Current Events > My Continued Adventures in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (Part 2) (SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

So, I will preface this by saying that I haven't done the last stretch of quests for the post-2.0 content (about 16 in all, plus the Crystal Tower stuff) but I have done around 85% of the post-credits content for ARR. I've gotten to the part in which we kill an Ascian using Louisoix's staff and the crystal prison.

I'll start by saying that I am still enjoying the story a great deal, mostly for its overarching plot lines. The ongoing unrest in Ul'dah is engaging, and even its modest twists and turns have been enjoyable to follow. I never would have expected Teledji Adeledji, the only member of the Syndicate who spoke up on behalf of the Domans, to have been the one stoking uprising and violence in the city. It caught me off guard, and as of yet I haven't seen the conclusion to that plot line, but I've enjoyed that aspect.

I also like the Domans and their budding role as shadowy infiltrators and spies. Yugiri is a neat character, even though playing through the story this late in the game's life makes it pretty obvious she's an Au Ra despite her disguise. I'm sure it was a lot more mysterious before the race was released as playable.

Which leads me to my chief complaint with this section so far--It is clear to me that, while there is a lot of advancement to the overarching plot (with the Crystal Braves, the Ul'dah unrest, the plot to devise a way of killing Ascians, etc.), a lot of what's happening in bits and pieces is just 4-5 quest mini-plots designed to introduce new content that came out as end-game dungeons/boss fights. I think at the time it must have been fine, since there was time between each new Primal's unveiling as a new encounter, but playing through it the way I have been, all in a row, it gets a bit repetitive having the same process repeat itself: "Oh, there's a rumor of a new primal rising. Go see what's up. Oh no, it's about to be summoned right here and now. Shit, [Insert Primal's Name Here] has been summoned. Go kill it. (Queue for Duty, Kill in 3 minutes, pop champagne)"

It's a small complaint and I can perceive why it is structured that way (bite-sized story segments to settle the new content into the world in a comfortable way) but it does feel like it drags a bit.

Also...Moenbryda. For the life of me I could not force myself to care when she died. She didn't exist long enough, her character wasn't endearing enough, and her death wasn't impactful enough to warrant any kind of response from me. So having like 4 different cutscenes devoted to mourning her and talking about how great of a person she was felt pretty hokey and heavy-handed. That's another minor complaint, because I did actually feel some emotional tugging when Minfilia confided in me that my character is her pillar of strength, and that she dared not show weakness and sorrow in front of the others the way she could with 'me.'

It's another one of those bits of dialogue that could easily feel tacked on and insignificant, except that the characters in the story consistently treat my character as a trusted ally, friend, and, dare I say, family. That's one thing that feels oh so right about this game's story. WoW failed to make me feel like my character had a place in the world because it was clearly just a roller coaster of quests and set pieces...

Meanwhile, FFXIV has so much time devoted to making me feel like part of the gang. Just the fact that after each MSQ step, the characters around me have different dialogue when I speak to them outside of quests, reminds me that the people who wrote this game really, really wanted it to feel like a story-driven experience.

Okay, now...after the not-so-great stuff about Moenbryda and the formulaic drip of 'new content,' I have to say...

I fucking love Aymeric. I expected to hate him. I expected him to be a cliche, stuck-up military commander type with a hardline stance on everything and an overzealous approach (because of his role as head of the Temple Knights).

But boy has he surprised me so far. Not only showing restraint in pursuing the enemy in order to preserve the lives and morale of his own troops, but in being so personable and yet cunning when dealing with my character and Alphinaud.

Also, can I just say that his voice acting is fucking stellar? I love this man and I hope to see him again soon.

Elidibus is a cool escalation of the Ascian threat. A nice way of reminding us that these beings have their own society and structure. I love the small glimpses we've seen of them speaking to one another, plotting, discussing, etc. without any of the 'good guys' present. It helps establish characters, motives, etc., and it's a crucial part of building a good antagonistic force. They may be faceless, but as time goes on they feel like individuals with personality and unique goals, which I love.

