Music Producer Reacts: In The Balance (FFXIV Nald'thal Theme) 

I forgot to say, my name is pronounced tea as in green tea! Cheers!

Whoa! I don't know how much, if anything, you contributed to the song beyond your vocals, but that was one of the few song, even by Soken, that made me pause so much it made me not want to play the game, just listen. You did a fantastic job, and Soken outdid himself yet again, and I'm gonna have to look up this Ryo Furukawa as well. I hope you come back for more FFXIV tracks.

That’s you?! Your vocals are AMAZING! I can’t stop listening. Edit: I’d also like to request a potential collab or interview with Alex!!! 🥳🥳🥳

Really lovely performance! :)

@@omegagilgamesh thank you! 😊

Soken is keeping you busy this year!

a la Keanu Reeves: no, YOU'RE a delight! :D

@@AlexMoukalaMusic Don't forget his coworkers :)

Soken is a Pink Floyd fan confirmed?

Well it is the theme of the Traders.

divinity is the color of gold

@@rumpatumpboobadoop3728 “Shining rays of Gold, embrace my spirit.”

And it comes in when the first line is "And when we reach our ends..."

The twin nature of Nald'thal is also reflected in the time signature, with the A section being in 3/4 time and the B section switching to 4/4. This track has *layers*.

yes 2 half is right!! its not exactly representing life and death though, but more of overseer of the underworld and god of commerce ;) maybe the first half sounds like sweet sweet cash AHAHA and the dark shift sounds like the underworld.

@@xjayex actually Nald does say he is the keeper of the living with his opening line, and Thal says he is the keeper of the dead

Doesn't the first half represent trade?

Lol that video was funny to look at. gj

Do you use like MMD for that stuff, because if so, or even anything similar, I doff my hat to you. That's some great work :D

Can confirm, have died a couple times now cuz I was too busy jamming :D Sorry healers!

My rotation went shit because I got headache it’s the badest music from all raids. So sad

Thank you for the video. It was much-needed hilarity, and it's appreciated you let Alex use the clip in such a great way.

Exactly. It's really hard to write a sountrack that can stand on its own two feet outside of a game while also fitting the game's story and mechanics as much as FFXIV's music does. And if a soundtrack isn't able to stand out of the game like that, it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad! However I may not be as excited to listen to it outside of the game. So you can be sure that when I lose my mind over a piece of music here, it's simply because of how good it is on its own

I've always loved video game music more than band/group music because the most memorable video game music is accompanying an epic/memorable moment that I am actively experiencing. Whenever a video game song I love plays, I just get goosebumps and am taken back to that moment in my head. I'm also able to relate to it more because I can associate with something that I love. I've been finding myself playing video game albums more and more than just listening to music on radio since it's more readily available.

@@AlexMoukalaMusic I love the breakdowns you do, it's always very well explained and you do a great job explaining things. It always amazes me when music from a video game stands on it's own from the game(Final Fantasy 15 has some really amazing tracks that stand on their own like Somnus Ultima and Hell Fire). I see your point that people who haven't played games may not love certain songs as much as players of the game because contextual elements are missed (which i can sometimes give alot more impact to particular songs), But as a counter point I would say that to players of a particular game, certain songs with the context implications can be incredibly powerful which is something I love about video game music (For example the theme for Soul of Cinder from Dark Souls 3). Sometimes players of a game find it hard to seperate the narrative context of a song from the song itself which is why songs, which on their own aren't phenominal, can be so beloved.

It's similar how I've felt with certain movies or series, that's created way more emotional and fantastical pieces of musical art than the ones who cater to the industry of music and listeners solely. Makes one wonder if all this might be the disconnection of reality. A lot of pieces of music are born out of something, an inspiration, usually lyrics, whether it be for romance, a place, a moment and so forth. Movies and especially games, such as Final Fantasy that is all based in a fantastical unreal world you could only dream of, of places, characters, events and moments that could never happen IRL, or simply the perfection of a written story, and connecting a piece of music to that. I wonder if it elevates it, gives the composer a grander vision with the inspiration being fantasy itself rather than the music being the fantasy imitating real life which can often be not that fantastical. It's like a layer on layer, where the game or movies is inspired by RL and amazing things of it, makes it even greater, and then the music is inspired of that greatness to go further. E.g Ul'dah being a mix of middle eastern cultures but goes more than that by mixing other cultural bits and the music does the same where it takes instruments or vocals that aren't normally used in that culture but creates something new, something that anyone may never have thought of IRL, but in a fantasy world it makes sense and works so amazingly. As it stands, when creating a fantasy world it's not restricted or dictated by cultural norms, it takes inspiration from them and stereotypes, but at times mixes them together or breaks them on purpose to appear different, and I think that is mirrored in music which both tries to imitate culture and a timeframe said instruments were used, but then suddenly you got an electric guitar or modern vocalist thrown in, or simply mixing medieval european instruments with feudal japan ones with a gothic/christian orchestra.

I mean yes and no. The music for FF14 without context is still great don't get me wrong. But KNOWING the story behind it makes it only Better. Dragonsong is a GREAT example for that.

Still kind of funny when Azeyma calls him out for "almost smiling that time".

It's also just referencing the culture of Ul'dah. Nald'thal is the patron god of the city, and their lives and culture revolve around commerce, life and death. Dreams on their backs could just as simply be national pride. That through their fortunes, both good and bad, they carry the dreams of this desert city onward.

If it was a song of prayer, it'd be unlikely to include lyrics for refugees that wouldn't exist until very recently in the timeline.

