1.
FINAL FANTASY XIV: HEAVENSWARD
At the start of last year I was pretty much done with Final Fantasy. I'd burned out on the series in 2012, and years of Square Enix churning out shittier and shittier games and pretending they were hot shit, along with the rabid, fanatical defense of said games sort of put me off of both the series and the fandom. Along came some friends, asking me to play FFXIV with them. I figured heck, why not? Multiplayer FF was a great idea back in the Crystal Chronicles days. Honestly, A Realm Reborn was pretty frustrating, and much of it seemed to embody the problems that I had with modern FF anyway. Then I hit
Heavensward. Specifically, I heard my first vote:
Dragonsong is the main theme of the game, and it's a major leitmotif for much of the game's soundtrack. The song is, by and large, melancholic, setting the tone for the game's central conflict, the Dragonsong War. Almost every major questline is effected by this sense of sorrow, but what sells me on Dragonsong is the way the lyrics hold different meaning over the course of the game. When you first start, the circle none can break and the bonds of hope shattered by betrayal refer to the events from A Realm Reborn's ending, but by the game's ending, and well into current content it refers to the numerous horrible acts you witness and uncover over the course of the war.
Dragonsong occurs in a variety of styles and tones over the course of the game. From the contemplative and somber
Contention to the harsh and overbearing
Knights' theme. Perhaps my favorite instance, however, is the way the theme evolves during the endgame sequences.
Imagination is a stirring take that plays during the final dungeon. The bass and percussion uphold a swift melody that bespeaks the urgency of the hero's mission. The requisite Latin Chorus foreshadows the Very Definite Evil approaching (it /is/ Final Fantasy after all!). What I like most, however, is that there's a sort of heroic feeling to the normally sorrowful Dragonsong leitmotif. This is magnified in
Heroes, where the final boss' theme is almost a tribute to the hero he's pretending to be. It's sort of a perverse lie told atop a sad truth: Sure, everyone has suffered because of the Dragonsong War, but look how heroic it's made us all! and the like. What I especially enjoy about Heroes is that there's a frantic, manic sense to the song, reflective of the way your enemy is slowly breaking down over the course of the fight. This isn't present in
Heroes (Extreme) in part, I like to think, because that battle is a retelling, but also to sort of signify the increased difficulty of the fight.
Thok Ast Thok receives my second vote from the game. As an ode to combat, sung during battle with a terrifying, formic God of War, accompanied by string instruments and a deep, masculine vocal track, it's perhaps one of the most recognizable songs in the game. What endears the track to me, in particular, is that the
final phase of the song actually reminds me of
Mongolian Throat Singing. More accurately
Tuvan Throat Singing, or Khoomei is a style of song in which a singer produces two tones at once, sort of warbling their throat as they do. Historically such songs were sung in praise of the spirits of nature. Given that Ravana, the enemy in question, is a God of War, it's only fitting that his own be in praise of the spirit of war. I had the rare opportunity to hear this kind of singing during my travels in China, so Ravana's theme, with its
droning voice and string accompaniment sort of call it to mind immediately. What I find interesting is that the song has been adapted for more global tastes. Ravana's voice is melodious, and the movement of the strings is akin to a waltz.
The last song for which I am voting is
Alexander: Boss Battle. In a game full to the brim with sweeping, orchestral music, Alexander stands out as a strange, eclectic kind of techno-pop dance tune. Its fitting for the mechanical fortress in which you hear it, but I think the reason I'm such a big fan is because it reminds me a lot of works by
Sexy Synthesizer. A key difference is that Soken's Alexander doesn't use the square waves SS make a point of using. Still, Synthesizer's work on
other Square themes leaves Alexander dying for a rendition. I digress however. The beauty of Alexander is in the fact that it is so completely jarring with the vast majority of the soundtrack. Even Imagination and Heroes, which play in mechanical fortresses as well, maintain a more or less orchestral feeling. The only other song on the entire soundtrack that's even quite like it is
Woe that is Madness.
On the whole, the range and variety of Heavensward's OST are perhaps the single most defining trait of it (and ARR)'s music as a whole. It's hard to not praise it for making so many daring and adventurous choices with its soundtrack, especially when there are times where if feels like Square's modern composers have begun to play it utterly safe (as is the case with Yoko Shimomura's work of late.) I highly suggest that fans of RPG sound tracks, if not fans of all video game jams, check Heavensward out.
2.Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
Type-0 is perhaps another game whose soundtrack I might characterize as a bit safe. It is, by and large, what you would expect of a Final Fantasy soundtrack. That isn't, however, to do disservice to the work put into it. On a whole, I think the OST perfectly conveys the concept-imagery that Type-0 is built around. There's an air of menace, urgency and militarism, and the game's soundtrack is comprised largely of either more traditional, orchestral pieces and more electronic, hard-rock pieces, almost emblematic of the more mechanical Militesian Empire and the agrarian Dominian of Rubrum in the game.
What Becomes of Us is the perfect song to sort of convey the ideas of FFT-0, as befitting the game's main theme. It crops up in
Tempus Finis and
Vermillion Fire in dramatically different ways. The song is driven by a Latin chorus and powerful string instruments. First heard in the opening video and echoed at times throughout the plot, What Becomes of Us emulates the variant movements of diverse regiments of militaries engaged in combat by staggering male and female choirs with the string instruments, overlaying them atop a steady percussive cadence. I'm particularly fond of the theme as it appears in
The Quiet Bloodbath. This instrumental, guitar rendition kind of illustrates what I think FFT-0 was trying to capture: a rejuvenation of classic Final Fantasy. It's the game's main theme as a slow-rock. It takes the older concept of a full-scale orchestra with latin singing and upbeats and turns it into a more contemplative rock piece. This sort of reinvention of the games' theme is reflective of how Type-0 takes the time-worn story of the war for the crystals and tries to reinvent it.
Apostles of the Crystal is perhaps my favorite song in the game. Unlike What Becomes of Us, it's a driving guitar piece played during boss battles and as the theme for the main characters. As such, it's markedly tragic, combining the stirring tones of conflict with the understated melancholy of child soldiers. It's an angsty piece, but it fits the cast to a t. I'm not the best at waxing poetic about rock, but I'm a fan of the way the song manages to feel somehow slow and fast at the same time.
In my eyes, the next best song that really manages to capture this same sense of reinvention is
Standing Strong on the Ground, a rendition of the main series' Chocobo theme, which uses brass horns to sort of create a march of the time-honored song. We all know the
Chocobo theme and how it's been everything from a
Mambo to a
Samba to
Techno,
Electric and
Metal. Type-0 has its own, more standardized
Chocobo Theme which retains the joyous, playful feeling of the original, but Standing Strong on the Ground distinguishes it self for militarizing the gaiety of the Chocobo theme. The weaponization of the song reflective of the way ordinarily carefree youth have been turned into living weapons in Rubrum's battle for survival.
Ultimately, Type-0's soundtrack remains fairly safe. There's nothing particularly risky about the combination of rock and orchestra, but the use of both safe choices is no less for it. The soundtrack upholds the game perfectly, and it helps to set the tone of reinvention that the alleged "New Tale of the Crystal" was supposed to be all about.
3.Undertale
Undertale is sort of the out-of-nowhere game that at first I hated because it had the same kind of irritatingly enthusiastic fanbase that Steven Universe has. After sitting down with it and actually playing it for a bit, though, I saw why it was so beloved. No small part of the magic of the game is its soundtrack, which calls to mind the music of yesteryear, but isn't afraid to make use of the fact that it's not yesteryear at all.
Enemy Approaching! is one of my favorite songs in the game because it sort of tells you everything you need to know about the soundtrack right up front. It emulates the square-wave feeling of songs like
Battle Scene and
Battle with a Dangerous Foe while bringing its own unique flavor to the fold. The moment I heard this, I fell for Undertale.
Fallen Down is a brief piece that plays at the game's opening, but it carries considerable emotion in that short amount of time. Its
Reprise serves as something of an extension, with both the song and reprise sort of demonstrating how I feel that Undertale's music, though seeking to emulate the old, 8-bit soundtracks of the past, does not feel constrained by them. The multiple tracks in this song aren't the kind of thing I'd expect to hear in an NES game's capacity, but I'm glad for their presence all the same.
Megalovania is an incredibly fun, upbeat song. It feels to me more like a Super Nintendo track than a Nintendo era one, but I don't really give a fuck about the particulars of a song like this. The title reminds me a lot of the days when Yoko Shimomura wrote fun songs like
Megalomania. It isn't really a 1:1 comparison, but there's something about how frenetic both songs are that makes me feel that way, I guess.
The point is, Undertale is an amazing sound track and game, and I'm all the more impressed to set it up here alongside two Final Fantasy games with much, much more money at their disposal.
Late to the Party
Transistor
Because you fucking plebes didn't vote for her enough last year, I'm here to remind you of the OST you scum snubbed for fucking Now That's What I Call Smash 50.
Transistor is a sort of artsy Diablo-type RPG that takes place in the aesthetically obsessed city of Cloudbank. It follows the adventure of Red, the musician robbed of her voice, and her unnecessarily erotic super weapon sentient sword/boyfriend as they seek to defeat the Camerata and stop the assimilation of the city into an uncreative, controlled state. It's an endearing love story about, at least in my eyes, the clash between individuality and unity, diversity and conformity.
Despite this typically cyberpunk setting, Cloudbank is strangely utopian. There's little to no mention of poverty, and everyone seems to live lives of comparative luxury. The struggles of the populace are, as I mentioned above, largely aesthetic.
As befitting a game where art and creativity are so central to the setting and themes, and the heroine is a renowned vocalist, Transistor's soundtrack is a vibrant, beautiful sort of "old-world electronic post-rock" as described by David Korb, the composer. Ashley Barret lends an element of soul, of vibrancy to the tracks. Her voice is so enchanting the game has a dedicated button just to switching tracks from
Instrumental to
Hummed. Why do you need a dedicated button to listen to Ashley Barret hum the entire soundtrack of the game?
Because dear God listen to that woman hum.
The Spine is the best song in the game, bar none. For whatever reason, it doesn't play during the actual boss fight with The Spine of the World, but its connection to that is still an integral part of it. Muttered to Red by Transistor during the lead in to the encounter with The Spine, this slow-rock describes in no small way the power the protagonist finds herself holding. The Spine of the World is hers, twisted and tied. It's fragile, yet the most important and powerful part of the world as well. There's not a lot I can really go into regarding the lyrics that wouldn't spoil the game, but that it plays when we first learn something regarding our protagonist, Red, and is connected with the Behemoth that is driving The Transistor to madness is in keeping with the violent and yet remorseful undercurrent of the song.
I'm tempted to let
We All Become's scene speak for itself, because I feel it's an incredible introductory scene that really tells the player exactly what they're in for in Transistor, but I guess I should touch upon a few points.
We all Become is indicative of the game's main threat, The Process, and "Moving out to the Country" is something of an enigmatic euphemism within the game. The song sings specifically of the things Red wants to do instead of Becoming. It's the Individualist Anthem that cuts in contrast to the game's assimilating antagonists. Most notably, the scene and song play before
In Circles, the song that accompanies the first boss battle against a member of the Camerata. Or rather, we hear Red's anthem of self and witness her subsequent loss thereof moments before the battle with one of the perpetrators, and the decidedly harsh song that accompanies that "I won't save you."
We All Become is an all around upbeat, enjoyable track which I think really gets the Player pumped for the adventure they're going to go on. The last song from the game that I want to touch on is, fittingly enough, the game's ending theme.
Paper Boats is a beautiful song about the fragility of self and the inextricable nature of the heroine and her companion. Again, I can't go about spoiling the actual plot of the game, but the lyrics work almost as an explanation for the ending, which can come as something of a shock.
In sum, Transistor was a beautiful game that doesn't really get the recognition it deserves. Ashley Barret's voice is beautiful, and Korb's work makes the entire story of a voiceless Songstress trying to prevent a Cyberpunk Apocalypse work that much better. Even if the game never wins any awards, I'll talk till I'm blue in the face about it in the hopes of getting others interested.