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I think I saw an interview somewhere and Soken said he typically starts every song on either piano or guitar and it grows from there.
FFXIV has a a large collection of chill piano music that are usually used for a zone's night time music.
I made a spotify playlist of relaxing ffxiv music that has 142 tracks, and at least half of those are chill piano songs.
I'm happy that Jesse finally got to Scars Of Battle, but I'm sad at the same time that he missed the opportunity to hear the hard mode version of it. Would have made more sense to request this as an addition rather than the Fan Fest part.
I replayed this dungeon the other day because I remembered liking it but couldn't remember why. Then once the music started I was like oooh right!
I'm shocked they didn't show you the Hard mode version. In Mekkah Dee's channel it's just titled "FFXIV OST The Lost City of Amdapor Hard Mode Theme", it's a lot more focused on the piano solo and it has a bit of a more intricate melody.
I love Lost City of Amdapor's theme with all my heart. I fell in love with it the first time I stepped into that dungeon, getting instantly lost in the music and the atmosphere.
I was waiting for this reaction, thank you Jesse <3 as always, a very enjoyable video.
About Amdapor, it shows you (the player) a part of ancient lore which got forgotten, a past calamity of a time known as the War of Magi where the Black Mages of Mhach declared war to the White Mages of Amdapor (taking down Nymian's Summoners as well). The Black Mages unleashed upon them creatures from the Void and what you can see in the dungeon is what remained; foul beasts and corpses from both factions. At the end, as last boss, you have to defeat Diabolos, who most likely, was the bigger responsible for all that destruction.
I'd like to have more informations about it (despite Mhach raid series and Nymian's dungeon giving you bits of it), but as a Black Mage player I love it with all my heart.
Thank you for your reaction, Jesse <3 take care and have a nice day!
I have footage from that performance at the vegas fanfest, and this made me go dig around to watch it. I always loved this track, its a really lovely piece.
I am very familiar with FFXIV since I listened to the whole ost in 2015, I'm behind on the stuff that came after.
Let's start with the original. It reminds me of Christmas music a bit with the sleigh bells. I like the dark piano it gives the song some nice impact and the context maks the song quite a bit stronger from what I read. There's not much for me to say since it was really short but it wasn't bad. Not something I'd go back to often.
Now the Fan Fest version, right off the bat this sounds really good for a live performance. Using the box was insanely creative and I've never seen that before; despite the jokey/memey aspects to the performance he played very skillfully. I really liked the switch to Equilibrium during the second part, it sounded really nice on piano. Even though there were mistakes I can't get upset at them at all due to playing that didn't sound or look easy. An entertaining performance for sure.
That cardboard box Soken was kicking legit made an appropriate and unique "percussive" sound for that moody song. This guy uses anything as an instrument and it sounds good.
This one of my favorite dungeon themes from earlier in the game. One of the first that really stood out to me since a lot of early FF14 used the same themes
Hope you get to some other dungeon themes like Great Gubal Library and Anamnesis Anyder they're quite good as well
The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard) is a more piano heavy variation of this, absolutely worth listening to as well.
there are some absolutely beautiful and more subtle themes in this game, some of my absolute favorites that you have been starting to dip your toes into lately, probably because we are starting to run out of the big set piece music that most people think of when they think of FFXIV music, probably my favorite song in all of XIV is a song like this called Night at the Brume, I have the music box for it, square enix has released a few different music boxes, they are small and only play a small snippet of their themes but I find them so relaxing, lol.
Its always a treat to see Soken live, this guy is just enjoying life and its inspiring. Im excited to see you react to more Amdapor songs, the piano themes from this and Gubal library are iconic.
This dungeon is a whole mood. You go through fungus infested ruins, fighting voidsent demons, and some occasional wildlife. Then you come to the final boss and it's not just your run of the mill voidsent but a super high level one, an overlord of sorts, and not only is he literally named Diabolos(fun fact, Wrath of the Harrier plays for the Diabolos Armament fight, the evil empire's attempt to use said voidsent as a power source), but he's also one of the hardest dungeon fights in the game, he does tons of damage and there's a bit of a memory game involved where you see symbols above gates around the room at the start and when he starts casting a nuke spell you need to open 2 corresponding gates to be sucked into one and spit out the other to dodge the spell. Then those 2 gates are no longer usable so if he lives long enough to do it again you need to use 2 OTHER gates that match. People either love or dread this dungeon solely because of the final boss.
