A surprise attack on the wall between Garlean occupied Ala Mhigo and the frontiers of the Eorzian Alliance restarts a long dormant desire for two groups of long oppressed people to fight for their freedom from the evil empire. Aided by the Warrior of Light and the combined forces of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a battle for the freedom of the regions of Doma and Ala Mhigo begins....
I'll keep this brief; Stormblood was a measurably worse experience for me than both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. Most of this, in its main quest, is due to the pacing of multiplayer dungeons and trials; you will often go ten to fifteen quests without hitting one of these pivotal XIV activities, and even though the boss encounters in Stormblood are incredibly dynamic and refreshing, making me wait sometimes several hours between getting to feast on them makes for a rather dry experience.
Stormblood is where Final Fantasy XIV combat starts to really feel like something special; boss encounters in this expansion force you to adapt quickly to changing mechanics, and some encounters take wide swings at variety. You really get the sense that this is the first expansion where they've really got their sea legs underneath them and are willing to embrace the structure of the combat systems they've designed as a strength. This thoughtful planning carries over into the games' many single player duty events which push strategy and mindfulness into the forefront like never before.
I just wish the pacing allowed for...well...more of it.
It also doesn't help that the dense pacing of quests also greatly slows down the pacing of the large - perhaps too large, scale of the storytelling. You not only liberate the region of Ala Mhigo in its entirety, but are introduced to the region of Doma as well, which requires you to travel the seas for the first time outside of a boat. These regions are vast, distinct areas filled with unique cultures, but every major event that would draw you further into the world shifting conflict at large would be met with five more where you just end up talking to three people in a small village or pick up some dung off the ground. In this way it feels the most let down by the MMO game play loop; it feels awkward to be hailed as the savior of the realm many times over and then be tasked with picking flowers and talking to the locals over and over. Content is paced out in such a way that you seldom truly feel like the realm's Warrior of Light. Sometimes you're just essentially an amazon driver. Sheeesh.
Anyways that last trial owns. Give me a dozen more just like that.
I'll keep this brief; Stormblood was a measurably worse experience for me than both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. Most of this, in its main quest, is due to the pacing of multiplayer dungeons and trials; you will often go ten to fifteen quests without hitting one of these pivotal XIV activities, and even though the boss encounters in Stormblood are incredibly dynamic and refreshing, making me wait sometimes several hours between getting to feast on them makes for a rather dry experience.
Stormblood is where Final Fantasy XIV combat starts to really feel like something special; boss encounters in this expansion force you to adapt quickly to changing mechanics, and some encounters take wide swings at variety. You really get the sense that this is the first expansion where they've really got their sea legs underneath them and are willing to embrace the structure of the combat systems they've designed as a strength. This thoughtful planning carries over into the games' many single player duty events which push strategy and mindfulness into the forefront like never before.
I just wish the pacing allowed for...well...more of it.
It also doesn't help that the dense pacing of quests also greatly slows down the pacing of the large - perhaps too large, scale of the storytelling. You not only liberate the region of Ala Mhigo in its entirety, but are introduced to the region of Doma as well, which requires you to travel the seas for the first time outside of a boat. These regions are vast, distinct areas filled with unique cultures, but every major event that would draw you further into the world shifting conflict at large would be met with five more where you just end up talking to three people in a small village or pick up some dung off the ground. In this way it feels the most let down by the MMO game play loop; it feels awkward to be hailed as the savior of the realm many times over and then be tasked with picking flowers and talking to the locals over and over. Content is paced out in such a way that you seldom truly feel like the realm's Warrior of Light. Sometimes you're just essentially an amazon driver. Sheeesh.
Anyways that last trial owns. Give me a dozen more just like that.
This review contains spoilers
"why should we help the disadvantaged without trying to get some amount of profit out of it?" is a genuine thing that is pondered in this expansion with no repercussions and i would have been less mad if stormblood wasn't so boring
at least the dungeons and trials were badass
at least the dungeons and trials were badass
Going from the main content to the patches feels like the writing team just suddenly turned on the "meaningful execution of ambitious themes" switch; though that may be because unlike Heavensward, they kinda passed over a lot of the previous (and weaker) plot points for more Doma shenanigans or just completely new stuff in general. Helps make things more enjoyable, but it doesn't help this expansion's overall disjointedness (or the poor understanding of revolutionary politics). Anyway, all of the Doman characters are really cool, Yotsuyu's arc is pretty compelling, Zenos is fun but a bit underdeveloped and out of place for the story's current themes, and the gameplay is massively improved from past content. Absolutely ecstatic to play Shadowbringers.
Just finished the main story of the expansion. This was another step up from Heavensward though I did not care much for all the travelling. But Zenos was a terrific villain, I really got around to hating him, not as a character, but for who he was, like a good fictional villain should be. Excited to move forward into Shadowbringers soon!
Compared to the excellent story of heavensward, stormblood feels much worse. It is still a good game and the character writing is still great, but the main story is merely okay. I feel like one reason for this is that they had given them two separate liberation storylines and it didn't make sense to handle them separately, but it makes the whole story feel very unfocused. It feels like an amusement park in that you are carted around separate points of interest and come out of it feeling entertained, but you don't get any deeper enjoyment out of it. The early parts of the story are even more of a slog than with HW. The patch content feels much more focused and has some of my favourite character moments in the game, but it feels a bit brief compared to all of 4.0.
The gameplay somehow improves a lot from heavensward. Something about encounter design really clicked, and all the new abilites you get are really fun. The two new jobs are some of my favourites. I enjoyed this expansion much more on a mechanical basis than the previous one, but it does not balance out the generic-but-alright narrative of 4.0 for me.
The gameplay somehow improves a lot from heavensward. Something about encounter design really clicked, and all the new abilites you get are really fun. The two new jobs are some of my favourites. I enjoyed this expansion much more on a mechanical basis than the previous one, but it does not balance out the generic-but-alright narrative of 4.0 for me.
A huge setback from Heavensward, Stormblood really just feels like it’s A Realm Reborn 2.0.
The gameplay felt better, still boring but not to an excruciating level like it was at low level, tho part of it might be because i switched jobs (i played Dragoon for ARR and HS, and switched to Dancer once i reached level 60 and Reaper at 70) and started playing on controller instead of keyboard and mouse which feels way better for me. Some of the solo instances were actually close to being fun (mostly the Zenos fights), but I still have the same issues with the gameplay that I don’t think the game is ever gonna fix: 99% of the time you just do your rotation and while the bosses have mechanics, failing to understand them is almost never an issue because at worse they kill you and only you, and unless your entire team dies and you have to start over, all that means is that you’ll have to wait a few seconds before you can play again and you don’t learn anything, so the entire experience is mind numbing because if i don’t understand what i have to do before it happens there’s no real consequence, and since i don’t plan to replay dungeons/trials i’ve already done i basically learn nothing.
