Ishikawa commissioned Smile T__T

[ElysiumDragon]

Smile's peak tbh, I don't know why people hate it so much.

[Regis_Paran]

Smile's peak tbh, I don't know why people hate it so much.

In this thread alone, you already have five pages explaining why...

[Fawkes]

The lyrics feel very "crammed in" to me. I don't think they flow very well.

I really like the Tuliyollal theme and Solution 9 theme, but the fact they they share a noticeable leitmotif with Smile is a little annoying because of how Smile's lyrics are sung to that tune.

[GrizzlyTank]

That strenght shifted heavily towards great character writing, which she always did amazing at, and that was the main thing that made Shadowbringers so successfully...and that's been completely absent in Dawntrail, and dearly missed. More than the political writing ever was.

The biggest problem with Smile is not the actual song (though it could be far better), but its placement in context, and we had no confirmation that was Ishikawa's decision. We do know that she was very meticulous with music placement during 5.3 when she was the main writer - she even mentioned during Soken's speech at 2020's Fanfest that she kept asking for revisions to To the Edge to fit the cutscenes better - so I struggle to believe that placing Smile during a bomb building montage was her decision.

Though for a game like FFXIV, character writing doesn't mean much when it lacks the world to back it up. Tulliolal compared to Ul'Dah feels like... nothing really, this new nation just exists but doesn't really have any weight in the world and feels somewhat unrealistic compared to the other city states (save Raz since you know, benevolent dragon dictatorship). Sharlayan also felt quite watered down after all the isolationism and assassinations they had going on only for it to vanish in EW.

Emet felt fantasic because he was a hook that tied much of the world together.