WHY is the Music In The AGLAIA Raid SO FREAKING Good?! || Final Fantasy XIV OST



The Aglaia Raid features some of my personal favorite music to exist in Final Fantasy XIV. Pilgrimage and In the Balance are truly stunning in their complexity and in their beauty. I hope you enjoy this “deep dive” into what makes the lore and music of this raid so particularly good.

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Videos used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM4OswPep6c&t=85s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLe40q0g3Vw&t=261s

Credits:
Icomposed by Masayoshi Soken
Arranged: Ryo Furukawa and Soken
Lyrics: Kathryn Cwynar
Performed: TEA

source

22 thoughts on “WHY is the Music In The AGLAIA Raid SO FREAKING Good?! || Final Fantasy XIV OST”

  1. Hi Marco, I’ve been a long time viewer of your videos and was wondering if you could check the song “Heritors of Arcadia” from Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia. I think it’s a beautiful track that was translated amazingly from Japanese to English, the lyrics are great and I really think you’ll enjoy listening to it!

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  2. This felt like a big collision of the Steppe, Ul'dah, and Ala Migho all cramed into one, it was excellently done. I can't wait to hear what Soken has in store for the Fury, Halone. Heavensward music ALWAYS hits me hard, and the possibility of combining choral magnificence and big organ sound with a tempo like this…I already know it's gonna be good. 😀

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  3. I’m so flattered that you listened to it! I never actually expected it to happen when I suggested it, and when I got your reply I was blown away that someone whose videos I’ve so quickly come to adore listening to actually responded.

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  4. I love how every segment of the song just gradually gets better and better as you listen despite being completely different than the other .. that's how you make a song..

    I have a hard time rewinding the song because I can't find a reason to…

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  5. I watched Alex Moukala's breakdown of this. He points out that the modulation suddenly gives the song a darker tone. I think that's a brilliant touch given the context. We get Nald with the lively upbeat song, then we get Thal with the modulation and sudden darkness in the song. It's like a reminder that they also oversee death.
    That's my interpretation of it at least. Also the references to fortune, life and death. Stoking a nascent flame, being new life, Day beckons night, being a life/death cycle. Living a life filled with riches and and finding riches after you departed.

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  6. Seeing how much you've enjoyed the variation on the various leitmotifs in the game (and also just watching you rock out the music as you react to it), I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the music from the final 6.0 trial ("The Final Day" and "With Hearts Aligned"). TFD does interesting work remixing several themes together and I'd love to hear hear some discourse on that because I didn't fully listen to the FFXIV OST until Endwalker, so I only picked up pieces here and there.

    ALSO I've seen several streamers grooving to With Hearts Aligned when it kicks in and die because they stopped paying attention to everything else (with one explicitly blaming Soken for his death, lol), so it'd be interesting to hear your experience. For me, personally, the intro to WHA hit me especially hard because it was the only part of Footfalls that I hadn't heard yet in Endwalker, and I felt like Soken had been saving this one up his sleeve for the most dramatic climax of the game. The overall tonal shift from TFD to WHA gave me relief, and a sense that "Oh yeah we got this!"

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  7. To me 'In the Balance' sounds very much like a prayer song sung at a festival dedicated to Nald'Thal in Ul'Dah. Like we're hearing this Festival prayer unto Nald'Thal. And I cannot stop jamming to it.

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