P.S. 2nd song played in live performance was "Equilibrium" which is the boss theme for Sophia, it's also by far one of my favorite boss themes from 14.
The 2nd half in the live video is another song of trial battle. And yes, the melody is so beautiful, so sad and so self-completed. Glad you enjoy.
And wish everyone a beautiful day
Soken being not only the composer but also the Sound Designer means he will find bullshit ways to create the sound he wants for a song. Like that cardboard box percussion. There's a lot of those in the OST.
Soken is a multitalented meme.
the XIV requests are getting weird lately
This is my favorite song in the entire game. Its hard to explain but the music is tattooed straight on my heart for some reason. I'm glad you got the chance to hear it.
I love the new title arrangement, makes it much easier to know which game it is. Keep it up 👍
Ah, yes. Soken's most famous mastered instrument.
The box.
Like others have said, FF14 does have a lot of songs like this. People just tend to keep recommending the big in-your-face songs. Hopefully you’ll see more like this in the future.
I wish they'd requested the hard mode theme to this as well, since it's a nice 'layering' onto the original.
So glad you loved it. Sorry I missed the premiere, I was a bit under the weather. The "sequel" to this song is the "Hard" mode version and sounds similar but different being another piano-focused piece.
Soken is a treasure
This song is from the A Realm Reborn era of the game's soundtrack – about a decade old now.
So here's a reason why this song doesn't sound quite like a lot of the other 14 music you've heard: while the original launch of 14 (usually referred to as "1.0") was a failure, the soundtrack (naturally) was not since it was composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
For the relaunch of 14 (A Realm Reborn or "2.0"), Soken was hired as its composer with the instruction to make the soundtrack for 2.0 sound akin to Uematsu's work. This also allowed them to use songs from the 1.0 soundtrack in 2.0 and have it all blend easily. Certain tracks could go more rock/metal, like fights against Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, etc. but otherwise, Soken didn't have the widest range to play with.
This continued on into the first expansion, Heavensward, where the fan's positive reaction to the music, especially to the Alexander raid music (Metal, Locus, Rise, etc.) earned him a little more wiggle room while composing the second expansion's soundtrack, Stormblood.
Stormblood's soundtrack overall had another incredibly positive reaction from the fans. The boss themes, raid themes, narrative themes – all of it was solid. Soken proved he could make it his own style and make it work for the game.
So come the third expansion, Shadowbringers, they finally let him off the leash. He really made that soundtrack his own, and that's where you experience a lot of that 14 vibe and can tell it's Soken. That was able to carry on through the latest expansion, Endwalker.
So if you ever wonder "why does this not sound like 14?" it may depend on how early the track was composed in 14's lifetime.
I'm not sure if it still does (I imagine so, since they've only continued to add to it), but FFXIV once won a record for the most individual tracks in a single video game. There's actually a shocking amount of range and variety across the entire OST, but people mostly send you boss music.
You mention the Female piano player during the Lahee video. Her name is Keiko.
During the fan fest that Soken did Lahee there was also a super cool piano concert with Soken and Keiko.
They have done a couple of these before. If you search YT for "Soken and Keiko" many come up.
Ill suggest "FFXIV Fan Fest – A Long Fall – Soken and Keiko" for piano dueting.
I LOVE this song. I had no idea that was the name though haha. Also you say it sounds different, and that's because it's like a 9 year old dungeon theme instead of the more modern boss themes that you almost exclusively get. There were a lot more traditional fantasy orchestra tracks back then. Overall the game has a lot of variety! Hopefully you'll hear some more ambient tracks at some point, though they're probably not as big for viewers as Epic Boss #23
Oh heck we finally got into one of my favorite tracks in all of XIV!
Sorry I had mentioned in my request that the 2nd part of the video was a different song, I couldn't find one with just the standalone part.
This is one of those songs that—like Syrcus Tower or Ultima Weapon—when it came out, I did it a lot to hear the music. I don't remember if orchestrions where a thing then but, even if it were, they were probably expensive so I couldn't just play this in my FC house—I had to go do the dungeons and raids.
The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard) Theme "The Ancient City" is my favourite arrangement of this song <3
Jesse: So I like piano
Dungeon and chill FF14 music crowd: /comes out from caves👀
Music like this keeps you playing, no matter what atrocities you might meet along the way.
Suggesting ff type 0 “utakata”