Hell yeah! I'm glad you enjoyed all three of my picks! This was the last song because it mixes in the two previous ones in lyrics and music, but then also turns it into something entirely different. Soken is a musical god; he also plays the otamatone live at the FanFests (conventions for FFXIV). This year he did the most memed song, Civilization, and it's hilarious. Honestly, I can't think of any song I don't like, however, Pa-paya gets annoying after you hear it loop nonstop during an event.
yeah the endless repetition can ruin any piece. I know people who started to hate Civilisation because, for plot reasons, its practically playing nonstop during one part of the main story. But maybe that's precisely why it became such a meme.
@@ShiroNekoDen I agree with you 100% there, and the song with the trumpets and such, make it sound similar to some of the older classic sentai's openings as well, it could very well be used for one at least.
the song playing it a mix of mecha anime and super sentai while the actual boss is an homage to the Transformers combiner Bruticus with each individual robot is named similarly to the various combiner robots that combine into the giant robot.
I was born in Japan in the early 70s and grew up there through the 80s, and I was absolutely obsessed with the big gaudy super robot shows (and the realistic military robot genre that followed it thanks to Mobile Suit: Gundam and Fang of the Sun - Dougram) so hearing this music during the fight and witnessing that visual spectacle was such a real treat! I can never get enough of Soken's pure genius and raw talent.
It's great with the context of the boss fight. At the start, it's the other version of Metal until you burn down the boss, then the music fades out. The robots do a full Power-Rangers style combination, then this version starts and hits you with the trumpets. The FFXIV player base pretty much all agrees Soken can just do whatever he wants
Brute Justice Mode is basically an old-school Tokusatsu show remix of Metal. Fits beautifully with the robot bosses combining to make a bigger robot. Bad song - March of the Moogles Its bad on purpose though (and didnt find its way out of 1.0).
there are also 2 bad versions of the starlight celebration songs (FF14's take on Christmas), as there was a rhythm minigame of you directing corallers singing them and if you start messing up it switches over to those.
This song is such a classic within the 14 community, it was such a blast to hear it when people did this fight for the first time, then square Enix decided to one up the original with a live version that does play in the game and there is video's of the live version of three alexander fights that are all amazing within there rights
Seeing you react to this, one of my favorite movie quotes comes to mind; "I don't know what the hell's going on in the most wonderful way" Which when you think about it... is kind of the most perfect way to describe Soken's music in this game.
I remember when this boss released, I started laughing the moment the trumpets kicked in and didn't stop all the way through. It was amazing and I have no idea how we didn't wipe.
How do we fight while the bgm is impressive? Actually another amazing thing about FFXIV's music is that they will also try to line-up the bgm with the boss skill timeline if there are multiple phases.
Or everyone just sitting there and doing nothing xD like my first Run in Twinning back when ShB released. Everyone just stands there and listened to the Music.
"How do you not die rocking out to the music?" We do. It's a thing. Although depending on the fight it's either because of rocking out, or because we can't see past the tears in our eyes. And Yay for the vote. As for bad songs, there really aren't any except for ones that are intentionally bad (like for one of the holiday events where you're directing a choir like in a rhythm game and you fail so everyone's singing off key. "Starlight, Not Right" if you wanted to look it up. Funny enough they put it in the official OST.) There's definitely songs that might not be everyone's cup of tea, and there's certainly lots of tracks I wouldn't listen to out of game, but works fine to set the mood. A lot of them are actually pretty good but you hear them all the time in different contexts, so it doesn't feel as special or memorable as tracks tied to a specific fight. What makes it even more amazing though is how *many* tracks there are while still being quality songs, considering they broke the Guinness World Record for most original songs in a video game 5 years ago. I haven't been able to find a more recent official count, but it's easily over 500 tracks, and likely over 600 once Endwalker drops in less than a month. "FINAL FANTASY XIV set the Guinness World Record for most original pieces of music in a video game (including expansions) with an astonishing 384 songs. * This count includes all songs up to patch 3.45, which released on November 1, 2016."
Then RuneScape submitted a track list 3000 songs long and stole the title. The songs were fucking SOUND EFFECTS. A door opening; what a great 3 second song.
@@DayleDiamond how did they let this one slip, it is so garbage that they managed to do that. How can they not feel it as an "empty victory". I suddendly lost respect i didn't know i had for runescape since I never played it. I am infuriated to know that lol
Runescape currently has 1,331 songs in its in-game music player. Having played the game a lot, I can confirm that those are all real songs, and not random or sound effects. It did not cheat to get its world record status and deserves that spot. That said, FFXIV is impressive in having so many songs written by a single composer, as opposed to Runescape's multiple composers.
What I really loved with this song (outside the throwback to 70's mech shows) was how the timing worked in game. Technically the song starts right when the mechs join, and the chorus seems to always line up with the split up mechanic where all you can do is run around dodging things, then loops back to the start as they rejoin. Not sure if that was intentional or happy coincidence, but it always makes the fight fun.
Alright, now that you have the set of three done, here's a little bit of an explanation (both for why I and probably others recommended this order, and for some things about the songs themselves, plus some extra info). Long text post ahead! So, Alexander is a 12-fight raid series, released in three sections of four fights. Alexander itself is a massive living metal fortress, and the fights take place inside of it. It also makes a smaller projection of itself for you to fight as the final encounter. Real cool. _Locus_ is the song that plays in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th boss fights, as sort of the "generic" boss theme for the raid (at least I think it's in all the ones I listed). For the 4th fight (final boss of set 1), _Metal_ plays instead. It's a funny song in that it uses Gobbiespeak, the sort-of language of the Goblins (which are taking control of Alexander). Gobbiespeak is quite a descriptive language, making use of a mass of compound words that are quite descriptive of what they mean. You reacted to "neckbreaks" quite appropriately, it's the gobbiespeak word for... breaking someone's neck. Or maybe decapitation, I'm not entirely sure, but leaning towards the first. When you enter the 8th fight (final boss of set 2), it initially starts playing Metal again, as you fight the first part of the boss. However, a little bit in, a group of other robots (which were collectively the bosses of the 6th fight) swoop in, and combine with the boss to form Brute Justice. At which point, the soundtrack switches to _Metal - Brute Justice,_ a remix of _Metal_ that also borrows its chorus from _Locus_ (and actually two different layers of _Locus_ on top of each other for a part of it, only one shown in the lyrics in video) in the style of an old-school tokusatsu show or super robot anime theme song. The only part of the lyrics that isn't directly taken from either song is , which also nicely splits the parts taken from _Metal_ and the ones taken from _Locus_ from each other. I absolutely love this dumb song, it always makes me happy to get this fight in raid roulette. :D The 11th and 12th fights have their own themes too. The 11th fight's is _Exponential Entropy,_ which is again a different kind of song. Gets stuck in my head the moment I even think about it. _Forward and back and then forward and back and then forward and back then go one foot forward, forward and back and then forward and back and_ The 12th fight, against Alexander itself has two themes. Part one has _Moebius_ play in the background. The base melody (I'm probably using the wrong term here, I'm not a music expert, but you hopefully get what I mean if you ever listen to it) borrows parts from both _Metal_ and _Locus,_ but the style is very different, and there are no lyrics. Then on the phase transition into the second half, it's time for _Rise._ Which I will not describe in any more detail. You're gonna have to just hear it yourself. But it is somehow fitting for the time-controlling angelic steampunk robot that is Alexander.
