FF14 First Impressions of Shadowbringers
I’ve played WoW for over 15 years but given the state of WoW right now and the lack of content, some of my friends convinced me to try FF14. So I’ve been documenting my FFXIV first impressions, showing my journey through FF14 and giving my feedback along the way.
Throughout I will be comparing FF14 to WoW and references the differences between the two. Obviously, I do have some bias, but I will try and keep an open mind all the way. This will contain spoilers for FFXIV Shadowbringers, areas, character and main story and will also discuss optional content along the way.
Shadowbringers set the tone early of being dark, mysterious and epic and its continued all the way through. I’ve played so much of the story in the last week than I expected and I think I’ll finish it really soon. I’d love to know your thoughts on what’s happened in this video, I know its a long one so thanks for taking the time to watch!
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FF14 First Impressions Playthrough (ARR Complete):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLzc…
FFXIV First Impressions Playthrough (Heavensward Complete):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtdVd…
0:00 Intro
1:40 Do You Know Lahee?
5:20 Qitana Ravel
6:50 HUGE Lore
10:50 Eureka Hooked – Pagos
12:50 Stroking Wood
15:30 Minfilia and Ryne
17:15 Malikah’s Well and LORE
21:35 Return to Eulmore
25:05 Level 80 Samurai
29:20 Mt. Gulg
31:25 Crown of the Immaculate trail
36:20 Outro and First Impressions
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I tend not to judge plot devices and storylines until I know the whole story. Im just slightly ahead of you in MSQ and (no worries 0 spoilers ahead) and from what Im gathering they do this (tease deaths) to show you, the player, that all of this is running them to the edge and perhaps the Scions are on borrowed time. That's the subtle vibe Im getting. It's like what Urianger says to "Matoya" in the ShB trailer " = "We can accept this fate or defy it but we cannot deny it."
To echo what others are saying: I don't think Thancred's monologue is intended as a "death scene". It's about him saying goodbye to Minfilia as Ryne is on her way to that fateful meeting. I think that if you're looking at every time a Scion is imperiled or harmed and thinking "Ah, they're just teasing me with a big character death" then you're really going to sour yourself on things, even though those moments were never really intended to convince you that those characters were in truly mortal danger.
frustrating to keep getting baited, but I do fall for it sometimes, Thancred's one got me tearing up. I think endwalker will defo have major character death right? I guess we'll see. I just hope it isn't the twins, they're like siblings to me.
td:lr I want character death but I like the scions too much.
That Exarch gear you're raving about. It's crafted. Crafting is so worthwhile in this game, and I mean in terms of relevance more than the gil.
Re: Thancred, I did not think he was dead, nor do I think anyone was meant to. But he was willing to die, and that's the sense I got from him. I think the Y'shtola non-death served to endear us towards Emet, but otherwise I rolled my eyes at it. The main characters have plot armor, and I think that's okay.
People have already said it, but Thancred's monologue was his goodbye to the real minfilia that he knows he'll never see again.
I feel like Y'shtola's repeated brushes with death are deliberately cheap, and just prepping for her actual death in EW, like we're going to expect her to just come back as usual, but she never does.
Thancred, on the other hand, was a genuine fake-out, and I think it catches just about everyone.
Do you feel like you hate/like/hate characters? Just keep playing. You will hate/like/hate them more. ShB never stops. Until 5.55. Then 6.0 won't be ShB anymore. Also, do your role quests because DO THEM THEY ARE AWESOME. Giott is the best. Ever.