@@dolphinboi-playmonsterranc9668 I mean.. Mhachi refugees founded Belah'dia, which ultimately split into the twin city-states of Ul'dah and Sil'dih

Oh wow I never knew!!!!

Perhaps Dreams represents the Thamaturges?

I wasn't sure if we were getting Nald'thal in the first tier, I didn't remember if all of them were properly introduced beforehand. And then we hit the boss room and I went "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE *ARE* FIGHTING HIM NOW."

I feel like the theme for the other 3 is our Rhalgr/Ala Mhigo music. I'm expecting Halone and Thaliak to give us non-vocal BGM for 3/4 bosses in the other wings (Ishgard and Sharlayan tones), and Nophica and Llamayen to claim the 4th vocal tracks for Gridania and Limsa respectively.

It's more likely we'll get a song for Nophica and Llymyan. Sadly.

@@jaeusa160 Unless we end on Oschon, which I find more likely.

@@Offbeaten the way they talked about the locked gate/teleport thing, i feel like some gods won't be in the alliance raid at all since it didn't seem like it'll just be the gods in the three alliance raids. That said, i still wish we get to fight them all. Also, oschon is gonna be interesting all things considering

@SystemsReady This song just makes me want to play P5, it's very much in line with his style in P5.

Same thing with persona 5 amazing music

And at the word “Twinfold” I can just see them folding their hands together in a prayer/namaste manner, closing their eyes and smiling :)

If you perform Standard or Technical Step at the right moment the GCD lines up perfectly with the beats on "We Pray" and when I realized this I was screaming on day one.

Great ear! I noticed those changes too while reverse analyzing the track after shooting the main reaction. Tho I'm just discovering about the two sides of Nald'thal so I just learnt something new thanks to you!

Are they 3/4? Sections of it sound far more like 6/8 to me, and the nods to Arabian styled music have me further convinced, since Arabic music tends to favor the eighths (and just irregular time signatures in general). Either way, it's exciting to see other people picking it up because I absolutely geeked out about it to my partner and family, and they pretty much left me at "that's nice mai" lmfao.

@@maightandmagic perosnally for me it's 6/8 at 210BPM. But you can also read that as 3/4 at 105 BPM

@@maightandmagic It might be in 6/8, and rhythmically it makes sense in 8 as well, but I feel like it beats in 3 better than it beats in 2, which makes me think it's in 3/4

@@FlashOfLightning854 totally fair. the day i ever distinguish successfully between 3/4 and 6/8 is the day i die and even then i'll still be wrong lmfao.

They don't miss!

One of the badest tracks in game I get headache when playing this fight

@@vorpalstrike9536 Sad for you I guess

@@vorpalstrike9536 I'm sorry I think you misspelled "badass" let me fix that for you.

@@Intrepimid dude It sounds like Jennifer Lopez

I got it. Definitely in my house now.

Got it my first run through. It's so damn good

I have it, constantly on repeat in my home I share with my sister and in my apartment!

This is me every run. I'm fighting the entire alliance over the sheets more than the armor sets or the minion.

And the seiyu who did the Nald'thal voice is the one who did the Emet-Selch voice. It's connected.

What's really also cool is that the track is basically inspired for a prayer for Nald'thal's theme. Since it is the original 1.0 Ul'dah theme, its fitting that the track is just a prayer that the citizens could sing for festivals in the Twin gods's honor, with night and day perfectly hiding in the song.

I've listened to her 2019 Album "Unknown Places" and it's pretty good :) She's great!

Oy. Psit. Hey mister moukala... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0CJLlcufZFo.html

you should take a look at a fan favourite Susano no lyrics because the boss sings him self lol. search for susano with voice lines

They believe in the Navigator though, on a serious note.

@@SuperRamos619 Oh definitely. Llymlaen for sure, but I think that Nymeia would be another pateron deity as she looks over celestial bodies (a particularly favorable deity for sailors) and her mark was in La Noscea.

@@Churchtwinblades Nymeia was temporarily the matron goddess of Ala Mhigo, though that was mostly a political move by their king.

@@SuperRamos619 iirc their worship of the navigator isn't anything large scale like the other city-states, but smaller scale, more personal

Anybody whose walked through the plaza of Limsa Lomisa knows that it's a godless place lol

Agreed, when I watch these videos I feel like I learn something and get a better appreciation for the content. With most other ones I'm just... watching someone react to it. Which is exactly what it says on the tin, but it shows a greater level of mastery and care to really break it down section by section like he does.

He has glam plates ready on hotbar. XD

You might have meant it as a joke, but seeing how he goes from a clear shirt to a black one... I can't help be see a parallel with Nald-Thal going from Life to Death. I wonder if that was planned...

I was playing In the Balance on my phone one time and my sister asked if it was a new track from Disney and she thought it was great. I simply said no and didn't bother to explain where the song is from because I know she will not relate lol she's not in any sense a gamer

Glad that it feels that way on the other side! :) I really worked a lot on this video specifically. I always do but this one really made me go deep haha

I think surely the fight being a 24-man raid made it an easier experience to appreciate! The same can't be said about bosses like Good King Moogle Mog when he first came out

@@AlexMoukalaMusic It does make me wonder about boss / encounter design and just how tightly you could tie the two mechanically. I know an MMO would always make that more difficult because of latency, but if some day we get a Soken-led Rhythm Combat game... Well, that would be something.

Ravana's track is such a masterpiece! I once read that the singer for that one was a random Square Enix employee who happened to know throat singing. Absolutely nailed it

@@AlexMoukalaMusic He's a member of the localisation team as far as I know. He also had to be persuaded to sing the part because he really didn't like the sound of his own voice, as crazy as it sounds.