This is one of my favorite parts in the game. There is an arrangement of this song by Soken, Metal : Brute Justice (Primals version), where he plays it live at a quicker tempo and it elevates this song to possibly one of the best in the game.
Oh yeah i completely forgot, Nier - Song of the Ancients - I remember you talking about it on the other Nier song you covered, but were confused about which version to pick. NIER OST - Song of the Ancients ~ Fate is generally the main version. Early in the game the song is encountered in 2 separate parts, which fuse and come together in fate.
You ask "How do you guys fight these things while jamming out?" Answer is, we die a few times at first, then the music helps create a flow in the gameplay, which makes it easier to stay focused. Often times the music matches the fight so well that if I turn it off, everything falls apart. And there have ABSOLUTELY been times where I just walked around or died on purpose just to enjoy the music.
Then you realize there's a REMIXED version of this theme playing in the middle of one the hardest fights in the entire game so far. It was very hard to concentrate during that phase of TEA (The Epic of Alexander) because you're just jamming out the entire fight.
Something I would like to note based on this comment of yours: "How do you guys do these fights while rocking out? I'd be dying on purpose!" I'd say nearly if not all of Ito and Soken's works for boss battles are very specifically paced to A. Last as long as the boss will [typically] before defeated when considered new or relevant content. and B. To offer a consistent theme to keep the party's rhthym going, even if they all die multiple times. Personally, the music helps me focus, and provides this immensely satisfying soundscape to process while my brain is processing mechanics and key-presses. It all ties in.
The Metal - Brute Justice Mode song does actually have a live performance up on youtube if you're curious to see it, if you search "metal brute justice primals" there should be a video from the Final Fantasy XIV channel which is the official ff14 channel. Think they also did Locus, unsure on Metal though.
8:02 is when this reaction goes from great to Hell Yeah! This song comes on for the first time, as the boss goes from its separate parts into the Brute Justice main form and it shocked me. It opens with those horns and it scared me for a hot second and then we died to mechanics because it was just... too cool. But yeah getting an Uncle Jesse riff mix was the best. YAY
To answer the fight is alot like a dance and the music itself keeps the tempo of your actions in the fight. When its playing you're riding the wave of the music itself to the conclusion of the fight. It's a thing of beauty turning a fight into a dance that rarely gets boring no matter how much you do it.
A few people have gotten popular by covering FFXIV songs. Alex Moukala and Husky By The Geek are two. I'm sure it's a bit of work, but I would def listen if you ever decide to cover one!
If you're looking at CZcams comments for suggestions, I really hope that there's plenty of requests for Battle At Big Bridge (Or Clash At Big Bridge, I've seen it titled as both lol) from Final Fantasy V, but FFXIV also has it as well. Also, I would love to see you play more FF (or any video game songs) on guitar. Now that I've seen you play it, I'm gonna have to learn it on guitar myself lol. Glad you're enjoying the genius that is Masayoshi Soken!
I love that the Megazord boss made of 5 previous bosses fused together has a theme that is a fusion of so many different styles, genres, and even previous songs into a megazord of a song.
Perfect Alexander Moebius Orchestral - This is the next song you have to listen to after listening to the alexander theme songs. Also also not a song recommendation but rather Soken's speech during the FFXIV fanfest. I think the video would be interesting for you since you're practically part of the soken fanbase at this point because of all the requests we made lol
Yea there's two more songs on the series. "Exponential Entropy". Takes the first song you heard and terms it into a slow smooth jazz-like song. "Rise" is the last song and plays at the end when you are fighting Alexander itself.
We can jam out and fight because we can actually get the music to listen to later when we're not fighting. Each of the boss battle themes you've reacted to and then some has a good chance to drop an item that will unlock the song for whoever gets it.
So, one genre that was popular in the 70's and 80's was the Sentai genre which in NA, the best example is the Power Rangers. Basically, transforming super heroes and their usually transforming mechs. So while the fight starts by fighting the boss' base form, the previous raid bosses come in and combine into a giant mech which is when this version of Metal starts playing. I remember doing this fight on patch release and when that kicked off, I got wiped from laughing so hard at how ridiculous it sounded to have a Sentai-style song in a semi-serious raid series but it quickly grew on me. It is one of my favorite songs from Heavensward simply because it kind of established that whatever the dev team came up with, Soken would manage to find a song to match it in his own way. Also, at the end of the video, you can see the boss exploding while the character (usually a team of 8) is looking away... which is straight up how most fights ended in those kind of shows with the 'Rangers' facing the camera in a pose while the big bad exploded in the background (they ALWAYS exploded)
Soken just does whatever he wants, so we get curve balls like 'What Angel Wakes Me', 'Beauty's Wicked Wiles', 'Good King Moggle Mog XII' and 'Hyper Rainbow Z' on a consistent basis. So it's always exciting to see what Soken comes up with patch to patch.
This track reminds me of a horn mix of the track "Cupid's Dead" by the band Extreme. AFAIK it was originally released in Japan only before eventually getting a release in the the west, but essentially it's the base track with this badass wailing horn section over it. Not videogame related at all, but you may dig it. Besides, Nuno Bettencourt goes ham on everything he does.
