Our girl’s having a rough night.
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0:00 – Introduction
0:21 – QUEST: “Daughter of the Deep”
13:57 – QUEST: “Path of No Return”
19:11 – QUEST: “The Time Between the Seconds”
35:27 – QUEST: “All the Little Angels”
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Edited by Daniel Floyd
♫ “Pray Return” by Chris Logsdon
https://lnkfi.re/pray-return
#PlayFrame #FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV #Stormblood
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It's time for another Final Fantasy Friday Question, and I gotta know: why do people talk smack about Stormblood so bad?
Also Dan named an episode after character: NO, NOT YUGIRI!!!! She's the best Shinobi waifu since Tsunade
Something looks different with this instance. The soldiers used to be targetable. Did they change it?
Yugiri such a badass. "The boss is here." "Nice, let's kill him."
Also I will continue to reiterate that Othard's zone musics are excellent and make me super nostalgic for this game. I'm one of those who didn't like SB as much as the adjacent expansions, but it's definitely better than I remember.
Oh Yugiri Yugiri Yugiri… You almost threw your life away and your hotheadness has lead to the Doman people being painted a giant target on their back.
You've proven its people have fight in them yet but was this really the best way? How will you live with the cost of the many innocent lives that will be paid in retribution?
Playfriends, we're back to it! This is your spoiler free lore comment!
3:25 – Dan is correct in many of his statements on Stormblood. Notably, the two disparate regions, Ala Mhigo and the Far East, had two separate head writers. This isn't to say there was no one reviewing that their work came together under a cohesive vision, but it is notable that one of the writers is someone we've heard from before? Natsuko Ishikawa, the writer for the Dark Knight job quests, the Binding Coil of Bahmut, and The Crystal Tower is helping the Far East section. We'll hear more from her soon enough.
8:20 – What do you say, when all conviction has been beaten out of someone? A spark of rebellion is nothing if there is no tinder to catch flame. But Durmin isn't the Warrior of Light because if his fists (admittedly a lot of people know him for his fists). He's a snack deliverer. And today, we're gonna some very special snacks. Snacks that will convince people that tomorrow doesn't have to be the same as today. That things can change for the better.
11:00 – Well, the Garleans aren't really stupid. They've identified that far flung insurrections are a weakness, the exact thing that the Scions are attempting to do. But Yugiri believes that throwing off the yoke of oppresion an be started by cutting off the head of the snake. I find it weird that Gostesu states that if this was a personal vendetta, he'd be for it. Like, if Yugiri had lost a loved one at Zenos' hands, he'd support this sneak attack, in spite of all the reasons he states.
18:15 – Yuzuka Manor as razed after the Yuzuka family, who governed the One River region for Doma, supported the failed rebellion. While the Domans have left, a group of Namazu have moved in. These Namazu are a bit more honest than the previous one we met in Kugane, and fancy themselves merchants. That being said, their general ineptness still persists.
27:35 – Tis animation is Chimatsuri, a ninja's Level 3 limit break. Yugiri is using everything in her arsenal. But Zenos deflects this with ease. Zenos delights in sport, and as Yugiri states, views this as game. He delights in capable foes, and wants a rematch. He finds pleasure in it, like nothing else in the world. And now that he has tasted a capable foe, he cares little for combatants like Yugiri. Its here that the first comparison is made between Zenos and someone that we're familiar with. Not nessecarily Durmin, but the player . How many players go up against Extreme Trials, test themselves against Ultimate challenges, time and again. The enemies we relish in aren't ones that we can dispatch with a single push of a button, but the ones that make us work for it. Zenos wants what we want, fun! It's just that for us, it's in a computer game, and for Zenos, it's fresh blood.
31:55 – Looks like Yugiri and Durmin did find a way to deliver that snack of hope! Sometimes it's just showing that people do still care, that someone, anyone, can see the world for what it could be, rather than what it is. Durmin and Yugiri were ready to lay down their lives for this cause, even if the Domans weren't so sure about it. But the distressing thing is that Zenos likes this development. More sport. More blood.
33:20 – This spell is Vercure, the Red Mage healing spell. We'll get into this later, but in addition to casting spells and having a melee damage combo, Red Mages are also support casters, being able to clast healing and revival spells. What's more, their dual cast trait allows every other spell to be instant cast, so heals and revives can go out very quickly!
