A deeper look at the side-plot of Shadowbringers 5.0.
0:00 – The B Plot
3:19 – Meanwhile…
10:46 – Estinien
18:33 – Varis and Eledibus
25:10 – Zenos
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solo duty enjoyers wya
50/50
When I first finished 5.0, my immediate reaction to those final lines of Zenos was “omg Zenos want the WoL to participate in Primal vore with him”.
Zenos enjoyer, checking in!
Why is Kyle convinced Zenos and Elidibus fought one another? Zenos pretty clearly said they didn't fight and Elidibus just ran without (presumably) much fuss. This is like the third time I can remember Kyle saying this.
Another week another episode of me holding myself back and giving you guys a 🙂
Did you guys forget that his dad died and that was why there was an internal war in Garlemald for the throne?
Varis dad died very young and it upset Emet heavily is more or less all we know about him.
you're already well past where people develop all the Zenos hate. If you got through Stormblood and the reveal that he has returned and you're not upset about it, then you're good to go for the next parts
11:39 "Two gruff. Rough. And tumbling… together"
Oh. My.
stormblood never ends…
Fordola's story does get told elsewhere in game.
I was successfully comment-baited: "that Baldesion woman" refers to Krile, not Tataru. But I'm sure they're both working hard together while the Scions are indisposed, so it's academic
Personally I really hate the Zenos hate bc I enjoy schemes so so much BUT Zenos is our “friend” who wants to fight us again so we can give it our all and I enjoyed that a LOT.
Even tiny petty villains we could crush in an instant have their schemes but Zenos? He just wants a duel. And honestly? So did I.
Edit: this was my take on Zenos from the start. I like him a lot as a villain if it’s not obvious.
I think it's funny how many of Garrett's complaints in this video are going to be addressed on the patch content onwards.
For discussion, some things that I'd like to point out:
1) For the meanwhile, I didn't assume that all of the meanwhiles all happened in one meeting
2) Side stories are not like WoW because you can understand the msq without it and also because a lot of it is referenced in side quests that you skip (which is fine because it's mostly for additional lore which is unnecessary to appreciate the msq). Not to mention that these side stories are free. But yeah like how you noted that Estinien mentions how he gets involved in black rose, the other examples you mention are also referenced in game. But it feels kinda bad when you criticize this when the content is there but it's second playthrough level for you
3) it's interesting that you always comment on wanting more combat but don't like the solo duties which incorporates more combat
4) I would separate criticism based on what the game hypes up vs your stream viewers. I would argue that the game put the appropriate amount of emphasis on black rose – enough to draw tension and explain why zenos would be motivated to kill the emperor now considering how apathetic he is normally. Additionally the game takes great pains to explain why black rose was never used in mass deployment with Gaius and Estinien. But yeah that's one of the drawbacks of doing your playthrough with the public
5) elidibus I'll leave alone for now because spoilers 😅
6) the inconsistency of whether things are voice acted I just chalk up to production cycle and budget
7) I would echo others in saying I think zenos is widely loved although more divisive than other characters
If you want to know about the flowers go back to Count Edmont's house and pick up the sidequest offered by the servant in the back of the room. It's the aftermath quest for Heavensward and should probably have been a blue quest but it's not. The flowers, by the way, were NOT for the dragons.
When Zenos says "your secrets or your flesh," he's referring to what he eavesdropped Elidibus saying to Varis immediately prior.
When he says "I heard the Ascian speak of Zodiark and Hydaelyn. Even the will of this star is but a construct of our own making," he's referencing explicitly the secrets that he coerced Elidibus to relate, apparently the same ones that Emet-Selch revealed to us.
Can't say for sure, but maybe folks dislike Zenos cuz he doesn't leave a great first impression. He seems one-note, especially compared to the likes of Illberd, Nidstinien and Thordan. I know that I didn't like Zenos initially because I felt the forced loss to him in Rhalgar's Reach felt contrived. He couldn't even land a hit on me. I get what they were going for, and it would have been an interesting mirroring that Zenos is now looking for a rematch to contrast with us going for him during Stormblood, but the rivalry just didn't feel earned because it felt so forced…
Maybe if they had made that solo duty against him ramp up in difficulty infinitely until you, the player, eventually lose he would have grabbed me better, rather than 'once he's at 80% hp he auto-wins.' But, Zenos won me over in the end by his excellent, unhinged speech and the 70 trial at the end of 4.0 MSQ. Overpowering Elidibus just further sells him at the end to me, too.