Once you learn the fights it's quite easy and very fun to go in there with the in game sounds turned down slightly and the music cranked up. It's like performing a dance, listening to the music while fighting the boss.
Holy crap how I can listen to this so often and never really notice the superhero transformation chat 2:17?!! The frick? H.O.W. Also, Jessie's Remix, hell yeah
the one playing the trumpet and ofcourse, the one singing chorus is Soken. there is footage of live version they perform this during fanfest on official channel also if you interested playing the game, if you play Bard job, it has access to various instrument including electric guitar. you can do musical performance in game. tons of player did it in various city all the time.
This section of the game is when I really got invested in the raiding side of FFXIV, and a large part of it was I started to realize how impactful the music in the game truly is. It fits so perfectly with the fights that it helps keep you zoned in to what you're doing at times
So if you didn’t already have the context, this song plays when the multiple small robots you were fighting earlier combine, power-rangers style, and form “Brute Justice”. Absolutely one of my favorite moments in the game, I listen to this song in the car to wake me up in the morning. Also the live version is fucking rad.
Fun fact, all the boss parts and even Brute Justice are a Transformers reference, they're all named after combiner Decepticons: Brawl, Vortex, Swindle, Blast Off, and Onslaught combine to form Bruticus
Plot twist there's actually one more within the Alexander series and it's called Moebius to which I would recommend listening to the Orchestral version also I highly recommend listening to The Primals version of Brute Justice because is has a slightly different feel to it than the original
The music gets you in the zone to fight the boss. The Eden's Verse boss fights all have killer remixes of old boss themes and when you know your class and all the mechanics you just zone out and vibe to the music. Lil riff remix was rad. ...and March of the Moogles is a "This Is Halloween" rip off groaner.
Fun Fact, before the covid delay, 7.0's expansion release would have lined up with July 23rd, 2023. It'd be neat if they had planned this much in advance.
I'm surprised more Alexander wasn't request but these three were definitely a package deal. What is probably the hardest content in the game right now is a big medley of the Alexander themes and it pumps up with Rise and culminates in a big new orchestrated mix.
Sadly no "next verse", but if the song plays twice the the boss decides you're done and ends the fight for you. However the real fun part musically is that the fight totally scripted out and each of the boss' attacks match up to lyrics of the song, at least up to the repeat. The full run of the song, up to the repeat, runs from the robot combining, through where it splits apart, and then to where it recombines.
I love watching your reactions to game music! Especially FFXIV! I love covering these songs because they’re such a challenge and I’ve been playing this game from the beginning, it’s really is like one big family. Keep it up!! And please, pull out that guitar!!!!
So there is a live version of this song you can check out. and before you ask, yes. soken is on stage playing the trumpet and singing And I have definitely died because the music threw something I wasn't expecting. there's a raid that does a crossover with Nier, and I got smacked off stage by a flying skyscraper because the song had me frozen
i did the ultimate version of this fight which has the medley of all the alexander raid themes. and the songs actually are hints to next mechanics. so youre actually playing/dancing your fingers to the song and jamming that way 🤣
To answer your question: I dislike the song "Rencounter", the normal battle theme for Shadowbringers, but I believe it's not because it's a bad song, but because it interrupts the awesome field bgm by blasting your ears with guitars and most fights are over before you even get to the decent part of the song. So it's more a design thing.
I think you can get that feeling with all battle themes when you're in one expension for too long. It's also why I have the mount themes disabled and am glad that that's an option. At first it's cool, buy at one point it doesn't feel fresh anymore and you would like to keep the atmosphere of the environment. tl;dr: I don't like any of the combat themes because I heard them way too often and they're interrupting the atmosphere.
@@frool76 I have the same thing with mounts, but some have their own music, so I keep a macro on a hotbar to mute the bgm or not. /mountbgm is the command though so it's insanely simple to turn it on or off without opening the settings menu.
That was precisely my problem with it too. Especially considering it kinda clashes the worst with one of the zones you're going to visit very early into the expansion. And the rest of the OST for Shadowbringers is such consistently high quality, that a good, if maybe misused, track sticks out like a sore thumb.
After some point while doing ARR I turned off the normal battle music in the sound settings and have had it disabled since then so I've been able to enjoy the awesome field music without it being interrupted for years now.
To add to this, the zone music in Shadowbringers is fucking outstanding. Civilizations is amazing in general, and Sands of Amber is incredibly chill and one of the best atmospheric songs in the game. And right when it gets to the good part you accidentally get too close to an enemy and hear this obnoxious guitar riff that would be good if it wasn't so insanely out of place.
I really enjoy watching your reactions to these songs, to me they've been stuff I've been listening to for years but it's so nice to hear someone listening to them for the first time :p I would recommend Rise (final boss theme of the Alexander raid series) and also eScape (Omega's theme, it's got a similar vibe as the Alexander songs).
I remember going into this fight the day it came out and when this song started playing I actually laughed out loud. This song is great live, because the audience gets to shout the children's part, "BRUTE JUSTICE MODE!"
What I love about this song is it really has an uplifting quality that makes it fun to listen to. Between the overall beat and chords used, the whimsical lyrics, and that one bit where the kids are cheering, you can't help but enjoy listening to it.
May I suggest Tsukuyomi's theme for a listen sometime? All three parts to it may legit be my favorite fight of the entire game in due to the visuals and the music both.
I actually did die because the bgm was so good the first time I fought ravana, the throat singing blew me away and I had to turn up the volume and died in the menu. Did the same on this boss when he did the transformation.
IIRC this kind of song (especially trumpets and all) is very "super sentai" (power rangers/ultraman and other transforming superheroes very popular in japan) The fact that the song is called "Brute Justice Mode" is also a reference to these (since they always had attacks or stuff with "justice" in it)
Great to see you commentating and reacting a lot more to these pieces than in earlier videos - Love the interaction and comments on this one. I suggest looking into the Eden-Remixes of previous Primal-Themes - Maybe even a back to back reaction how they evolved - let's say Shiva (Oblivion normal, Return to Oblivion (Eden) , Ramuh (Thunder Rolls (normal), Twice Stricken (Eden) and Titan ( Weight of a Whisper, Weight of his will, Weight of the world, Heartless and Under the weight (all normal, Landslide (eden) Keep up the good work!