At the end Ranjit is saying that he can see all the Minfilias, his daughters, he's raised before him
Emet-Selch is my favourite villain as well, and it is not close. Absolutely fantastic character
the feint deaths dont bother me just because i know what it takes for a character to die, thancred was never dead to me in that scene just exhausted dont understand why so many people just assume hes dead there, may be streamers because chat sppams RIP and F to troll, the yshtola one was the only one who was too repetitive for me after she got cut by zenos last expansion, and the story author said she dislikes death cheats and characters have to lose something significant when they do that, (yshtola lost her sight and thancred lost magic ability on their ARR "deaths") i just dont want these to be with yshtola anymore, she is the face of FF14, she is the dissidia representative, she is the only character im sure will survive until 14.0 and beyond for sure and the only one i can guarantee has the true plot armor.
I've noticed a lot of people miss the Thancred monologue……it was a goodbye to Minfilia because Ryne's mission was to accept the rest of her. At the same time, it was a double entendre from the writers to also be bait. Good writing indeed.
I took Thancred's speech more as a father saying goodbye to his daughter, rather than a death monologue
I'm agree with you that Thancred should have died in the Arm Araeng MSQ, but Thancred still has one job to do in Ryne's character arc and can't be replaced, so that's why the writer need to keep him alive. They should damage Thancred really bad that will affect him in longer run (for example made him unable to travel inter-dimension), it would be better. Thancred might be needed in Endwalker, but if he's just a side character that could be repalced, i think he is better dead in Shadowbringers.
Y'shtola fake death is not a plot armor. It is crucial to the plot to show Emet-Selch character and power. He could save Y'shtola directly without any loss on Y'shtola (please remember that it would take weeks to find Y'shtola and it need Padjals power, considered as the strongest magical caster in the source, with sight loss for Y'shtola).
Ran'jit is a type of character that show the bitterness and cruelness of endless battles with no hope. He survived many life-threatening battles, he was a hero that the world needed, and a warrior that everyone wish for. But Ran'jit already lost his own hope, he saw many victorious battles, but he still not save the world yet. He still fight and do everything "right", but everything still the same. He also raised many Minfilias and lost a lot of them. He either died as a hero or live long enough to become a monster, a villain on its own. That's the curelty and the bitterness of endless battles with no hope. Ran'jit is not the main villain of ShB, but a tools that being use in the plot to explain the world.
I am so excited for part 3. Just incredibly excited
Elidibus>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Zenos
You should take the time to watch back all the cutscenes in Japanese o3o The Voice Actors and Actresses are utterly Flawless o3o
I largely said my piece about Ran'jit in the last video, but I am surprised to hear you like the character in this one, because I think he's the catalyst for the other problems you have. When you have a character with a power level that creates life and death circumstances every time he shows up, and the writers have that character stalk the party, it means that they have to create stakes equal to that character's power every time they cross. But they clearly didn't want to have a chain of dead Scions or frantic escapes across the expansion, and so they did the "fake outs" you mention. I do think that they're not the worst, because they serve to show Y'shtola's loyalty to the people she was leading, and then show just how powerful Emet is, and how casually he can do what was a struggle before. And they did at least set up her use of Flow way back in the 2.X patches, so that escape route didn't come out of nowhere.
I did think the Thancred thing could have been done better if Ran'jit wasn't done so poorly from the start though. I would have preferred that he be shown as progressing at growing increasingly adept at protecting his "daughter" as the expansion goes on, and then managing to actually pull it off and actually win when the chips were down, rather than having the outcome we got (which someone else mentioned wasn't translated as well as it probably should have been). Compared to Thancred, the warrior of light has no real thematic link to that whole story chain, so it's just kind of meh that eventually you had to be the one to finish Ran'jit off.
That aside, you are about to reach the best part of the expansion by far IMO. All the things you said you loved, there's more to come, and I think you're going to be blown away by it all.
Yeah I agree the fake outs were getting annoying and it's a meme now tbh. Y'shtola's I never believed it one bit. Thancred was good even though I hate it and now it's fun watching people first react to thancred
Y'shtola is a special case, since she is the FF14 representative in cross-overs so they can never kill her. Even Noctis is always pulled from a time before the final fight in 15. But in Endwalker maybe one of the others because it's the end of the story. We all know they've killed main characters before!
