Key takeaways
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Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail's ending theme song Smile is a controversial piece of music, mostly down to its multiple uses in the story.
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On the Dawntrail OST Blu-ray, composer Masayoshi Soken claims that the song was dictated by the visual team in the style of the music.
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Unfortunately, Soken isn't a fan of the music, but insists he wasn't “forced to make” the song.
Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail expansion has some issues (it's not the most underrated expansion for no reason). A slower story, plenty of Wook Lamat, and our Warriors of Light playing mentor roles this time around left many with mixed feelings on the expansion, and there were more than a few moments where Duntrell's voice was all over the place. .
One such moment is a high school musical-esque sequence that sees Scions and friends building a train, with the express purpose of using the train as a battering ram to break into an otherwise impenetrable fortress. That's pretty standard Final Fantasy 14 stuff, but what makes the scene so weird is the use of the Smile Song during the building, a high-tempo, upbeat piece of music that sounds like it was lifted out of a modern Disney movie.
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It feels so good to finally get my hands on the rewards I've been waiting for so long.
Smile has been used a few times during Dawntrail, because the song has managed to achieve meme status because of how silly it can be, and how different it is from the rest of main composer Masayoshi Soken's work – he's a man of many genres, but Smile for him too. It was considered very strange. Now that Dawntrail has been and gone, and we anxiously await the release of patch 7.1, Soken has used the release of Dawntrail's soundtrack to talk a bit more about the song and its creation.
Reddit user Y0LOME0W shared Soken's commentary from the Dawntrail OST Blu-ray, revealing that the song was commissioned by Nacchan Ishikawa on the Scenery team with the intention of making the song the final theme in the musical style. Unfortunately for Soken, he doesn't like music.
“Specifically, she requested the final theme in the style of the musical, and … well … I hate to say it, but musicals aren't really my thing. Whenever the characters drop what they're doing to burst into song, it just throws me off. , why are we singing now?!”
Soken later clarified that while that statement sounded like he was “forced to make this song”, he really wasn't, and his love for the film Blues Brothers made him feel confident that he could still pull it off. It's also a pretty good song, and not as bad as many Final Fantasy 14 fans like to make it out to be, but it's used in completely odd places. Let's hope this doesn't play out in patch 7.1, or we'll never hear the end of it.
Dawntrail is the fifth full expansion for Square Enix's MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, and marks the beginning of an all-new story arc. It takes Warriors of Light across the ocean to the Tural continent, adds new Viper and Pictomancer actions, and adds more rooms, raids, and more.
