Ultima Thule showed you a memory of civilizations long gone. Facsimiles of people in spirit, and just let you see what their cultures were like. You could even do your part to restore them in some sense (Omicron quests and allied tribe quest) Here, there is a civilization. It's alive in some sense. And it is up to you to end that, because its existence is untenable. You don't arrive in Living Memory with everyone already being long dead and just vestiges. There are people there that actually experience things in the present. And now they're gone. It's almost an inversion. Ultima Thule was long dead before we arrived, while Living Memory dies because of us.
Ultima Thule was all about building hope even in the worst of times, always pushing forwards. Why the music was building up with each race you encountered and each sacrifice of the Sions Living Memory is the opposite. Every zone you go through you take away those last memories of the dead. People who lived, and died, and maybe were unfulfilled until this shiny city of gold; but the cost was too much. The living of the Source and shards powered the dead. Each zone grows quiet and still with each tower you turn off until there is no music left
@@Zakjuh Not forgetting about Shadowbrings the Amaurot part of The Tempest was a Facsimiles of people Emet-Selch recreated from his memories. The theming of Loss is still present from ShadowBringers to Dawntrail.
@@Zakjuh that was exactly what I was thinking while going through the Golden City. But as crushing as it is to end this paradise, it's important to remember that it is a relic of a past its queen refuses to allow to die... even at the cost of the living in the present and the living in the future. But honestly... the only time I felt true sadness was when it was time to shut down the Aero Terminal... Erenville had come along to reunite with his mother Cahciua, only for it to end like this. The poor guy deserves some happiness and it was cut so tragically short. But it is what Cahciua wants... and her description of the Golden City as a 'twisted mausoleum' is definitely accurate.
If "nostalgia" has a theme, this is it, capturing both the warm fuzzies you feel thinking about bygone times, underlined with the melancholy of knowing you can never really have it back.
Sooooo many ugly tears and worse, it didn't end. Everytime I visit the zone, my heart breaks again.... You know what's even worse? The golden glow is no more. It's just a fucking dead city. Amarout was just a dream I know but I can pretend it's alive but this? It's just on my face.... :(
Same! I kept being reminded of the whole scene of Sora and the gang leaving Twilight Town with Sora saying "I'm sad" and how that felt the first time it
Yup. Lost my mum to cancer as a kid. This place had me ugly crying the whole time. I'm a huge fan of 9 too so the sad nostalgia was just a kick in the face when you're down. Just finished the Alexandria dungeon n my face is sore and I'm emotionally drained. Wtf ff14...
My mother has cancer. She is still with us and all signs point to her recovering, but I would be lying if that experience didnt paint my reaction to this zone regardless. Wishing you all the best.
I lost my grandad to pancreatic cancer only a few months before Endwalker... So even after all this time I feel this comment so much. I cried and had so much heartbreak in this zone.
As someone who lost their mother, this was cruel to have to go through. It was emotional enough, but it certainly added an extra layer of pain, depth, and personal emotional connection. Gotta let go of the warm memories and the denial and accept the reality, cold and harsh as steel. It was a very painful yet comforting reminder.
This place got me with the double whammy on Namikka; as it really paralleled my own struggle to come to terms with my grandmother’s death. Both for the watching a loved one waste away when we meet up with Namikka as she’s dying in Heritage Found, and then meeting her here as an Endless, getting her proper goodbye really was cathartic, even if I was reduced to a crying heap for a few minutes afterward…
When I was playing through this zone, every single time the piano bit came up I would break down and cry. I felt like I flooded with memories over and over again. I couldn't get over what we needed to do to progress. The weight of it all hit me so hard, over and over. I was here for a summer vacation, and instead felt the immeasurable weight of a human life. Hurt so good. Thank you Soken, and CBU3. Dawntrail was so much fun.
I too couldn’t help tearing up at this zone, especially on that boat ride with Graha. What a masterpiece the whole Alexandra part of the expansion was.
giving us a but thou must to kill a bunch of reunited lovers and kids who never got to live was legitimately pretty crushing and i'm kind of shocked the other characters aren't more visibly traumatized by all this... we get a whole lot of "it's sad, but..." and meanwhile i'm sobbing my eyes out. erenville and krile are kind of unreasonably stoic...
@@AmnesiacDoei think it’s a bit of a cultural issue translating from japan. If you played X, then they’re unsent. You have to send them on to the afterlife or bad things happen if they stick around too long. They sort of go over this with the post game dungeon. Without souls to eat to stabilize them, endless as memory entities can get corrupted. The aethercurrent quests are about us helping the last few souls that are stuck to move on properly. But the pain in the music is real, and the silence after the shutdown hurts so bad.
There's a song in this expansion that plays during the emotional part of the story, and I have no idea what it's called. Would you have any idea what the song is called?
@@AshRabbit001 is it this one? i’m not sure whether there’s an orchestrion yet but it’s called ‘still hope’. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RnmVlgn4-OI.htmlsi=iISXYVld2Uq29aJZ
Thank you for uploading this music. It makes me feel peaceful, but also nostalgic and lonely. After releasing Sphene from her spell, the BGM makes me feel more lonely.