So...I still have one stretch of the MSQ (16 quests + the crystal tower quests) to go before reaching Heavensward, but I wanted to make this topic a little early just to reflect on the highs and lows. So far, even with the sluggish pace and constant diversions of "New primal go kill" it's still got me heavily invested.

Tagging those who seemed interested in the previous topic I made:
@SSJKirby
@Rharyx211
@NocturnalLight
@Caelthus
@s0nicfan
@ThePieReborn
@SpiritSephiroth
@Ps2Twilight
@BlameAnesthesia

A realm reborn patch content is universally acknowledged to be by far the worst content in the game. Your complaints are pretty universal, but on the plus side that means that everything from here on out is up.

The actual conclusion to arr is quite intense and the game really picks up from there and never dips back to the lows experienced in arr. I'm near the end of shadowbringers myself and it's been a lot of fun.

Agreed. The post-ARR stuff can be a little sluggish but if it's still keeping you interested, then it's likely you'll really enjoy the later expansions.

Also I think the Crystal Tower quests are required before you start shadowbringers, so do those when you feel like it.

And there's a reason why Aymeric has a solid fanbase, he's a great character and he honestly carries a lot of the scenes he's featured on.

Ps2Twilight posted...

Also I think the Crystal Tower quests are required before you start shadowbringers, so do those when you feel like it.

Not even shadowbringers - it won't even let you finish ARR now without them completed. A friend of mine ran into that the other day.

s0nicfan posted...

A realm reborn patch content is universally acknowledged to be by far the worst content in the game. Your complaints are pretty universal, but on the plus side that means that everything from here on out is up.

I think there needs to be a huge asterisk with this statement. The quality of the actual story isn't bad at all and sets the threads for numerous storylines to follow. The issue was the amount of pointless fetch and talk to NPCs spread out everywhere.

The pacing is just really bad and has bloat that was recently trimmed down. I wouldn't call it the worst content in the game by any reasonable stretch when certain parts of Stormblood exist.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

I also like the Domans and their budding role as shadowy infiltrators and spies. Yugiri is a neat character, even though playing through the story this late in the game's life makes it pretty obvious she's an Au Ra despite her disguise. I'm sure it was a lot more mysterious before the race was released as playable.

Her original model was a bit different back then. The part covering her horns was a lot more floppy, to where they resembled ears.

I can't remember if we new about Au Ra back then, but I wasn't sure what to expect.

Yugiri is easily one of my favorite characters in the game though.

Glad you're enjoying the story, TC. I think that was around the time I started to become real invested as well. The Ul'dah/Crystal Braves stuff was neat, and the Crystal Tower stuff is really cool.

Unfortunately, my other favorite part of post-ARR (a mini-arc including the Sylphs) seems to have been removed (the devs took out a handful of older quests to streamline the story and remove some filler) -- there was a lot of fun moments with the other Scions and, to use your words, made me feel like "one of the gang." Sad to see it gone.

As for Moenbryda, I like her a lot more looking back than I did when I was actually in that section, but even then I remember liking her personality lol. But yeah, Aymeric is great -- I love his voice as well.

Elidibus is neat, I just wish the Ascians weren't all just faceless mooks -- I like characters I can put a face too. Same reason I never cared about Gaius and the XIVth Legion, since they were all wearing heavy armor and felt like generic villains.

Rharyx211 posted...

Elidibus is neat, I just wish the Ascians weren't all just faceless mooks -- I like characters I can put a face too. Same reason I never cared about Gaius and the XIVth Legion, since they were all wearing heavy armor and felt like generic villains.

Later expansions definitely fix the problem of the villains feeling like generic faceless bad guys. So much so that the bad guys in the most recent expansions are considered the best in franchise history.

Tag. The game gets so intense from Expansion to expansion. By the End of Endwalker, looking back in retrospect its insane how many adventures and story plots weaved together.

s0nicfan posted...

