The main reason this world/could work is because it IS so quirky, that they couldn’t fuck it all up like they have everything else progressively more since ff9 came out. Square peaked with ff7 and took a nosedive after 10, change my mind. Baseless uneducated hot take: I blame Enix. Either that, or they still haven’t figured out how to actually bring fun JRPG gameplay into the 21st century without ruining it and making it generic and dull. Ff11 onwards lack intimacy, value, and quiet - they’re tacky, cheap, and feel disingenuous.
So, ff9 getting a remaster, they couldn’t mess up something that’s the antithesis of their modern stuff so badly that that quirky game loses ALL of it’s appeal.
I say all of this knowing this dissent and criticism will upset people, but I’ve been staying quiet on this for far too long and it has to be said.
Honestly? TikTok.
I have found more good music and culture on TikTok than anywhere else on any other platform. Remixes, up and coming artists, classical, jazz, hippie, pop, subculture. You name it.
I think this has to do with how TikTok’s algorithm nails you down to similar interests and stuff, but also not so much like YouTube where it’s literally ONLY more of the exact same.
Spotify sometimes hits a good station, but you largely have to find your own vibe-of-the-moment.
TikTok now, though, for years, has been turning up some of the most interesting and good to listen music. I get northerner civil war anthem remixes, super genuine pop piano music that I’m blown away by, culture videogame anthems, and more.
The one drawback is that it’s not fast. If you search through music on a service, top lists and “audiophile” lists, you’re bound to find tons of cool new things that you probably never would have found. TikTok cannot compare with doing your own actual mass searching. But, as a platform of just using it, it’s been otherwise by far the best.