Story (and pacing) wise, the expansion drops in quality a lot compared to Heavensward. Stormblood is all about liberating an occupied country from the grasp of the empire, but there’s a twist: you do that twice! And that’s one of the biggest issue with Stormblood: not only is the prelude of the story pretty generic, but you quickly realize the expansion is gonna make you go through very similar events twice. Sure, Ala Mhigo and Doma are different places with different cultures, but you still end up doing the same thing twice. You go to a new region, help people by doing fetch quests, they start trusting you, you confront the empire and win, the place is liberated, rinse and repeat. There’s no big plot twist or anything too, you just liberate some cities and like i don’t think every story needs a plot twist to work but when the prelude of the entire expansion ends up really being what the entire story is about i’d at least expect to have something on the side to motivate me like some really really good characters you’d meet to really make you go “wow those are my friends i need to save them” and… Stormblood also fails on that front. Sure, I really like Gosetsu and Hien for example, but it’s just because they’re archetypes of characters i really like, because otherwise for most of the expansion, they’re kinda not really developed in my opinion. They have their moments every now and then (and the 4.3 storyline for Gosetsu was really good but more on that later) but I feel like they’re pretty one dimensional and not developed enough, I think the mainHeavensward cast (Ysayle, Aymeric and Estinien) was way better than the main Stormblood characters. On top of that, a big part of the story focuses around Lyse and I really think she might be the worst character of the entire game, not because she sucks but because of how bland and boring she is. I can’t think of a single thing she did during the story or any like big quality she has, she’s just there and kinda just randomly becomes a leader despite having no leadership quality, and when you compare her “development” to Alphinaud in Heavensward, it’s really night and day. And her development sucks: she doesn’t seem like she matured or anything near the end, and she only becomes a leader because… The previous leader decided to make her the new leader instead of choosing someone who’d fit the shoes way better like Raubahn or even M’naago? It’s just so weird.
As I said, the story really was bland for the most part, but the funniest part is that they decided to introduce a lot of new stuff and reveals for the like… 5 or so last quests of 4.0? So you basically went through an insane amount of quests (ARR asides it’s the expansion with the biggest number of quests and a lot of them are just empty fetch quests just like in ARR), to have a really not original story repeat twice (like seriously “the resistance fights off the evil empire” is nothing new) and just at the end the story introduces all this new stuff that get a bit relevant in the 4.1-5 MSQ and probably will be more relevant in Shadowbringers which imo totally sucks because that just means this really really long story i just went through was just a bunch of nothing to tease a future story. The 4.3-4.5 story bits were fine and all (i don’t really have an opinion on 4.1 and 4.2 they were just here to close some character arcs from the previous story) but like they were mostly there to introduce you to whatever the hell the MSQ of Shadowbringers is gonna be about, especially 4.5, which imo just goes to show how boring Stormblood is: the best piece of content in it is content that is mostly if not completely outside of its main story.
Even the music in my opinion is a step down in terms of quality. It’s not bad by any means, but I don’t think it’s as good as what Heavensward or even ARR had, and even worse it made me realize some stuff the game does with music i don’t like that has always been there. In this expansion, one of the song is a remix of Cyan’s theme from FF6, and it’s mostly played when Hien appears. And this made me realize that there’s no real character themes like in previous FF games, which i didn’t really think about during the previous expansions but realizing it now i really miss having themes linked to characters, but all this games has is themes for factions or areas. So the first (and so far only) character theme being a theme from a previous game makes it even worse like if he had an original theme just for him that’d be fine tho it’s weird he’s the only one with a theme, but it’s not even original so like why would they even make that
Overall Stormblood really was a mediocre experience for me. It’s not as actively bad as ARR was, but compared to Heavensward i can’t help but wonder what they were thinking because they managed to just ignore everything HS did well to instead go back to something more similar to ARR, which like is probably fine if you liked ARR but I hated it so this just looks like an insane decision to me.
The gameplay felt better, still boring but not to an excruciating level like it was at low level, tho part of it might be because i switched jobs (i played Dragoon for ARR and HS, and switched to Dancer once i reached level 60 and Reaper at 70) and started playing on controller instead of keyboard and mouse which feels way better for me. Some of the solo instances were actually close to being fun (mostly the Zenos fights), but I still have the same issues with the gameplay that I don’t think the game is ever gonna fix: 99% of the time you just do your rotation and while the bosses have mechanics, failing to understand them is almost never an issue because at worse they kill you and only you, and unless your entire team dies and you have to start over, all that means is that you’ll have to wait a few seconds before you can play again and you don’t learn anything, so the entire experience is mind numbing because if i don’t understand what i have to do before it happens there’s no real consequence, and since i don’t plan to replay dungeons/trials i’ve already done i basically learn nothing.
Story (and pacing) wise, the expansion drops in quality a lot compared to Heavensward. Stormblood is all about liberating an occupied country from the grasp of the empire, but there’s a twist: you do that twice! And that’s one of the biggest issue with Stormblood: not only is the prelude of the story pretty generic, but you quickly realize the expansion is gonna make you go through very similar events twice. Sure, Ala Mhigo and Doma are different places with different cultures, but you still end up doing the same thing twice. You go to a new region, help people by doing fetch quests, they start trusting you, you confront the empire and win, the place is liberated, rinse and repeat. There’s no big plot twist or anything too, you just liberate some cities and like i don’t think every story needs a plot twist to work but when the prelude of the entire expansion ends up really being what the entire story is about i’d at least expect to have something on the side to motivate me like some really really good characters you’d meet to really make you go “wow those are my friends i need to save them” and… Stormblood also fails on that front. Sure, I really like Gosetsu and Hien for example, but it’s just because they’re archetypes of characters i really like, because otherwise for most of the expansion, they’re kinda not really developed in my opinion. They have their moments every now and then (and the 4.3 storyline for Gosetsu was really good but more on that later) but I feel like they’re pretty one dimensional and not developed enough, I think the mainHeavensward cast (Ysayle, Aymeric and Estinien) was way better than the main Stormblood characters. On top of that, a big part of the story focuses around Lyse and I really think she might be the worst character of the entire game, not because she sucks but because of how bland and boring she is. I can’t think of a single thing she did during the story or any like big quality she has, she’s just there and kinda just randomly becomes a leader despite having no leadership quality, and when you compare her “development” to Alphinaud in Heavensward, it’s really night and day. And her development sucks: she doesn’t seem like she matured or anything near the end, and she only becomes a leader because… The previous leader decided to make her the new leader instead of choosing someone who’d fit the shoes way better like Raubahn or even M’naago? It’s just so weird.
As I said, the story really was bland for the most part, but the funniest part is that they decided to introduce a lot of new stuff and reveals for the like… 5 or so last quests of 4.0? So you basically went through an insane amount of quests (ARR asides it’s the expansion with the biggest number of quests and a lot of them are just empty fetch quests just like in ARR), to have a really not original story repeat twice (like seriously “the resistance fights off the evil empire” is nothing new) and just at the end the story introduces all this new stuff that get a bit relevant in the 4.1-5 MSQ and probably will be more relevant in Shadowbringers which imo totally sucks because that just means this really really long story i just went through was just a bunch of nothing to tease a future story. The 4.3-4.5 story bits were fine and all (i don’t really have an opinion on 4.1 and 4.2 they were just here to close some character arcs from the previous story) but like they were mostly there to introduce you to whatever the hell the MSQ of Shadowbringers is gonna be about, especially 4.5, which imo just goes to show how boring Stormblood is: the best piece of content in it is content that is mostly if not completely outside of its main story.
Even the music in my opinion is a step down in terms of quality. It’s not bad by any means, but I don’t think it’s as good as what Heavensward or even ARR had, and even worse it made me realize some stuff the game does with music i don’t like that has always been there. In this expansion, one of the song is a remix of Cyan’s theme from FF6, and it’s mostly played when Hien appears. And this made me realize that there’s no real character themes like in previous FF games, which i didn’t really think about during the previous expansions but realizing it now i really miss having themes linked to characters, but all this games has is themes for factions or areas. So the first (and so far only) character theme being a theme from a previous game makes it even worse like if he had an original theme just for him that’d be fine tho it’s weird he’s the only one with a theme, but it’s not even original so like why would they even make that
Overall Stormblood really was a mediocre experience for me. It’s not as actively bad as ARR was, but compared to Heavensward i can’t help but wonder what they were thinking because they managed to just ignore everything HS did well to instead go back to something more similar to ARR, which like is probably fine if you liked ARR but I hated it so this just looks like an insane decision to me.
