It's About Time Final Fantasy 14 Retires One Of Its Most Divisive,...

Machinations is the musical cockroach of Final Fantasy 14.

Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!

Patch 7.4 hit Final Fantasy 14 earlier this week, bringing a conclusion to the excellent Arcadion raids. Not only have all 12 fights been an absolute joy to play, but the series has some of the strongest identity and cast of characters the game has seen in a good long while.

That's thanks in no small part to each fighter having a unique theme song—something that is not afforded to every raid in this game—and I firmly believe the Arcadion series simply would not have hit the same without Soken's excellent and varied musical work on it. A world where I didn't have Bee My Honey permanently stuck in my head? That's a world I don't wanna live in.

So tell me why, then, Final Fantasy 14, did you STILL manage to cram Machinations into one of the goddamn cutscenes?

Machinations is that one friend you can't get rid of despite your best attempts. That bit of mold in your bathroom that keeps growing back. That once-favourite song you still can't listen to because you thought setting it as your alarm was a great idea. An ever-present song in Final Fantasy 14, one that has been around since the MMO's not-so-humble beginnings.

It's not even a bad song, really. It's a bold and battle-spurring piece. It's fine.

But its rampant overuse across one decade and five expansions' worth of cutscenes has caused the song to long overstay its welcome, and hearing it yet again in this newest patch has me desperate for the game to mix it up.

It certainly does not help the context in which the song is most often used: unvoiced cutscenes where characters often rehash plot points, plans, or imply some sort of battle lying ahead for the Warrior of Light that will then be discussed again but in a different location. To be blunt, it's filler, reminders of what's actually happening in case you weren't paying attention or took a long break.

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Source: PC Gamer