This FFXIV expansion is WAY underrated…



Stormblood was *chef’s kiss* and this doesn’t even include the patch content yet… Our editor KILLED IT on this video! Show some love with a like and a comment letting us know which edit was your favorite!

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49 thoughts on “This FFXIV expansion is WAY underrated…”

  1. i love SB a lot, Shinryu fight is one of the best trial, but Lyse? i dont feel like liking her more than like… top 20? yeah that would be the best i can push her to my fav chara. And her journey of taking back Ala Mhigo? not one bit, maybe the worst

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  2. So there's two reasons I don't like StB as much and it's entirely the Doma side. I love the Ala Mhigo side a lot, and I actually like Lyse's arc a lot. But it's really weird to me how the game has had this anti-monarchism thread running since post-ARR and then suddenly jumps into this absolutely bizarre "… and you must help the One True King reclaim his Rightful Throne." The Azim Steppe, as much as I loved its spectacle and the lore of the Xaela themselves is kind of… gross? And gross in a way that the game leaves unremarked upon. It's very… awkward to have the Xaela (except the Mol) be entirely unwilling to help Hien so he goes "ah, yes, I know what to do. I'll abuse this religious-cultural ritual of the people who raised me since I was a child to vassalize them and force them to help me reclaim my throne!" It's a really uncomfortable misstep in the face of the themes of the rest of the expansion and FFXIV in general that could have been fixed in quite a large number of very easy ways (just have the other tribes say "we'll help you gladly if you can prove yourself in the Naadam, but there's no way you can").

    On top of that it has some… weirdly uncomfortable Japanese Imperialism I'm pretty sure was wholly unintentional but is still not great. There are like… three Japans in StB. There's Hingashi and Sui-no-Sato which are both kind of variations on chained-country era Japan, and Doma which is kind of a hybrid of China and Japan (Chinese aesthetics, but largely culturally Japanese). This is… uncomfortable when Japan forcibly tried to erase the cultures of China, but especially Korea in the leadup to WWII, to the point they forced them to change their names to Japanese ones and give up their religions, languages, and cultures, and "become Japanese" in a way. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if Japan hadn't completely written it out of their history books to the point you can set your watch by Korea raising a controversy about Japanese textbooks still not teaching the things they did to Korea and eastern China while they were under occupation. In addition to similar issues both current and historical with the Ainu and Okinawans.

    I've also read commentary from Korean players that the stuff that the Domans go through from the Garleans feels uncomfortably inspired (even if it's unintentional) by some of the things that the Japanese occupiers did to the Koreans during said occupation. For instance, encouraging them to turn against each other to curry favor. I've seen a number of Korean players feel… uncomfortable that at best it's taking real world things that Japan inflicted on others and then treating them as an oppression of largely culturally Japanese people, essentially erasing Japan's own culpability in the matter for use as a cheap trope.

    I think the thing that makes it worse is that FFXIV is usually pretty acutely aware of the political issues it's raising, such as the deep awareness they have with the notion of "beast tribes" and how they continually try to grapple with it between major story sections. But in this case there's just… no acknowledgement of any of it. In fact they managed to have a bit of a foot-in-mouth moment during Stormblood (albeit just a month or two before Shadowbringers released) in a meta sense as well by releasing some outfits in the Chinese shop that evoked occupation-era uniforms that caused a bit of a stink among Korean players. (I'd link but youtube automods links).

    On top of that I also just think splitting the game into Doma+Ala Mhigo just kind of makes the pacing a bit of a mess in general, and I have a bunch of minor issues like my WOL being forced into enthusiastically agreeing with Yugiri going "hey yeah, let's try to go gank Zenos" early on in Doma that really aren't present in the other expansions. (Also not super fond of focusing so hard of the sexual slavery in Yotsuyu's backstory but that one's more personal hangups). Overall it's not like it even affects my opinion of FFXIV a lot, and I loved a lot of the trials and dungeons, and most of the hype sections are really hype (including the Naadam which I spent an entire paragraph complaining about), I loved most of Ala Mhigo, I like Fordola, I like Gosetsu. It's just thematically it's a bit of a mess and most of that mess is a really uncomfortable dissonance between both real world and in-game themes in the Doman half and the broad themes of "casting off imperialism and impression" the game itself is trying to project.

