Over the last 2~ months I've basically been binging the everliving hell out of Final Fantasy XIV, and having just finished the Shadowbringers MSQ the other day The Twinning - one of the current "Expert Roulette" dungeons - blew me away with how it ties into the Shadowbringers main story, as well as direct callouts to raid stories from A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood.
First, the song in question:
For obvious reasons, folks *love* this song. It's frentic, full of energy, and just a blast to listen to - if that's all it was, it would still likely be one of my favorite songs in the game, but there's a ton more to the song below the surface.
First off, the song makes liberal use of a leitmotif from the second stage of the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid series, Syrcus Tower. This part in particular:
From a lore standpoint, this makes perfect sense. The Twinning takes place in the Crystal Tower, and the opening room is *very* reminiscent of the opening sections of Syrcus Tower. It's probably the most obvious inspiration in the song, though far from the only one of note.
Next, the filtered vocal track in the song is very similar to the filter used in the Alexander raids:
This is admittedly not an obvious connection at first, but one that does become undeniable later on in the dungeon when the final boss is quite literally a reconstructed Alexander, and even uses a remixed version of the Alexander boss theme as their own.
Finally, the last musical reference in the track is to eScape from the Omega raids, itself a reference to Azys Lla. While the filter used on the vocals in A Long Fall are undeniably closer to those found in the Alexander raids, the vocals themselves are actually directly lifted from a theme in the Omega raids:
The reason why this is especially cool is that the lore of The Twinning is directly about how Garlond Ironworks struggled to find a way to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity, and your death, by researching your deeds in the Crystal Tower, Alexander, and Omega - before finally settling on using Omega-inspired tech alongside their own knock-off Alexander in order to send the actual Crystal Tower across both time and space.
So - the song *directly ties these three sources of inspiration together*.
I already loved Shadowbringers a ton, but as a total music nerd seeing how all of this content that I'd been doing in the lead up to Shadowbringers not only has a purpose in the actual narrative of FFXIV, but can see direct callouts in seemingly the most innocuous of places. I absolutely love this dungeon, and Soken is a *god* for managing to do its lore justice with his music.
First, the song in question:
For obvious reasons, folks *love* this song. It's frentic, full of energy, and just a blast to listen to - if that's all it was, it would still likely be one of my favorite songs in the game, but there's a ton more to the song below the surface.
First off, the song makes liberal use of a leitmotif from the second stage of the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid series, Syrcus Tower. This part in particular:
From a lore standpoint, this makes perfect sense. The Twinning takes place in the Crystal Tower, and the opening room is *very* reminiscent of the opening sections of Syrcus Tower. It's probably the most obvious inspiration in the song, though far from the only one of note.
Next, the filtered vocal track in the song is very similar to the filter used in the Alexander raids:
This is admittedly not an obvious connection at first, but one that does become undeniable later on in the dungeon when the final boss is quite literally a reconstructed Alexander, and even uses a remixed version of the Alexander boss theme as their own.
Finally, the last musical reference in the track is to eScape from the Omega raids, itself a reference to Azys Lla. While the filter used on the vocals in A Long Fall are undeniably closer to those found in the Alexander raids, the vocals themselves are actually directly lifted from a theme in the Omega raids:
The reason why this is especially cool is that the lore of The Twinning is directly about how Garlond Ironworks struggled to find a way to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity, and your death, by researching your deeds in the Crystal Tower, Alexander, and Omega - before finally settling on using Omega-inspired tech alongside their own knock-off Alexander in order to send the actual Crystal Tower across both time and space.
So - the song *directly ties these three sources of inspiration together*.
I already loved Shadowbringers a ton, but as a total music nerd seeing how all of this content that I'd been doing in the lead up to Shadowbringers not only has a purpose in the actual narrative of FFXIV, but can see direct callouts in seemingly the most innocuous of places. I absolutely love this dungeon, and Soken is a *god* for managing to do its lore justice with his music.