Felt like the vietnam 1000 yard stare meme while I was going through Yesterland, realizing why children would be there, and why a whole area was made for them. This zone was dark lol
Okay, yeah, this just confirms it for me that the dungeon for this zone, as well as the zone itself, uses "Fleeting Life"/"Unforgettable Sorrow" from Final Fantasy IX as its basis.
I know right? It might be a stretch but it makes me feel like I lost you know... A dear family member, although they are *currently* still alive, it pains me to think that the inevitable will arrive someday and I will never see them or hear them again. And what terrifies me more is that I could actually forget their voices. That's when you know they are really gone, no matter what.
there it was the Golden City of Tural, but when I was there i felt more depressed than i am excited. interacting with the people there seemingly in eternal bliss, how heavy my heart feels when i think about what we were going to do. Final areas in this game always give me this feeling and i just cant get enough of it
Best theme in recent memory. Invokes that feeling of loss and nostalgia I don't like going back to the final zone because I honestly feel sad in there. But those shared fates ain't gonna compelte themselves lol
I had to mute the BGM and put on different music for this for shared fates. I cannot properly kill monsters if they’re all blurry while I’m choke-sniffling over my keyboard.
Bruh I ugly cried so hard in some of the scenes during this section, especially in the water city. The fact the music turns off altogether for that part of the map after you kill off the terminal really drives home the emotional weight that you're ending what is essentially thousands of lives (even if they were just memories). It was for a short time, but I really loved Sphene, Otis, and the Endless, and I was really hoping there was some way we could save them all somehow.
I was getting strong Kingdom Heart vibes from this zone and I realize that this theme (and the overall coloring of the zone) was very reminiscent of Twilight Town from Kingdom Hearts 2. The instrumentation selection is especially telling. Given the plot parallels it makes a lot of sense. I was crying the moment I heard this theme and now I know why. Fitting because Sora also cried without knowing why. Masterfully done.
I mean.... It's Alexandria from Final Fantasy IX 😅 (I just played thru FFIX for the first time myself a few weeks ago in preparation of Dawntrail... Definitely helped to appreciate the second half more)
The most painful sentence I've ever hear in awhile now. "Everything that lives must die." Such a simple line, yet it destroys you looking back at what you just walked through.
Glad im not the only one that have some strong Twilight Town Vibes.. my first reaction was literally "What in the Kingdom Hearts is that?!" (the fact that it was just a computer simulation dont help)
All this area hited me like a truck. I'm still mourning my mother who died a few mounths ago. Just... it was so hard. Had to calm myself for 1h to finish it.
I remember feeling excited over the prospect of visiting a new reflection, even if it was just 1 zone. The amount of time i cried here makes me regret it, now i can't go to living memories without feeling sad
I did not expect the final zone to hit me this hard... I had lost my aunt 2 years ago and I miss her so much. This zone makes me wish I could still spend at least one more happy day with her.
Honestly while some cry during this part of MSQ i didn't, i just thought that i am glad to be here experiencing it all and when i go ill just go. Maybe some one wants me to stay but thats just life, sure it hurts to lose some one but you should remember the happiness of ehen they were is what i am trying to say.
This was the most beautiful area in the game it was so hard to get though without tearing up. Just the symbolism in the city and music says so much on its own before you even get to the msq bits. My favorite expansion hands down
Reverse Ultima Thule theme Ever since I finished the MSQ I still find myself going there, it's so sad and eery, and the way there was no way for us to actually go back to what it looked before is such a good representation of what this area stood for.
Words fail to describe this. I couldnt speak when I first saw it, and I understood those who looked at true art and the feelings they felt, the splendor of true art. And thus, I also realize the gravity of what we are to do to this place.
This song and place reminds me of venice for some reason (even though ive never been there). Feels like a romantic and apocalyptic landscape with the flooded areas and all 😂
bro coming back to this zone after the MSQ is over is so depressing. seeing all the blacked out regions empty makes me want to do what I came to do there and leave ASAP
this is my favorite zone track... it is just too good. it pains me that they missed hitting a real emotional homerun with this expac cause they were so close....
I just wanted my fun little adventure about learning and understanding cultures and coming together. I did not need this area’s relentless assault on my emotions..
Emet-Selch was right; It's not murder if they weren't truly alive to begin with. ...Is what I keep trying to tell myself in the futile hope I can stop crying.
More likely 7.1 then, IIRC 6.0 got added to NG+ when 6.1 dropped. Though then you'll have to go through the entire later storyline to get to that section. But worth it for some I think. 🙂
It’s executed far better. From the moment Estonian “dies”, it’s clear the loss will be undone. The loss here, while less personal, is far weightier from its permanence.
@@MHMega I think emmdee means in terms of how it's presented with the civilizations. Ultima Thule's civilizations are long gone. Living Memory's are... alive, in a sense. They're not shades of the past, they're, well, living memories. Real people in their own way, and this time, you have the "pleasure" of ending that yourself. It'd be like if all the civilizations in Ultima Thule were actually still alive and you personally had to end them all to get to Meteion.
The last map in endwalker (I will not say the name incase someone didn’t finished MQS) you still get to rebuild that zone, but this Golden City, you likely can’t
![Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail: Living Memory Theme [City of Gold]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