    It sucks because on paper I should be really into a Ninja-and-Samurai Japanese and East Asian-driven high fantasy revolution narrative, but in practice it just kind of… dropped the ball in a lot of ways in my eyes.

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  3. Please tell us you completed "My Feisty Little Chocobo" (Lv 30) quest for your choco companion. I've been seeing so many veterans astonished that they hadn't done it that I feel sorry for their chocobos.

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  4. It's actually the opposite, people give this expansion far too much credit. Its riddled with holes and contrivances, many of the factions act like morons so the plot can happen. Reasons for doing things are adhoc retconned later in the story to fit what is happening.

    Edit: I forgot the insane plot armour that characters get in this expansion as well.

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  5. Zenos has sent you a friend request.
    Zenos eagerly awaits your reply.
    Zenos has destroyed the "No" button.
    What will you do now, hero? Wait…. for there is only one answer… it is inevitable.

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  6. I’ve just never understood the hate boner ppl have for Lyse. She’s like a real person…with flaws…and quirks…and doesn’t always know the right things to say or do. A well written character easily up there with Alisaie and G’raha. Oh, she’s “useless”? She’s not a bland, emotionally distant, smart mommy like Y’shtola who steps on you and goes “ara ara”? Since when do character have to have significant feats (which she does anyway) to be interesting or likable? She’s more “useful” than Aymeric but people love him.

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  7. The problem with Storm Blood it's that its first stretch ends with such an amazing climax, arguably the best first act of all the expansions, for the first time the WoL is put against the wall, the same WoL that fought Nidhogg and primals with barely breaking a sweat. But then the plot just takes a huge dip, most of Doma is a wild goose chase, basicaly nothing happens until the very end, and even though it goes with a bang by that time most people already wrote it off as worse than Heavensward. And the patch cicle had the same problem that ARR had, it felt aimless until the last few missions.

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  8. >Thalassophobia
    Boy, I'm sure he loved jumping into the Loch! God being in there terrified me, it's so much darker and seemingly bottomless initially than other underwater spots.

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  9. First, I think Stormblood is a good expansion. It has some flow issues shortly after Doma returns to Ala Mhigo. But it's generally viewed negative for the 4.0 experience, rather than the 4.x to 4.55. The raiding series of the expansion is honestly the best of all. I also think that Lyse's narrative arc is important for the sake of pardoning Fordola, because of her father's ideals.

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  10. Spoilers ahead if you haven't finished Stormblood patch 4.3.

    If you look at Metacritic scores, Stormblood isn't far behind Heavensward at all. The weird vocal minority in this community is too strong sometimes. Also, expansions until now have been comprised of X.0 – X.3, not just X.0, and SB's post-launch patches were some of the best. I personally liked the buildup to Nidhogg more for the characters involved and that one powerful moment we all remember, but Tsukuyomi was fucking incredible.

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  11. While Heavensward and Shadowbringers, and now Endwalker were more enjoyable for me that still does not detract from how much I loved Stormblood too. Lyse quickly became my favourite Scion (and favourite waifu, I cannot lie)… was sad that she left the Scions to lead Ala Mhigo… but that was the logical end of her story after all… finally finishing what her father and her sister had started.

    Honourable mention must also go to that one time in the Azim Steppes when Y'shtola burned 'Little Sun' so savagely. After watching that I almost laughed myself to death. Then I had to look that up and watch it again. And I almost laughed myself to death again. Y'shtola's words alone were enough… but with Sadu's teasing afterwards… I've not laughed so hard in a VERY long time.

    Also, this was the expansion that introduced the Samurai job… which has been my favourite DPS job thus far. Still not as fun for me as tanking as a Gunbreaker, but it definitely pays to broaden one's horizons. And this is the perfect game for broadening horizons.

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  12. totally missed that the significance of the anthem at the end. forgot that at the start of SB it was played but the bastardized version of garlemald. meaning the ala mighans not only got their country back but also their anthem along with their identity.

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