I was meaning to make a thread similar to this. SPOILERS AHOY.
FFXV
has the best soundtrack of all the games I've played, except Witcher 3. It's certainly the best FF soundtrack. I know nostalgia geeks will kill me but I think FFXV just has an incredibly well thought out music. They really did a special job with using the soundtrack to drive the game. The first time you hear the
Careening into Danger, you realize it's something special. I dont know, the music has a purpose to it.
Stand Your Ground is the best Final Fantasy battle theme by far too. Nothing comes close (not even Laguna's Man with the Machine Gun or FFXIII Battle Theme!). The piano motif is just a delight to hear.
Until the final Homecoming chapter, the game felt a mash of ideas and setpieces strung together by an overall vision that worked really well in some places and not quite in others. However when Noctis returns to Insomnia and
Somnus starts to play, I had tears welled up. Like, I didn't even knew I was
this emotionally vested in the story! Last time I shed a tear in a videogame was MGS4 (I guess?).The 4 bros' journey finally coming to an end and I realized that I wont be with these guys much longer. Noct is finally ready to assume his rightful throne and he's wearing his dad's raiment and the ring of luci. Shit felt real, and Somnus just drove the mood completely. You know as well from conversing with Bahamut that Noct has to sacrifice his life to save the world, which made it all the more sad. The entire game came together at that point and you realize the responsibility that each of the 4 characters had became clear, at least to me. They were all willing to give up lives. Until Homecoming, FFXV was a 7 for me. It became 9 after I finished the game. If there were 2 or 3 more chapters in the vein of Homecoming, FFXV would have been a 10 for me. No contest.
There was a bit of discussion regarding the cover of
Stand by Me. I thought it was incredibly well done and completely fit the game and the message it was conveying.
Overall FFXV is a flawed masterpiece. It's the best way to describe it. And the soundtrack is a huge part of what makes it a masterpiece. I really hope they make a XV-2.