Also Emet-Selch is the 6th most popular character in the franchise in Japan according to the last poll. Personally I like Ardyn who is similar but more bitter and cynical.
It was soo cool to finally catch a stream of yours and see your reaction to G'raha Tia!
Don't worry… every story is relevant. Every single part of the Shadowbringers story is relevant to the core story. IF something seems disconnected, you've just not seen how yet.
Edit: As to the 'death fake outs', to me it depends on how it is handled. You have to really pay attention to what the actual goal is. If they do a fake out that doesn't seem to have a purpose…. then it would bother me.
So far they haven't. Every one of their 'death and return' cases so far has served a very important story purpose. And thus I don't mind them. If they were just 'we don't want to kill anyone', then that'd be an issue… so far they haven't done that.
Well you DID ask.. so I'll throw my take in on the "fake-out" deaths.
I guess you could say Y'Stola was a little cheap… But only because it was Y'Stola again.. but again that whole scene fit her character.. she's reckless and willing to sacrifice herself for something she believes in, but she's also pragmatic enough to know to have a possible "out". And as many have pointed out, the whole point of that scene was to flaunt Emet's power rather than anything to do with her. So again don't focus on the "death" part of it just focus on what was the purpose of the scene.
And as many other have pointed out, I literally never thought for one second that Thancred was dead… I took his monologue as a farewell to Minfilia as well, not a farewell to the world. Sort of his mandate to do better in the future. And again killing him at that moment would have made even less sense. They're not afraid to kill people in this game, they've done it many times, but they also want the death to "mean" something. So.. yeah I'm not tired of the "trope", because neither of those felt trope-y to me.
The only death scene that I felt was cheap in this game was Nanamo's.
Lyna is an absolute treasure in this expansion for sure.
And Emet well… Absolute best, but I actually think you have his character figured out pretty good.. but there is more to come 😜.
Emet selch is the perfect villan! It's a MASSIVE love hate relationship
Didn't feel Thancred's scene was a death fakeout at all. His body language, specifically the way he rests his arm on his forehead, just makes it look it he's physically and mentally exhausted.
Here there be spoilers through Stormblood.
I was sick of the death bait and switches officially in Stormblood. I get it with the reboot that was ARR, I was ok with how it was done in Heavensward more or less but I was already not feeling value in deaths. Through that whole time I was positive because I felt as though we needed more characters onto whom to latch and the deaths weren't satisfying.
The straw that broke the camel's back was Gosetsu. His death was flawlessly done. They brought him back to facilitate Yotsuyu's final arc, which would have been fine if Yotsuyu's final arc wasn't so drastically underwhelming for me. She needed another few hours to marinate. She needed to REALLY show an opportunity to genuinely be good. More than just showing thanks to Gosetsu but to actually show reform. She never got the chance to start that before cracking, which only sours Gosetsu's revival for me. Since then I've never taken a death seriously in 14.
Noting the plot armor:
I think that there's been a lot of consequence for people doing things that would otherwise get them killed. Y'shtola essentially hijacked the aetheryte network back in ARR and as a result she lost her ability to see and made it so Thancred could no longer wield any form of magic. That's just something that the two of them have to live with now. When she jumped in front of Zenos to protect Lyse in Stormblood she got a massive chest wound that took her out of a majority of the game.
It's not like there hasn't been consequences to people's actions. Sure Stormblood had a lot of sort of butt pulls but honestly I don't think they were as egregious as you might have felt when you watched them.
As for Y'shtola sort of doing a death defying thing in this one I think it was less about Y'shtola and more to prove how powerful Emet Selch really was. Like when Y'shtola did the same thing last time she was caught in the stream for a long time and it took a lot of quests and you needed help from multiple different sources just to bring her back. Then Emet comes along and he's just like: "Yeah I can just pull her back, easy enough." It really just goes to show how much more powerful Emet is in comparison to everyone else in the story. I don't think this necessarily needed to happen but I don't really think it was a fake death for the point of having a fake death.
