Final Fantasy XI - Faded Memories / Rhapsodies of Vana'diel | Reacting To Video Game Music!

[@eji]

I'm sure someone else has said it already, but there was a contest of sorts for people to submit themselves singing the chorus part, and the people chosen (it was a lot of them) were all combined into that massive choir at the end. The credits are all the people singing, and the characters and worlds they were from. I was lucky to be one of those voices... Gaddes from Midgardsormr. It still makes me emotional hearing this song to this day.... a final goodbye song, and to be part of that... I'll always treasure that.

[@JessesAuditorium]

Yea I heard, so cool. I just compiled a playlist of XI stuff earlier today, such an underrated soundtrack. Especially Zi'tah

[@eji]

@@JessesAuditorium haha I just listed to that list! Some great choices in there... if you ever have time, Ronfaure (Distant Worlds version is a bit more epic) and Rolanberry Fields are superb!

[@Smedile2]

Love seeing more from FFXI here and especially seeing your take on some of these pieces. Cool note about the vocal pieces from FFXI: the Distant Worlds concerts are named in part after the vocal dong that wrapped up the first couple of expansions, titled simply Distant Worlds. It was also Susan Calloway's first appearance as a primary vocalist for Final Fantasy, years before she took up the FFXIV torch. For Rhapsodies, it's not as old as the base game - the patch that the song came in was in 2015, compared to the base game's 2003 release. Rhapsodies is the end of a story tie-up that they put out as a last hurrah to give closure on the game (though they did drop one more storyline 5 years later in 2020). Further fun fact! The chorus at rhe end of Rhapsodies was made up of players from across the servers.

[@nezkeys79]

12:51 it wasn't just the end. It was the beginning. This music is the first thing you hear when you create a character (re arranged with lush vocals and a lush string arrangement). I really cannot describe how emotional this was to me after playing this game for nearly 15 years at the time. The part with the players singing just destroyed me as well 😪 I wept like I wept on Toy Story when andy has to go to college and give away his toys lol. A testament to how powerful it is ... is that you felt "emotional for some reason" and didnt experience this in the same way

[@Peppita_]

And for the nostalgia of it, here's all the names of the places in the the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel video 😄 In proper order: 12:02 San d'Oria 12:07 Bastok 12:14 Windurst - Heavens Tower (heard 😊) 12:19 Tavnazian Archipelo 12:26 La Theine Plateau (no music) 12:36 Sarutabaruta 12:41 Aydeewa Subterrane 12:45 Pashhow Marshlands (no music) 12:53 The Capital of Al'taieu (aka "Sea") 12:58 Xarcabard 13:04 Purgonorgo Isle (no music) 13:07 Leafallia (no music) 13:10 Ru'Aun Gardens - Tu'lia (aka "Sky") 13:16 The Sanctuary of Zi'tah (heard 💕) 13:21 Alzadaal Undersea Ruins (no music) 13:26 Walk of Echoes (no music) 13:28 Hall of the Gods 13:42 Airship (heard) 13:46 Wajaom Woodlands 13:50 Sarutabaruta [S] 13:54 Jeuno 13:59 Tavnazia 14:06 Bastok [S] 14:10 Grauberg [S] (no music) 14:16 Rivern Site (no music) 14:29 Valkurm Dunes (no music) 14:35 Movalpolos 14:40 Ulleguerand Range (no music) 14:47 Gustaberg (heard 💕) 14:54 Aht Urhgan Whitegate (heard, aka "Bustle of the Capital"😎) 15:00 Boat (heard, "Voyager") 15:04 Qufim Island (no music) 15:28 La Theine Plateau - Chocobo (Chocobo Theme 🎶) 15:40 Lufaise Meadows And many others places not shown.. 😌✨

[@Cebion91]

i miss the time.. i miss the game where i spent my youth :) such a great game with alot of good memories

[@Peppita_]

@@Cebion91 Same I miss it greatly, it truly felt like "Home". It was a great time with a great community, i'm glad I was born to experience it 😌

[@Spiritsshadow]

Faded Memories is one of my favorite tracks. If I was just idling in game and wasn't trying to sell anything it was one of the places I'd just chill out. Rhapsodies still makes me emotional to hear. I didn't submit to the vocals, but I remember when they put out the call for submissions.