"How do you guys fight these things while jamming out? I would be like dying purposefully. Or just walk around doing nothing." You see, the first few times I would die unintentionally while bopping to the music, but eventually get used to the mechanics so I'd jam while fight. Would my parses be good? Probably not, but I'd be dying less while enjoying the music. XD
Bosses in FFXIV do their mechanics based on an internal timer, only skipping ahead if the damage far outpaces what they're designed for. This means that when the boss first comes out, the music and the mechanics corresponded to each other when things were going smoothly. The videos he watches are not accurate timings for the background music. This is. czcams.com/video/JXBUfYC-gZA/video.html and czcams.com/video/uKDRsuABE-k/video.html are good examples, like in the Alex 8 you always get the refrain during the split up mechanics....when i was raiding i would be able to use the music to know where i was in a fight without looking at the timeline.
@@vyressi Unfortunately the current raid tier's music loops often and doesn't really do that. Perhaps I just can't handle listening to the music now thanks to pf shenanigan, but I actually turn it off for reclears these days since they just don't help me.
The surf chord progression part always gets me. The vocals along with it give a weird hopeful/triumphant feel. I assume it's because it's a major key, but it's also strangely bitteersweet. I can help but get a little teary and nostalgic.
w0000 i was waiting for this one. so good and honestly its so fun to watch people's reactions when the trumpet comes in coz its so unexpected. Love watching it at the concerts too Soken & his team are legends.
@@JessesAuditorium Hahahaha. Damn, that was a quick response. You're awesome man! This one is a personal favorite, I am a trumpet musician, FFXIV player and rock music fan. Love your content.
Soken and his in-house band played live a couple times- they played a concert for the FFXIV’s digital fan fest that I recommend checking out. As for bad song.. that’s a toughie. There’s trolly songs like papaya and soken’s civilizations. But I wouldn’t call them bad though.
This song is such a love letter to Tokusatsu and Giant Robot Anime. When you finish the fight, all the characters fighting turn away from the boss as he falls and explodes, the way a Sentai/Power Ranger team does when they finish off a monster, it’s great. The boss itself has an attack called “J-Kick” which is a reference to Kamen Rider, another classic tokusatsu series’ signature move the Rider Kick. If you want a good example music like this in context I recommend the theme song to “Chojuu Sentai Liveman” and the opening for the anime “DRAGONAR”.
lol I told you man, it's hard to play while jamming out to the music. it's so good. Nobuo Uematsu found the perfect person to pass the baton to, Soken has been absolutely amazing with everything he's done.
It works better as an experience ingame because the moment the chorus kicks in is when the boss splits back into its 5 component minibosses and they all launch a barrage of attacks and recombine by the time the next verse starts
I would love to hear you remix this. It's such a fun song. It caught me completely off guard first time I did the fight. I was bobbing my head the whole time
"How do you not die rocking out to the music?" It's not these kinds of songs that get people killed, its the tearjerker ones 😭 Although it says something that unlike other MMO's, the reason why I turn down or even mute the music in the harder fights isn't that I'm getting bored of the same track over and over, but because I need to focus on the audio cues and callouts in voice chat.
The goblins in this game have a very atypical, abstract speech pattern that makes them unique as a culture within the FF-XIV universe. The lyrics would make a lot more sense to someone with exposure to and experience with interacting with the goblins, in case you were wondering why they chose some of the phrasing they did.
I'm not going to lie, day one on new bosses in new raids, there are a LOT of deaths because people are just jamming out. In recent memory, End of the Unknown in the crossover Nier 14 raid murdered us relentlessly because its such a bop.
How one fights these bosses? By turning up the Music volume and lowering SFX between loading into the stage (randomly via Roulette) and the Tank pulling the boss!
You really need to look at the Primal's live performance from the 2021 Digital Fanfest. Soken and Koji (composer and lyricist) are part of the band and everyone involved just kills it.
every single time i go here and the beats kick in.... im BAFFLED why square enix HASNT added a Headbang emote... WE NEED /HEADBANG please! great riff version good sir :) and its so very very heartfelt to see someone have the same feelings and thoughts about music as one self! keep it up! stay safe! and stay happy! :)
Hell yeah! I'm glad you enjoyed all three of my picks! This was the last song because it mixes in the two previous ones in lyrics and music, but then also turns it into something entirely different. Soken is a musical god; he also plays the otamatone live at the FanFests (conventions for FFXIV). This year he did the most memed song, Civilization, and it's hilarious.
Honestly, I can't think of any song I don't like, however, Pa-paya gets annoying after you hear it loop nonstop during an event.
I can jam out to Pa-paya for about 5 minutes before it starts to annoy me.
yeah the endless repetition can ruin any piece. I know people who started to hate Civilisation because, for plot reasons, its practically playing nonstop during one part of the main story. But maybe that's precisely why it became such a meme.
Papaya is living in my head rent-free.
For a sec then I was like "wtf is Civilization?" I only know it as La Hee!
Do you know.... La Hee?
"Soken, what are you doing baby?... Keep doing it!" Truer words have never been uttered my man!
That sounds so sexual.
@@tuck295q turned on
Basically reorchestrated into a classic 1970s Super Robot anime opening song. Soken knows his audience. :)
To be fair that fight is a super sentai style super robo mecha
@@ShiroNekoDen I agree with you 100% there, and the song with the trumpets and such, make it sound similar to some of the older classic sentai's openings as well, it could very well be used for one at least.
the song playing it a mix of mecha anime and super sentai while the actual boss is an homage to the Transformers combiner Bruticus with each individual robot is named similarly to the various combiner robots that combine into the giant robot.
@@Shiirow Only in the English version are they named after the Combaticons. In Japanese they're simply numbered to keep with the classic Sentai theme.
I was born in Japan in the early 70s and grew up there through the 80s, and I was absolutely obsessed with the big gaudy super robot shows (and the realistic military robot genre that followed it thanks to Mobile Suit: Gundam and Fang of the Sun - Dougram) so hearing this music during the fight and witnessing that visual spectacle was such a real treat! I can never get enough of Soken's pure genius and raw talent.
It's great with the context of the boss fight. At the start, it's the other version of Metal until you burn down the boss, then the music fades out. The robots do a full Power-Rangers style combination, then this version starts and hits you with the trumpets.
The FFXIV player base pretty much all agrees Soken can just do whatever he wants
he really can Soken just doesnt miss
For the record: Yes, Soken does play the trumpet live when performing this at Fan Fests.
