As I said before, I feel Ishimoto's work on TWEWY was a fluke. He's not my top composer for SE and I haven't been terribly impressed with any of his other works. I think part of my issue is that Hamazu tends to over do it. He crams too many instruments into some of his tracks and tries to be too technical when I feel a more simple and straightforward melody would suffice. Unlimited SaGa's score is unique, but I feel it's his work on SaGa Frontier 2 that feels the most odd of the bunch. At least Hamazu went back and re-arranged his battle music for Unlimited SaGa as rock pieces for FFXIII, SF2's score feels really strange compared to the rest of the franchise score and often works better when I find the piano arrangement album. It probably doesn't help that it feels the most whimsical of the OSTs. Ito's music has the opposite issue. The orchestral arrangements don't sound right. The Black Mages style rock album sounds perfect for his battle music, but the actual orchestral albums feel weird, like you're listening to an orchestra do a Metallica album. It's not bad, but it feels off.
Hamauzu has an incredibly distinct voice, and yeah, it can become very jarring at times. Personally, I don’t even really have a problem with it since for example Unlimited Saga seems divorces enough from the rest that the soundtrack just happens to bring that out a bit more. It’s a different style but at least it’s still internally consistent. Though I feel the issue with what I sent you is different. True, Shimomura has her own distinct voice (side note: it’s funny to me how both she and Hamauzu are the most classically trained of the SE composers and both sound very distinct, and yet absolutely nothing like each other at the same time), but while she may rank above Ishimoto on my personal preference list, Ishimoto is still imo a very capable composer. I even like his KH tracks for the most part, like the Vanitas themes which I think is pretty interesting. The issue here is that he just... goes for the most basic mashup of Guardando nel Buio, Rage Awakened and some other battle themes, trying his best to ape Shimomura, while also adding those smurfing high-pitched violins he put everywhere in Type-0 that drive me absolutely nuts. He’s trying to do an impression without even knowing how to do it’s Ishimoto’s orchestrations are hollow, completely lacking the rich, romantic textures of Shimomura’s work. And most damningly, Shimomura’s final battle themes were always something incredible. She never relied on easy remixes - Darkness of the Unknown, l’Impeto Oscuro, Vector to the Heavens - they all really felt like unique tracks that were tailor-made for the final battle and it always felt epic. This just feels sad
It's tough when you have a certain artist's style for a series to transition to a new one. I have a similar issue with Hamazu's music for FF and SaGa. It's not bad, but Uematsu and Kenji Ito's style is too iconic for me to not feel a little let down when I hear his work next to previous entry music. I've been listening to some battle theme arrangements from SaGa and you can distinctly tell a major difference when you're listening to either Uematsu, Ito, or Hamazu on the albums, but even Ito and Uematsu have a little commonality since you can tell they scored their works as though they were rock songs with a guitar, whereas Hamazu clearly prefers piano or violin as the main instrument.
I do agree, but I’m mostly fine with it. I feel it’s kind of a similar issue to how Harry Potter is very rarely someone’s favorite character from that series - we step in their shoes so their personality kinda blends. Meanwhile, I’ve been looking at the KH3 soundtrack a bit and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Ishimoto did the final battle music. And he completely botched it. (SPOILER) Luckily, Shimomura got to do some music for the secret boss of the reMind DLC. Honestly, I feel only she can do KH music right (SPOILER)
I imagine the Greeks simply realized a pattern with all writing about those types and simply gave a name to it. Most structural elements have a common sense feel to them that perhaps transcends simple education. I enjoyed the four, though Noct is usually my least favorite since he often comes across more bored than engaging. I honestly think the writing might have worked better for him if he had a minor narration element added like Squall and Tidus. Noct spends too much time in his head for my taste.
I actually think the band is the perfect representation of the four classic temperaments. Gladiolus is choleric, Prompto is sanguine, Ignis is melancholic and Noctis is phlegmatic. I’ve honestly recently been thinking how if you want a cast of four to really be compelling, they’ll usually just naturally fall into this pattern. Don’t know why that is but it looks like the Greeks were on to something. But yeah, overall I’m really fond of this writing and these characters, and I’m enjoying the plot and world building a whole bunch as well. I also do enjoy the fact that Gladio is the one to read a book since I feel that’s one of the things that show he really isn’t what he seems at first glance - even though most scenes reinforce that preconception. Prompto is the one that just makes me go “look, it me” the most and idk if that’s a good thing or if I should be embarrassed lol. Ignis is a total sweetie. I remember some people complaining at launch that he’s a total emotionless robot but like, there’s just so much to him? He’s funny, he’s smart and he definitely cares - he’s just not as outward about it. Noctis is pretty cool too and I enjoy him being lazy, but since the main plot is really about him, I feel that with him we learn much more about what he has to do rather than learning who he is. But then he’s also our viewpoint character so that’s a bit understandable I’d say. But yeah, overall, thoroughly enjoying my playthrough. Hopelessly sucked in. Every day I’m counting the hours until I can play again. It’s great.
Okay, I did some research and as far as I can tell, banknotes are just loot to sell for money. You can also use them for Elemancy but they're not worth it. Yeah the writing in this game is certainly more low key compared to what was going on in earlier entries. Gladio and Noct have a really weird relationship, but I think it comes from Gladio being a type A personality compared to Noct's type B. My one friend who loves Gladio also loved the fact that when you drive around in a car, he's the one actually reading a book among the group.
Hm. Well thanks regardless. By the way I’ve noticed an interesting thing in the lead up to the Titan fight. Gladio is uncharestically mean towards Noctis and then Noctis tells him he’s thankful for his father. That bit was so good because it told us that Gladio is actually mourning his father (something which to that point made me think bordered on plothole), that he’s getting through it by focusing on his job and not talking about it, and then that final kind just shows that he and Noctis share an incredibly tight bond because Noctis understood even though nothing was directly stated. It’s this kind of subtle writing that I absolutely love about this game because I feel it’s been missing in the series. This is real fine mature writing.
I honestly don't remember.
Hey so all those coins and banknotes. They’re the only loot I’m not selling right now since I recall someone saying they’re important. Do you know what they’re for?
