i am currently berating myself for thinking about getting the deluxe version, because i don't want to encourage them for this bullshit but i also want the extra tracks (then again they are still professing their support for blockchain nft stuff despite everything so maybe nothing will deter them from horrible business decisions).
tracks from spin off albums or whatever i get. i could maybe understand some of the vocal tracks that used outside artists like koda kumi (real emotion), angela aki (kiss me goodbye), bump of chicken (zero), etc. maybe there's some licensing shenanigans going on there or something. but to zanarkand? kuon? legend of eternal wind? come on now, you own those. why are you paywalling them. to zanarkand made me worried they'd lock down a bunch of well known tracks but it seems like they had some restrait there.
also, disappointments: there's none of hamauzu's dirge of cerberus ost? no 'conditioned to hate' from the ffxv dlc? no cait sith battle theme from mobius (although i'm happy to see anything from it here). come on now, why are you giving me every track i personally want here.
while i am considering the deluxe edition, i'm not sure about the extra super deluxe one with 3(!) season passes based solely on the promise of them releasing these things. it's not the level of work that things like the cancelled ffxv dlc would have needed or something, but square enix's track record of continued support for games hasn't exactly inspired confidence lately. also it's like double the price of the regular edition, might as well see if they actually release everything later. but buying it as a set saves the price of one season pass. so i'm very conflicted because i would like to just play the game now pls