Eyes on Soundtracks - World Map Themes

[Aulayna]

But right. See, for me, I loved all of those suggestions up there, but I really loved "Searching for Friends" of VI. You Get a sense of hopeless blended in with a mix of a shining light, guiding you on your way. It's very fitting for the World of Ruin where your effectively by yourself, with all of the friends you have collected over the story vanished and into other locations. Traversing the world map with that tune playing is awe inspiring to say the least.

I really liked "Crossing Those Hills" as well from IX. It's more uplifting and joyful, which sort of reflects much of IX really. It's very gentle and slow, slowly picking up pace as the song goes on, before reaching a crescendo. Many world map songs share this build-up. "World Map theme #1" in VII slowly builds to the trademark chorus, as does other songs.

Most fittingly, VIII's world map song isn't on the list. I personally didn't much care for it myself.

Thanks for your input Formy. The FFVIII map theme is certainly... weird... it's catchy but at the same time it just doesn't have as much of "the vibe" for me. When I listen to it I don't really recall much of the game as you mentioned - whereas with other map themes I'm immediately whisked back and can remember adventures out in the field.

Searching For Friends is another fantastic theme that has a very "the world has been broken, lets fix it" vibe to it.

I could swear ti was called over those hills since i'm a freaking BALLER at it on theartrhythm. But it may have a slight variation with crossing those hills. Regardless I love it because it's calming. Makes it seem like yeah we're going on an adventure, this is a fun relaxing thing, don't freak out, no just adventure!

Yeah it seems to have various variations in names from Over Those Hills to Crossing the Knoll. I used the one that was the title of that YouTube video so there's a possibility it may be inaccurate - I'll check my iTunes library at some point to see what it's listed as in there as I brought the soundtrack on it.

Not sure if it counts as a World Map Theme, but the theme when you hop into the Highwind (not the miserable one, the uplifting one) is freakin' awesome. I also like the main world map theme of FFVII. I detest the miserable one, though. I know it's there to be foreboding or something but urgh, make it stop.

Funny you should mention that BoB - I was considering covering Airship themes in a future edition though my memory is a bit rusty on how many Airship themes there have been. I shall do some research on it!