Brute Justice Mode is basically an old-school Tokusatsu show remix of Metal.
Fits beautifully with the robot bosses combining to make a bigger robot.
Bad song - March of the Moogles
Its bad on purpose though (and didnt find its way out of 1.0).
there are also 2 bad versions of the starlight celebration songs (FF14's take on Christmas), as there was a rhythm minigame of you directing corallers singing them and if you start messing up it switches over to those.
@@Nirual86 I think that one is at least fun for what it is.
The Moogles were doing their best! lol
To keep with the Alexander raids, I'd give "Exponential Entropy" my vote.
This song is such a classic within the 14 community, it was such a blast to hear it when people did this fight for the first time, then square Enix decided to one up the original with a live version that does play in the game and there is video's of the live version of three alexander fights that are all amazing within there rights
It totally is! Great feels!
Seeing you react to this, one of my favorite movie quotes comes to mind;
"I don't know what the hell's going on in the most wonderful way"
Which when you think about it... is kind of the most perfect way to describe Soken's music in this game.
Yay! Would die to see Uncle Jesse covering some FFXIV music
Do it!
So would I!! Get out that guitar!
I remember when this boss released, I started laughing the moment the trumpets kicked in and didn't stop all the way through. It was amazing and I have no idea how we didn't wipe.
How do we fight while the bgm is impressive? Actually another amazing thing about FFXIV's music is that they will also try to line-up the bgm with the boss skill timeline if there are multiple phases.
Or everyone just sitting there and doing nothing xD like my first Run in Twinning back when ShB released. Everyone just stands there and listened to the Music.
getting atomized by bahamut in time to the bgm is real connoisseur shit
"How do you not die rocking out to the music?" We do. It's a thing. Although depending on the fight it's either because of rocking out, or because we can't see past the tears in our eyes.
And Yay for the vote.
As for bad songs, there really aren't any except for ones that are intentionally bad (like for one of the holiday events where you're directing a choir like in a rhythm game and you fail so everyone's singing off key. "Starlight, Not Right" if you wanted to look it up. Funny enough they put it in the official OST.) There's definitely songs that might not be everyone's cup of tea, and there's certainly lots of tracks I wouldn't listen to out of game, but works fine to set the mood. A lot of them are actually pretty good but you hear them all the time in different contexts, so it doesn't feel as special or memorable as tracks tied to a specific fight.
What makes it even more amazing though is how *many* tracks there are while still being quality songs, considering they broke the Guinness World Record for most original songs in a video game 5 years ago. I haven't been able to find a more recent official count, but it's easily over 500 tracks, and likely over 600 once Endwalker drops in less than a month.
"FINAL FANTASY XIV set the Guinness World Record for most original pieces of music in a video game (including expansions) with an astonishing 384 songs.
* This count includes all songs up to patch 3.45, which released on November 1, 2016."
Unfortunately Runescape has dethroned it with something like 1.1k songs.
@@Malcontentus most of those are seemingly random midi stuff thou so idk if i would count that, seems a cheap record to me due to that.
Then RuneScape submitted a track list 3000 songs long and stole the title. The songs were fucking SOUND EFFECTS. A door opening; what a great 3 second song.
@@DayleDiamond how did they let this one slip, it is so garbage that they managed to do that. How can they not feel it as an "empty victory". I suddendly lost respect i didn't know i had for runescape since I never played it. I am infuriated to know that lol
Runescape currently has 1,331 songs in its in-game music player. Having played the game a lot, I can confirm that those are all real songs, and not random or sound effects. It did not cheat to get its world record status and deserves that spot.
That said, FFXIV is impressive in having so many songs written by a single composer, as opposed to Runescape's multiple composers.
What I really loved with this song (outside the throwback to 70's mech shows) was how the timing worked in game. Technically the song starts right when the mechs join, and the chorus seems to always line up with the split up mechanic where all you can do is run around dodging things, then loops back to the start as they rejoin. Not sure if that was intentional or happy coincidence, but it always makes the fight fun.
Alright, now that you have the set of three done, here's a little bit of an explanation (both for why I and probably others recommended this order, and for some things about the songs themselves, plus some extra info). Long text post ahead!
So, Alexander is a 12-fight raid series, released in three sections of four fights. Alexander itself is a massive living metal fortress, and the fights take place inside of it. It also makes a smaller projection of itself for you to fight as the final encounter. Real cool.
_Locus_ is the song that plays in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th boss fights, as sort of the "generic" boss theme for the raid (at least I think it's in all the ones I listed).
For the 4th fight (final boss of set 1), _Metal_ plays instead. It's a funny song in that it uses Gobbiespeak, the sort-of language of the Goblins (which are taking control of Alexander). Gobbiespeak is quite a descriptive language, making use of a mass of compound words that are quite descriptive of what they mean. You reacted to "neckbreaks" quite appropriately, it's the gobbiespeak word for... breaking someone's neck. Or maybe decapitation, I'm not entirely sure, but leaning towards the first.
When you enter the 8th fight (final boss of set 2), it initially starts playing Metal again, as you fight the first part of the boss. However, a little bit in, a group of other robots (which were collectively the bosses of the 6th fight) swoop in, and combine with the boss to form Brute Justice. At which point, the soundtrack switches to _Metal - Brute Justice,_ a remix of _Metal_ that also borrows its chorus from _Locus_ (and actually two different layers of _Locus_ on top of each other for a part of it, only one shown in the lyrics in video) in the style of an old-school tokusatsu show or super robot anime theme song. The only part of the lyrics that isn't directly taken from either song is , which also nicely splits the parts taken from _Metal_ and the ones taken from _Locus_ from each other. I absolutely love this dumb song, it always makes me happy to get this fight in raid roulette. :D
The 11th and 12th fights have their own themes too. The 11th fight's is _Exponential Entropy,_ which is again a different kind of song. Gets stuck in my head the moment I even think about it. _Forward and back and then forward and back and then forward and back then go one foot forward, forward and back and then forward and back and_
The 12th fight, against Alexander itself has two themes. Part one has _Moebius_ play in the background. The base melody (I'm probably using the wrong term here, I'm not a music expert, but you hopefully get what I mean if you ever listen to it) borrows parts from both _Metal_ and _Locus,_ but the style is very different, and there are no lyrics. Then on the phase transition into the second half, it's time for _Rise._ Which I will not describe in any more detail. You're gonna have to just hear it yourself. But it is somehow fitting for the time-controlling angelic steampunk robot that is Alexander.
