Jrpg Jungle

When it was announced a few weeks ago that Ariana Grande was to be a character in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius , I was a little confused. Since when was Ariana Grande a Final Fantasy fan? Is this a marketing move? Why can I put Ariana Grande in my party and not the pop star version of Yuna from Final Fantasy X-2? My confusion was as a Final Fantasy fan, despite the fact I'm actually a fan of Ariana Grande’s music and think she has an incredible voice. Considering she’s not a story character and I think her character design is undeniably adorable, I'll live with the choice, but I definitely think it's a bizarre choice. Ariana Grande aside, this collaboration made me remember something about Final Fantasy and pop music - they've played together a few times. From theme songs to revamped characters, recent Final Fantasy games have seen pop music mixed in both in subtle and obvious ways. Whether you like the incorporation of pop or not, the Ariana Grande collaboration isn’t th...

Music takes an interesting, more dominant role in Final Fantasy X-2. With Yuna now somewhat famous after the events of Final Fantasy X, she seems to be a pop star figure in of sorts, especially if we're judging from the game's opening cutscene where she's singing and dancing to a pop song. Much like the different tones in their opening movies, Final Fantasy X's more sentimental feeling is replaced in X-2 with a mix of mostly fun upbeat funk, rock and pop pieces, but also a wider exploration of genres when needed for more humourous and dark scenes that are quite different to what was heard in X. The composer for X-2 isn't the same composer as Final Fantasy X and doesn't feature any compositions from Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy's regular composer, which could have a lot to do with the different feeling of the music in X-2. While I'm a big fan of music from other Final Fantasy games and Uematsu's music, when X-2's is placed aside other Final Fanta...