This article is admittedly a little late. I should have written it when the collaboration first came out earlier this month. Today I’m going to talk about FFBE’s event with the one and only Ariana Grande.

It may be a tiny bit far-fetched to call this music and video game related, but I’ll find a way. It IS about a video game, and it IS about a singer that is being featured in the game.

Now, I first want to start off by saying I like Ariana Grande. I think her voice is stellar, her music is catchy, and from what I’ve seen in some interviews she’s had and TV talk shows she’s been on, she seems like a respectable person.

I also want to say that I absolutely LOVE this game, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I just purchased a copy of the Original Soundtrack, and will be doing a review of sorts in the coming months about it. Lovely game, love love love.

Anyway, I was a little confused at first as to why FFBE made Ariana Grande a playable character in their game. I finally figured that she is a popular celebrity in both Japan and the US, so it made sense that her involvement in the game might bring some new players worldwide.

Why am I mad though? I have two grievances against Alim/Gumi (FFBE’s game companies). One is about musical accuracy, and the other is about music and image.

Let’s start with musical accuracy. So whenever there are events in games like these, the materials that you earn to craft new equipment and evolve the new units pertain to the kind of event that it is. For example, the Brave Frontier event had karma, the FFXIII event had trochoid gears, the FF Type-0 event had phantoma. Let me show you a screen shot of one of the collectible materials for Ariana Grande’s event:

See anything off yet?

Need me to zoom in even more?

Musical Note!? Excuse me, that is a TREBLE CLEF. That is not a MUSICAL NOTE. Whoever designed this clearly did not consult a musician. It’s stuff like that—LACK OF attention to detail—that irks me beyond belief.

Another example of this kind of thing is when someone draws a piano keyboard, and puts black keys between every white key… Like okay, you’re not a musician. That’s fine. But can you at least look at a keyboard for accuracy? OMG

I wish they would have either just called them treble clefs, or just made them into actual musical notes! They easily could’ve taken that little heart diamond, and made that the note head, and turned it into an eighth note.

I just googled “eighth note pink diamond” and this showed up. Something like this would’ve been so much better! Alim! Gumi! Y U NO HAVE MUSIC CONSULTANT. I WILL SIGN MYSELF UP TO BE IT.

Okay. Done with that part. Inaccuracies everywhere, it’s fine. Whatever. No one but me even noticed.

The treble clef materials were used to craft the Ariana Grande unit’s unique special equipment, which I admit were pretty cute: Microphone, Evening Glove, Bunny Mask, Stylish Black Dress.

Now the microphone is cute, cause all singers who perform use a microphone when singing on stage. That’s fine. All these equipment did make sense, because they are what the Ariana Grande unit is wearing, so it fits.

Let’s talk about the awakening materials now. When you “awaken” a unit, it’s the same thing as “evolution”, a term used in other games. Here’s Ariana Grande’s 4-star awakening option screen:

Awakening Ariana Grande’s 4-star unit to 5-star

Sigh. This is my other grievance. While discussing this with one of my friends, he said “Well maybe Ariana Grande has some new cosmetic line coming out soon, or maybe it’s out already, and they wanted to promote it here.”

But really? In order to awaken, in order to evolve, in order to become a better version of yourself, you have to use perfume, lipstick, nail polish, face powder, and hair spray?

Can you please get MORE superficial!?

Arghhhh I am just so sick of MUSIC—an AUDITORY experience—being tied so closely with IMAGE. Sure, Ariana Grande is cute, pretty, sexy, whatever. But shouldn’t the focus be on her voice, on her lyrics, on her music? Why can’t we have awakening materials like…

Record Label Contract!

Vocal Warm-Ups Training Manual!

Music Theory Lesson Certificates!

Mixing Board!

Hand-Made Fan Letter!

I think it’s a downright shame that for so many musicians—especially pop music—the focus is on how good you look, not actually how talented you are. Again, I just want to reiterate that I have nothing against Ariana Grande herself—she is definitely a very talented person. But I believe that her marketing team, and whoever was in charge of this FFBE collaboration with her, simply show symptoms of a deeper societal issue.

Why don’t we have a Nobuo Uematsu character!? Or a Noriyasu Agematsu unit? It might be a bit cheesy to have Agematsu-san as a character, since he composes the music for the game presently, but I think it’d be pretty awesome to have Uematsu-san as a playable unit. I would be ALL. OVER. THAT!!!

Can someone design a 32-bit pixelated Nobuo Uematsu? Please and thank you.

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