The white women expansion
Didn’t care much for the story, Zenos didn’t have enough of a presence for me, the rest of the main cast has good moments but I still found a lot of the pacing poor. Story picks up a lot in patch content and even utilizes some previous characters in new ways that kept me more engaged. Omega raids are awesome, great fanservice and just fun fights all around. I would fight and die for Alpha. Really most of the dungeons and trials in the whole expansion I thought were pretty fun, but the story just dragged everything down to me which was disappointing coming from Heavensward.
good expansion with a lot of content and a good /enough/ story, but if it wasn't for zenos and yotsuyu, i dont think i would have enjoyed it nearly as much as i did
probably liked this expansion a little less than Heavensward but it was still pretty good, loved the characters in it especially. Yugiri & Tsuyu my beloved girlies
i feel like almost every cool moment in this expansion was stifled by lyse not shutting her yap
doma and zenos carried really
doma and zenos carried really
Not as bad as everyone makes it to be, despite having a weaker story composition (not its fault coming after THE Heavensward), its mechanics and fights are its strong point.
I am now a son of the Azim steppe. Kugane looks incredible and so does the Gyr Albania region. Stormblood rocks, I had a lot of fun with it and I heard only good things from Shadowbringers onwards. If this is supposed to be the middle ground, that's something to expect alright.
I am now a son of the Azim steppe. Kugane looks incredible and so does the Gyr Albania region. Stormblood rocks, I had a lot of fun with it and I heard only good things from Shadowbringers onwards. If this is supposed to be the middle ground, that's something to expect alright.
The worst written final fantasy story, period. It’s not even that it’s lacking story like ARR or FF3 it’s just jam packed with garbage. The dungeons and music are good though.
People tend to not like this one, but usually for the wrong reasons. The 4.0 stuff is Fine honestly (I have some Opinions on how it handled the Au'ra), one of the best depictions of a conquered people suffering from colonialism out there. It's when you start getting into the 4.x story that it comes at you with some Very Questionable Takes, like "giving refugees financial support is bad and will make them lazy, you gotta give 'em Jobs", and "Selling your daughter to Vaguely Implied Sexual Slavery is fine, actually."
Tears in my eyes.
You know I kept hearing Stormblood's kind of the unfortunate middle child in between Heavensward and Shadowbringers and man, it's not THAT unfortunate. There are some pacing issues relating to perhaps an abundance of ambition and the perhaps questionable early handling of Lyse (who I liked a lot despite that and some Other Presentation Problems that boil down to that one Mean Girls joke), but overall I think it was fun to have a more grounded conflict exploring imperialism and whatnot! It was nice to have a cast that felt like a team and slower character moments with them instead of mostly just plot, and I thought all the antagonists were really fun. Zenos kind of merrily waltzes along that line between menacing and camp, and Fordola and Yotsuyu provide interesting reflections on a similar concept. Where things really shine is the patch content, though, where the plot goes nuts and the raid storylines are the perfect mix of fanservice and good stuff!
Speaking of the gameplay, god! The dungeons are so fun! The trials are so wild! The environments are super pretty and fun to explore! The OST is full of bangers! When I hit Yanxia I just had to stop and admire the completely immaculate vibes of the place, and it's not the only time that happened.
This expac also has a special place in my heart for being the first one I played almost entirely alongside friends, and that definitely contributed to my good feelings about it all! It's really fun to keep pace with others and do dungeons together so you can react to the plot points. I'm a little more spoiled than they are, but I still had my fair share of surprises. Like swimming. I had no idea swimming was a thing! How did I miss that!
Anyway I should probably be more critical but I don't know, I'm coming in off the wave of being super excited to start Shadowbringers after all the good stuff that happened in patch content. Good stuff! I love this game a whole lot!
Speaking of the gameplay, god! The dungeons are so fun! The trials are so wild! The environments are super pretty and fun to explore! The OST is full of bangers! When I hit Yanxia I just had to stop and admire the completely immaculate vibes of the place, and it's not the only time that happened.
This expac also has a special place in my heart for being the first one I played almost entirely alongside friends, and that definitely contributed to my good feelings about it all! It's really fun to keep pace with others and do dungeons together so you can react to the plot points. I'm a little more spoiled than they are, but I still had my fair share of surprises. Like swimming. I had no idea swimming was a thing! How did I miss that!
Anyway I should probably be more critical but I don't know, I'm coming in off the wave of being super excited to start Shadowbringers after all the good stuff that happened in patch content. Good stuff! I love this game a whole lot!
i dont think that stormblood is as bad as alot of people say. as a whole it improves GREATLY on gameplay aspects of the game and has the most fun raids and content ive done yet. the story falls short in many places for me. however, it still has some really phenomenal moments and characters. good..just not as good as heavensward was.
could have used more estinien
This review contains spoilers
Ramble Part 3
The thing Stormblood has above Heavensward, and in part A Realm Reborn, is the gameplay. Areas are not as bloated as the ones from the previous expansion, even if they aren’t as imaginative admittedly to the ones in HW not as compact as ARR, but the layout is a lot better, with more logical placements of Aether currents, the new dungeons have a bit of obstacles or gimmicks that masks the linearity better, and it consistently has super fun bosses with a lot of AoE attacks in quick successions, has some of the more interesting single player instances, with an adequate use of gimmicks to make some of them stand out more, and it has the bigger number of climactic set pieces across the XIV experience, Ala Mhigo, Tsukuyomi, Doma Castle, the Burn, Ghimlyt Dark, Shinryu, the fights with Zenos, the moments where you play as other characters, are all great. The underwater ability, while not used as much, it gives such a nice change of pace to the exploration in some parts of the story, the swim towards the underwater city is such a cool moment, is less a mechanical novelty but is used to great effect in the presentation.
The story is still pretty good as well honestly, but with some weird omissions and annoyances, where Heavensward has some pacing problems but still delivers everything is supposed to with great sequences, Stormblood has a really good pace, but has some underwritten parts and a very strong disruption that bring it down.
The journey of liberating Doma and Ala Mhigo once again makes what I like the most about the game shine, slowly building relationships with people tormented by the Empire is such a great context for the gameplay loop of XIV, and the sequences it all culminates in is rather excellent, the invasion to Doma Castle, is a very short cutscene, but thinking about how you brought all those people together to your cause through all those questlines gives it a bigger weight, the Azim Steppe is a big highlight of that for me, is little sun annoying? Yea a bit, is the Naadam fucking cool? Yes, yes it is. Building friendships with the Kojin, the Confederacy, all that is great for me, backed up by a great story of growth and learning to lead of Lyse and Hien, and it also helps that Yotsuyu and Zenos are so over the top as antagonists that makes the whole experience of retaking those lands all the sweeter.
The most strange omission of the story comes from Y’shtola, she takes a big hit for Lyse in the start of Stormblood, which is the final nail that pushes her to be more proactive about the liberation of Ala Mhigo, another way to just not have Y’shtola grow as a character aside, the fact that this plot point doesn’t have a resolution like a nice reunion after she recovers is bizarre, given this game likes to really make a point about showing and talking about everything for better and for worse, is such a big letdown that the next time we see Y’shtola, she is just there all fine and dandy? There is also the thing of the underwater city not having much impact at all in the story, despite having some important enough side characters there that could have been a fun character moment for Yugiri, despite going through some effort to even visit it, quite strange too, it has one of the highlights of side stories tho, the Hisui and Kurenai storyline is really cute, and like there is stuff to do for them with the crafting side quests, but is still bizarre that is made a big deal getting the ability to swim to that town to begin with, and not get much from it in the MSQ.