This is one of my favorite parts in the game. There is an arrangement of this song by Soken, Metal : Brute Justice (Primals version), where he plays it live at a quicker tempo and it elevates this song to possibly one of the best in the game.
Oh yeah i completely forgot,
Nier - Song of the Ancients - I remember you talking about it on the other Nier song you covered, but were confused about which version to pick.
NIER OST - Song of the Ancients ~ Fate
is generally the main version. Early in the game the song is encountered in 2 separate parts, which fuse and come together in fate.
Thanks!
I have some more nieR coming this weekend btw
You ask "How do you guys fight these things while jamming out?" Answer is, we die a few times at first, then the music helps create a flow in the gameplay, which makes it easier to stay focused.
Often times the music matches the fight so well that if I turn it off, everything falls apart.
And there have ABSOLUTELY been times where I just walked around or died on purpose just to enjoy the music.
Then you realize there's a REMIXED version of this theme playing in the middle of one the hardest fights in the entire game so far. It was very hard to concentrate during that phase of TEA (The Epic of Alexander) because you're just jamming out the entire fight.
Something I would like to note based on this comment of yours: "How do you guys do these fights while rocking out? I'd be dying on purpose!"
I'd say nearly if not all of Ito and Soken's works for boss battles are very specifically paced to A. Last as long as the boss will [typically] before defeated when considered new or relevant content. and B. To offer a consistent theme to keep the party's rhthym going, even if they all die multiple times. Personally, the music helps me focus, and provides this immensely satisfying soundscape to process while my brain is processing mechanics and key-presses. It all ties in.
The Metal - Brute Justice Mode song does actually have a live performance up on youtube if you're curious to see it, if you search "metal brute justice primals" there should be a video from the Final Fantasy XIV channel which is the official ff14 channel. Think they also did Locus, unsure on Metal though.
Soken’s dad was a professional trumpet player which is likely why they’re prominent in the song. He’ll also whip one out to play that part live.
8:02 is when this reaction goes from great to Hell Yeah! This song comes on for the first time, as the boss goes from its separate parts into the Brute Justice main form and it shocked me. It opens with those horns and it scared me for a hot second and then we died to mechanics because it was just... too cool. But yeah getting an Uncle Jesse riff mix was the best. YAY
To answer the fight is alot like a dance and the music itself keeps the tempo of your actions in the fight. When its playing you're riding the wave of the music itself to the conclusion of the fight. It's a thing of beauty turning a fight into a dance that rarely gets boring no matter how much you do it.
A few people have gotten popular by covering FFXIV songs. Alex Moukala and Husky By The Geek are two. I'm sure it's a bit of work, but I would def listen if you ever decide to cover one!
This is one of those tracks that brings me so much joy. Whenever I take new people into the fight, I get so much more joy hearing people's reactions
If you're looking at CZcams comments for suggestions, I really hope that there's plenty of requests for Battle At Big Bridge (Or Clash At Big Bridge, I've seen it titled as both lol) from Final Fantasy V, but FFXIV also has it as well.
Also, I would love to see you play more FF (or any video game songs) on guitar. Now that I've seen you play it, I'm gonna have to learn it on guitar myself lol. Glad you're enjoying the genius that is Masayoshi Soken!
I love that the Megazord boss made of 5 previous bosses fused together has a theme that is a fusion of so many different styles, genres, and even previous songs into a megazord of a song.
Perfect Alexander Moebius Orchestral - This is the next song you have to listen to after listening to the alexander theme songs. Also also not a song recommendation but rather Soken's speech during the FFXIV fanfest. I think the video would be interesting for you since you're practically part of the soken fanbase at this point because of all the requests we made lol
YES Sokens speech is a must watch to get the real understanding of how much he cares for the community and why he works so hard.
Yea there's two more songs on the series. "Exponential Entropy". Takes the first song you heard and terms it into a slow smooth jazz-like song. "Rise" is the last song and plays at the end when you are fighting Alexander itself.
There's also Moebius which is the orchestral piece that plays during Phase 1 of the final Alexander fight!
We can jam out and fight because we can actually get the music to listen to later when we're not fighting. Each of the boss battle themes you've reacted to and then some has a good chance to drop an item that will unlock the song for whoever gets it.
So, one genre that was popular in the 70's and 80's was the Sentai genre which in NA, the best example is the Power Rangers. Basically, transforming super heroes and their usually transforming mechs. So while the fight starts by fighting the boss' base form, the previous raid bosses come in and combine into a giant mech which is when this version of Metal starts playing.
I remember doing this fight on patch release and when that kicked off, I got wiped from laughing so hard at how ridiculous it sounded to have a Sentai-style song in a semi-serious raid series but it quickly grew on me. It is one of my favorite songs from Heavensward simply because it kind of established that whatever the dev team came up with, Soken would manage to find a song to match it in his own way.
Also, at the end of the video, you can see the boss exploding while the character (usually a team of 8) is looking away... which is straight up how most fights ended in those kind of shows with the 'Rangers' facing the camera in a pose while the big bad exploded in the background (they ALWAYS exploded)
Soken just does whatever he wants, so we get curve balls like 'What Angel Wakes Me', 'Beauty's Wicked Wiles', 'Good King Moggle Mog XII' and 'Hyper Rainbow Z' on a consistent basis. So it's always exciting to see what Soken comes up with patch to patch.
As others have said, watch the live version of this from the 2021 fanfest - soken slays it playing the trumpet parts live!
Wow, I loved it when you broke out your guitar! I'm looking forward to seeing more of that!
So glad I subscribed to your channel, man. Love how much you appreciate Soken the way we do bud. :)
This track reminds me of a horn mix of the track "Cupid's Dead" by the band Extreme. AFAIK it was originally released in Japan only before eventually getting a release in the the west, but essentially it's the base track with this badass wailing horn section over it.
Not videogame related at all, but you may dig it. Besides, Nuno Bettencourt goes ham on everything he does.
Once you learn the fights it's quite easy and very fun to go in there with the in game sounds turned down slightly and the music cranked up. It's like performing a dance, listening to the music while fighting the boss.
