FF14 after 15 Years of WoW – WoW Player Tries FFXIV Stormblood
I’d love to know your thoughts on Stormblood as a whole:
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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 FF14 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 Stormblood and anything before. This contains heavy spoilers for the ending of stormblood and the main characters and events including the omega raid series.
I’d love to know how you feel about Stormblood, overall I’d say it had some incredible moments and some real highs, but the majority of the expansion was very dry and tedious. 4.4 onwards has totally grabbed and I’m SOOO Excited for Shadowbringers!!
This will probably be the last part in this series, I’ll release various videos such as a stormblood ending reaction, shadowbringers trailer reaction and then start the shadowbringers series from episode 1!
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
2:00 The Drowned City Of Skalla
3.42 Thoughts on 4.1 and 4.2
7:35 Castrum Fluiminis WOW
11:25 Omega Best Raid
16:10 I AM ALPHI
17:50 The Burn
21:23 Thoughts on 4.4 and 4.5
25:20 The Ghimlyt Dark
27:55 Ending and ShB Hype
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I don't know how you can hang around all the lalas. Everytime I see those potatoes all I can think of is how much I wish I could fry them.
You can thank Natsuko Ishikawa for the second part of stormblood being the better part. She wrote Shadowbringer, the doman part of the stormblood expansion, the binding coil of bahamut, the crystal tower, the rogue quests, omega quests, dark knight quest. She really focus on character development!
the two great things about Varis's rant:
1) a real "worst person you know has a good point" moment as he calls out the eorzean leaders for being hypocrites for their imperialist treatment of beast men
2) he's SO SURE that he's outsmarted the ascians but he's totally playing into their hands, every part of his scheme that he thinks undermines them is exactly what they want him to do, both for reasons that are already clear when he gives his speech, and for reasons yet to be revealed. seriously, one of the less obvious throughlines for you to keep an eye out for as you play 5.0 is that the more you actually finally learn about the cosmology and the ascians, the more of an idiot Varis is revealed to be.
I swear I am a fan of Lala's, they're adorable! But I still can't help but feel like maybe changing into one right before ShB wasn't the best move :c I know that's just me though, I take a while to get use to any "new actor" for any established role xD
First, I love Stormblood because I love when stories have these types of arcs which are setting up for future events. I DO think it was executed poorly but I just can't agree with certain people (not you) who believe that Stormblood was a complete waste of time and didn't progress the story at all. It IS all setting up for future events in Shadowbringers and beyond. I am a firm believer that Heavensward completely ruined people's expectations by having an almost entirely self-contained plot and then having Stormblood immediately after it which is almost entirely a setup expansion. Again, Stormblood did execute things very poorly but at the same time too many people expected another Heavensward.
I'm doing the whole MSQ on a second character (it's a long story – I won't bore you with it). Right now I'm doing the level 70 Stormblood content and now that I know what's ahead, it feels this time around like ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood are just the parts you have to go through to get to Shadowbringers. I love all of them but Shadowbringers takes the game to another level. I just hope Endwalker can keep it up. Looking forward to your reactions.
On a different note from my other comment… the real tragedy of Stormblood is that they ended up making a dancer weapon for the Shinryu Minstrel's Ballad fight but not one for Tsukuyomi's… not having Tsukuyomi's fans as a dancer weapon will always be the biggest missed opportunity in all of ff14
Yes The Burn is an enormoud empty area that shows what happens to the land when their aether is consumed by Primal summoning
You need to do savage mode too for omega 😀 a lot of the savage fights have completely new mechanics and cutscenes!
I always tell people Stormblood is a LOT of the politics involved in the war. But yeah you’re gonna absolutely love Shadowbringers, have fun 😁!!
Although my experience with Stormblood wasn't quite as negative as you, I definitely do think that it's villains were easily its weakest aspect… which is also part of the reason i'm a little worried about Endwalker, as without giving much away, does seem to 'technically' involve three of the most divisive antagonists in the game. Hopefully Ishikawa will have some ideas on that front.
Also, good luck trying to burn through Eureka in a day or two. I'm pretty sure the zone has been granted quality of life additions for newer players, but it was always designed as slow burn content to be consumed in small chunks. I'm not sure how torturous trying to brute force grinding through it will be. The Baldesion Arsenal is a great addition if you can make it through the end though.
I'm wondering if you'll be able to finish the game before endwalker releases 👀
Regarding Shadowhunter's true identity:
I did, actually, know who he was initially. This wasn't due to me alone, however. The lore-hound community/theory crafters/etc had been predicting Gaius being alive literally since ARR ended because we kept getting things heavily related to him cropping up in side content (there's a whole quest line in the first area of Stormblood about Black Rose). Kinda like they were saying "Hey, remember this character. He's still relevant."
So when he showed up it didn't take me long to put together who he was because he was kept in the back of my head as a possibility for so long.
The stuff with the Sultana is a lot better if you started in Ul'dah I feel. There's more recognition of your character which is nice.
Get ready for a hell of a ride in Shadow Bringers. Best MSQ, end game content, SOUNDTRACK!!!
This is some cool Easter egg for you: In the City of Skalla, if you do it as a miqo'te with the status "well feed", in the second boss , you can spot a fat cat hidden inside it. By the way, did you do the Four Lords trials and the Ivalician Alliance Raids? Those are awesome content as well!
asahi hated beyond death
My advice is…learn to embrace the trough. If the plot was made up of nothing but massive story moments, it would rapidly become stale from oversaturation of radness. Peaks of incredible coolness are awesome, but there have to be moments where you breathe, slow down, take stock of what's happening around you, and get to know characters in these more intimate moments. These moments forge foundations that future story beats are built on, after all!