The best piece of storytelling in the game so far comes from the Tsukuyomi fight in the post patches, which is in the middle of the more exhausting story part in the game, the post patches of Stormblood is where the dialogue and cutscene length of XIV can start to drag, it wasn’t really a problem in any other expansion unless my memory fails me, it left really lengthy sequences to very specific moments, like Praetorium or the ending cutscenes, here there is a lot of emphasis on flashbacks and the like for the character of Yotsuyu, which is completely unnecessary, because the fight with Tsukuyomi pretty much explains all that story, and it does it without the need of long dialogue sequences or interruptions, because it makes it works seamlessly into the gameplay. XIV sometimes has neat details within dungeons and instances to showcase some story beats, like Ghimlyt Dark having the Alliance leaders, and some of your friends joining up on the fight, those are really cool moments seamlessly tied into the gameplay as well.
The worst part of Stormblood’s story comes from the end of the story patches, and it has a general story element that bothers me a lot in XIV, the refusal to let villains die.
The eyes of Nidhogg are pretty terrible in this regard, it dampens part of the absolutely perfect ending to Heavensward, that they use them again to bring Shinryu at the end of those post patches; Gaius had a fitting end to him in A Realm Reborn, it was yet another satisfying end to it, but nope he is alive still; Zenos? After the amazing confrontation against him in the Royal Menagerie, and after the cheesy, but heartwarming sequence of Ala Mhigo being liberated to the tune of Measure of his Reach? Still here. Like imagine if Lahabrea and the other ascian you managed to destroy after much sacrifice and lives lost were just like “NOPE, still here” it would be so frustrating, and I get that some of these revivals are meant to have something happen story wise, Gaius is a better guy now, but why not have that with Maxima, he was already a Garlean that broke the mold of being an asshole from the empire, why not give more weight to him as a character than bring Gaius back, even the cool sacrifice and end to Gosetsu and Yotsuyu gets unraveled pretty soon after, even if that did deliver the best story and gameplay sequence of the game.
Now to talk about the end of the post patches in Stormblood, I kind of have to blame Shadowbringers for this, cause how it all starts is kind of clumsy, snipping away Scions to the First, fine, my problem comes from the fact that it robs Stormblood of an ending, you are pretty much taken away during a climax in the Ghimlyt Dark, in the middle of a battle against an Ascian, while trying to help your friends, and I’m just supposed to care about going to the First and do some other things, like no, I want to stick around Ala Mhigo, like is just leaving me hanging in the middle of it all, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward had a proper enough ending, but Stormblood doesn’t really have one anymore, the Royal Menagerie was an ending, but ya know, Zenos is still kicking around.
On a more positive note, the music is really cool, the main motifs of the expansion are amazing, Triumph is such an epic boss theme, From the Dragons’ Wake is funky af, and how did Tsukuyomi managed to shift between 3 different styles of music for her fight without me disliking any of them like Sheva or Leviathan is a quite the mystery, Lakshimi? Chef kiss, saving Makers’ Ruin for the Vergil fight? Perfection. ARR is still my favorite score, but SB definitely comes second.
The side stories? Omega? Amazing gameplay wise, I love the VI fan service, even if again, they don’t quite reach the same level of quality music wise, the Midgardsormr fight is a highlight just like it was one in ARR, and while the narrative itself isn’t much to write home about, the character interactions are great, more Cid and Nero banter, best boy Midgardsormr development, really fuck Hydealyn and Zodiark, dragon boy is where it’s at, Alpha is cool, Vergil is Vergil. The Four Lords? I loved it, the dungeons thematically incredible, and the fight incredibly pleasing both mechanically and visually, and again, From the Dragons’ Wake is too good of a music track. Return to Ivalice is interesting, I only played XII and know some things about Tactics, the storyline is a weird mish mash with some curious changes to the XII bits, it also features some of the best boss fights in the game, making a legitimate enough challenge, with proper balance of what to do between alliances, and not just everyone go ham on the raid.
The thing Stormblood has above Heavensward, and in part A Realm Reborn, is the gameplay. Areas are not as bloated as the ones from the previous expansion, even if they aren’t as imaginative admittedly to the ones in HW not as compact as ARR, but the layout is a lot better, with more logical placements of Aether currents, the new dungeons have a bit of obstacles or gimmicks that masks the linearity better, and it consistently has super fun bosses with a lot of AoE attacks in quick successions, has some of the more interesting single player instances, with an adequate use of gimmicks to make some of them stand out more, and it has the bigger number of climactic set pieces across the XIV experience, Ala Mhigo, Tsukuyomi, Doma Castle, the Burn, Ghimlyt Dark, Shinryu, the fights with Zenos, the moments where you play as other characters, are all great. The underwater ability, while not used as much, it gives such a nice change of pace to the exploration in some parts of the story, the swim towards the underwater city is such a cool moment, is less a mechanical novelty but is used to great effect in the presentation.
The story is still pretty good as well honestly, but with some weird omissions and annoyances, where Heavensward has some pacing problems but still delivers everything is supposed to with great sequences, Stormblood has a really good pace, but has some underwritten parts and a very strong disruption that bring it down.
The journey of liberating Doma and Ala Mhigo once again makes what I like the most about the game shine, slowly building relationships with people tormented by the Empire is such a great context for the gameplay loop of XIV, and the sequences it all culminates in is rather excellent, the invasion to Doma Castle, is a very short cutscene, but thinking about how you brought all those people together to your cause through all those questlines gives it a bigger weight, the Azim Steppe is a big highlight of that for me, is little sun annoying? Yea a bit, is the Naadam fucking cool? Yes, yes it is. Building friendships with the Kojin, the Confederacy, all that is great for me, backed up by a great story of growth and learning to lead of Lyse and Hien, and it also helps that Yotsuyu and Zenos are so over the top as antagonists that makes the whole experience of retaking those lands all the sweeter.
The most strange omission of the story comes from Y’shtola, she takes a big hit for Lyse in the start of Stormblood, which is the final nail that pushes her to be more proactive about the liberation of Ala Mhigo, another way to just not have Y’shtola grow as a character aside, the fact that this plot point doesn’t have a resolution like a nice reunion after she recovers is bizarre, given this game likes to really make a point about showing and talking about everything for better and for worse, is such a big letdown that the next time we see Y’shtola, she is just there all fine and dandy? There is also the thing of the underwater city not having much impact at all in the story, despite having some important enough side characters there that could have been a fun character moment for Yugiri, despite going through some effort to even visit it, quite strange too, it has one of the highlights of side stories tho, the Hisui and Kurenai storyline is really cute, and like there is stuff to do for them with the crafting side quests, but is still bizarre that is made a big deal getting the ability to swim to that town to begin with, and not get much from it in the MSQ.
The best piece of storytelling in the game so far comes from the Tsukuyomi fight in the post patches, which is in the middle of the more exhausting story part in the game, the post patches of Stormblood is where the dialogue and cutscene length of XIV can start to drag, it wasn’t really a problem in any other expansion unless my memory fails me, it left really lengthy sequences to very specific moments, like Praetorium or the ending cutscenes, here there is a lot of emphasis on flashbacks and the like for the character of Yotsuyu, which is completely unnecessary, because the fight with Tsukuyomi pretty much explains all that story, and it does it without the need of long dialogue sequences or interruptions, because it makes it works seamlessly into the gameplay. XIV sometimes has neat details within dungeons and instances to showcase some story beats, like Ghimlyt Dark having the Alliance leaders, and some of your friends joining up on the fight, those are really cool moments seamlessly tied into the gameplay as well.