Later expansions definitely fix the problem of the villains feeling like generic faceless bad guys. So much so that the bad guys in the most recent expansions are considered the best in franchise history.

True, I'm just not trying to talk about anything past where TC is from.

Rharyx211 posted...

True, I'm just not trying to talk about anything past where TC is from.

Much appreciated. I like the promises of what's to come without any actual details. Makes me excited without giving anything away.

Working through the Crystal Tower stuff right now. Just had to comment on the reveal that the "Outlandish Man" was Nero tol Scaeva without his armor on--that's the kind of shit I like. Characters, especially villains, who appear in more than one arc of the story. I was thinking it was strange to introduce sort of a 'rival' to Cid and then just cast him aside right after the reveal of his bitterness and spite. I have no idea where it's going from here, since he just started walking into the Crystal Tower, but I wanted to voice my approval for that reveal either way.

Still lovin' it.

gotta love nero lol

I finished the Crystal Tower last night, and what the fuck, I love Nero now? He's self-serving yet somehow also heroic, and it was a bit inspiring to see him escape just in time with the help of Cid through the portal...Also, that brief cutscene where he was dashing around swinging his sword to dispatch the clones reminded me of how badass the Garlean heavy hitters are.

Good shit, good shit, I love this shit. This is the kind of stuff WoW didn't have enough of in the later years--characters enduring, growing, becoming likeable over a long period of exposure and action.

The writing in this game is so much better than it has been in WoW since at least WotLK, and every time I enjoy something I'm kind of made giddy with the anticipation of the "good stuff" promised to come. This is legitimately, already, one of the best gaming experiences I've had in my life. It even avoids the pitfalls of Final Fantasy XV (the first and only FF I've ever beaten all the way through) by spending a lot of time, and I mean a lot, building up (most) characters, establishing threats, making the world feel more and more like a powder keg of intertwining story threads ready to pop all at once.

It's so fucking cool. Soooo fucking cool. This is the only MMO I've ever played where the story grips me as if it's single player. I complained back in the day about WoW making me the "chosen one lord commander champion of Azeroth," but now I think I realize that my issue isn't with the concept of being the "Chosen One" in an MMO...but it's how it was all presented. As if in WoW, my character became the Champion due to coincidence or random circumstance and never earned any of the praise given.

In FFXIV so far, I have been part of a slowly rising list of accomplishments that have incrementally and organically been noticed by the major players in the world who are starting to know who I am and what I've done. It feels earned. I think a big part of it is that the MSQ is one continuous, unskippable (without a paid skip that is) plot line that doesn't jump around or lose track of itself like WoW's quests do.

I tried SWTOR once, but the story did nothing for me in the early hours, so I never continued. This game, meanwhile, just...mmph, it hits me in a place I haven't been hit since Metal Gear Solid 1-4. I'm so gosh darn invested in this story and these characters. I don't know if I can gush about it enough to really convey how it makes me feel.

And once more, I have to circle back to how the game treats me. I'm one of the gang. My involvement is never assumed. Minfilia, Alphinaud, Cid, everybody who ever wants me to help them is always so friendly and respectful about it. FFXIV doesn't have the feeling WoW had of "Champion go do this, champion go do that, champion go do this."

It's always "We are asking so much of you, we are ever in your debt." or "You are my pillar of strength, I don't know where I would be if not for you" and whereas WoW would have lines like that, they never felt, idk...real. Something about the writing and the pace of this game makes me feel like all the characters I deal with are sincere and earnest and just all-around good people who care about my wellbeing and think of me as a dear friend more than just "ThE CHamPIon"

I'm slowly climbing out of a dark cave into something bright and beautiful. My eyes are taking time to adjust, but everything I see is making me happy. The cave was WoW, and the brightness is FFXIV, just so the metaphor is clear.

I must say, if you're enjoying ARR this much, I'm interested to see how you feel about the other expansions.