51:08 – Holy moly it's Estinien! ("He's the Azure Dragoon!" – JoCat). I wonder what he's tracking…
Welp, we've got an answer for Hien. Doma is ready to fight, to take the field once more. But farmers with spears and pitchforks aren't going to do well against an army. Next time, we'll see if Hien has an answer to this issue, and what he's been up to.
I feel like Yugiri is a very important piece of the conversation about Lyse as a character. Every time Lyse advocates for the rash action, or tells someone they are wrong for being too broken to hope, or gives a flippant response to meeting someone new or learning about something important Yugiri is there trying her best to hold it together and play the long game. She was born into this conflict, and knows the realities.
Alise is also a punch first ask questions later sort, with basically no connection to the war. If anyone should be brash and 'not get' the loss of will to fight it's her, and yet she keeps a level head. Even as she hates it she turns to her brother's influence and goes for the diplomatic route, and when there is punching to be done she's ready to sacrifice herself without a second thought.
Lyse so far has provided very little in way of perspective or utility, and her muscle is fine, but has only been used on a catfish. If I were to rewrite stormblood I'd put more emphasis on Lyse idolizing the resistance. I'd make her eager to find Hien, and devistated that he'd even consider surrender. Put the emphasis on the fact she only knows the struggle from her sister, and the very fresh wounds of papalymo's sacrifice. Maybe also have her do something independently early on?
4:32 Humanizing enemies is hard work, and it gets harder the more objectively terrible the machine they're a part of is. It's one reason I do like playing characters tangent to the bad guys when I'm able (e.g. a Mandalorian merc in a Star Wars game.), you get more chances to see how bad it really is without having to be a part of it. It's one thing to humanize an enemy you never have to rely on for anything, it's another to get your paycheck from someone who is partially brainwashed by objectively terrible people.
12:04 Spoken like a shinobi.
16:55 Isse, don't do anything reckless. Let's ignore the fact that you stayed to listen instead of leaving when you realised what might have been being planned.
18:39 This is full on Chinese architecture now, yea? I'm getting some mixed signals because the walls look like the whitewash one might expect from Japanese, but there's lots of brickwork and carved stone, which iirc is more Chinese. I'm not well-versed enough to be able to analyse the multi-story components. I don't see the Japanese stone foundation, either.
23:25 I have terrible news for you, Zenos. Yotsuyu made sure to that.
28:36 Ah, there's the massive health pool again. You know, this actually doesn't bug me. He wasn't "defeated", you got his health low and he took the gloves off, like the first phase was just him sizing you up.
32:01 They have chosen how their lives are to be spent. <o
40:21 Read "You know I'm right, stop staring."
Kinda hilarious how Yotsuyu's VA is the only one who bothers with the proper pronunciation of 'shinobi' and 'samurai'. Her performance is fantastic, even if the character itself is a bit flat.
18:35 Dan you laugh but that fork is deadly in the hands of a blue mage.
Oh hey, someone's still got a listed level instead of having the usual ??? you see.
I do like this idea of the wol just going, stuff it,.. I want in this part of the plan, made up on the spot and just decides to follow along and takes it up
Even after a massive worry with the wol disappearing to take matters into their own hands… alisaie still gets a shot in against alphinauld and hiding her true feelings … if only we got to see that side of events
Not a perfect win, but still a win! Huzzah!
Oh hey there Estinien, what are you up to? And don't think I've forgotten you escaped being scolded/hugged last expansion!
– i mean i see Gotetsu's concern, unaliving the highest ranking officer available will absolute cause mass retaliation on the villagers that weren't even willing to run away
– yeah ARR really feels like it just sets up the world where Eorzea is located, while Heavensward focuses on the political & societal aspects of this world, mostly thru Ishgard, while Stormblood so far really seems focused on why the Empire has been such a looming presence
– well, that assassination attempt went way better that it should have, good thing Zenos is just a Power Rangers villain & Yugiri actually succeeded in motivating the villagers
– you know, maybe they should equip said villages with the sleep & amnesia drugs Yugiri used, just saying
24:35 I did this quest as a summoner. It was sort of hilarious for a soldier to topple over and there's my mi'qo cat girl holding a book menacingly like I bonked him with it.
I should add, I love the leitmotif of the Heavensward theme during that last scene there. It remains one of my favorite bits of music that I've heard from FFXIV, so far.
ESTINIEEEEEEN! he'stheAzureDragoooon.
Thancred’s VA is putting in work as various imperial soldiers this expansion. Fun to hear him really lean into the accent he’s using.