The worst part of Stormblood’s story comes from the end of the story patches, and it has a general story element that bothers me a lot in XIV, the refusal to let villains die.
The eyes of Nidhogg are pretty terrible in this regard, it dampens part of the absolutely perfect ending to Heavensward, that they use them again to bring Shinryu at the end of those post patches; Gaius had a fitting end to him in A Realm Reborn, it was yet another satisfying end to it, but nope he is alive still; Zenos? After the amazing confrontation against him in the Royal Menagerie, and after the cheesy, but heartwarming sequence of Ala Mhigo being liberated to the tune of Measure of his Reach? Still here. Like imagine if Lahabrea and the other ascian you managed to destroy after much sacrifice and lives lost were just like “NOPE, still here” it would be so frustrating, and I get that some of these revivals are meant to have something happen story wise, Gaius is a better guy now, but why not have that with Maxima, he was already a Garlean that broke the mold of being an asshole from the empire, why not give more weight to him as a character than bring Gaius back, even the cool sacrifice and end to Gosetsu and Yotsuyu gets unraveled pretty soon after, even if that did deliver the best story and gameplay sequence of the game.
Now to talk about the end of the post patches in Stormblood, I kind of have to blame Shadowbringers for this, cause how it all starts is kind of clumsy, snipping away Scions to the First, fine, my problem comes from the fact that it robs Stormblood of an ending, you are pretty much taken away during a climax in the Ghimlyt Dark, in the middle of a battle against an Ascian, while trying to help your friends, and I’m just supposed to care about going to the First and do some other things, like no, I want to stick around Ala Mhigo, like is just leaving me hanging in the middle of it all, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward had a proper enough ending, but Stormblood doesn’t really have one anymore, the Royal Menagerie was an ending, but ya know, Zenos is still kicking around.
On a more positive note, the music is really cool, the main motifs of the expansion are amazing, Triumph is such an epic boss theme, From the Dragons’ Wake is funky af, and how did Tsukuyomi managed to shift between 3 different styles of music for her fight without me disliking any of them like Sheva or Leviathan is a quite the mystery, Lakshimi? Chef kiss, saving Makers’ Ruin for the Vergil fight? Perfection. ARR is still my favorite score, but SB definitely comes second.
The side stories? Omega? Amazing gameplay wise, I love the VI fan service, even if again, they don’t quite reach the same level of quality music wise, the Midgardsormr fight is a highlight just like it was one in ARR, and while the narrative itself isn’t much to write home about, the character interactions are great, more Cid and Nero banter, best boy Midgardsormr development, really fuck Hydealyn and Zodiark, dragon boy is where it’s at, Alpha is cool, Vergil is Vergil. The Four Lords? I loved it, the dungeons thematically incredible, and the fight incredibly pleasing both mechanically and visually, and again, From the Dragons’ Wake is too good of a music track. Return to Ivalice is interesting, I only played XII and know some things about Tactics, the storyline is a weird mish mash with some curious changes to the XII bits, it also features some of the best boss fights in the game, making a legitimate enough challenge, with proper balance of what to do between alliances, and not just everyone go ham on the raid.
This review contains spoilers
I think this qualifies as one of those so-called hot takes but…I liked Stormblood more than Heavensward!
by a hair (and I do think HW’s patch content was better than SB’s)
The narrative missteps felt few and minor this time around (HW’s resolution of the plot-against-Nanamo thread remains the low point of the whole game for me), and the broad structure clicked with me more. Progressing through HW’s new areas sometimes felt like simply bouncing from waypoint to waypoint while enjoying some eye-candy along the way. In SB, I felt like I was really digging my fingers into the dirt of these new lands and figuring out what made them unique and lived-in places
There were also some jaw-dropping moments of writing, like Yugiri’s “I will always be of the sea” monologue. And every scene with Zenos was guaranteed to have a line that would make me yelp with delight
One quibble I still cannot shake with this game, however, is the perceived scale of the world’s—sorry—star’s population. It is so immersion-breaking to hear everyone go “we’re gonna smash that imperial stronghold with the combined might of the Eorzean alliance and the Ala Mhigan resistance!” and then you see like eleven people jogging toward the gates. But that’s part of the game’s charm I suppose, and damn do I love this game
by a hair (and I do think HW’s patch content was better than SB’s)
The narrative missteps felt few and minor this time around (HW’s resolution of the plot-against-Nanamo thread remains the low point of the whole game for me), and the broad structure clicked with me more. Progressing through HW’s new areas sometimes felt like simply bouncing from waypoint to waypoint while enjoying some eye-candy along the way. In SB, I felt like I was really digging my fingers into the dirt of these new lands and figuring out what made them unique and lived-in places
There were also some jaw-dropping moments of writing, like Yugiri’s “I will always be of the sea” monologue. And every scene with Zenos was guaranteed to have a line that would make me yelp with delight
One quibble I still cannot shake with this game, however, is the perceived scale of the world’s—sorry—star’s population. It is so immersion-breaking to hear everyone go “we’re gonna smash that imperial stronghold with the combined might of the Eorzean alliance and the Ala Mhigan resistance!” and then you see like eleven people jogging toward the gates. But that’s part of the game’s charm I suppose, and damn do I love this game
This game hits very close to home. It tells a story about an oppressive regime. About normal people forced to take up arms to defend their homes. About normal people being treated lesser, as if they were roaches meant to be stomped on. When I think of Ala Mhigo or Doma, I can't help but see the parallels between it and modern day Palestine. Unlike what TLOU2 tried to showcase through its two warring factions, this isn't a cycle of violence. There is a side that has power and there is a side who's being stripped of their power. To view it as any other would be disrespectful to the real life victims of colonialism and apartheid. I'm thankful that this game did not two side this story.
OK... what about the game? Oh fuck man, its kinoooooo. Well actually I think the pacing wasn't very good for most of the game. The game generally felt longer than it should have been, with quests falling into a bit of the mundane side. Gaining the trust of a settlement for the 10th time, walking halfway across the map to give someone a letter, finding a talking catfish. Perhaps these issues would've been alot easier to bear with if the base mount speed was a lot faster when you first explore a new region. Or honestly maybe I should just learn to be more patient. Like using the time in-between quest steps to play some music and chill.
In terms of dungeons and trials, the stormblood ones are simply fantastic. They've gotten alot more experimental in designing these new encounters or perhaps the right word is braver. Dungeons bosses have more mechanics you need to be aware of when fighting them. But, because of the design language brought to us by heavansward, the mechanics are easy to understand. None of them will catch you by surprise and leaving you confused on what to do (given you understand that language heavansward established). In short, I just think they're pretty fun and cool.
Also one last thing, I think it's pretty cool that they've made changes to the single instance encounters. Character portraits show up right next to dialogue boxes. Their complexity is slowly rising. I don't know what else to say except that stormblood took what heavansward improved on from ARR and further refined it. The thing holding it back is that pacing issue I mentioned.
At the time of writing this, I've only completed the main stormblood campaign and I'll probably wait until I finish the patch quests before claiming that it's better or worse than heavansward. But so far, I think heavanward has the edge on stormblood despite its gameplay improvements.
OK... what about the game? Oh fuck man, its kinoooooo. Well actually I think the pacing wasn't very good for most of the game. The game generally felt longer than it should have been, with quests falling into a bit of the mundane side. Gaining the trust of a settlement for the 10th time, walking halfway across the map to give someone a letter, finding a talking catfish. Perhaps these issues would've been alot easier to bear with if the base mount speed was a lot faster when you first explore a new region. Or honestly maybe I should just learn to be more patient. Like using the time in-between quest steps to play some music and chill.