Love that you're already getting into the story. Just so you know, a lot of plot threads and character are not thrown away. Try to remember all the lore you learn, and the world around the Warrior of Light. All of it is important throughout the game.

SpiritSephiroth posted...

Try to remember all the lore you learn

I remember already being sort of lost due to how much lore there was during the Crystal Tower section lol. Like what the Students of Baldesion or Saint Coinach or whatever that G'raha and Rammbroes were part of.

Even now I'm still confused over some stuff, so I'm looking forward to the Eorzea Encyclopedias to come out so I can read up on stuff I probably glossed over in ARR.

Nero is by far one of the best characters

SpiritSephiroth posted...

Love that you're already getting into the story. Just so you know, a lot of plot threads and character are not thrown away. Try to remember all the lore you learn, and the world around the Warrior of Light. All of it is important throughout the game.

Yessssssss.

This is what I mean. I love a story that builds on itself. I mentioned in my previous thread that I made a topic a few months ago about looking for a game with a really big, multifaceted story that had an arc structure similar to an anime. Something huge and ongoing that rewards investment.

This really does seem to be exactly what I wanted. It's like finding a new favorite food.

Also, I just finished the Steps of Faith, and that was such a cool interpretation of a giant dragon approaching the city gates. The way its steps caused ripples of damage, the way it slowly but steadily pressed forward, wading through our soldiers and blasting the barriers away one by one...

I can't help but compare it to WoW, which had a similar boss fight against a giant insect ramming its head against a gate in Mists of Pandaria. In visuals, gameplay, story presentation, and all around immersion, Final Fantasy gets all the points. Such a cool battle. I love that there are dungeons that are just boss battles. I'm starting to recognize what people mean when they say that FFXIV respects a player's time.

Just finished the quest where we found Wilred dead in the South Shroud. I've had a feeling something was up for a while now. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but honestly I've had suspicions about Ilberd and the Crystal Braves in general ever since that mysterious occurrence with the weapons deal. I'm thinking Ilberd might be taking bribes and is in the process of pinning Wilred as a scapegoat--we all know Wilred was a new recruit with very little experience in battle and espionage, so it would be easy enough to pin the blame on him for being that "new recruit" who got jumpy and killed the weapons dealer.

I could be wrong, but that's where my gut is leading me. On that note, Riol is another character whom I've been warming up to. He's got that "casual deadliness" aura to him, and he seems to be right on the trail of the conspiracy just barely short of tying all the threads together.

Did I mention how much I love this game? Because I really do.

Lol I always imagined Riol having a Joey Wheeler dub accent for some reason

He's my favorite of the Crystal Braves

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

HOLY. SHIT.

Raubahn is a fucking madman in the best possible way. His rage against Teledji Adeledji's mockery of the sultana was satisfying to the extreme. Watching Raubahn's eyes go white, getting that red hue all over his body...fuck yes, that was the shit right there. Slice that smirking bastard right in two. He was gonna massacre every Monetarist in sight if Ilberd wasn't there to interfere...and I would have loved it if he had.

That fight between him and Ilberd was god damn immaculate, even if it was a bit short. The way Raubahn fucking spartan-kicked a massive chunk of column right out of place to send it off against Ilberd was...*Chef's kiss*

Why is every single character in this fucking game so gosh-dang cool? Yda and Papalymo, Thancred and Y'shtola...They each got an awesome scene during the escape. My hype was through the roof and now it's somewhere in the stratosphere, because I just finished ARR and it's time to move on to Heavensward.

But next comes a detour to become a Machinist and work toward buying an apartment. I have the gil, just need the ranking, which shouldn't take altogether too long.

FUCK that was a cool finale. I had an awfully bad feeling about what was coming when Nanamo Ul Namo drank her glass of wine. There was too much afoot. Too much treachery coming to light. That empty vial could only have been one thing, but I didn't expect it to be used as evidence against me. That was fucking low.

