Quote Originally Posted by ddwarbird View Post
I went to a concert recently and Soken was there. He came out and people lost their minds and some were crying. I sat there feeling weirded out by the cult like devotion to this person. As far as I'm concerned, he's "ok" but he is not Uematsu, who didn't get that much praise even when 7, 8, 9 and 10 came out. It was pretty freaky how defensive some people got when I told them that I honestly prefer Uematsu's work, the guy wrote "Dancing Mad" with a SNES soundchip and almost entire opera. I was so bored of FFXIV's melodramatic music, either rock anthems or melodramatic ballads which are nice but not the same quality in my opinion as the classic Final Fantasy era. Dawntrail was a step in the right direction as it felt a return to a more classic style of Final Fantasy music.

I just don't feel the same way about FFXIV's music that I do from "To Zanakand" or "Melodies of Life" or "Eyes on Me". I do wonder if I'm doing something wrong with the music. There are a few pieces I like but they usually tend to be remakes of older music from FF series. Tomorrow and Tomorrow is an exception though, that piece is stunningly beautiful. Especially the lyrical part of the Crystarium Night theme.

The Jazz however for Tuliyollal was just so out of place, it was like auditory whiplash and didn't match up to an Incan/Mayan style city at all.
XIV has tracks and leitmotifs that I have an emotional response to, and I respect the fact that Soken stayed dedicated to his work while going through chemo, but he definitely started drifting into novelty and variety over quality and atmosphere around Alphascape at the latest and kept going further in that direction, especially after being promoted to a team lead(which I was unaware of until this thread and is something CS3 keeps doing to the game's detriment). Most of my favorites are ultimately the ones built on Uematsu's work, like the songs in Shadowbringers that used Eternal Winds.