In terms of dungeons and trials, the stormblood ones are simply fantastic. They've gotten alot more experimental in designing these new encounters or perhaps the right word is braver. Dungeons bosses have more mechanics you need to be aware of when fighting them. But, because of the design language brought to us by heavansward, the mechanics are easy to understand. None of them will catch you by surprise and leaving you confused on what to do (given you understand that language heavansward established). In short, I just think they're pretty fun and cool.
Also one last thing, I think it's pretty cool that they've made changes to the single instance encounters. Character portraits show up right next to dialogue boxes. Their complexity is slowly rising. I don't know what else to say except that stormblood took what heavansward improved on from ARR and further refined it. The thing holding it back is that pacing issue I mentioned.
At the time of writing this, I've only completed the main stormblood campaign and I'll probably wait until I finish the patch quests before claiming that it's better or worse than heavansward. But so far, I think heavanward has the edge on stormblood despite its gameplay improvements.
The pacing and themes of this expansion are…muddled at best and offensive at worst. The characters, however, make up for this in spades with Yotsuyu, Sadu, Cirina and Gosestsu being prime examples of excellent character driven story arcs. It would be remiss of me to also ignore the introduction of Red Mage and Samurai which fit in beautifully both thematically and practically. Side content and gameplay were the gorgeous highs that contrasted the terrible lows of the main scenario.
It got that One Piece pacing but it's zones are so good and the final boss made me blow my load
Edit: The patch content for this expac is peak fiction. If you include that, raise my score by half a star.
Edit: The patch content for this expac is peak fiction. If you include that, raise my score by half a star.
An expansion where I'm playing a job as fun as samurai for 100 hours should not be the cure for insomnia
This review contains spoilers
stormblood feels very self contained in the sense that obviously the things that happen in it and the consequences it has on ShB and EW are gonna be felt, especially for post-stormblood, it still is very much a story about the people of this land. aside from zenos, every major antagonist is from here. the characters are what pushed a lot of stormbloods narrative with their own arcs and stories and thats what i really like in a story. the characters that really stood out to me were lyse, alisaie, hien, gosetsu, zenos, yotsuyu and asahi. i really enjoyed seeing the world through their eyes and realizing their rights and wrongs as they come to realize them as well. lyse coming to understand ala mhigo and rising to the top because of this understanding, gosetsu who realizes his ignorance towards other cultures and becomes a better person for it, being able to take care of yotsuyu once she turns helpless. and ive already written about zenos who i still love dearly. tears
story wise i thought it was generally very strong with a few issues that didnt bother me too much but they were noticeable unfortunately. at times there was a lack of focus where the story wanted to go i felt, or maybe spent too much time on a piece of it that i just didnt really care for. i think the conflict with the kojin and the some of the buildup for the azim steppe was just not very interesting but it quickly picks back up after so its not a huge thing to me. unfortunately, as much as i was liking yotsuyu, her "end" was also not very satisfactory for her character. i liked what it did for hien and gosetsu tho.
stormblood really was strongest at its end and in post-stormblood though, where we have zenos's character conclusion, a completely new characterization for yotsuyu that was very much needed so im honestly not mad about the fakeout death whatsoever. gosetsus as well, it only served to add to his character. asahi was an amazing addition for what he did for yotsuyu and the parallels between the two but on his own he was fantastic as well, he only wanted to live up to zenos despite it not actually being him. for the actual ending of post-stormblood i thought the introduction for emet was incredibly strong, very comparable to zenos's introduction in how they already establish their characters, varis was also surprisingly good, especially in that talk with all the leaders.
i also cant stop thinking about that random resistance character cutting people down of any faction so far. his manner of speech that we hear towards the end reminds me of zenos so i think theyre cooking something with that but i might just be coping that zenos will be back. theyre at least definitely cooking something with elidibus in zenos's body, emet-selch, varis, the mystery aether man and alisaie. alisaie has had some AMAZING moments in post-stb and i cant wait to see how shb elaborates on her because i expect her to be top 3 at least by the way they were cooking her up
story wise i thought it was generally very strong with a few issues that didnt bother me too much but they were noticeable unfortunately. at times there was a lack of focus where the story wanted to go i felt, or maybe spent too much time on a piece of it that i just didnt really care for. i think the conflict with the kojin and the some of the buildup for the azim steppe was just not very interesting but it quickly picks back up after so its not a huge thing to me. unfortunately, as much as i was liking yotsuyu, her "end" was also not very satisfactory for her character. i liked what it did for hien and gosetsu tho.
stormblood really was strongest at its end and in post-stormblood though, where we have zenos's character conclusion, a completely new characterization for yotsuyu that was very much needed so im honestly not mad about the fakeout death whatsoever. gosetsus as well, it only served to add to his character. asahi was an amazing addition for what he did for yotsuyu and the parallels between the two but on his own he was fantastic as well, he only wanted to live up to zenos despite it not actually being him. for the actual ending of post-stormblood i thought the introduction for emet was incredibly strong, very comparable to zenos's introduction in how they already establish their characters, varis was also surprisingly good, especially in that talk with all the leaders.
i also cant stop thinking about that random resistance character cutting people down of any faction so far. his manner of speech that we hear towards the end reminds me of zenos so i think theyre cooking something with that but i might just be coping that zenos will be back. theyre at least definitely cooking something with elidibus in zenos's body, emet-selch, varis, the mystery aether man and alisaie. alisaie has had some AMAZING moments in post-stb and i cant wait to see how shb elaborates on her because i expect her to be top 3 at least by the way they were cooking her up
Eu tenho muita coisa (tanto boa quanto ruim) pra falar da MSQ dessa expansão, mas eu to com muita preguiça de desenvolver, então digo só que a Stormblood é basicamente A Ream Reborn 2.0 e a Lyse é uma das personagens já criadas.
Mas o conteúdo novo é ótimo, tudo relacionado a gameplay melhorou absurdamente, as dungeons, trials e raids novas (apesar de Return to Ivalice ser uma quest line miserável de tão chata e desinteressante) são realmente muito boas e fizeram a experiência valer a pena, incluindo os patchs que são bons, apesar de não compensarem pela MSQ problemática, ainda sim tem ótimos momentos e é bem mais consistente na minha opinião e a Lyse é bem menos presente, graças a Deus.
Mas o conteúdo novo é ótimo, tudo relacionado a gameplay melhorou absurdamente, as dungeons, trials e raids novas (apesar de Return to Ivalice ser uma quest line miserável de tão chata e desinteressante) são realmente muito boas e fizeram a experiência valer a pena, incluindo os patchs que são bons, apesar de não compensarem pela MSQ problemática, ainda sim tem ótimos momentos e é bem mais consistente na minha opinião e a Lyse é bem menos presente, graças a Deus.
A step back in my opinion. The story feels like they tried cramming two expansion worth of story into one leading to both feeling half baked. I specially hated how much of the story was focusing solely on lyse and how much our main character felt like a side character. A large chunk of the story is also just going to a group of people, asking for help, getting told no, and going to the next set of people to ask for help. Zenos as a villain didn't really grab until the last encounter with him, but by then it felt too late. Yotsuyu is good though. The patch storyline is much better overall and saves it for me.
On the gameplay front, however, Stormblood felt like a big leap in quality, maybe its because characters feel more complete at level 70 or the encounter design got better but it just felt more fun to play.
On the gameplay front, however, Stormblood felt like a big leap in quality, maybe its because characters feel more complete at level 70 or the encounter design got better but it just felt more fun to play.
