating itself in our time, a circle of betrayal is causing the war against the dragons to come to a culmination. FF14 has one of the best soundtracks because its really good at enhancing and telling the story. If you haven't done so yet, I highly recommend you check out the sound track to God of War Ragnarok. IMHO it's a soundtrack masterpiece, and Bear Mcreary the composer will be the new John Williams.
Oh man, my favorite FFXIV Let’s Play is awol from its usual time, so this is a delight to see. I hope he does more XIV music bc Soken is a fucking genius. XVI is also acceptable as that’s coming out this week lmao.
Oh man, first few notes of Dragonsong and I started crying...
Glad you're getting around to ffxiv music! Soken is known for doing a large variety of styles so there are a lot of unique tracks within the game. I highly suggest listening to some of the newer stuff, especially from the "pandaemonium" raids (hic svnt leones. one amongst the weary, and scream are personal stand outs for me) as well as anything from shadowbringers and endwalker. Definitely the game I'm most interested in seeing your commentary about
There are two phases to the moggle mog fight. First phase, you're fighting a sequence of the lesser moogles. And in the transition of the phases, Moggle Mog comes out of the ground, to a nice leat silly drum beat. I always tell people to dance in that transition, or we die. And guess what happens when people are too stuck up to dance? We die! Every.. single.. time.
If you see this and want another reaction to the edge is my favorite track and i also love shadowbringers. It's a lot different in style
FF14's music is such a giant rabbit hole of so many amazing pieces between Nobuo Uematsu and primarily Masayoshi Soken.