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There is a summoner job in the game to be able to summon some of these, but technically, you're not summoning the actual things, so that's how they loopholed the job into the lore.
I agree about the vocals. When it's so heavily filtered it just becomes noise.
I love Ravana theme, 2nd phase, probably the one you thinking about. "Gazing doooooown, to seeee"
Some of this will have been addressed by others. Summons aren't inherently evil, but for plot and gameplay reasons most will be hostile and fought due to the intentions of those who summoned them. The Summoner player class/job is one of the exceptions as they bind the summon and use them in your own battles. There are some few cases where the original summoners may use them in a way that is compatible with the player's goals, if not outright allied to your cause.
In the early game, there are several 'beast tribes' who worship gods that they summon, one for each element and including several of the traditional FF summons. The desert lizardfolk worship Ifrit, the kobolds have Titan, the sahagin Leviathan, the forest sylphs Ramuh, the cliffside birdfolk have Garuda. Shiva's a bit of a special case so I'll leave that to your imagination. The Eden raids are a much different context and are a complete reimagining of those primals into something different, as they are not brought forth by the original summoners. Some of the changes are actually related to specific mechanics from the player's fight back in ARR. For example, Leviathan having two heads is probably related to the fact that in your fight against him, you had to split your attention between attacking his head and tail at the same time.
On the topic of summons aiding or fighting against you, FF16 had an interesting take where people BECOME the summons and fight eachother godzilla style.
Summons in XIV are pretty much false gods that corrupt those who are around them.
This leviathan, garuda, ifrit are from a parallel world (long story) summoned from your memories.
Also, you could say the lyrics in leviathan's sound drowned~ out
The song is called "Primal Angel" because its a fusion of Ifrit's theme, "Primal Judgment", and Garuda's theme "Fallen Angel"
I agree if you praise everything then praise can lose all meaning. As long as it's genuine its ok but people can recognize fake praise if you do it a lot.
Primal Judgmenet (Ifrit song) was one that pushed me to play this game, and I always prefered it over Gardua theme, but when in Shadowbringers, in Eden Raid, they remixed all songs and put more electric themes to it, this one became my favourite (of those remixes) 🙂
To give the context on XIV's take on stuff like Leviathan, Bahamut etc, they get referred to as Primals (or Eikons sometimes), a "god" summoned by prayer and crystals that corrupts the will and life force of those around them forcing them to serve, including the summoner, and will continually sap the energy of the environment.
The versions you've seen here, specifically from Eden, are primals created from your memories of the original, who you're deliberately bringing forth to kill, as once a primal is killed the "aether" they absorbed will be released into the surrounding area. Why Leviathan has 2 heads there for example people believe to be a memory of "origianl leviathan had head and tail to attack, most just saw it as 2 heads to hit"
And whilst yes, they are for roughly 90% all enemies, there is a class called Summoner, who uses lesser versions of them to attack and effectively cast elemental magic.
The thing with Primal Angel is it's also a combination of two different tracks from two different composers: Fallen Angel by Masayoshi Soken, and Primal Judgement by Nobuo Uematsu.
The Leviathan and Garuda/Ifrit Eden tracks aren't my favourites; they're not terrible just not ones I would choose to listen to.
I prefer the Ramuh and Titan Eden tracks for sure. I'm so glad they're used as mount music for the mounts you get from the savage fights.
I know the 2 heads has already been explained but Ill add a bit of flavor – I love how theses primal refights are based off misremembering the original fights. Creating new/ false primals to distribute latent energy thats warping the land is an interesting take to heal the world. That said both the fights and the songs are indeed remixes of the originals.
Summons are not your friend in FFXIV generally, no. It's a major plot point through the first few expansions that gets explained and tied up in the last couple. Summoners are a playable job but they summon much smaller, more manageable versions– and even then, the powerful ones are only on the field to wreck shop for a few moments.
Gonna be real with you – FFXIV fans were mixed on these remixed fights/ songs. Some people were tired of the game spotlighting these primals again. While other straight up hate the music. These remixed versions of the songs were used again later and friends of mine absolutely hated the inclusion. So dont worry – even FFXIV fans have mixed impressions on these songs and indeed the fights themselves. I personally liked this Leviathan fight but was bored of the Garuda/ Ifrit/ Raktapaksa fight. The music however was always off lol. If weeklies dont go well as you're doing reclears you end up spending hours on these fights and the music goes from forgettable to grating.
As a wrestling fan myself, Leviathans theme definitely sounds like a wrestling theme. Either for a high flyer or a brawler.
Yee big Tekken energy for Indigo. But yee I've always felt that Primal Angel pales to other songs from this raid series.
Hell yes!! Didn’t know you hadn’t reacted to this one its a banger!!! 🔥
It's funny you said Blinding Indigo reminds you of Metal Gear Rising, I always felt like all of the Eden based primal boss themes just sound like if they were remixes for MGR
Oh I sure did love some old Tekken music. Though I mean, even older than 5 or 4.
Sure Soken isn't the best singer out there. And here's the story.