This review contains spoilers
Stormblood is a solid expansion but not one that felt like it built upon the foundation of FFXIV as strongly as Heavensward, there's definitely a lot more chores and busywork to be done and the general tone, while I do like it a lot, does feel very steady and one-note in comparison to Heavensward's gripping story filled with twists and turns (at least up until the later patches, which usher in a dramatic jump in overall quality).
I think the biggest success of stormblood is its overall vibe and the beauty of its locales, taking inspiration from middle eastern and far eastern culture with some jaw dropping setpieces and outstanding music. By far my favourite area and my favourite portions of the expansion came in the form of the azim steppe and its native inhabitants with their mongolian influences. The music and tone of this area gets me going, its awesome. Those 'endless fields and boundless skies' as Hien puts it were beautiful and learning about the differences in its tribes and their gods was just really fun and interesting and a nice change of pace for a game very centred around one major theme. That theme is liberation and I think for the most part it handles it quite well. There is a lot of complexity in its different cultures and the nature of how they are surviving under colonial oppression and I was particularly fond of the dissonance between Lyse's headstrong determination to free her people and the reality of the local population's struggle to even survive, let alone fight back. Stormblood is constantly highlighting the different perspectives and ways that people survive and eventually reignite their resolve but also takes time to recognise the lasting damage and consequences of the Garleans' violent conquest. Notably there is a fascinating character study into the mind of Fordola, an incredible character and an Ala Mhigan native abused and spat upon by her comrades for her family's co-operation with their oppresors - labelled a traitor by her neighbours and a savage by the Garleans, Fordola vows to achieve freedom by any means and embraces her brand of 'savage', working with the Garleans in pursuit of both liberation and vengeance for her father who died at the hands of a furious Ala Mhigan mob. Fordola's story is that of the victim of circumstance (and it isn't the only time this comes up) and the question of if or how this could ever justify her actions is one the game isn't afraid to look into, but her story is also one of redemption and I just found it really compelling.
Stormblood is a story with a lot of tragedy and melancholy but there's also a lot of hope to be found and I think for the most part it is great stuff and I was thoroughly invested, but there are times where it falls off or otherwise becomes too unbelievable. For one, there are far too many fakeouts and deaths of main characters begin to feel of little consequence unless said character dies onscreen with absolute certainty. In the patches alone I counted 3 fakeouts where you think a character is straight up dead but then they come back for various reasons, if you're going to do that you had best have a very good reason or you risk playing down everything that came before and setting up a worryingly anticlimatic precedent. Also, I would note the handling of Yotsuyu's abuse and the nonchalant attitudes of those that are supposed to protect her as a negative, as it leads to a sadly predictable outcome that feels like it does Yotsuyu dirty and doesn't properly respect her as a victim of horrific abuse and neglect. It felt like it was at its lowest when Asahi, a very obvious bad guy, cruelly brings her parents back into her life with the sole intention of causing her untold pain and misery - to which the player and their allies do nothing except scowl and call it a 'dirty trick' when it felt like they could have and should have done more. Not to mention Yotsuyu is supposed to be under strict house arrest and yet escapes and puts herself in mortal danger twice, this whole section just felt quite rushed and lazy and like it didn't respect Yotsuyu as a character - the tragic outcome of her story seems only to serve to make Gosetsu sad and ponderous and set up the plot around the Ascians pulling all the strings, which could have been done without bringing back Yotsuyu and Gosetsu, I don't know it just felt inconsequential and I don't think the storyline justifies bringing the two back, it certainly could have done but I don't think it does. But saying this the tsukiyomi trial is absolutely hype and Gosetsu's spirit showing up to protect her was so awesome.
The new dungeons and trials in Stormblood carry on the marked improvments that came with Heavensward and the trials in particular, such as those of Susano and Byakko, go so insanely hard. Stormblood also quickly sheds its one-note and focused themes for extremely nuanced and exciting political turmoil and utter chaos in its final acts, introduced in the later patches. These patches are incredible and are filled with amazing monologues, exciting new mysteries that unfold, experly constructed and dramatic cutscenes and battle sequences and my favourite part by far - the relationship that grows between the warrior of light and alisaie, these final quests made me fall in love with alisaie as a character and I felt genuinely crushed when she succumbed to the same fate as her brother and the other scions. The music in this part of the game, the constantly moving and chaotic nature of the story, the character development, all fantastic and it makes me so excited for shadowbringers so bring it on. Captain has freed Doma and Ala Mhigo but the real battle has only just begun!
I think the biggest success of stormblood is its overall vibe and the beauty of its locales, taking inspiration from middle eastern and far eastern culture with some jaw dropping setpieces and outstanding music. By far my favourite area and my favourite portions of the expansion came in the form of the azim steppe and its native inhabitants with their mongolian influences. The music and tone of this area gets me going, its awesome. Those 'endless fields and boundless skies' as Hien puts it were beautiful and learning about the differences in its tribes and their gods was just really fun and interesting and a nice change of pace for a game very centred around one major theme. That theme is liberation and I think for the most part it handles it quite well. There is a lot of complexity in its different cultures and the nature of how they are surviving under colonial oppression and I was particularly fond of the dissonance between Lyse's headstrong determination to free her people and the reality of the local population's struggle to even survive, let alone fight back. Stormblood is constantly highlighting the different perspectives and ways that people survive and eventually reignite their resolve but also takes time to recognise the lasting damage and consequences of the Garleans' violent conquest. Notably there is a fascinating character study into the mind of Fordola, an incredible character and an Ala Mhigan native abused and spat upon by her comrades for her family's co-operation with their oppresors - labelled a traitor by her neighbours and a savage by the Garleans, Fordola vows to achieve freedom by any means and embraces her brand of 'savage', working with the Garleans in pursuit of both liberation and vengeance for her father who died at the hands of a furious Ala Mhigan mob. Fordola's story is that of the victim of circumstance (and it isn't the only time this comes up) and the question of if or how this could ever justify her actions is one the game isn't afraid to look into, but her story is also one of redemption and I just found it really compelling.
Stormblood is a story with a lot of tragedy and melancholy but there's also a lot of hope to be found and I think for the most part it is great stuff and I was thoroughly invested, but there are times where it falls off or otherwise becomes too unbelievable. For one, there are far too many fakeouts and deaths of main characters begin to feel of little consequence unless said character dies onscreen with absolute certainty. In the patches alone I counted 3 fakeouts where you think a character is straight up dead but then they come back for various reasons, if you're going to do that you had best have a very good reason or you risk playing down everything that came before and setting up a worryingly anticlimatic precedent. Also, I would note the handling of Yotsuyu's abuse and the nonchalant attitudes of those that are supposed to protect her as a negative, as it leads to a sadly predictable outcome that feels like it does Yotsuyu dirty and doesn't properly respect her as a victim of horrific abuse and neglect. It felt like it was at its lowest when Asahi, a very obvious bad guy, cruelly brings her parents back into her life with the sole intention of causing her untold pain and misery - to which the player and their allies do nothing except scowl and call it a 'dirty trick' when it felt like they could have and should have done more. Not to mention Yotsuyu is supposed to be under strict house arrest and yet escapes and puts herself in mortal danger twice, this whole section just felt quite rushed and lazy and like it didn't respect Yotsuyu as a character - the tragic outcome of her story seems only to serve to make Gosetsu sad and ponderous and set up the plot around the Ascians pulling all the strings, which could have been done without bringing back Yotsuyu and Gosetsu, I don't know it just felt inconsequential and I don't think the storyline justifies bringing the two back, it certainly could have done but I don't think it does. But saying this the tsukiyomi trial is absolutely hype and Gosetsu's spirit showing up to protect her was so awesome.