Also! Any chance of us getting a reaction video to the Shadowbringers trailer? 😀
Glad you enjoyed the last few bits of SB… though I still couldn't disagree more with you about the rest 😜 (aside from Zenos… he sucks).
You're going to love everything about ShB. Everything.
Asahi is a very funny guy!
If this kept you on the edge of your seat, ShB will make you fall off.
Omega raids are great because they're what finally gave us our modern pattern for normal raids. Just 12 boss fights, bam, with every fourth having a crazy second phase in savage. It's perfect and tight and gives us some great stuff. Alexander is fantastic but you can see the rust. Omega streamlined it.
While I don't know how I feel about the Yotsuyu stuff still, I think Gosetsu gets the most tragedy out out it. His family dies in the war and in a purposeful death he finds closure. But he has really strong faith and believes that both of them being spared meant something. She might have been awful but the second chance can't just be a coincidence. So her turning and dying is a big crisis of faith for him.
I'm glad you found that SB ended on a high point. I'm curious your thoughts on some of the job quests in Stormblood since some of them are really quite good especially scholar. Also speaking of Doma castle a certain person from one of the job quests appears in the background to the lead up to it. Though I'm not sure if you've got the job yet even though I know you have the class
Shadowbringers is going to blow your socks right the hell off, Marty. Strap in and hydrate. You'll need it.
I like Alphinaud too. He was kind of a pompous dick at the start, but really people exaggerate. The boy is smart but he's flawed and feels like a real person.
Been enjoying your whole experience, and I'm so excited to see you delve into Shadowbringers finally! Whether I catch it live or in your summary. Thank you for your persistence in getting through Stormblood!
I was personally really starting to rurn into a jaded old timer back in 4.1 and 4.2. I think it was 4.4 patch that really reeled me back in, much like you say you got more and more interested in the build-up towards Shadowbringers. And then when that expansion was finally released, oh man. It's hard to put in words what a change in atmosphere and overall quality there is right from the start. After the story you've followed so far Shadowbringers is like a breath of fresh air and it pummels you with every trick there is to evoke intrigue and feeling towards the story and the game's world just blossoms into life like you couldn't imagine.
But take your time and wrap up everything you feel like wrapping up in Stormblood. We'll be waiting patiently for your ShB series… With bated breath 😡
I'm so excited to see your journey through Shadowbringers! It has been so much fun reliving this story with the knowledge of where it's going that I didn't have when I played through it now allowing me to see and pick up in things I missed the first time around, while also hearing the excitement and wonder if a new player discovering it all for the first time like an echo of how I felt going through this story last year. It's been really fun watching your videos, thank you for sharing your journey with us. 🥰
Enjoy not wanting to stop at all during shadowbringers. It just makes you want to keep on going no matter how much it’s stabbing you in the heart
Congrats on finishing stormblood! I love shadowbringers so much, so I can’t wait to see your reaction!!!
I just started Stormblood yesterday, hopefully I will enjoy the overall stroy 😅 And I love Alphie! I think he's an awesome character
Did you do the Genbu story line? If not, I highly recommend doing it.
Throw wide the gates!
If you want the full immersive experience in ShB, try and have a tank, melee, caster, and healer all at the same level during progression to take on the role quests.
To make things easier, level ACN so you get both caster and healer both at the same time.
The stories are worth the effort.
Shadowhunter: Yeah, I got completely bamboozled too, I didn't catch anything until they revealed it explicitly.
The Burn: Yes, it's basically ash, but I'm pretty sure it's not due to primals. The allagans rerouted all the aether to Azys Ila, and you turned that off to instead power The Wall to defend Doma.
Stormblood best expansion
Not sure if anyone mentioned this but The Burn soundtrack is a slower rendition of The Praetorium soundtrack which really cemented to a lot of players who Shadowhunter was before his actual reveal 🙂
Lyse features prominently in Stormblood. A number of Western players have mentioned they didn't care or disliked her. That's anecdotal. What did Japanese fans think?
In a massive 2019-2020 poll on the best Final Fantasy games, characters, bosses & summons, and music by Japan's public broadcaster NHK which included almost one half million votes cast by its viewers, Final Fantasy XIV's Emet-Selch was the 6th Best Character of all Final Fantasy games. FFXIV's Haurchefant was 12th, Crystal Exarch was 20th, Estinien was 42nd, Ardbert was 46th, Y'shtola was 51st, Alisaie was 56th, G'raha Tia was 58th, Alphinaud was 60th, Aymeric was 85th, Yotsuyu was 92nd, Zenos was 94th, Fray* was 95th, Hildibrand was 98th, Thancred was 101st, Nanamo was 112nd, Tataru was 116th, Asahi was 126th, Urianger was 133rd, Ysale was 141st, Feo Ul was 151st, Krile was 165th, Ryne was 169th, Papalymo was 173rd, Magnai was 182nd, Minfilia was 190th, Hien was 196th.
Unlike all the other main Scions and former Scions, Lyse doesn't appear anywhere in the Top 200 of the Best Final Fantasy characters in this huge Japanese poll.
*Fray Myste is a character in the FFXIV dark knight job quests, written by Shadowbringers and Endwalker main scenario writer Natsuko Ishikawa.
(The poll was taken before Shadowbringers Patch. 5.3+.)
Some have said a problem with Stormblood was that it was two expansions combined into one, Doman and Ala Mhigo.
Heavensward focuses on Ishgard.
Shadowbringers focuses on…