I love that at the end you got your guitar out, i don't see any better way to end the music saga of Alexander, thank you for that
Holy crap how I can listen to this so often and never really notice the superhero transformation chat 2:17?!! The frick? H.O.W.
Also, Jessie's Remix, hell yeah
god i ran this raid so much as im sure a lot did cause everyone just loved listening to this
the one playing the trumpet and ofcourse, the one singing chorus is Soken.
there is footage of live version they perform this during fanfest on official channel
also if you interested playing the game, if you play Bard job, it has access to various instrument including electric guitar. you can do musical performance in game. tons of player did it in various city all the time.
This section of the game is when I really got invested in the raiding side of FFXIV, and a large part of it was I started to realize how impactful the music in the game truly is. It fits so perfectly with the fights that it helps keep you zoned in to what you're doing at times
So if you didn’t already have the context, this song plays when the multiple small robots you were fighting earlier combine, power-rangers style, and form “Brute Justice”. Absolutely one of my favorite moments in the game, I listen to this song in the car to wake me up in the morning. Also the live version is fucking rad.
Also, I love hearing you play guitar on these, that was amazing!
Fun fact, all the boss parts and even Brute Justice are a Transformers reference, they're all named after combiner Decepticons: Brawl, Vortex, Swindle, Blast Off, and Onslaught combine to form Bruticus
Plot twist there's actually one more within the Alexander series and it's called Moebius to which I would recommend listening to the Orchestral version also I highly recommend listening to The Primals version of Brute Justice because is has a slightly different feel to it than the original
"How do you fight while jamming out?"
You see, that's the thing. We can fight BECAUSE we're jamming out.
The music gets you in the zone to fight the boss. The Eden's Verse boss fights all have killer remixes of old boss themes and when you know your class and all the mechanics you just zone out and vibe to the music.
Lil riff remix was rad.
...and March of the Moogles is a "This Is Halloween" rip off groaner.
One of my favorite FFXIV pieces. Love it so much, been my ringtone for a few years
Fun Fact, before the covid delay, 7.0's expansion release would have lined up with July 23rd, 2023. It'd be neat if they had planned this much in advance.
Instead it’s lining up with a full moon and partial lunar eclipse, which is even better imo.
Please do more Guitar flexing, makes the video so much more entertaining, love it
Hahaha, noted.
Love the flex 💪🏻
I'm surprised more Alexander wasn't request but these three were definitely a package deal. What is probably the hardest content in the game right now is a big medley of the Alexander themes and it pumps up with Rise and culminates in a big new orchestrated mix.
Soken's FFXIV band The Primals plays this song at concerts a lot, and he jams the trumpet part live to open it up
Thing about these fights its like a dance, and your gotta move with it
Sadly no "next verse", but if the song plays twice the the boss decides you're done and ends the fight for you. However the real fun part musically is that the fight totally scripted out and each of the boss' attacks match up to lyrics of the song, at least up to the repeat. The full run of the song, up to the repeat, runs from the robot combining, through where it splits apart, and then to where it recombines.
I love watching your reactions to game music! Especially FFXIV! I love covering these songs because they’re such a challenge and I’ve been playing this game from the beginning, it’s really is like one big family. Keep it up!! And please, pull out that guitar!!!!
So there is a live version of this song you can check out. and before you ask, yes. soken is on stage playing the trumpet and singing
And I have definitely died because the music threw something I wasn't expecting. there's a raid that does a crossover with Nier, and I got smacked off stage by a flying skyscraper because the song had me frozen
The music fires us up and we fight jamming, bro! ;D
i did the ultimate version of this fight which has the medley of all the alexander raid themes. and the songs actually are hints to next mechanics. so youre actually playing/dancing your fingers to the song and jamming that way 🤣
good job!
BRUTE JUSTICE ASSEMBLE!
That was pretty awesome jamming you did at the end! Loved it!
"Soken.... Bb what is you doing?!......... Keep doing it!" basically sums up the entire FFXIV soundtrack in a nutshell!
Brother you killed the remix at the end. Awesome reaction and guitar play !
To answer your question:
I dislike the song "Rencounter", the normal battle theme for Shadowbringers, but I believe it's not because it's a bad song, but because it interrupts the awesome field bgm by blasting your ears with guitars and most fights are over before you even get to the decent part of the song.
So it's more a design thing.
I think you can get that feeling with all battle themes when you're in one expension for too long. It's also why I have the mount themes disabled and am glad that that's an option. At first it's cool, buy at one point it doesn't feel fresh anymore and you would like to keep the atmosphere of the environment.
tl;dr: I don't like any of the combat themes because I heard them way too often and they're interrupting the atmosphere.
@@frool76 I have the same thing with mounts, but some have their own music, so I keep a macro on a hotbar to mute the bgm or not. /mountbgm is the command though so it's insanely simple to turn it on or off without opening the settings menu.
That was precisely my problem with it too. Especially considering it kinda clashes the worst with one of the zones you're going to visit very early into the expansion. And the rest of the OST for Shadowbringers is such consistently high quality, that a good, if maybe misused, track sticks out like a sore thumb.
After some point while doing ARR I turned off the normal battle music in the sound settings and have had it disabled since then so I've been able to enjoy the awesome field music without it being interrupted for years now.
To add to this, the zone music in Shadowbringers is fucking outstanding. Civilizations is amazing in general, and Sands of Amber is incredibly chill and one of the best atmospheric songs in the game. And right when it gets to the good part you accidentally get too close to an enemy and hear this obnoxious guitar riff that would be good if it wasn't so insanely out of place.
I really enjoy watching your reactions to these songs, to me they've been stuff I've been listening to for years but it's so nice to hear someone listening to them for the first time :p
I would recommend Rise (final boss theme of the Alexander raid series) and also eScape (Omega's theme, it's got a similar vibe as the Alexander songs).
I remember going into this fight the day it came out and when this song started playing I actually laughed out loud. This song is great live, because the audience gets to shout the children's part, "BRUTE JUSTICE MODE!"
What I love about this song is it really has an uplifting quality that makes it fun to listen to. Between the overall beat and chords used, the whimsical lyrics, and that one bit where the kids are cheering, you can't help but enjoy listening to it.
May I suggest Tsukuyomi's theme for a listen sometime? All three parts to it may legit be my favorite fight of the entire game in due to the visuals and the music both.