[@kyrolazioko4783]

Almost every song in FFXI made you feel like you were on a journey. Man... I spent 8 years on this game in from early 2000s up to about 2008 doing all the story for this. So nostalgic thinking back on how much of a journey it was. It always makes me smile thinking about the times I had...

[@Sushidrew]

So great to see more FFXI on here. The entire soundtrack is endlessly beautiful, still listen to it every now and then.

[@menosay1912]

Oh, and you did hear a boss theme, the Shadowlord's theme. And yes, there is a lot of areas. Also another fun fact, you need to be careful where you go, you can be roaming a lvl 12 dungeon and step on a hidden teleporter to an endgame area with the hardest optional boss in the game. It was a wonderful trip.

[@DLane814]

ok. so those crowd vocals in Rhapsodies.......They are player submitted. As you probably know, XI is an mmo. Video is also showing you the character and server names (most server names in XI and XIV are traditional summon names). So this song was supposed to be the grande finale for this game. They were going to stop making content for it at the end of 2015. they gave people a backing track, one fore baritone/bass, and one for alto/soprano, basically just melody but an octave apart and said hey, submit your track and we';ll drop you in. that's why it's so emotional.

[@kewpiemayonaise1111]

Me and my brother and sister were lucky enough to see the event announcement in time and were successfully included in the chorus. Still one of the things I am most happy to have been apart of in my life! Even though it wasn't my original name due to server merges, I was credited as Eleyna from Quetz :)

[@ANon-rp8qp]

the rhapsodies ending song is the epilogue of FFXI, it came out in 2015, 13 years after the release of the game, the chorus at the end are all players.

[@guiltygamerxrd]

I love seeing FFXI get some attention. I played it from around 2004 to 2009ish, when I started playing FFXIV instead. It was the first MMO I really got into and it was great at the time. Unlike FFXIV, FFXI really made you interact with others. While I love chatting with the people I play FFXIV with, FFXI social aspect was on a different level, I even went to the wedding of someone I played with and we had a table with just us FFXI friends there. The game absolutely did NOT respect your time back then, but because of that, you really needed to make friends and form actual bonds with people to get through it. I still talk to some people from all those years ago. As for the songs, I did play when Faded Memories came into the game and all I can say is you hit the nail on the head by describing with maze, dark and unpleasant lol. RIP to all the Carbuncles I sacrified to run past enemies lol. This was my first time hearing Rhapsodies of Vana'Diel since it was put into the game awhile after I had already stopped playing. Funny thing is because it uses the same melody as the original title screen song, Vana'Diel March, it still hit me right in the nostalgia and made me smile.

[@menosay1912]

Promyvions are dungeons. They used to be hella dangerous. They are very dark and filled with creepy monsters. Your level was automatically reduced when you enter, it is a maze with teleporters, and the enemies on the higher floors are all basically as strong as a boss and hide spells don’t work on them, you basically, if you get seen, have to run desperately to the teleporter to the next floor, possibly have to let the caught person die and hope you can raise them. They were needed to continue on with the main story. These days they removed the level down, but it was hella exciting and tense.

[@santiagoglezsrez]

It was really scary, I remember you’d spend 1-2 hours climbing them with a party of 6 and sometimes with a full alliance of 18 people only to fight a boss and pray you’d win or otherwise you’d have to repeat the entire thing. It was also not easy, but the feeling of reward in this game was great. It’s still one of my favorite MMOs, and greatly underrated.