As for Thancred it wasn't really a fake death so much as it was Thancred pushing himself to the absolute edge to fight for Ryne. It was about putting down the line in the sand and really stating "I'm going to protect this person. Even if it's the last thing I do." Like during that fight you can really feel Thancred pushing himself so hard, it's really hard to watch but also you can't help but root for the boy, he's been through so much, in ARR he was unsure of himself and he had to live with the guilt that he was the one who got controlled by an Ascian, and through Heavensward and Stormblood he'd been a mopey emo boy since. He was a lost soul, he deserves to fight for something, he deserves something that makes him happy.
I get where you're coming from with the whole fake death thing, I think when it's not done very well it can feel very cheap. But through Shadowbringers I think a lot of the "fake deaths" have really served a purpose, they all kind of push their individual stories forward and round off the entirety of the whole story.
Thancred's scene didn't feel like a death for him to me, but rather a death for Minfilia. He is unable to be there in her last moments, laments his weakness, reflects on their past, and tells her he loves her. It's his goodbye to her which is why it's set up as a sad scene.
As for Y'shtola, considering she is the poster child of the franchise you can be pretty sure she isn't going anywhere. They talked about her terminal aether illness in Heavensward and we never really got to see it's effects on her so at this point I wouldn't consider her at risk unless something was cut off. Urianger though… I could see him dying. His role in the group isn't as important as it use to be and most of his plot threads from ARR have already been covered. Sort of just hanging around waiting for a case of the death in my opinion.
I like one piece I'm use to false deaths
Even the villains are protags in their minds. Squall from FF8 said it best. "There's no good or bad side. Just two sides holding different views." And FFXIV takes that concept into their story telling.
I liked the near-deaths, they DO feel like the best of both worlds to me. Also, the way they brought back Y'shtola was great: it showed how Emet-Selch COULD be an ally, in a very concise way. I appreciate the character. It's not spoilers now to say that he is an extremely relatable, understandable, human villain…but still evil. He has MANY similarities to the WoL…except that he's willing to hurt the innocent to save others, and we aren't. That's the line he crossed.
Many people dislike Ran'jiit, calling him Zenos mark 2. I found him mildly interesting and overall not a problem, because he wasn't THE villain. Do the Healer Role questline if you want to love the dwarves. Giott is the BEST dwarf. I don't know anyone who doesn't like Giott, and frankly, anyone who dislikes that dwarf is NOT a friend of mine. Also, Exarchic gear is the best gear that can be made via crafting. The augmented tomestone gear is the best gear ordinary players can access, and the best gear anyone can get comes from doing Eden 9-12 Savage (aka the ShB equivalent of Omega 9-12 Savage).
The writer is a woman, Natsuko Ishikawa. I too have faith that she can make Endwalker work, she did SO WELL with ShB. We are all SO HYPED. (BTW, Vauthry's Sin Eater name is "Innocence.") I ABSOLUTELY LOVE those feelings from that cutscene! Can you imagine World of Warcraft EVER making you feel genuine despair or heartache like that scene did? It's genuinely amazing that a medium which is literally built on wish-fulfillment fantasy could do that. Just another demonstration of how GOOD Ishikawa-san is as a writer.
Glad I watched this after watching yesterday's stream. I think you pretty much nailed the good and lull parts of this expansions perfectly, (even the ending of this video). Watching the whole Journey again through your videos and other streamers, you really do see how they build up on what other people have done before. Not just in FF14, they really use the lore and story from the previous FF games and draws quite a lot from FF3 on this one. The best parts of WoW also did this by building up on the world and story of WC3 and can only hope they continue this in EW.