You're totally right how he's an excellent foil to the often more nuanced characters, but he has to hit for that to work and for people to want him around. I think he missed for a considerable chunk of the players and, first impressions being hard to change, most players aren't going to go back and examine the story again. So, they probably have dwelt on the characters far less than both of you have between your discussions and videos.
With the voice acting "issues", there's probably some budget reasons but a lot likely are scenes that are not ready. We know that details are still worked on right up until release. Even some of the key story points are not final until very late into development long after the date has been announced.
As much as we'd all really love to have everything acted out, it probably does just come down to schedules and readiness. If something isn't ready when the voice schedule is, it may end up cut altogether.
Makes you wonder how many scenes are mostly voiced but one incomplete part at the time of voicing means the whole scene is not voiced…
well, about the time flow.
「A space of a single hour in your home world, an entire year might pass in the first,and the reverse could also be true.」 when we came to the first, Exarch did said it to us
I'm super glad you are specifically taking a look at the 'meanwhiles', but I'm also of the opinion that you made this video too soon :p.
During SB I thought Zenos was a very flat and one-note villan. and that our ability to beat him and then him fused with shinryu at ala'mhigo to not be done right on a power scaling thing. we go from barely being able to touch him to perhaps we're making him work for it to easy win. while my damage and hp growth didnt feel like it matched what we were being shown visually and there wasnt anything narratively about us getting stronger. admittedly part of that may have been that i started with full augmented HW tome gear and maxxed out Relic that i only had to swap out at about 66-67 and even then it did not feel like i was getting stronger that much. Unlike with Ranjit where, for me, it always felt like we were strong enough to beat him, it was just his combat style being new to us and our objective to get minfillia and leave that lets him almost win the first time.
Estinien's story is in the dragoon job quests. I don't find him revenge driven, but more as trying to prevent disaster
Can't wait for yall to continue lol
The first 5 minutes of this video had me just sitting here mashing the 😊😊😊😊😊 emoji, like I'll never say anything about what's to come but I'm always excited thinking about the future lol
Tbh I ship Arenvald and Fordola tho. They're a cute af couple
I find it very interesting that you guys said that we prevented the 8th calamity by time traveling, because I didn't see it that way during my playthrough. Yes, time traveling was part of the method we used to prevent the calamity but I placed importance on the parallel of "overwhelming light" in the First and "black rose" of the source.
If you remember both Exarch's "powerpoint presentation" about the source + 13 shards and Urianger's explanation of light and darkness: Calamity comes to the source when one of the shards are experiencing an abundance of an element and the effects of the shard's circumstance bleeds into the Source. For example, if a shard were to be overwhelmed by water aspected ether, the shard would eventually be destroyed and absorbed back into the Source, and creating a flood of water on the Source with its joining. Now using that knowledge to speak about the relationship between the First and the Source: Urianger said darkness represents activity and Light represents stasis, and the first was literally being overwhelmed by too much Light. At the same time, Black Rose was being developed and was getting closer to being released across the Source, and we heard from the explanation of how Black Rose works is that it basically halts the bodily functions of the victims, or in another word, kills them by putting them into stasis.
I kind of appreciated this parallel of the two world's impending doom by similar effect, stasis. And by saving the First from being eaten up by Light, we also saved the light aspected ether from bleeding into the Source, or by some weird parallel, by Black Rose. Of course, we couldn't have done any of this without time traveling being a thing to begin with, so I guess there's that. 🙂
Sorry if this made no sense. I thought it interesting how our experiences differed ever so slightly!
It's curious to me that you guys see a lot of Zenos hate. I love Zenos and the majority of people I surround myself with also love Zenos as a character and a villain. It'll be interesting to see where y'alls feelings lie as it goes along.
Not sure where you got the notion that there's a lot of Zenos hate as I'm sure the majority of the playerbase likes him. There are valid reasons to not like how his character is written though (me also being in that camp) but that's a discussion for EW!
We need an Estinien/Gaius good cop bad cop spinoff of them just sleuthing around in the cities of Garlemald.
