So I've spent basically this whole past fall and about half of summer playing Final Fantasy XIV. I praised it immensely in my ARR/Heavensward review, especially because of Heavensward. Since making that initial thread, I really spaced out my time dedicated to the main story, and got the vast majority of jobs up to Level 70 while my Preferred Server EXP buff was still active. I gotta say, while Red Mage and Samurai were my first loves, and my current jobs at Lvl 80, I've seriously fallen in with Dancer and Astrologian. Astrologian, like Machinist (another wonderful job) feels so active and exciting. I'm definitely working harder for results compared to Scholar (which I got to Level 75), but the attack spells are way more satisfying, I love the breezy cast times, and spells like Essential Dignity, Celestial Opposition, Earthly Star/Detonation, and Divination feel so damn good to use. Dancer has such a consistent and briskly paced flow to it, and big bursts of damage from Standard and Technical Steps are just the best. Plus, I gotta say I just love making other DPS players my dance partners.
Going into Stormblood, I was fully aware that it had a LOT to live up to compared to the previous expansion, and that it was generally considered not quite as strong as Heavensward. That said, while Heavensward is still the clear winner, Stormblood is no slouch. I would say that Lyse is, ahem, rather "miscast" as the lead character for this particular story about the liberation of a clearly middle eastern-coded nation, but she's been a fun and charming character since my time in Realm Reborn and I found the focus on her and the growth of her character really satisfying. While there's no supporting characters quite on the level of Estinien, Yugiri has been a consistently strong character and her increased spotlight is wonderful, I of course love everything with Tataru, and, well shit, I appreciate how female-centric so much of Stormblood is. There's some terrific female leading characters, supporting characters, and especially horrific and memorable villains.
Having said that, I think we all know who the real winner of Stormblood is:
Gosetsu is brilliant. He's one of the most fun, engaging, and genuinely lovable characters I've had the pleasure of accompanying in recent memory. His introduction near the end of the 3.X quests helps builds perfect momentum leading into Stormblood, and his personal development and introspection provides a lot of valuable material to chew on even in the story's slower sections. Stormblood feels a bit longer than Heavensward, with quite a bit more fluff stretched out in between the major dramatic moments, but overall it was still a terrific expansion with some thunderous climaxes in action and conflict. What it lacks in the tightly paced story execution from Heavensward, it nearly makes up for in its absolutely sublime dungeons and boss fights. Seriously, the upward momentum in quality in the dungeon and boss fight design all the way from 2.0 to 4.0 is basically 45-degree incline with virtually no bumps or stumbles. They feature more challenging and creative encounter design, the environments become significantly more inspired and unique from one another, the way the designers and writers incorporate essential storytelling and characters directly into the action leads to some genuinely cheer-out-loud moments, and of course... the music.
Seriously, given the entire history of this character and particularly what transpires with her right up to this fight, the fact that the final track that plays in this fight is named "Wayward Daughter" is enough to tug at my heart.
Over the course of Stormblood's 4.0 Story Quest, I also took the chance to do the 3.X Hildibrand quests in Ishgard. They're a lot shorter than the 2.X quests, and unfortunately didn't have any boss fights, but it was still a hugely great story that made me laugh my ass off. Are you getting sick of me saying that so many things are among "the best" in this game, or that they're my favorite? Too bad, because Cyr is a total winner and one of the Top 5 best characters in FFXIV, period.
So, even with the vastly improved dungeons and boss fights, it's still pretty obvious that Heavensward 3.0 is a winner over Stormblood 4.0 That said, if you consider all of the post-launch content of the 3.X and 4.X patches, measuring the overall quality of each expansion becomes quite a different story. After finishing up Stormblood's 4.0 Main Story, I decided to catch up on the Void Ark story, the Alexander Raid story, Return to Ivalice, and the Hunt for Omega. I enjoyed them all a lot, but I can say unquestionably that the "Normal" Omega Raid is so vastly improved over the previous 8-player raids and so brutally good on its own right that it thoroughly trounces the Alexander raid, and I'm someone who loves the goblins so much that I would personally take a bullet for Roundrox! The endings to both Alexander and Omega left me wholly satisfied, but Omega is on another level. I won't get into the details, but all of the bosses are (for obvious reasons, when you play them) more varied, more fun, and and WAY better to revisit compared to Alexander. Completely ditching the weird 90 seconds of trash mobs and hallway running in the 8-player raids was the right course. However, the thing that stuck with me, the thing that very nearly broke my brain, actually occurred well after finishing the Omega story.
