Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers
Shadowbringers is the third expansion to FFXIV.The story continues after Stormblood and its the best, in my opinion, out of the 3 expansions. You can level from 70 to 80. The two new jobs is Gunbreaker and Dancer, as well as two new races Viera and Hrothgar. This expansion also has a new feature called Trust System where you can get into dungeons with the Scions characters instead of players. Since this expansion just released this will mainly be the expansion 5.0 and I will update this when patches come out.
The expansion 5.0 took me around 40 hours to complete but this included leveling and sidequests. Its been a real fun ride. The story is set on a new world they call the First and focuses on us as a character and our Scions friends. I really like that as none of the previous expansions has really done much with them. I think its possible people like this expansion more since we know these characters already and have grown with them. There are a few new characters as well! One of the main one is the Crystal Exarch. Since I play this game with Japanese voices I will mention some differences. His name in Japanese is 水晶公（suishoukou) which I personally find easier to say than Crystal Exarch. This character is mysterious as he doesn't reveal who or what he is and his hood covers half his face. I thought he be a more serious person but he's actually ended up being really endearing. Another is a new villains like Vauthry, Ran'jit, and we get more of the Ascian Emet Selch. Emet is actually a really great character and both the English and Japanese voice actors were excellent for him. Also if you didn't know, you can right click NPCs and get optional dialogue text. They will only be open when they are there and proceeding the main story quest will move them so you won't be able to go back to talk to them. People may not find them important but I like extra character stuff so I do check it all the time. But for this expansion I highly recommend doing it for Emet! I will say more about the story in the latter part of this post which will be spoilers.
Other than story there is new job class quests that you actually need to do as its requirement to get through the main story. The job quests actually learn more of the previous Warriors of Light, or Warriors of Darkness as we known them. My main job is Bard so I got to do the DPS melee quest line which actually was good and it made me tear up.
The Trust System only applies to the dungeons in this expansion and only the main story dungeons. The optional dungeons don't have trust system. This has a story reason as the NPCs says they will come with you and not say to go do the dungeon with other people. So I feel this may not be available for previous dungeons. Since dungeons gives me some anxiety I really like this system. But you do go through the dungeons slower since the damage isn't as good as real players. I'm fine with that as I like to take my time, and don't like how players just keep going. When you die it treats it as a wipe so you don't get revived. Also the NPCs do talk a bit, but its nothing special but there are a few that some characters may say or do something interesting.
In Stormblood the dungeons were quite difficult and I commented on how I feared what the dungeons in this expansion will be like. Thankfully they weren't that difficult! I know players don't really want that, but to me it was great as I was going in blind with the Trust System. Perhaps they made it easier for the Trust System. The dungeons are pretty too and one is pretty the best one in the game so far. There are some interesting duties as well, and one has simple puzzles to do which I liked cause it was different.
Overall I really like and enjoyed this expansion and really look forward to the patches! I don't think the next expansion would be able to top this, but who knows! The music is also really good, but I do feel they reuse some songs a bit too much. Still I really enjoyed listening to them. I preordered and had early access. Since I never played this game on release day time it was fun for me to see so many people playing along side you! Its fun doing fates in a big group of people as I was use to nobody doing them or I'd be doing them by myself.
SPOILER SECTION! Don't read further if you haven't finished the main story!
I'm not the biggest fan of SE's translation, and there were a number of times during voiced cutscenes that I thought it was better in Japanese. But overall I do find the differences understandable for example the importance of phrases like "okaeri/tadaima." None of these differences changes the story in anyway just to clarify. Another difference I remember was a joke where Alphinaud says in Japanese "reminds me of Alisaie when we were kids" but in English he says "reminds me of my childhood" which I feel doesn't make the joke as obvious. Another one I remember is Thandcred talking about Minfilia and saying "ore ha omae no onii-san" which is "I'm your big brother" but this was omitted. The English says that he's proud to be part of her life instead. Its quite different since it didn't seem as impactful, but I can sort of understand why the translations would omit it. It could confuse people thinking they are related or maybe find this kind of family level relationship weird for westerners.
I'm glad Thancred got some screentime since he hardly did anything in the previous expansions. I'm also glad he went back to his ARR look as I wasn't really feeling the longer hair and weird eye patch situation. His story is heavily Minfilia focused which is understandable. Though since this is her end I do kinda wish the other scions where part of it. I was a bit worried during that cutscene where it seemed like Thancred died, but afterwards I reasoned that it wouldn't make sense because of the trust system and he's the only tank class. I wasn't sure about Ryne as a character at first, but she is sweet and with Thancred not being the nicest person to her did make me like her. Also this expansion made me like Alisaie more because her lines are great and her Japanese voice actress delivered really well.
Emet-Selch was a really great character. He turned out not what I was expecting and I actually wanted him to continue being around. I do like that we actually got more information about Ascians and it was rather interesting. I think what really jaw dropped players is the reveal of Amaurot city. I wasn't expecting a modern like city at all! Its really beautiful too. The last dungeon was terrifying but a lot of people find it really amazing and it is! The last part of it is really stunning to look at but all the destruction going on was what I find terrifying.
From the trailers, I actually thought we were going to get some dark powers, but we didn't. So that was a bit disappointing but the story made up for it. And really that assumption was my bad because I didn't actually know about the Dark Knight job so I had no idea it was a dark power based job. So now I do see that each expansion does have feature a job as its poster boy. Shadowbringers is Dark Knight, Heavensward is Dragoon, and Stormblood has both Samurai and Monk. I had no clue that the Crystal Exarch would be G'raha Tia! So when the reveal happened I was really surprised. I'm glad that I did the raid quests for Crystal Tower or it wouldn't have been as impactful. I liked that he got more into us over time that it rivals Aymeric. Like I'm hoping we get a date scene with him as well in future patches.
Since I finished ARR and the previous expansion packs a few months ago, I'm not sure how things were like after finishing story stuff. After I finished this expansion pack I was glad I could still find and talk to a few of the main NPCs as I don't think I could do that before as I don't remember ever seeing them around. But not all of them are around at least I haven't found them.
0 comments: