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The extra-deep shadows of Ishgard’s buildings, and the harsh glare shining on broken structures covered in scaffolding, work hand in hand with “Solid” to convey this feeling of a war-torn city. Heavensward brought a new lighting system to Final Fantasy XIV, the most obvious change being an enhanced level of contrast between light and dark. Its darkly serious tone is evocative of a town perpetually in some form of reconstruction thanks to the seemingly endless Dragonsong War. Upon arriving in Foundation, you’ll hear “Solid” (track 3) first. According to Soken’s comments on this album (more on that later), he didn’t originally plan on creating four songs for Ishgard - a day and night theme for each level - but I’m glad he was convinced to do so. The central hub of the entire expansion, the city-state of Ishgard is split into two levels, clearly dividing the upper- and lower-class that reside in The Pillars and Foundation, respectively. Get it? “Not funny,” you say? “Move on,” I hear you pleading? That’s probably the right reaction. Ironic, given that so much of the game takes place in the sky. With a total runtime of nearly 5 hours, there is a lot of ground to cover with Heavensward. I really hope to see Takada compose more music, be it for Final Fantasy XIV or another title, as her work here has me wanting more. In this case, the drums remain light, keeping the hopeful tone of the Vanu tribe intact. Often, when you think of “tribal drums,” you imagine something bass-heavy that works well in highly dramatic music. This song has a light, airy feel to it, accented by some solid tribal-like drum beats.
#Final fantasy soundtracks Patch
This song debuted in Patch 3.1 and is the main theme of the bird-like Vanu Vanu tribe that you help in establishing a new home in the sky. Along with her credit of arranger on about a dozen tracks, she also composed two songs, including track 13, “Coming Home,” a theme that gets special mention as one of my favorites on the album. I can’t think of a better word to summarize the high-caliber integration of these songs.īefore we get to the bulk of this album, though, there is one other credited composer here: Yukiko Takada. We often discuss Heavensward on Rhythm Encounter, and our former RPGFan Music Overlord Stephen Meyerink commonly uses the word “cohesive” to describe this album. Regardless of whether or not Uematsu and Soken worked hand-in-hand across the album, the specific places that Soken chose to evoke either of these themes could only have happened if he was deeply involved with the rest of the Final Fantasy XIV team, in particular the story and lore teams. These two songs are the backbone of this album, and provide the base for - or are entwined with - several pieces of music across these 60 tracks. “Dragonsong” shines in part thanks to the gorgeous vocal work by Susan Calloway, returning to FFXIV after providing us with A Realm Reborn’s key vocal song, “Answers.” (A song I have discussed at length in the past.) Soken was responsible for the intro song, “Heavensward,” featuring a mixture of lyrics in English and Dravanian (the dragons’ language) that are deeply symbolic of the expansion’s backstory: the thousand-year Dragonsong War that has been taking place between Ishgard and Dravania. “Dragonsong” tells the story of Heavensward and Ishgard’s history, through lyrics that are only going to make sense once you’ve witnessed the expansion’s story.
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What I know is that Uematsu composed “Dragonsong,” Heavensward’s key vocal track. I want to say that Uematsu and Soken are a formidable team, though I’m not sure how much they directly worked with one another. I don’t know the dynamics behind the scenes of this album. Thankfully, that answer is right here, in the Heavensward OST. One could ask then, what would happen if Soken and Uematsu were to both work on an album? What musical euphoria would result? There aren’t many composers that can take over for a legend, but Soken proves his talents again and again. If you read my intimidatingly long A Realm Reborn OST review, you know that I have nothing but immense praise for Soken’s work on that album and its followup from 2015, Before the Fall: Final Fantasy XIV. The result was that ARR was mostly Soken’s work, with some of Nobuo Uematsu’s songs from 1.0 being so good that they remained in the reworked game. And not only because the original release featured a soundtrack by the man who created the music for Final Fantasy as a whole. While these are all noteworthy titles to have worked on, taking on FFXIV must have been daunting. Prior to 2013, he composed music for 2006’s Dawn of Mana, Front Mission 5 (which sadly never saw an English release), a pair of Mario sports games, and some others. The soundtrack to Final Fantasy XIV’s second coming, A Realm Reborn (aka 2.0), featured music largely by Masayoshi Soken.