Every year, the British Armed Forces host The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a military and musical performance in Edinburgh Castle.
This year, however, it included a curious music choice: the opening bombing mission from Final Fantasy 7.
It’s an ironic choice considering the fairly obvious anti-military themes of that particular mission and the game overall.
A clip of the performance was shared to the Final Fantasy subreddit by user Roshi20. In it, the uniformed soldiers march in tight formation, guns held over their shoulders. What is this, Shinra or something?!
If you’re not familiar with the opening of Final Fantasy 7, it begins with our eco-terrorist protagonists bombing a Mako reactor owned by the Shinra Company – a military megacorporation sucking energy from the planet.
As one reddit commentator put it: “Military Marching Band playing a song called ‘Bombing Run’ from a game where terrorists bomb a military installation. Ironic.”
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo played FF7 Bombing Run
by u/Roshi20 in FinalFantasy
While the marching rhythms and brass fanfares of the music are fitting for military prowess, it seems the Armed Forces missed the memo on what the game is actually about.
What’s more, later in the game Cloud takes part in an actual military parade in Junon disguised as a Shinra soldier – something we’ll hopefully get to do in the forthcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Wouldn’t that have been more appropriate?
You can check out a full video of the performance on YouTube. And, as The Gamer pointed out, it also includes music from Battlefield 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The former is understandable, as is the general desire to celebrate video game music at all. But are the Armed Forces planning on taking on dragons anytime soon?
