Distant Worlds or Orchestral Game Music in 2.0: Hey Yoshi-P! Help Me Out!

[Neptune]

Let's talk about game music.

Square Enix has thus far followed a path impoverished of rich fruit in it's development of game music.

Step 1: Hire Nobuo to make tracks in his home studio
Step 2: Release those tracks into the game
Step 3: A third party produces versions of the tracks with massive production value
Step 4: Continue to listen to the poor man's versions in the game
Step 5: OK...?

If I had to take a guess this perplexing pattern is due to the following two reasons:
1: Music formats that integrate well with software (read: endless loop of music)
2: Producer doesn't want to pay for initial studio orchestration
2.5: Producer doesn't want to pay license fees to Distant Worlds

Well Guess What! At least Arnie Roth actually recorded your music! Can't we all just get along? (And get paid?) And also, we don't want to listen to looped music anymore. Take a cue from WoW. Another cue.

Let's take a tour through some FFXIV music courtesy of some Youtube users dedicated to historical archiving.

FFXIV Guildleve music

"Beneath Bloodied Banners"

Game version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO37F...hannel&list=UL
Distant Worlds version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zDrIfrhlDg&t=1m36s

"Nail of the Heavens"

Game version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyUtW...hannel&list=UL

Note here that most of North America is no longer listening to hair metal bands. This song should be called Hair of the Heavens the way it's released.


This era is mostly over.

So here's a kindly Youtube user's rendition of the above track on piano and we can see that the composition is actually quite beautiful when more ..traditionally rendered.

Piano version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LScY25ogeOw

FFXIV music

"Twilight Over Thanalan" is a notable point as Nobuo added to the version that was shipped with the game.

Game version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhHocGjORK8
It sounds harsh and stilted compared to:
Distant Worlds version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Druc2wG3RDU
Also note the beautiful new section not found in 1.0: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Druc2wG3RDU&t=1m14s

"Navigator's Glory - Theme of Limsa Lominsa"

Game version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlicC...hannel&list=UL
This version doesn't compare at all to the magnificence of the:
Distant Worlds version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cecPcbIJ5WE

Notice how the chimes sound in the game version: (first 10 seconds or so)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlicCiOGjMY&t=32s
Compared to the clarinets? in the Distant Worlds version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cecPcbIJ5WE&t=30s

"On Windy Meadows"

Game version @swell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi83wuPZZD8&t=1m50s
Orchestral version @swell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y2JbwRvyMA&t=2m8s

Which would you rather listen to out in the open field?

"Primal Judgement" - Ifrit's Theme

Game version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=136shMdKe7c
Distant Worlds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6_t09bafJk

Answers theme song
Game version middle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbuto9wfEHE&t=3m34s
Distant Worlds middle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMhcyzQ7mKw&t=3m29s

Which versions sound more "Final Fantasy" to you?

[Zahak]

I couldn't agree with you more :/ This may sound stupid but...classical music toggle?

[Teakwood]

Orchestration and mixing for a concert hall is very different from orchestration and mixing for game music; that said, I certainly wouldn't mind having studio orchestra recordings of the 2.0 soundtrack, but arranging and then producing BGM like that is -monumentally- difficult compared to using a DAW and samples/synthesisers for most of the heavy lifting. If you've had any experience in music production at all you probably know what I'm talking about here, and if you don't, you'll probably just go "BUT IT WOULD BE COOL SO IT SHOULD BE WHAT THEY DO!!!" anyways. (Which, yes, it would be cool, but it's naive to think that arrangement, mixing, or rights securement -aren't- actually the monumental issues that they are.)

Also let's wait until the 2.0 soundtrack is actually available for our listening enjoyment before bitching about it, shall we? Everything the new sound team has done so far has been really great, and they clearly -are- working with live instruments and vocalists when they need to be.