The quality of music in XIV is lacking and takes away from the already unfinished polish; it doesn’t evoke a sense of adventure, passion, or adrenaline like the newer generation of Final Fantasies. While this may seem like a bias opinion, I would not have made this argument until I heard Mr. Uematsu’s Distant Worlds concert in New York earlier this month. Suffice to say, his pieces “Navigator’s Glory” and “Twilight Over Thanalan” were breath-taking; the songs themselves were wonderfully composed. The out-dated MIDI music is what strips them of their justice and causes the game to fall short.
Please consider hiring an orchestra or seeking Mr. Arnie Roth himself to help compose music with Mr. Uematsu for future iterations of this game. I understand from the XIV developers’ standpoint that efforts and funding at the moment are being strained to their limits, but the quality of music has been known to save and promote games that would have otherwise never become successful. Convince Square-Enix to allocate additional funding to this end, and it would leave the development team unaffected to address gameplay issues.
Players, please visit this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Druc2wG3RDU