Final Fantasy 14’s Arcadion raid series has been a highlight of Dawntrail for me. All 12 fights have been resplendent with impeccable vibes and a distinct identity thanks to Creative Studio 3 going all-in on the wrestling theme.
Welcome to Critical Hit (formerly known as Soundtrack Sunday), where I celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
With a cast of colourful fighters to contend with, giving each one their own bespoke theme song was the correct choice. It’s not something the developer always does when it comes to the eight-player raids—sometimes a four-fight tier (five if you count any savage-difficulty second phases), will only have two or three songs apiece, sometimes sharing a more overarching theme than being tailor-made for the opponent in question.
One of my favourite songs to come out of this raid series is by far Sinister. It’s the theme for Vamp Fatale—the first fight in the final tier—a seductress of a competitor whose fighting form consists of bat wings, fishnets, and a tight leather jacket. Before I go face-to-face with her, she literally tells me: “You’ve been a naughty, naughty girl. And I’m going to give you the punishment you deserve.” Gulp.
It’s no surprise, then, that her lyrics have “dominatrix” written all over them:
- I’m sinister, under your skin / In lace and leather
- Going hard, going soft, ain’t no limits here
- Free for all, consensual, I thought I made it clear
- Ready or not, bottom or top, what you got in mind?
- I don’t hear no safeword, honey
For localisation head and lyricist Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, there was only one place he could venture to in order to concoct these lyrics: the BDSM page on Wikipedia.
During the North American Fan Festival, Fox ran a panel around the work that goes behind creating lyrics for Final Fantasy 14. Some awkward moments involving AI pictures aside, it was a ridiculously interesting insight into how many of these songs get made, especially as someone who is deeply in love with this game’s music.
Fox says a lot of time crafting lyrics for a song might just involve reading some quest dialogue or taking a look at how the gameplay for the encounter will play out, but “a lot of times it’ll involve research on subjects I’m not familiar with.”
This is where Fox specifically highlights the Arcadion raids: “Deep dives into pro wrestling, I had to do a lot of research on surfing which was a lot of fun,” he said, referencing the Red Hot and Deep Blue fight in the Heavyweight tier.
“And then of course there’s Sinister for Vamp Fatale’s theme. And the scenario writer [Yuki Kimura], he made it crystal clear in his document that the theme behind this character was BDSM. So of course I go to the internet to study it out, I had to go to Wikipedia.”
This is when Koji’s presentation throws up a giant screenshot of the BDSM Wikipedia page which, unsurprisingly, is almost entirely redacted save for the words “and ball” before going one step further and redacting the ball, too. “While I appreciate the detail to which Wikipedia describes this subject, I could’ve used a heads up before going there,” he joked to the audience.
“I wanted to do something provocative, because that’s what [Kimura] wanted. But I also wanted to be respectful to the BDSM community so I didn’t want to come from a place of stereotypes. I wanted to do my research, so I did ample research. So much research.”
After squeezing in a “hole” joke (I’ll allow it), Koji noted that much of this research was taking place in the office which lead to a lot of “judgemental scowls” from people walking past his booth, but joked that it also led to a handful of sly wink-wink nudge-nudge smirks from his coworkers.
Jokes, japes, and a very dad-humour presentation aside, it was interesting to know the ins and outs of how some of this stuff gets cooked up. I suppose I hadn’t thought much about the research that would go into crafting a theme song around a woman who keeps calling me a naughty girl.
As someone who has also had to send some diabolical access requests to IT for some wildly NSFW sites (all research for news, I promise), I can definitely relate to Koji’s awkward disposition. Will I now be thinking about the BDSM Wikipedia page every time I have to fight Vamp Fatale? Definitely, but to be fair it’s hard not to when you listen to the song in its entirety.
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