The new dungeons and trials in Stormblood carry on the marked improvments that came with Heavensward and the trials in particular, such as those of Susano and Byakko, go so insanely hard. Stormblood also quickly sheds its one-note and focused themes for extremely nuanced and exciting political turmoil and utter chaos in its final acts, introduced in the later patches. These patches are incredible and are filled with amazing monologues, exciting new mysteries that unfold, experly constructed and dramatic cutscenes and battle sequences and my favourite part by far - the relationship that grows between the warrior of light and alisaie, these final quests made me fall in love with alisaie as a character and I felt genuinely crushed when she succumbed to the same fate as her brother and the other scions. The music in this part of the game, the constantly moving and chaotic nature of the story, the character development, all fantastic and it makes me so excited for shadowbringers so bring it on. Captain has freed Doma and Ala Mhigo but the real battle has only just begun!
so i guess people don't like this one but it has some of my favorite storytelling, characters, music, dungeons and raids in the game so far, so, idk!
This review contains spoilers
While I did enjoy parts of it, it just never really did anything outstandingly well and there were lots of parts that were boring. I feel like the messages it tried to sell were undercut by awkward writing choices, and none of the characters were developed that well and were pretty flat. Your enjoyment of stormblood is probably going to be dependent on how much you can enjoy the surface level ideas and aesthetics it throws at you, and whether the characters are archetypes you are predisposed to liking.
I didn't even realize it until I had it pointed out to me that Ala Mhigo is also supposed to be south asian/middle eastern inspired, which makes Lyse jumping in and trying to save everything very white savior-y on top of her being just a flat out boring character. It's made even worse when she is pointed out to have no authority and that having Raubahn around is what gives her her strength and credibility......so then....why not just have Raubahn take up the mantle? His story feels better suited to him being the leader. God I miss when Lyse had a personality before all this.
It was when I reached the Doma section of the expansion that I started enjoying things more, and it felt a lot like the Ala Mhigo section was just kind of tacked on. Stormblood does not do a good job of balancing the two conflicts, and while I appreciate what they wanted to do with it, they ended up not expanding on either places in a meaningful way because they stretched themselves too thin. And maybe it was just me, but it definitely felt like it dragged on for way too long; there were places I thought were good stopping points in the Doma section only to find out that it just kept going on, and on, and on....
The post patches for stormblood are hands down the best part. I liked Fordola's development, and because I happen to like Yotsuyu I enjoyed most of what was done, though I personally did not like the resolution of her character, it felt very meanspirited after everything happened to her. The character arc of a woman betrayed by the world and doing what she can to survive, becoming a monster in the process, to finally be given a chance at happiness and understand her wrong doings, only to have a possible redemption torn away by an incredibly punchable and cheap villain that represents the problems she was about to overcome? When she had been shown to be capable of being better? It just didn't feel very satisfying to me, though that's my personal opinion. I can respect the "she has done too much to be able to atone properly" angle from it, but at the very least, I would have wanted her death to be from the people she wronged to hammer this home, not from her abusers that continued to take advantage of her until the very end.
They do that with Yotsuyu's character, and but then they turn have one of the player character's good aligned dialogue options be that you should have people change corrupt systems from within...even though Yotsuyu, being in the system, was utterly chewed up and destroyed. Even though that people who enter the system become corrupt themselves and turn on their countrymen just to survive and take care of themselves, even though they had to resort to this rebellion specifically because they couldn't do any of this kind of change from inside up to this point. The Stormblood expansion has you abolishing the system from the outside by uniting the people to take up arms...and it just feels really strange to have that kind of message thrown in there. Maybe I'm just nitpicking about that but again, there's lots of awkwardly handled writing choices that feel tone deaf and I guess all I can really say is it tried to do too many things at once (some of them even conflicting with each other) and did all of them in a subpar manner.
I think the best part of the expansion was definitely the Azim Steppe section, which I've heard was penned by the writer behind the dark knight quests and the Shadowbringers expansion. It wasn't written amazingly well because, again, they didn't really expand much on it since they stretched themselves out too thin, but it was fun and Magnai and Sadu have a fun dynamic that I'd love to see more of in the future. Natsuko Ishikawa please keep writing for ff14 I'm begging you
Everything after a prelude in violet is where things actually start getting legitimately interesting and good. That being said, it's mostly closing out Stormblood and doing setups for Shadowbringers, so how much can I really praise Stormblood for this? And when you get to Shadowbringers and how good everything is there, you really start to understand just how much this expansion was pretty average.
There's lots of other things I could nitpick about this but ultimately. Stormblood is pretty mid lmao
I didn't even realize it until I had it pointed out to me that Ala Mhigo is also supposed to be south asian/middle eastern inspired, which makes Lyse jumping in and trying to save everything very white savior-y on top of her being just a flat out boring character. It's made even worse when she is pointed out to have no authority and that having Raubahn around is what gives her her strength and credibility......so then....why not just have Raubahn take up the mantle? His story feels better suited to him being the leader. God I miss when Lyse had a personality before all this.
It was when I reached the Doma section of the expansion that I started enjoying things more, and it felt a lot like the Ala Mhigo section was just kind of tacked on. Stormblood does not do a good job of balancing the two conflicts, and while I appreciate what they wanted to do with it, they ended up not expanding on either places in a meaningful way because they stretched themselves too thin. And maybe it was just me, but it definitely felt like it dragged on for way too long; there were places I thought were good stopping points in the Doma section only to find out that it just kept going on, and on, and on....
The post patches for stormblood are hands down the best part. I liked Fordola's development, and because I happen to like Yotsuyu I enjoyed most of what was done, though I personally did not like the resolution of her character, it felt very meanspirited after everything happened to her. The character arc of a woman betrayed by the world and doing what she can to survive, becoming a monster in the process, to finally be given a chance at happiness and understand her wrong doings, only to have a possible redemption torn away by an incredibly punchable and cheap villain that represents the problems she was about to overcome? When she had been shown to be capable of being better? It just didn't feel very satisfying to me, though that's my personal opinion. I can respect the "she has done too much to be able to atone properly" angle from it, but at the very least, I would have wanted her death to be from the people she wronged to hammer this home, not from her abusers that continued to take advantage of her until the very end.
They do that with Yotsuyu's character, and but then they turn have one of the player character's good aligned dialogue options be that you should have people change corrupt systems from within...even though Yotsuyu, being in the system, was utterly chewed up and destroyed. Even though that people who enter the system become corrupt themselves and turn on their countrymen just to survive and take care of themselves, even though they had to resort to this rebellion specifically because they couldn't do any of this kind of change from inside up to this point. The Stormblood expansion has you abolishing the system from the outside by uniting the people to take up arms...and it just feels really strange to have that kind of message thrown in there. Maybe I'm just nitpicking about that but again, there's lots of awkwardly handled writing choices that feel tone deaf and I guess all I can really say is it tried to do too many things at once (some of them even conflicting with each other) and did all of them in a subpar manner.
I think the best part of the expansion was definitely the Azim Steppe section, which I've heard was penned by the writer behind the dark knight quests and the Shadowbringers expansion. It wasn't written amazingly well because, again, they didn't really expand much on it since they stretched themselves out too thin, but it was fun and Magnai and Sadu have a fun dynamic that I'd love to see more of in the future. Natsuko Ishikawa please keep writing for ff14 I'm begging you
Everything after a prelude in violet is where things actually start getting legitimately interesting and good. That being said, it's mostly closing out Stormblood and doing setups for Shadowbringers, so how much can I really praise Stormblood for this? And when you get to Shadowbringers and how good everything is there, you really start to understand just how much this expansion was pretty average.
There's lots of other things I could nitpick about this but ultimately. Stormblood is pretty mid lmao