Quote Originally Posted by neizero View Post
In the 20+ years I've been playing videogames, this (festival theme) is the first time I have had to switch off the BGM ;_; It would have been okay if it only played in small areas, not the whole city + the market wards + most of the outside world.

I do like most of the rest of the BGM in XIV though, specially outside lominsa and uldah (the original themes), coerthas battle theme, to name a couple - but yeah, hard to top FFXI in this department!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsLkGEDwLLc
The festival music is ok to listen to, especially for events such as this. however, the implementation of the music is totally not subject to Nobuo's ideals; it's the development team in charge of placing the tracks. This music should only be in select areas, which Nobuo probably intended for and not extensively in huge areas. The event music is nice and all, but prolonged listening can make it dull and boring....as listening to anything extensively can.

At least FFXIV's midi sounds have improved from his FFX days. Those ones were just.... "....". The sounds themselves are ok, but the synth is a bit overdone in some pieces, and adds a bit too much of a bombastic appeal over those particular soundtracks. Though honestly, I love the entire soundtrack of FFXIV so far; even the original Black Shroud theme has grown on me after extensive listening.

FFXI's music was much more folk-tale based and less bombastic, though Mizuta's style is a bit awkward at times. Though I have to say the more likeable tracks from FFXI were, oddly, composed by Nobuo Uematsu. >.> Naoshi Mizuta provided nice soundtracks though; FFXI-WotG soundtrack was almost perfect save for some boring and repetitious tracks.

FFXI suffers from the midi sounds and lack of instruments and vocals as much as FFXIV as well, with the later just having improved sounds. Still, they're both equally as good to listen to, and I am heavily pleased by all of the tracks focused on the Limsa Lominsan city-state areas.

I've always wondered, though, regarding instrumentation....in the credit rolls for the FFXIV from the home screen, you eventually see a list of music players, I think one notably the flute. (Because I'm a On Windy Meadows whore. >.<) Perhaps FFXIV did have instruments in it, but it wasn't as obvious after being synthed/arranged? I don't know. Someone else confirm from the credits as well in case I was hallucinating.