Final Fantasy XIV: Under the Moonlight
released on May 21, 2018
An update for Final Fantasy XIV Online
Patch 4.3 brings a myriad of additions and refinements to the realm, including the second installment of the Return to Ivalice saga, cross-world linkshells, and more!
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This review contains spoilers
final boss fight was great thematically, other things not so, especially when 4.0 showed yotsuyu as an irredeemable piece of shit fascist except tthat one cutscene.
now she becomes a child and loses her memories, then proceeds to get them back due to the machinations of that insufferable little fucktoy, finally becomes an interesting character then dies.
i hated how they showed her while killing her parents too, they deserved far worse tbh
the whole expansion would be better if yotsuyu was like this from the beginning
now she becomes a child and loses her memories, then proceeds to get them back due to the machinations of that insufferable little fucktoy, finally becomes an interesting character then dies.
i hated how they showed her while killing her parents too, they deserved far worse tbh
the whole expansion would be better if yotsuyu was like this from the beginning
That was so uniquely bad that I am compelled to write my first review on this site.
As I see it right now, the largest issue with Final Fantasy XIV Online's narrative is the Warrior of Light. For a position that is meant to allow the player to roleplay; as if they were there in Eorzea themselves, the role allows shockingly little agency. The player character would be no worse served by the role of a wet noodle for the amount of choice and character that they have.
The treatment of Yotsuyu is abhorrent. From a half-baked villain who was given a "sympathetic" backstory in the eleventh hour, to nothing more than a child who was lost and afraid, Stormblood has given Yotsuyu zero agency, and creates a character that is so bereft of meaning, apart from showing cruelty for the sake of it.
Stormblood was a simple tale of revolution with not much substance to it. And honestly, I was alright with that. Even if I would prefer the expansion that explicitly deals with imperialist geopolitics to do so with more nuance and care, nothing in Stormblood was mishandled enough for me to be seriously offended. But the 4.x patches thus far, especially 4.2 and 4.3, have left me with a seriously bad taste in my mouth, and have left me much more sour on Stormblood as an expansion. I find myself really disliking this story arc for XIV, and can only hope 4.4 and 4.5 serve as a satisfactory prelude to Shadowbringers, whose adherents praise so loudly you'd be forgiven in thinking it was the second coming of Christ.
Also, fuck the fact that the Duty Support isn't available for Trials. It really dampens the tension of a scene when there's a big buildup to a fight, but it takes 15-30 minutes of being in the Duty Finder to actually play that fight.
As I see it right now, the largest issue with Final Fantasy XIV Online's narrative is the Warrior of Light. For a position that is meant to allow the player to roleplay; as if they were there in Eorzea themselves, the role allows shockingly little agency. The player character would be no worse served by the role of a wet noodle for the amount of choice and character that they have.
The treatment of Yotsuyu is abhorrent. From a half-baked villain who was given a "sympathetic" backstory in the eleventh hour, to nothing more than a child who was lost and afraid, Stormblood has given Yotsuyu zero agency, and creates a character that is so bereft of meaning, apart from showing cruelty for the sake of it.
Stormblood was a simple tale of revolution with not much substance to it. And honestly, I was alright with that. Even if I would prefer the expansion that explicitly deals with imperialist geopolitics to do so with more nuance and care, nothing in Stormblood was mishandled enough for me to be seriously offended. But the 4.x patches thus far, especially 4.2 and 4.3, have left me with a seriously bad taste in my mouth, and have left me much more sour on Stormblood as an expansion. I find myself really disliking this story arc for XIV, and can only hope 4.4 and 4.5 serve as a satisfactory prelude to Shadowbringers, whose adherents praise so loudly you'd be forgiven in thinking it was the second coming of Christ.
Also, fuck the fact that the Duty Support isn't available for Trials. It really dampens the tension of a scene when there's a big buildup to a fight, but it takes 15-30 minutes of being in the Duty Finder to actually play that fight.
I'm shocked at how much of a complete, utter flop this entire Stormblood arc has been for me. Great boss, but I'm so glad it's over. The final few minutes of this expansion were more interesting than anything that happened the last 35 hours.
Pretty solid end to this chapter of the story, seeing stormblood finally behind us in a sense feels weird but I feel like this was a solid end with an insanely well done final trial for it. Onwards to Shadowbringers
8/10
8/10
Yotsuyu my beloved
I loooove expressive boss fights. Breaking the battle halfway to introduce how the character's memories of despair are feeding into her pain is extremely cool! It's something I wish this game did way more often and maybe it will in the later content! That being said, the narrative just kind of flops. A trend for the Stormblood patches!
In this patch we learn that Yotsuyu's plot never really held any agency to begin with, but she was merely a pawn to be used in the bureaucracy of the empire (or the ascians? who knows!). This isn't to say that Yotsuyu has no reason to exist narratively. However, that reason is largely for her to bookend the Stormblood arc with a dump of memories aiming for us to feel sympathy for her. And....outside of the cool fight I mentioned I don't think it works that well.
I think it feels pretty cheap to spend an entire expansion fighting against a fascist tyrant, finish their arc, and then as an epilogue bring them back for a couple hours to give you a backstory dump to sympathize with them. If you wrote her trauma to engage with the systems of the world we have engaged in over hundreds of hours then maybe it would be better. If you integrated this with the story even the slightest during the expansion's narrative then maybe it would be more effective. Yet instead they just lazily throw in that her parents sold her to a brothel as a one note trauma-shock for the player to forget the bigger picture. Then she has to die again! There's no actual care to engage with her sale into sex work, there's no care to engage how those systems exist in Eorzea. It's really just a one minute note and I think that's so lame!
Right now I am most interested in how the alliance between Doma and Garlemand may lead to displaying how the tensions of bureacracy restrict actual material action from happening. However, Asahi was the primary character expressing that area and he's gone now so we will see what happens!
Haven't done the guest designed Ivalice dungeon but excited to!
In this patch we learn that Yotsuyu's plot never really held any agency to begin with, but she was merely a pawn to be used in the bureaucracy of the empire (or the ascians? who knows!). This isn't to say that Yotsuyu has no reason to exist narratively. However, that reason is largely for her to bookend the Stormblood arc with a dump of memories aiming for us to feel sympathy for her. And....outside of the cool fight I mentioned I don't think it works that well.
I think it feels pretty cheap to spend an entire expansion fighting against a fascist tyrant, finish their arc, and then as an epilogue bring them back for a couple hours to give you a backstory dump to sympathize with them. If you wrote her trauma to engage with the systems of the world we have engaged in over hundreds of hours then maybe it would be better. If you integrated this with the story even the slightest during the expansion's narrative then maybe it would be more effective. Yet instead they just lazily throw in that her parents sold her to a brothel as a one note trauma-shock for the player to forget the bigger picture. Then she has to die again! There's no actual care to engage with her sale into sex work, there's no care to engage how those systems exist in Eorzea. It's really just a one minute note and I think that's so lame!
Right now I am most interested in how the alliance between Doma and Garlemand may lead to displaying how the tensions of bureacracy restrict actual material action from happening. However, Asahi was the primary character expressing that area and he's gone now so we will see what happens!
Haven't done the guest designed Ivalice dungeon but excited to!