[@Futune_]

Hey Jesse! Glad you enjoyed the songs and for Rhapsodies you were fairly spot on with your initial impressions. First off, I'd like to remind you that you have heard a song from FFXI with vocals in Memoro De La Stono, but yes there isnt alot of vocals that I've heard in FFXI, and second, I have not really played FFXI myself as I was too poor in its time to play the game as it started back in my high school days but I have always enjoyed reading about the game and its lore as well as its music. From what I remember researching of Rhapsodies is that this WAS the ending for XI's main story (although it continued on with new stories and adventures for the players) and the vocals of the choir you hear in the second half of the song are the voices of actual players who submitted to this song. The main vocalists themselves from what I could find were also only in this song and one of the vocalists played the game as well, so for many players this song is very emotional. As far as it being an abridged version, I did originally want to submit the full song as it does contain a bit more to the main part, however it is ten minutes long and half of that atleast is the choir part repeating as it was meant to last through the credit roll. Great video as always and looking forward to more! ✌

[@Torenhire]

Futune got me all emotional at 5am, thanks

[@kewpiemayonaise1111]

Thank you so much for your love and respect for FFXI's music, it means so much to us that lived years of our life there and still live there in our memories. Subscribing!

[@gregbrown8881]

Promyvion is an alternate reality that is shrouded in darkness, created by Emptyness eating away at the world. It is a truly foreboding and desolate place, almost devoid of any color. There are multiple "dungeons" that take place in Promyvion, but these dungeons are actually several small patches of solid ground, floating in an endless void. The decayed remains of building are scattered throughout each "island", as well as several twisted, bizarre-looking monsters created from the memories of people that were also consumed by the Emptyness. Towards the end of each dungeon, these monsters became extremely dangerous, to the point where it was best to avoid them. To complete each dungeon, players had to make their way from one end of an island to the other, where they would fight a small boss to unlock a teleporter to the next island. At the end of the last island there was a doorway that led to a room where the final boss was fought. There was actually a dirty trick that a lot of groups used to get past the last section of the last island. The final boss could be fought by a party of up to 6 players, but a lot of groups would go as an alliance made up of 3 parties working together. As they approached the gateway to the boss chamber, the group would typically get swarmed by powerful enemies. At this point the leaders of each party would disband their party and run towards the gateway along with their 3 other cohorts. This was the "real" Promyvion party, and everyone else who wasn't in on the scam was left behind to fend for themselves.

[@Kieran-om5ro]

I love that you've been doing FFXI music recently! There's a crossover raid coming out in the next expansion for FFXIV that is themed after FFXI, so as someone who played XI back in its heyday I've been escorting some of my FFXIV friends through the story of FFXI so they'll get all the references. Unfortunately I can't show them this video because I want them to get hit by the full emotional impact of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel when it happens in the game... but I get to enjoy it! As for battle music, there's so many that you haven't heard. I think the only one you've done a video for is Alexander's theme, Ragnarok (edit: and Awakening that someone else mentioned). I like a lot of the other themes but I'll just namedrop three in case they're sitting in your queue and pique your interest: Fighters of the Crystal (a fan favorite for what was once the hardest boss fight in the game, there's also an orchestral version out there from the 11th anniversary concert) Rapid Onslaught Assault (very fast-paced and almost feels like it belongs in Golden Sun) Turmoil (boss theme for the second expansion, has a very menacing vibe that I always liked)

[@Dhalin]

Promyvion is a vast empty void, the background is pure black and there are half-formed floating islands that look like they are made out of cloth and the monsters are weird and alien, and they hurt like hell too, with very dangerous attacks. Until you do some very specific things in there, you have no map, and there are these pavillions where you go there and there's an orb floating in the air that you gotta kill, and it _might_ reveal the teleporter to the next floor, until you get to the top and enter a tower and fight an incredibly dangerous (back when it was first released) boss.

[@rainichan]

oh man, Faded Memories is my fave dungeon track! the piano version is worth checking out if you like official arrangements (on your own time, no need for a reaction :)) where even in just a singular instrument it keeps its unsettling quality. i'm sad there's no footage of the Promyvion areas, as it's so atmospheric to see and hear at once; the backdrop of areas you have seen and started in fading into dust, being consumed by Emptiness... it's honestly one of the best themes in XI for me, and I've heard almost all of it. edit: adding in for the Rhapsodies song, it was the ending theme for the final addon/expansion they gave the players for free that was the final ribbon on the game's story, essentially. they asked their players for their voices to make up part of the song, record themselves singing part of the chorus, iirc, so it's a giant love letter for the players from the devs for playing the game.