The Void Ark raid is also no slouch, but I mean, compared to Return to Ivalice? Diabolos is my boy, he's my boy from FFVIII, but the delicious boss design and musical callbacks in the Ivalice raids are on another tier. Plus, there's no boss in the Void Ark raids that will routinely and very satisfyingly yell quips such as "I'll tear you limb from limb!" , "Like a knife through buttah!" and of course "The Empire is a cancer! And I am the barber's blade..."
(This has nothing to do with the Ivalice raids, I just love this shot)
One of the final bits of optional to give attention are the 3.X Triad and 4.X Four Lords side stories dedicated to unlocking a few optional Trials. Both stories are a good time, but the Four Lords feels way meatier, and even includes a couple excellent dungeons. That said, both stories feels like they wrap up one boss fight too early, but some of the concluding notes that the Triad story ends on honestly feel pretty limp and disappointing. The Four Lords story also feels like there was an obviously intended boss fight that didn't make it, but it wraps up way more fully than the Triad story. Plus you get gold like this:
So then we have the actual 4.X Story Quests and dungeons, after completing the 4.0 Main Story Quests. Even with some of the absolute homerun moments, I don't think the story beats and climactic fights are quite up to the level of the 3.X story material, but there's still a lot of delicious meat to chew on and that final 4.X dungeon is true banger of a finale leading up to Shadowbringers. I feel like every relevant, major character in the story has a lot of value and prominence in the story during these chapters. They all shine, and they all display heart-touching and heart-shredding moments of emotional growth and/or turmoil.
So, up to Shadowbringers, I've completed every dungeon, every hard mode dungeon, every trial, every raid, and nearly all of the Hildibrand material (still doing the 4.X quests for those). With this confidence, I've finally dipped in, and started the ridiculously highly acclaimed expansion that seems to have been the catalyst for this massive spotlight cast over FFXIV at large for the past 18 months. I'm still in the Level 72 quests, so I'm not very far and won't offer my detailed thoughts so far, except for this.
Very rude, Square-Enix, just pitting me against a slightly hotter version of myself.
TL;DR - Final Fantasy XIV is brilliant. It's the best game I've played since... probably Bloodborne? It's incredible, it still has its claws in me, and I don't intend to put it down anytime soon. I actually dread catching up to the released content and running out of amazing, hilarious, memorable, heartbreaking, and exciting stories to pursue. Expansion 4 can't come soon enough.
Apex Legends has stolen nearly 600 hours of my time since it launched two years ago, but FFXIV is prepared to soar past that already within a month or two, and I only started playing it in early August last year.
Going into Stormblood, I was fully aware that it had a LOT to live up to compared to the previous expansion, and that it was generally considered not quite as strong as Heavensward. That said, while Heavensward is still the clear winner, Stormblood is no slouch. I would say that Lyse is, ahem, rather "miscast" as the lead character for this particular story about the liberation of a clearly middle eastern-coded nation, but she's been a fun and charming character since my time in Realm Reborn and I found the focus on her and the growth of her character really satisfying. While there's no supporting characters quite on the level of Estinien, Yugiri has been a consistently strong character and her increased spotlight is wonderful, I of course love everything with Tataru, and, well shit, I appreciate how female-centric so much of Stormblood is. There's some terrific female leading characters, supporting characters, and especially horrific and memorable villains.
Having said that, I think we all know who the real winner of Stormblood is:
Gosetsu is brilliant. He's one of the most fun, engaging, and genuinely lovable characters I've had the pleasure of accompanying in recent memory. His introduction near the end of the 3.X quests helps builds perfect momentum leading into Stormblood, and his personal development and introspection provides a lot of valuable material to chew on even in the story's slower sections. Stormblood feels a bit longer than Heavensward, with quite a bit more fluff stretched out in between the major dramatic moments, but overall it was still a terrific expansion with some thunderous climaxes in action and conflict. What it lacks in the tightly paced story execution from Heavensward, it nearly makes up for in its absolutely sublime dungeons and boss fights. Seriously, the upward momentum in quality in the dungeon and boss fight design all the way from 2.0 to 4.0 is basically 45-degree incline with virtually no bumps or stumbles. They feature more challenging and creative encounter design, the environments become significantly more inspired and unique from one another, the way the designers and writers incorporate essential storytelling and characters directly into the action leads to some genuinely cheer-out-loud moments, and of course... the music.
Seriously, given the entire history of this character and particularly what transpires with her right up to this fight, the fact that the final track that plays in this fight is named "Wayward Daughter" is enough to tug at my heart.