I'm so, SO glad nothing bad happened to Yugiri! You had me on edge there with that title! XD
That fight is much less difficult, and thus far more frustrating as a MCH. You can go through the first 2 phases without being hit, almost efortlessly.
And then he just slaps you down.
Eeeyyyy, the boy is back. Heck yeah. Honestly wasn't sure how much we'd be seeing of him after Stormblood wrapped up.
It's still heartbreaking to think that Yugiri's original Heavensward english VA, Sian Blake, and her two children, were murdered by her pos boyfriend who was also the children's father. Utter monster. But knowing all this makes hearing Yugiri speak hit different for me.
One thing folks miss very easily with the ARR villains is that Gaius is actually a really interesting character. It's hard to see beneath the "tEll Me, for wHoM dO yOu fIGHt?" memery, but out of all the villains of 2.0, he's the only one acting under moral reasons (unless you count Ilberd, in which case that would make 2). His morals are twisted and bent completely out of proper shape, of course, and we kick his ass for it, but everything he did was under the genuine, sincere belief that conquering Eorzea was the only way to save it.
That's something I missed in Stormblood very much. Gaius pursued his misshapen dream of rulership, and Thordan acted out of tradition, and a belief that it was in the best interest of the nation to maintain the 1000-year-old lie. But Zenos acts entirely based on a lust for combat, and Yotsuyu for the majority of 4.0 is acting under an unexplained bottomless hatred for domans, one that borders on the cartoonish. Neither of them have any intent of making the world better as they envision it – they couldn't care less!
As new facets of the characters are revealed at later points, I came to appreciate them, but during the playing of 4.0, both made for pretty underwhelming villains, by comparison.
But enough ranting, time for the prettiest zone of Stormblood!
I did kinda like Alisae’s “… … What? …”
Dan mentions that the imperials are basically putties early in the episode, which meant that in that last scene with Yotsuyu I could think of nothing but Rita Repulsa ordering Goldar to “get them!!”
Zenos is a bit hit and miss as a villain for some fans (largely because- well, needless to say this SECOND fight is not the last one), but I love him. There are a lot of sympathetic villains in FFXIV, which is great, but sometimes it's fun to just have that One Guy who is just an asshole in it for his own enjoyment.
33:35 GURRRLLLLL I knew there was something I liked about Alisaie besides just her utility in the mobile game. She's got chutzpah!
51:45 OH MY GOOMY CHRIST ESTINIEN IS HOOOOTTTTTT
8:19 "HUG" should have been an option. Just listen to her. I love Yugiri so much. She chose to fight against the empire instead of staying in her safe, secluded hime. She has a big, brave, and caring heart.
She saved people not her own by bringing them across the sea as refugees, she helped us in Eorzea, she's willing to risk it all not just to prevent the vague chance the Garleans might target her home but because it's right. Yugiri is worthy to be not just a scion but a Warrior of Light.
Yugiri made StB my favorite story so far and I miss seeing her.
Regarding Stormblood's work around the characterization of the Empire – good point. I hadn't caught onto this in my playthrough. Thank you for sharing your view!! <3
Lyse wonders why Hien chose rebellion when Fordola chose joining the enemy. Despite all three being similar ages.
Well. The reason is quite simple: They come from different standings.
Hien was the crown prince at the time of the rebellion. He not only had his father, Gosetsu, Yugiri and all of their retainers to count upon, but his entire people as well. They failed, leading to him secluding himself away until his people demonstrate their will to rise anew. The principle behind it, however, stays true. He is their Leader. And will do as his people wills and supports him and they will follow in the knowledge that he will do his best to fulfill it.
Fordola and her Crania Lupi do not get any background like this. Not in general information nor in personal. They are just the Skulls who submitted to the Empire and exact cruelty on their fellow landsmen and -women. What choice do former nobodies without Past like them have? Their nation rose in rebellion only to be forced into submission directly after. The former even being, in part, an orchestration of the later oppressor. With even the Resistance not looking like a viable option until recently.
This narrative difference tells us a lot. On one side we have a leader who enjoys the support of his people, on the other we have nobodies with likely little other choice who only know cruelty.
And Lyse? Well. She doesn't know much else. Her sister was in the Resistance and I think her father was mentioned to have been as well. So while she didn't see herself in a position to fight for her people's liberation until the Griffin did what he did, her conviction was never in question.
Estinien!