[@Czezer]

I remember being a noob fooling around the Teleport-Dem crystal in Konschtat Highlands, linkshell members were doing missions in this zone and told me to click a warp next to the crystal to get a head start on missions with them. I remember Promyvrion loading in and faded memories started playing. I stopped in my tracks and listened and admire the zone before me. I distinctly remember the Anime Bleach was really popular at the time and i legit said out loud "Holy shit im in Hueco Mundo" lol i will never forget this zone and this music for as long as i live. To this day this is my absolute favorite zone in a video game. Thats how memorable and unforgetting FFXI i started back in 2004 and i still remember the music and areas lol.

[@Fortexcross]

Before I finished reading the title: "Jesse releasing another FFXI video so soon?! A surpise, to be sure, but a welcome one! Promyvion is a cool track" Seeing the second song name: "I'm a big man! I'm an adult! I WILL NOT cry this time!" *crying my eyes out* Seriously. The Rhapsodies ending song wrecks me worse than "Flow" from FFXIV.

[@QuilEkras]

Palpatine quote spotted.

[@Fortexcross]

@@QuilEkras Have you heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

[@rienquish1926]

I found your channel through FFXIV reactions but I'm so happy to see you have reacted to some FFXI songs as well! That was the first MMO I ever played and to this day that was the best experience I've had in a game. The game has so much great music that is not well known because it was not as popular in the west as FFXIV for example. I'm glad to hear you have lots of requests for it and hope to see more of your reactions to them later :)

[@justinleach4775]

Promyvion is probably never leaving my brain space, and this music is a huge reason why.

[@nezkeys79]

Did you listen to Forever Today? It's the ending song for the expansion Seekers of Adoulin

[@nezkeys79]

FF11 is such a great OST. Naoshi Mizuta wrote some absolutely amazing pieces. He was the main composer in FF13-2 btw

[@Revanchism]

Interesting thing about Faded Memories is I forgot literally all the music from 11 except Faded Memories, which I had only heard once. It's the one that stuck with me.

[@Peppita_]

You got that right on Promyvion, it's a very dark place. The ground, the buildings and the enemies there look like they're covered with webs and dust.. You navigate through multiples floors, which are kinda like islands, floating in the darkness. The place is also filled with wisps/lights, the chimes 'sounds' in this music reminds me of it. You had to go through this place for the story, it was the first dungeon of the expension Chain of Promathia, a pretty dangerous one, because you had to be prepared to go through, sneak past enemies which are literally around every corner, butt clenched and praying they wouldn't turn around and aggro you, and if they did, at higher floors, you either had to die safely and wait for someone to revive you or killing your whole party in the process and have to reclimb all the floors 😂 "fun" times..... By the way, you did hear a boss battle, Ragnarok 👀Alexender's fight! And, well, Awakening too but the setting is different. Rhapsodies of Vana'diel made me cry, its so nostalgic and it always made me feel like a "Thank you" for the players. The theme is the Vana'diel March theme (such a good one) but they made it an ending theme, from the expension of "Rhapsodies of Vana'diel". It was supposed to be the last expension too, but fans kept staying on the game, so the devs made another one, and are still working on it, Naoshi Mizuta still makes musics for this game to this day 😌.

[@arrak_]

I call Rhapsodies of Vana'diel the "Avengers: Endgame" of FF11. You revisit every story of every expansion, so no matter what year you played from 2002 to 2016 (i think) when this came out, there would be some nostalgia. It tied all the stories together to give a "conclusion" to the MMORPG with this song being it's final tribute to the game and the players over the year. Back then they said they wouldn't be creating anymore story content and they minimized the staff working on the game. Yet some how, now in 2024, they just wrapped up another major storyline and the game is still going. Won't say going "strong", but doing well enough for a game older than WoW that isn't receiving anymore major updates.