And Ilberd...damn it Ilberd, I thought you were cool. I wanted to be wrong, but your story didn't add up even back at the weapons deal. What a fucking amazing sequence of events, though. Both satisfying in some ways and dreadfully morose in others. But damn, it's all good stuff...just...damn.

Damn. It's so good, guys.

Edit: Started the next quest and Alphinaud's change in voice actor was immediately apparent, lol. No big deal, just a little jarring. I had gotten used to him.

Ah you did "the scene" haha. I remember way back then me and my FC were freaking out about it and couldnt wait for Heavensward to come out.

The Raubahn scene was the best. Love that guy.

You're really blitzing through the story Haha. Took me months to get through post-ARR.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Edit: Started the next quest and Alphinaud's change in voice actor was immediately apparent, lol. No big deal, just a little jarring. I had gotten used to him.

Yeah, I was so taken aback by that lol

I still don't know why they don't just go back and redub ARR with the new actors for the sake of consistency. It's not like there's that much voiced dialogue in ARR to begin with.

That betrayal part man. That was when I realized this game had something special. But you've probably heard this many times, and I will just repeat it lol...the game gets even better.

The banquet sequence at the end of ARR is still one of the best sequences in the game. It got me so hyped for Heavensward.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Edit: Started the next quest and Alphinaud's change in voice actor was immediately apparent, lol. No big deal, just a little jarring. I had gotten used to him.

You'll get used to the new ones, but you're never going to be totally free from weird spontaneous VA changes. In particular, some of the Shadowbringers patch content voice acting is... rough... because they had to do it all over Covid quarantine and I think in some cases they had to use substitutes.

Ps2Twilight posted...

The banquet sequence at the end of ARR is still one of the best sequences in the game. It got me so hyped for Heavensward.

I was genuinely doing the thing where I was bouncing in my seat like "YOOOO" and cackling when Raubahn did what we all wanted him to do and gutted that smirking, mustachioed traitor. What a way to cap off an amazing first entry. I loved 85% of the story, even the slower parts. The only stuff I wasn't crazy about was the "oh no a random new primal" hamster wheel it sent me on for a bit, and even that was still pretty fun because the bosses themselves are epic.

"Man I hate this guy I wish someone would OHHHHH"

At that point I was hooked

SSJKirby posted...

"Man I hate this guy I wish someone would OHHHHH"

At that point I was hooked

It was the most cathartic thing... now if only Lolorito had been next. Damn it, again, Ilberd.

I don't have anything new to say about the story today or likely tonight. It's WoW raid night with my TBC guild, which is the only thing keeping me subbed at all.

But man...I love FFXIV. It's so easy to get lost in it for hours just enjoying the story, flying around on my Magitek Armor, listening to the music in various places...It's what WoW used to be to me.

People used to tell me "You're just getting older, that's why games aren't as fun."

But man, has this one proven that theory wrong. This is a game that was made for me. I love it as much as I've loved any game in the past 30 years, no joke. It's amazing what a detailed story can do as part of an experience.

bump so topic doesn't die

In hindsight, I'm still kind of taken aback at how dark the game was willing to go at times. Everything with the tempered, a certain NPC party and corresponding ARR dungeon, and just the casualness of some of the killing, justified or otherwise.

Rharyx211 posted...

bump so topic doesn't die

Appreciated. I've been leveling machinist in the mean time, so there hasn't been any story progress. That being said, I've gotten my apartment and I'm level 48, so very soon I'll be digging right into Heavensward. If not tonight, then soon.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

I've been leveling machinist in the mean time

best class

SSJKirby posted...

best class

Got to 50 last night, so I can wear all my blue gear again, plus the 130 weapon I got from the seals I accumulated. Once I finish unlocking my new class abilities for 45 and 50 I can proceed in the MSQ once more. I'm very excited, I'll probably crack into it tonight. Might make a new topic for Heavensward, though, depending on what I end up wanting to say.

level 58 is when Machinist really starts to shine