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The highest-seeded of the three tracks that made it in from the newest game in the series, Apocalyptis Noctis was one of the first to become well-known due to its use in trailers early on. It's since become a favorite of Distant Worlds performances as well. It combines the well-known trope of rhythmic, instrumental-like vocals with instrumentation that would not feel out of place in a Tolkien-style fantasy adventure film score. It builds and builds over its four minutes to a point of absolute drama.

Forever Rachel encapsulates the hollowness of loneliness with its opening phrases, and builds them into a more thorough expression of grief and loss. It is very much the opposite of the impression that Locke wishes to give of himself, and the theme that accompanies that bravado, fleshing the character out significantly in flashback. This song held its own in 2010, winning a pair of matchups before falling to Terra's Theme.

Listen Here!
Apocalyptis Noctis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGq5KNZxz7A
Forever Rachel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_aX6I0xLbo

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

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I only listened to some of Apocalypse Noctis as I don't want the game or its music spoiled for me very much. I want to experience it as I do the rest of the game. That said, what I have heard is already better than Forever Rachel. Nothing against Forever Rachel, and I recall learning how to play it on the guitar forever ago just as a warm-up because I have always enjoyed it, but Noctis looks much more interesting.

The vocals in Apocalypse Noctis reminds me of the chorus from "Ghost Love Score," but other than that it's kind of a big ugly mess of orchestral bombast which is really cool in context, but uninteresting on it's own (perfect poster song for a bombastic, sometimes ugly mess of a game?). Forever Rachel has immense thematic weight which R51 perfectly outlined in the OP, and is perhaps the most heartbreaking song in a soundtrack full of heartbreak.

This post has been edited by Sherick on 13th November 2017 21:37

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I fear my heart and fear my soul
Life goes on, it surely will,
Without me and I wonder:
Will I ever see light again?

Life goes on...

I liked "Forever Rachel" when I first played FFVI, but have grown to appreciate it more that I've realized it's really just a slower version of "Locke's Theme" (Just like "Epitaph" is a slower version of "Setzer's Theme". Smart move, Uematsu.)

"Apocalypse Noctis" has too much going on.

This post has been edited by Harlequin on 14th November 2017 00:24

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I say what I wanna say, I play how I wanna play.

"Apocalyptis Noctis" sounds like...a lot, literally. A thick texture and dramatic rhythms. Very exciting, driving rhythms. A lot is going on. Props for making it sound a bit like Hans Zimmer's stuff for Pirates of the Caribbean? -- parts of the melody sounds a bit like something from that score, I think. But it just feels like it's constantly building toward something. It might work better in context, but by itself the excessive bombast isn't balanced with enough melodic and harmonic material, and so makes the track feel like it's in anticipation mode for too long -- ironically it might be more effective if it were shorter. The musical form of the track -- the order of thematic material -- isn't really clear, and tends to blend together, especially given that it lacks a strong melody to unify the listener's attention and give it a sense of direction other than anticipation. I did pick up the melody, but it's not very prominent -- compare, say, Uematsu's stuff for example (or for out-of-franchise comparisons, Falcom's stuff).

And indeed, we're going to compare it to Uematsu's "Forever Rachel", which is pretty much entirely about the strength of its melody. Uematsu's very strong at melodic writing, so this sort of hits the previous track's weak spot hard. While the SNES's instrumentation isn't as smooth and the texture's a lot more sparse, Uematsu does what he can to make this a tuneful, melancholy experience, and varies texture accompanying that melody to give a better sense of form to the track. Admittedly, I've heard this track in-game, unlike the other one, but that was about 14 years ago, and it's still stuck with me this long.

Forever Rachel gets my vote.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Quote (Sherick @ 13th November 2017 22:36)

The vocals in Apocalypse Noctis reminds me of the chorus from "Ghost Love Score,"

Yes! It wasn't until you said this that I realised how much I've agreed with the comment ever since I first heard Apocalypse Noctis.

This match-up wasn't as hard as I thought. Apocalypse is certainly bombastic, but like others have said, it's a hot mess of noise. I'm not entirely sure why it has emerged as the favoured Noctis-based track from XV, as I far prefer the others - softer, subtler, and more emotive. All things which apply to Forever Rachel...

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