During a boss battle introduced in the latest update to Final Fantasy XIV, a song plays that sounds a lot like Powerman 5000’s “When Worlds Collide”. So much so that the band is calling it “a straight up rip off”.
If you’re not familiar with the work of Powerman 5000, the American rock group fronted by Rob Zombie’s younger brother, Spider One, you’re probably at least familiar with “When World’s Collide”. If you didn’t catch it on the radio in the late ’90s, you might have heard it while playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.
Here’s the video for the song from the band’s Vevo.
The Final Fantasy XIV music in question comes from the second stage of the newly-introduced boss battle with the fiend Sephirot (not to be confused with Final Fantasy VII villain, Sephiroth).
YouTuber Mekkah Dee went through the boss battle with all other sounds disabled in order to capture the tune by itself.
There’s no two ways about it, parts of the Sephirot Phase 2 Theme are incredibly similar to Powerman 5000’s hit. It’s so close at times that many commenters on the YouTube vid assumed the original poster had simply replaced the game audio with a remix of the band’s tune. Had I heard the music out of context, I would have thought “When Worlds Collide” was about to begin.
While it’s not a note for note, word for word rip, the FFXIV music certainly seems heavily inspired by the song, and the band is not happy. A post on the official Powerman 5000 Facebook page (thanks C.J. for the tip!) features Mekkah Dee’s video, along with a scathing admonishment.
Really? Got to say that the level of unimaginative theft that was used in creating this music for #finalfantasyXIV is mind blowing! I mean, this is When Worlds Collide! Using something as inspiration is one thing but a straight up rip off is another! Did they really think no one would notice?#FFXIV #ripoff
Its habit of breaking the standard fantasy MMORPG music formula is one of my favourite aspects of Final Fantasy XIV, and contemporary tunes accompanying a big boss battle isn’t new to the game. The boss battle with Titan downright rocks.
But if a tune is similar enough to make me remember that Powerman 5000 is a thing, then someone making music for Square Enix might have taken their inspiration a bit too far.
I reached out to Square Enix today for comment on their song’s similarities to “When Worlds Collide”, but they did not respond by the time of writing. In the meantime, we rock out, like rockers.
Comments
12 responses to “Band Says New Final Fantasy XIV Boss Battle Music Is Ripping Them Off”
pm5000 upset they’re an irrelevant washed up numetal band.
Powerman 5000 were pretty great before their record company ruined them financially and forced them into obscurity.
Regardless of what you think of them, this is REALLY pushing the idea of “inspired by”. They can be as bad, or washed up, or crybaby as you like, but they’re still entitled by law to protect their IP.
pm5000 upset they’re an irrelevant washed up numetal band.
You could always pick the influences in Nobuo Uematsu’s work on the earlier games (Dancing Mad was obviously inspired by ELP’s Tarkus) , but they were just that, influences. This ventures into pure rip off territory (and of a pretty shitty song too).
I suggest you give this a listen before claiming pure rip-off (assuming this means 100% plagiarism): http://www.mediafire.com/listen/t6898yqx42qte1q/PowermanVSephy.mp3
The intro is similar, as well as 1:20, but that’s just about it. Many of my friends thought of Devil May Cry when listening to Sephirot’s theme, so I guess Capcom should watch out, too.
No need to get your knickers in a twist. It could simply be co-incidence or done unwittingly (Maybe the composer was a THPS2 fiend and somehow that song was buried deep in their subconscious) but when the similarities are there they are quite stark. I’d suggest nothing is going to come from all this anyway and is still a shitty song.
All the Square fanboys are out in force on that facebook post.
God damn.
The best theme in Heavensward so far for me is still Ravana’s Theme. An awesome combination of Waltz and Mongolian Throat Singing.
I love it so much!
Also a huge fan of Shiva and Bismarck
Fuck, all the music insanely good.
a song sounds like another song, oh noes! 27mil views so you’ve all probably seen it but it’s relevant https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ . Basically every song sounds the same, the more time passes the more songs will inevitably sound similar. I feel we’re way past the days of nirvana suing WCW over DDPs entrance music sounding vaguely like smells like teen spirit.
From Naoki Yoshida himself:
“Regarding the Music for the 2nd Phase of Containment Bay S1T7
I have read through your comments concerning the BGM for the 2nd phase of the Containment Bay S1T7 battle with Sephirot, and I would like to personally explain how the track was conceived.
As most FINAL FANTASY fans already know, Sephirot (the Fiend) is a legacy boss character who originally appeared in FINAL FANTASY VI. When considering how to portray Sephirot’s return in FINAL FANTASY XIV, we decided to pay tribute to FFVI by working VI’s “Battle to the Death” track into the Containment Bay S1T7’s first phase, while opting to create an FFXIV original for the second.
Building upon the motif of Sephirot as a representation of the World Tree, to create this FINAL FANTASY XIV original track, we further incorporated story-driven themes of death and a warped obsession with life, all while utilizing a musical genre─industrial rock─which we believed would provide substantial emphasis to the message.
Industrial rock is a popular genre that can be further divided into numerous sub-genres. Countless songs from these genres have been released worldwide, and I have been made aware of an allegation regarding similarities between an existing track and the track created for the 2nd phase of Containment Bay S1T7. However, track composer Masayoshi Soken, has also stated to me that he was unaware of the track in question while working on this FINAL FANTASY track.
We hope that you continue to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XIV battle content.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer and Director, Naoki Yoshida”
Source: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/283311-Sephirot-Theme-%28-Phase-2-%29-sound-familiar?p=3589465&viewfull=1#post3589465
While everyone is talking about the Sephirot theme, there is almost no mention of the hilarity, the ridiculousness (in a good way) and the sheer awesomeness that is the theme of Brute Justice in Alexander: Midas.