Over the course of Stormblood's 4.0 Story Quest, I also took the chance to do the 3.X Hildibrand quests in Ishgard. They're a lot shorter than the 2.X quests, and unfortunately didn't have any boss fights, but it was still a hugely great story that made me laugh my ass off. Are you getting sick of me saying that so many things are among "the best" in this game, or that they're my favorite? Too bad, because Cyr is a total winner and one of the Top 5 best characters in FFXIV, period.
So, even with the vastly improved dungeons and boss fights, it's still pretty obvious that Heavensward 3.0 is a winner over Stormblood 4.0 That said, if you consider all of the post-launch content of the 3.X and 4.X patches, measuring the overall quality of each expansion becomes quite a different story. After finishing up Stormblood's 4.0 Main Story, I decided to catch up on the Void Ark story, the Alexander Raid story, Return to Ivalice, and the Hunt for Omega. I enjoyed them all a lot, but I can say unquestionably that the "Normal" Omega Raid is so vastly improved over the previous 8-player raids and so brutally good on its own right that it thoroughly trounces the Alexander raid, and I'm someone who loves the goblins so much that I would personally take a bullet for Roundrox! The endings to both Alexander and Omega left me wholly satisfied, but Omega is on another level. I won't get into the details, but all of the bosses are (for obvious reasons, when you play them) more varied, more fun, and and WAY better to revisit compared to Alexander. Completely ditching the weird 90 seconds of trash mobs and hallway running in the 8-player raids was the right course. However, the thing that stuck with me, the thing that very nearly broke my brain, actually occurred well after finishing the Omega story.
Literally weeks after I'd wrapped up the Omega raids, I was in Ok-zundu helping a friend unlock flying in that zone, and for a brief moment as I was teleporting out of the area, I saw Alpha, ALPHA HIMSELF, casually conversing with one of the vanu vanu. I didn't catch this until it was too late, and I couldn't get a screenshot. I warped back immediately, but he was gone. The fact that the designers of FFXIV believed so much in the sincerity and value of Alpha's ending that he can randomly appear elsewhere in the game world for you to view is just... absolutely stunning. This is a decision so easy to miss, but adds SO much once you see it even only once.
The Void Ark raid is also no slouch, but I mean, compared to Return to Ivalice? Diabolos is my boy, he's my boy from FFVIII, but the delicious boss design and musical callbacks in the Ivalice raids are on another tier. Plus, there's no boss in the Void Ark raids that will routinely and very satisfyingly yell quips such as "I'll tear you limb from limb!" , "Like a knife through buttah!" and of course "The Empire is a cancer! And I am the barber's blade..."
One of the final bits of optional to give attention are the 3.X Triad and 4.X Four Lords side stories dedicated to unlocking a few optional Trials. Both stories are a good time, but the Four Lords feels way meatier, and even includes a couple excellent dungeons. That said, both stories feels like they wrap up one boss fight too early, but some of the concluding notes that the Triad story ends on honestly feel pretty limp and disappointing. The Four Lords story also feels like there was an obviously intended boss fight that didn't make it, but it wraps up way more fully than the Triad story. Plus you get gold like this:
So then we have the actual 4.X Story Quests and dungeons, after completing the 4.0 Main Story Quests. Even with some of the absolute homerun moments, I don't think the story beats and climactic fights are quite up to the level of the 3.X story material, but there's still a lot of delicious meat to chew on and that final 4.X dungeon is true banger of a finale leading up to Shadowbringers. I feel like every relevant, major character in the story has a lot of value and prominence in the story during these chapters. They all shine, and they all display heart-touching and heart-shredding moments of emotional growth and/or turmoil.
So, up to Shadowbringers, I've completed every dungeon, every hard mode dungeon, every trial, every raid, and nearly all of the Hildibrand material (still doing the 4.X quests for those). With this confidence, I've finally dipped in, and started the ridiculously highly acclaimed expansion that seems to have been the catalyst for this massive spotlight cast over FFXIV at large for the past 18 months. I'm still in the Level 72 quests, so I'm not very far and won't offer my detailed thoughts so far, except for this.
Very rude, Square-Enix, just pitting me against a slightly hotter version of myself.
TL;DR - Final Fantasy XIV is brilliant. It's the best game I've played since... probably Bloodborne? It's incredible, it still has its claws in me, and I don't intend to put it down anytime soon. I actually dread catching up to the released content and running out of amazing, hilarious, memorable, heartbreaking, and exciting stories to pursue. Expansion 4 can't come soon enough.
Apex Legends has stolen nearly 600 hours of my time since it launched two years ago, but FFXIV is prepared to soar past that already within a month or two, and I only started playing it in early August last year.