I actually did die because the bgm was so good the first time I fought ravana, the throat singing blew me away and I had to turn up the volume and died in the menu. Did the same on this boss when he did the transformation.
The best part of ffxiv is when you die during a tough boss you get to enjoy the music while waiting to get res'd
Everything about this boss when it released was (and still is) completely batshit crazy. Crazytown banana pants kind of crazy.
Love it bro, keep being awesome and enjoy yourself! We enjoy watching you, get your riff on!
IIRC this kind of song (especially trumpets and all) is very "super sentai" (power rangers/ultraman and other transforming superheroes very popular in japan)
The fact that the song is called "Brute Justice Mode" is also a reference to these (since they always had attacks or stuff with "justice" in it)
Great to see you commentating and reacting a lot more to these pieces than in earlier videos - Love the interaction and comments on this one.
I suggest looking into the Eden-Remixes of previous Primal-Themes - Maybe even a back to back reaction how they evolved - let's say Shiva (Oblivion normal, Return to Oblivion (Eden) , Ramuh (Thunder Rolls (normal), Twice Stricken (Eden) and Titan ( Weight of a Whisper, Weight of his will, Weight of the world, Heartless and Under the weight (all normal, Landslide (eden)
Keep up the good work!
"How do you guys fight these things while jamming out? I would be like dying purposefully. Or just walk around doing nothing."
You see, the first few times I would die unintentionally while bopping to the music, but eventually get used to the mechanics so I'd jam while fight. Would my parses be good? Probably not, but I'd be dying less while enjoying the music. XD
Bosses in FFXIV do their mechanics based on an internal timer, only skipping ahead if the damage far outpaces what they're designed for. This means that when the boss first comes out, the music and the mechanics corresponded to each other when things were going smoothly.
The videos he watches are not accurate timings for the background music. This is. czcams.com/video/JXBUfYC-gZA/video.html and czcams.com/video/uKDRsuABE-k/video.html are good examples, like in the Alex 8 you always get the refrain during the split up mechanics....when i was raiding i would be able to use the music to know where i was in a fight without looking at the timeline.
@@vyressi Unfortunately the current raid tier's music loops often and doesn't really do that. Perhaps I just can't handle listening to the music now thanks to pf shenanigan, but I actually turn it off for reclears these days since they just don't help me.
The surf chord progression part always gets me. The vocals along with it give a weird hopeful/triumphant feel. I assume it's because it's a major key, but it's also strangely bitteersweet. I can help but get a little teary and nostalgic.
w0000 i was waiting for this one. so good and honestly its so fun to watch people's reactions when the trumpet comes in coz its so unexpected. Love watching it at the concerts too Soken & his team are legends.
You could say that when Soken added trumpets to this song, he created a Metal alloy.
bruh
@@JessesAuditorium Hahahaha. Damn, that was a quick response. You're awesome man! This one is a personal favorite, I am a trumpet musician, FFXIV player and rock music fan. Love your content.
Soken and his in-house band played live a couple times- they played a concert for the FFXIV’s digital fan fest that I recommend checking out.
As for bad song.. that’s a toughie. There’s trolly songs like papaya and soken’s civilizations. But I wouldn’t call them bad though.
There is starlight not right lol
@@joshualiu7673 oh LOL true, but it's intentional :)
The pure shock and awe lol, with Soken you get use to his madness. Man's a fucking god.
There’s one more song from the Alexander series you should check out when you have the chance. “Rise”
This song is such a love letter to Tokusatsu and Giant Robot Anime. When you finish the fight, all the characters fighting turn away from the boss as he falls and explodes, the way a Sentai/Power Ranger team does when they finish off a monster, it’s great. The boss itself has an attack called “J-Kick” which is a reference to Kamen Rider, another classic tokusatsu series’ signature move the Rider Kick.
If you want a good example music like this in context I recommend the theme song to “Chojuu Sentai Liveman” and the opening for the anime “DRAGONAR”.
The start of the fight is always. "MUSIC UP"
lol I told you man, it's hard to play while jamming out to the music. it's so good. Nobuo Uematsu found the perfect person to pass the baton to, Soken has been absolutely amazing with everything he's done.
Sooo in love with this boss music!
It works better as an experience ingame because the moment the chorus kicks in is when the boss splits back into its 5 component minibosses and they all launch a barrage of attacks and recombine by the time the next verse starts
When Brute Justice Mode first played, I was blown away, such a joy filled song
Dude your playing at the end was really good.
I would love to hear you remix this. It's such a fun song. It caught me completely off guard first time I did the fight. I was bobbing my head the whole time
Holy fuck, your guitar playing of the different parts of the song was epic!!
At this rate, see you in two years or so when you'll have listen to every song worth listening from FFXIV OST, which might be like 80% of it.
"How do you not die rocking out to the music?"
It's not these kinds of songs that get people killed, its the tearjerker ones 😭
Although it says something that unlike other MMO's, the reason why I turn down or even mute the music in the harder fights isn't that I'm getting bored of the same track over and over, but because I need to focus on the audio cues and callouts in voice chat.
The goblins in this game have a very atypical, abstract speech pattern that makes them unique as a culture within the FF-XIV universe. The lyrics would make a lot more sense to someone with exposure to and experience with interacting with the goblins, in case you were wondering why they chose some of the phrasing they did.
I'm not going to lie, day one on new bosses in new raids, there are a LOT of deaths because people are just jamming out. In recent memory, End of the Unknown in the crossover Nier 14 raid murdered us relentlessly because its such a bop.
Definitely need an Uncle Jesse cover
How one fights these bosses? By turning up the Music volume and lowering SFX between loading into the stage (randomly via Roulette) and the Tank pulling the boss!
The music empowers us to fight harder, thats how! :D
Wow your performance was really great. I loved it
Hell yes on the Jesse remix, that was epic bro
You really need to look at the Primal's live performance from the 2021 Digital Fanfest. Soken and Koji (composer and lyricist) are part of the band and everyone involved just kills it.
every single time i go here and the beats kick in.... im BAFFLED why square enix HASNT added a Headbang emote... WE NEED /HEADBANG please!
great riff version good sir :) and its so very very heartfelt to see someone have the same feelings and thoughts about music as one self!
keep it up! stay safe! and stay happy! :)
now i need a head-bang emote, damnit!XD