The scene with Captain Lyna hit me in a different way than most. I'm a former combat soldier and I held my best friend as he took his last breath when we were ambushed in Iraq. I was also a leader and lost troops in my squad. I can personally attest to what Lyna was feeling. Survivor's Guilt is real and it really REALLY hurts.
Side note. After seeing how powerful the response was to killing off Haurchefant and Ysayle, you can't blame Natsuko Ishikawa for tiptoeing around waxing a major character again.
Definitely agree with the fakeout deaths. I don't want any of the Scions to die, but to keep doing the "gotcha!" comebacks gets very dull.
Emet is more than a Villain… he's an Antagonist.
Funny enough Crown of the Immaculate is probably the easiest extreme trial of the expansion. I can't speak from experience when it was current because I only started playing last year. But I basically went into it blind and was able to one-shot it with no deaths. And at the current item level you don't even need 2 healers (you do need 2 tanks for the buster though). All the other extremes required a little bit of prog and people calling roles for certain mechanics.
Looking back I believe it was less about Y'shtola's "death" and more about Emet-Selch flexing. Accomplishing the combined effort of many characters over multiple quests with a literal snap of his fingers. Without having gone through this once before we wouldn't have perspective and it wouldn't hit as hard.
You got it completely wrong. Thancred's monologue was for Minfillia's death. Minfillia did die so its not a fake-out.
The fakeout "deaths" were stupid. Didn't think for a second either character was dead. I hate Ran'jit. I thought he was just as bad, maybe ever so slightly better, than Zenos. The fight between Thancred and him goes on way too long. It was just boring. I actually hate playing as other characters. I think it usually kills the flow of the game. The only time I think it was done effectively is at the end of 5.5. Don't get me wrong, overall, Shadowbringers is good, but man is it WAY overrated.
Zenos is so cringey and the worst character to bring back to life.
And you still haven’t gotten to the best part…
I think the characters are just too popular to kill now, any main character death will result in a potential loss of player base, but yeah I do agree it’s getting a bit old now.
Sadly I don’t see this changing in 6.0, SE wouldn’t dare.
I understand how you feel about the "plot armor" it takes the teeth put of any character death because I'm just like, they will be coming back later anyway so… it started when they brought back Nanamo…
Thoughts on Deaths/Fake-Outs
Agreeing with RequiesTae here that Y'shtola's scene is more a demonstration of Emet than of her. She is the character to do what ever it takes. It makes sense for her protecting the Night's Blessed and we know we have saved her from Flow before so I hardly consider that one a fake-out.
Thancred, I kind of agree with you to a point. I think they could have done better to have the others run up on him or something as the scene was cutting away, however I do think that scene puts you in the mindset for Minfilia's sacrifice and Rhyne's choice. Cause Minfilia DOES die at this point and Thancred had to have a reason to say his goodbye? Not a 10/10 for Shadowbringers scenes but having rewatched it a couple times with friends and such, I get what they were doing.
Also, it's the curse of level x7 quests. Haruchefent > level 57 quests. Gosetsu/Yotsuyu > Level 67. Thancred/Minfilia > Level 77. I'm really worried for what's gonna happen… at level 87.
Ryne is the single most highest damage teammate in the game, including players. i dunno what thencred taught her, but she's just melting those bad guys
I think you really need to stop getting baited by chat. Just know chat is going to troll you, its what chat does. So as soon as they go 'tears and sadness' don't believe them. It's not the game crying wolf, its your chat.
I didn't see Thancreds scene as a death monologue. More like reconciling Bigfillia and Minifillia and reflecting on things, but narratively, he still had things to do with Minifillia and thus wasn't going to die. If he had died, I'd have totally understood though as it was a pretty touching scene, and 'real life' doesn't care if you have unfinished business.
Y'shtola, I actually picked up on the use of Flow straight away and knew it was just a matter of time until she popped back up. It wasn't even in question for her. Also, it was 'character building' for Emett to show how powerful he was.
Also, Ran'jit, is basically a sneaky preview of Reaper.