I thought the flowers were for Ysayle.
I dunno if anyone's talked about it in the comments yet, but that black and white lighting effect that plays over characters that you saw with Zenos and Varis- the one that also played over us against Thordan and on Raubahn in the bloody banquet -at least I think it's more a symbolic visual effect that's supposed to represent the idea that whoever is witnessing it is viewing basically the intent of pure wrath and murder.
The first time we saw it was with Raubahn, when he was filled with rage and it was immediately followed up with a death. Then the next time was with the pope viewing us, all he saw was some being of monstrous power with the ability to just end his life like it was nothing. It was then brought back shortly after when Thordan's followers took hostages in the vault and that one priest shoved the girl of the rooftop. She didn't end up dying, but his intent and ability to do so were fully there. I think Varis's lighting wasn't quite the same personally and think that one was just dramatic effect, but that's a bit beside the point.
The long short of it is, I think that lighting is meant to symbolize a moment of understanding and realization that the viewer has lost all power and are at the complete mercy of whoever is standing in the dark, that whoever is shone is such dramatic lighting has the power to bring someone to their death and will do so. I honestly think it's almost a missed opportunity that Vauthry didn't have a moment where he looked upon the Warrior of Light in a way almost identical to Thordan, with how perfectly they parallel one another.
The spikes on characters are mostly a result of Yoshitaka Amano's artwork. He was the primary concept artist for Final Fantasy for decades, and had a very identifiable visual style of watercolor art. So characters with lots of very colorful clothing, lots of swishy bits and sharp points and little visual flourishes that you could do with a single brush stroke, are all a result of the team intentionally imitating Amano's style, since it's become defacto the visual language of FF.
In order to avoid all spoilers, I will say only this:
Get back to the MSQ as soon as you can. All your theories and questions are about to be answered really, really soon.
All I have to say about this video … 😀
I think the side stories talk more about Varis father
I'm super impressed by their insight, and now find myself wishing some of it was Canon. 😵💫
The Estinien bouquet doesn't get addressed only in the short story. There is a yellow quest inside Fortemps Manor called "Tales from the Dragonsong War" that is a sort of epilogue/capstone quest for Heavensward that has you go on a pilgrimage through all of the Heavensward zones, talk to the people you've met along the way and reflect on what happened in that expansion. At one point you get to Azys Lla and see the bouquet placed there, with a sweet blurb attached to it.
The big difference between the WoW side stories and the FFXIV side stories is that the FFXIV writing team treats the in-game story as needing to stand on its own feet, so anything in the side stories that becomes important later gets re-introduced.
Ha. At my point in the game I was extra tired of Zenos. Really? He is going to be the bad guy AGAIN for the next expansion?? Soo tired of the storm blood. Don’t make him the bad guy please! (My thoughts at that time only).
My friends, don’t worry about trying to predict endwalker when you aren’t done with shadow bringers patch content. I think I can say this much without it being considered a spoiler. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.
Fordola teaming at this point is also in SMN quests
"i can see whatever happens in endwalker…" 😊 i cant wait 😇
Did they delete the solo duty where you play as Eistenien in these?
Just imagen making an expansion then instead of being done with it expand and build on its areas in some way to help fill out other parts of the story. Looking at you Stormblood. …Welp looks like its time to hit that trail. Enjoy the ride.
Solo Duties: Quite bad in ARR and HW, and they start to step up massively in SB onward. To where SB's solo duties are not just putting you into other characters, but an all-around stepping-up of what solo content can be mechanically, to where you're often playing the solo equivalent of a dungeon/trial boss. In those cases, I really appreciate them narratively and in gameplay – it makes the WoL feel bigger, more important, makes it feel more like your character is living up to the legend. The guest character ones tend to be less exciting in combat, but it's still cool to see these abilities that our friends have, and they're usually excellent setpieces regardless.
Solo duties that are tutorials for something, I appreciate why they're necessary, but honestly most of those tend to be really underwhelming by the nature of what tutorials are like.
The flowers from Estinian are actually completely in the game, you guys just didn't do the followup quest to revisit the various plot threads of Heavensward yet. It's in Fortemps Manor and is called "The Paths We Walk." Highly recommended.