In this video Genjigear reviews Heavensward nearing the end of the 3.0 base expansion as well as gives some predictions on what he thinks will happen next in the game.
I will be finishing Heavensward this weekend Friday 6:00pm PST on twitch, come join me by using this link! https://www.twitch.tv/genjigearlive
My clips channel: @GenjigearClips
Please be careful when commenting not to spoil anything. If you have to think about it, it’s probably better left unsaid.
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Same.
The sultana had to stay dead. would have paved the way for your character to help Rauban against some form of cue against Lolorito and then end up turning Uldah into a Republic as nanamo wanted. Then Rauban would have been free to be your companion in the following expansion…instead of what we actually get. If Nanamo died it would have been the spark to begin Raubans journey into becoming a leader which would have made a better story.
Honestly I think it works because it gives you a bit of false sense of security of "oh okay, this game isn't going to actually kill anyone meaningful." before they turn around and openly merc Haurchefant, who has been around since ARR.
It's hard to talk about the Sultana's tale without spoiling future events.
Note: Ishikawa only wrote half of Stormblood, the part she wrote will be obvious.
Nanamo's death fake out bothered me less than you and I suspect part of that is because I didn't start in Ul'dah. If you start in another city state you don't actually interact with Nanamo that much. I suspect that makes quite the difference. Personally I was far more invested in what was going down in Ishgard by that point so while it was a fly in the Ointment, I wasn't too bothered because the action was elsewhere.
Personally, I felt it could have been done a lot better but I did like aspects of the whole thing. It showed brains and manipulation could counter brute strength in the narative. As much of a little shit as he is, Lolorito played his hand better and in a way that meant it was very hard for the Scions and Raubahn to move against him in the end without serious and costly repocusions. You can't just stick a sword in someone you don't like without it potentially biting you in the ass hard. As satisfying as it would have been to murder him, doing so would have created major problems for Ul'dah and probably made things way worse. It is a bitter pill to swallow but it kind of is supposed to be I think. In a way it is a lesson to the Scions about being smarter and a bit more paranoid. Also, technically, Raubahn lost his arm trying to murder Lolorito so it is kind of Raubahn's fault he lost his arm too.
The end of ARR came out only 6 months or so before HW launched so I don't think there was any changing of plans or rolling back. The story played out as they intended, for good or ill. They wouldn't have had time to change it really. I suspect it was more to create a sort of soft reset for a number of characters to allow for development, to create the scenario that explained going to Ishgard and to set up seeds for future plots. I think the reason you see a lot of people defend it is with much more context about how the story evolves later, while it still feels kind of cheap how they did it, it is possible to see the value of the story move they did.
Completely agree with your negatives. I liked most everything else about the HW story except for the parts you called out. And just because I see people saying later events might change your mind: I’m current on the MSQ and still agree with what you said here.
I also didn't like how they pulled a fast one of us with the Sultana's death reversal. It feels like it's not respecting their audience by doing so and it cheapens the ending of ARR. I'm sure that they could written something what better to replace her and restore the peace in Uldah. But I guess we'll never know.
Decent takes! Great note on the dark knight questline. Fair opinion on the sultana. I think someone else mentioned it, but without starting in uldah, it's not quite as impactful. There is still some crazyness in HW, but it does get better. Do consider slowing down a bit, enjoying the story, and take a break from the MSQ when it starts getting hard to keep up with. Gold Saucer, POTD, aethercurrents, alt job leveling in roulettes, etc. It's all about the journey, not the ending! (also, stop compulsively reading every comment here XD )
Regarding Nanamo I do believe it was kinda not best decision to revert story, but without spoilers, I would say it pays out much better later in the story, at least in my opinion.
Also they updated Duty Support in 6.2 for Heavensward so when you do dungeons with NPC in all ARR dungeons you would have random no-name NPCs, however in Sohm Al dungeon your party is Alphinaud, Estinien and Ysale, which in my personal opinion was probably best decision because it's exactly part of the story where it feels like classic Final Fantasy the most.
Y'shtola is an interesting case of character. I personally never really liked her as poster character (like seriously – on all promo materials it's Y'shtola who represents FFXIV) and Heavensward for me is not the part when she started growing on me as character, however it's here where groundwork for giving her more personality (srsly, for me she was super-bland in ARR) was made and she becomes way more likeable IMO.
It feels like devs generally decided to tear down whatever they concocted with characters in ARR and rebuild them anew since all of them in Heavnesward and onward feel like different people and I would say – they just all win from that.
Since you don’t like lengthy, story explanations I’ll skip that.
But development-wise, some of your complaints make sense because we now know that the writers didn’t have a strong narrative plan until post-Heavensward. Can’t remember if it was an interview or live letter anniversary event but Yoshida admitted that their main focus with ARR and HW were laying down as many new threads as possible to potentially develop down the road.
I agree that the Sultana feels like a hamfisted revision. I imagine some of it was player backlash to her death but tbh, it was probably them just wanting to reopen the story space again and create more writing options. Either way, I also wish it had been handled differently.
The problems you addressed were sort of fixed in later expansions, especially in Endwalker. Most loose ends were tied in Endwalker.
I understand your point about the sultana but… I also know…ok
As for Lolorito i think it was well handled, it really doesn't matter how much Teledji deserved death, countries have laws and not even Rabahn is above that… I'll leave your predictions just being that😄 you'll have your answers😉 nice video😊
Don't worry, they made good use of the Sultana after bringing her back.
It is like religions that want celibacy. Except you end up creating broken people that way.
Same with spoilers, OUR mind does not like surprises, that is a scientific fact of how we developed. Spoiling stuff makes it better, because of the way evolution has grown us to be predictors and with spoilers we can't predict stuff, but sure it's better to make rules that go against human nature and create broken people.
Yeah, completly agree on the Sultana. My only (completly unfounded) guess is that they decided to bring her back very late in development and they didn't have time to make this plotline properly. Next to the main Dragons-Archbishop plotline, this one looks.. amateurish. But, hey, you have one more character to enjoy/dislike in the future.
Considering ARR was made in a rush alongside still keeping up 1.0 going I can see why story decisions were retconned later. And I do agree they shouldn’t have killed sultana if they gonna retcon it but sometimes this happens when new writer has different ideas etc. to me it was weird but made me happy because I love Nanamo and dislike killing characters off in general personally 😅
Huh, wasn't the thing with Y'shtola's eyes explained pretty much in the same quest or shortly thereafter?
Maybe I misremember this…
you're right about the takeback to the sultana, but they make good of it in the long run i think.
I really appreciate your FF14 videos! I've seen so many creators go through the game on streams, but these videos where you give us your thoughts and predictions in addition to that are just too good.
Keep up the good work!