This set of summons battles is happening in "another world" to keep it short. So these songs are the remix of the original summons theme song. That's why it's heavily electro and goes all in for any weird elements like those unique tempo.
And then there is the original Leviathan song. That was Soken too. This same mushy not understandable English. They said the song was meant to be female vocal as it's Leviathan. But Soken just goes all out having fun recording the demo and the director likes it and decided to stick with Soken vocal in the end.
And even for this version. It has to be Soken voice. You couldn't make it more weird yet familiar than this.
Soken also sings on many occasions. But he always puts his voice through some kind of effects. Usually masked out the bad English and left only the feels and melody. But his voice got quite clear in the most recent Dawntrail trailer. Maybe because it matches his adventurous vibe so well.
BTW both fights are quite easy. Titan is the hardest one of this set.
XIV you can say is Disney Land MMORPG of Final Fantasy, you can still enjoy the game greatly with 0 knowledge but if you know ALL the references of the FF series then you get insanely more enjoyment and hit with nostalgia constantly with bosses or songs or specific story elements or items like Materia or etc.
People who get upset when someone doesn't bond with a song forget that a lot of their attachment to it is not only the sweet tune but the emotional attachment it has to a story part they enjoy.
'Neat Dark Waters/Mortal Instincts are a nice pair of songs, but they are not the songs they are without the part they play in the story.
Leviathan lore is kinda weird because he's just a guy that the sea folk prayed to so they could get their ancestral home back (and then we killed him). This version however is in Eden's Promise, which involves the player finding a place that has no elements other than Light. So to fill it back, you use your character's memories of the old primals you fought to fight them again and bring their respective elements. Leviathan is the first if not one of the first you fight. All of Eden's Promise songs follow this premise and feature a remixed version of their original primal/summon/eikon's themes
And no, this isnt what he looks like but really it should be what leviathan looks like
I really like Blinding Indigo, one of my favorites from that raid series. The Eden series summons are special because a summon in FFXIV to begin with is based on the interpretation of the summoner to what that deity should look or act like. The Eden summons are how your character roughly remembers how those interpretations were, which are then used by someone elses interpretation of how you remember it. Thing is when you've slayed as many gods/ancient powerful creatures as the player character has, it's hard to remember them all distinctly. The original Leviathan fight had you targetting the head and tail indepently. What your character boils that down to is "Uh, the guy um… there was water, and, um, oh yeah I was hitting two things." Which came out as "Water, two heads (because who cares about the tail right), got it" By the time you see how far off all the Eden ones are from the originals a lot of us wondered just how much brain trauma our character has taken over the years lol.
I've never been too fond about Primal Angel myself. It's not offensive, but it's not interesting either. It's a mix of Fallen Angel and Primal Judgment. The Primal Judgment parts of the song are less pronounced for most of the song and the original itself is a bit generic sounding to begin with. I have a theory as to why that is but, I'll spare you the history lesson/tin foil hat rambling for if you ever react to Primal Judgment itself. Point is, yeah, they can't all be bangers and bops.
Some lore about the Leviathan lyrics
Through the Maelstrom, Leviathan's original theme, originally had a female vocalist. At the last minute, Yoshida veto'd the vocalist and so Soken recorded them himself shortly before the deadline.
Blinding Indigo is a remix of Through the Maelstrom and just pulls the old lyrics used.
I love the music in XIV, easily some of my favorite music in games, and in general honestly. but i do have to admit, the Ifrit Garuda fight music is good, but easy to just kinda shut the brain off, take in the fight and get into a rhythm. like The Twinning, Dedicated to Moonlight, Shivas theme, songs like that, i can get into the song and rock the fight.
in terms of difficulty, the Leviathan fight was probably a 6, and the Garuda Ifrit was probably an 8. not crazy hard, but got me a few times. after running them a few times, they are like a 4 now lol. Great video man, fine takes. Have your opinions, thats what life is about man!
Trust me when I say, that small mini map you have even during a raid fight…yeah no it's muchly needed for some of the fights 😂 it's not very obvious from the clips but it's super easy to get disorientated during a heavily mechanical fight, so the mini map can be your best friend at figuring out where you ended up and where you need to go next! It's actually genius
So the new expansion is coming out 28th of June 2024. Hope you get to react to some stuff 🙂
You're allowed to have your opinion jesse. Both of this songs are fine, nothing super great and super bad. It's just old versions updated to me. Now if you ever do eden: titan…now thats one of my favorites for the eden series.
P.s eden was in ff8.
I wonder if for some reason they didn't have the raw files for their Leviathan recording and needed the radio filter to disguise the fact that they were sampling the original recording and isolating the vocals. I recall at the time of doing the Eden raid, there was speculation that these songs (and the Titan song you refer to) were composed by a different person or team, and in fact they were arranged by Takafumi Imamura. At the time Soken would have been quietly battling cancer, so it makes sense in hindsight that someone else would step in.
These two songs are part of the same raid series as "Return to Oblivion" which was your 15th FF14 song covered. As for how I feel about the songs, well, I only generally hear them if I'm doing those fights. They aren't really my cup of tea so I don't really seek them out.