----

So here's my question for all the super-fans: do you actually LIKE the music that you end up hearing for 99% of the game (overworld themes and that one cutscene they used for every planning/suspicious conversation scene)? Or did you just forget that they exist and are rating Soken purely based on the songs that you actually DO like?

Because if you DO actually like most of the music in the game, then we really are just going to have to agree to disagree, but if you DON'T and are just ignoring them, then I think that's a genuine problem. Masashi Hamauzu isn't my favorite composer of all time because he's made a ton of songs that I really really love among a sea of otherwise forgettable or downright annoying garbage. He's my favorite composer of all time because almost EVERYTHING he does is at least an instant 4-star to me.

This whole business with Soken just makes me feel like I'm constantly getting gaslit because every FFXIV fan talks about him having achieved god-like composer status, and I'm over here scratching my head wondering if I even played the same game.

I'll be okay if it turns out that yes, some people really just enjoy what I consider to be triple-decker a**-soaked diaper trash, but I just need to know if that's actually what's going on. It genuinely upsets me because I really wanted to love FFXIV's music because of how much praise its received, but it just doesn't seem to be happening for me and I don't know if it's just because it's not my style or because I just haven't gotten to the good stuff yet or if everyone is just having collective memory loss and ignoring most of the music that you actually hear in the game.