[@BenRiley83]

The nostalgia hits hard 😭 This game was my life for so long! Some of the best memories I’ve ever had!

[@Klefth]

The promyvions were really scary dungeons back in the day where your level dropped really low, and consisted of what looked like vague recollections of their surrounding areas being reconstructed in a dark void, but incomplete. Everything looked like bits and pieces of areas made of something like gray dust. Everything was implied to be formed of memories, all enemies were creepy dusty/spider webby looking things named after emotions or urges, and being seen by practically any of them beyond the first floor meant running for your life to the next area or hoping your party could revive you safely. Lots of XI is quite memorable, but I'd say those places really left a mark on everyone who played Chains of Promathia. Oh, these were just the first dungeons in the expansion at level 30 of 75; it was quite a way to get started. And man, hearing the Rahpsodies ending actually made me tear up. The people in the background singing the Vana'Diel march, the song talking about coming together and over time becoming like family... and then that illustration at the end as the final gut punch to the feels... God, that game is just distilled nostalgia. :') What a fucking beautiful game, man...

[@Varizen87]

Promyvion was incredibly difficult when it came out... but man do I love the music and that atmosphere. Promyvion is where you begin to encounter the phenomena known as The Empty... And it feels that way... The monsters here are named after emotions, instincts, and thoughts. Hungerer, Weeper, Thinker, Stray.... It's pretty much like this off-white cloud that's TRYING to form recognizable architecture but it's not quite there, and it's all floating in a black empty void... It's like... Think about how AI art starts to approximate something you recognize but it's not there... it's in the uncanny valley. That's what Promyvion is all about. And you hit on it being unpleasant... that's the vibe it's going for. It's meant to evoke a sense of unease as you wander about a place that wants to be real but is fading out of existence.

A bunch of the battle music is so great too. The ark angels, dynamis divergence, tough battle 2, ambuscade theme, omen theme

[@nezkeys79]

FF11 was something else. Its really hard to describe its impact. I spent nearly 20 years on this game and very few things have come close. I miss this game dearly 😭😍 The ending song was incredibly emotional, especially when you realise it's the first song you ever hear, and its actually players singing at the end. Nier Replicant did something similar by including players on the credits screen (wont say how cause it was a pretty amazing thing and spoilery)

[@xellestar]

Yeah the first time you entered a promy this music freaked me tf out. Hard to recreate those times now

[@nezkeys79]

​@@xellestareven Abyssea was such a surreal place. I would spend hours in there. Goosebumps

[@nezkeys79]

​@@xellestarthere's a piece of music I forgot the name of that played at certain story parts. Had a synth in it

[@Herf18]

vana'diel is home

[@Stormfall7]

Been really looking forward to you hearing Faded Memories- it has to be one of my absolute favorites from FFXI. The song is dark and unsettling yes, but I think it's also beautiful. I cannot express how much I love the kind of atmosphere the song creates. I remember being pretty awed going into Promyvion for the first time, with the visuals and the song grabbing me immediately.

[@idontwannaknow0]

You've heard a bit of ffxi music so far, but still really surprised at some of these suggestions. Would have expected other tracks to have been recommended, like the moblin music in movalpolis, WoTG music (flowers of the battlefield etc.), or some combat tracks (run maggot run or the music that plays when destroying the blockades in SoA)

[@KevinM491]

FFXI is so weird for me, as a huge FF fan its the one game I havent spent any time with and the music has so much in common with the rest of the series but has its own unique sound just a very interesting experience.

[@absoutezeo2126]

Do you think you could try to vary which background music you use for your upcoming videos? Hearing Queen's Blood every time is making it hard to focus on your commentary (and it's kind of just a distracting track in general). I liked the video otherwise, and though it's been ages since I've played FFXI, the music has always stuck with me for how listenable all of it is despite a lot of darker, more dissonant tracks being present.

[@braskabani8011]

Is weird he is not listening to nothing new from final fantasy 16

[@Azdaja13]

Probably because it's further down his list since it's first come first served unless you pay to skip the queue.