The characters are great. End game patches go hard. Yotsuyu is one of my faves ever.
I might be biased because I love the characters, but this was a pretty good expansion. Really liked the story and what they did with the characters, and even though the base msq kinda dragged a little, the raid and post game msq made up for it.
Gameplay-wise, it's solid, it's FF14, the trials and raids and whatnot are always enjoyable.
Story-wise, it's exemplary whenever a villain is on screen, basically a snoozefest otherwise. FF14's story has so many great characters and stories and moments but it genuinely feels like its writers cannot tell the difference between the good characters with depth and the bland characters with one or fewer personality traits.
Story-wise, it's exemplary whenever a villain is on screen, basically a snoozefest otherwise. FF14's story has so many great characters and stories and moments but it genuinely feels like its writers cannot tell the difference between the good characters with depth and the bland characters with one or fewer personality traits.
This review contains spoilers
Pretty alright. Compared to Heavensward, it dragged a bit more, especially since this expac was split between two main casts in the same amount of time we spent with one whole cast in HW. Looking forward to ShB, since everyone I know says it's where things start to get really good.
This "nuanced racism" sucked. "i got mistreated growing up, and one day i saw someone from my race get abused in the street, and it made me horny. now i want to genocide my entire race. the writers want you to feel bad for me" SHUT UP! I cannot believe there are people out there who think this is a good story about racism... because it has the most unrealistic portrayals and reasons behind the character's racism.
Foi meio cansativo na primeira metade, mas depois engrenou bem legal.
Stormblood's story unfortunately doesn't live up to the high standard set by HW, that being said, end game content/set pieces and general trials in Stormblood are miles ahead of HW. It would have been nice to have a better balance between story and aesthetics but the expansion is not bad by any means.
hot take this one is good (It set up the dual storytelling device while also fleshing out the world properly)
I wrapped up FFXIV’s second expansion, Stormblood, right at the beginning of the year. While the main story can get a bit muddy in the middle I loved the liberation arc and eastern-inspired locales. The best part was honestly the post-game story content, delivering a heartbreaking character-driven finale and a ramp-up of incredible intrigue leading into the next expansion: Shadowbringers.
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/01/31/now-playing-january-2021-edition/
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/01/31/now-playing-january-2021-edition/
could use more dragons
few things....
- this has an interesting setup but the thing is all of the zones in this expansion are so lifeless
- storywise this feels very boring compared to heavensward and doesn't rlly move the overall of this entire series
- main villain is the only good part
- this has an interesting setup but the thing is all of the zones in this expansion are so lifeless
- storywise this feels very boring compared to heavensward and doesn't rlly move the overall of this entire series
- main villain is the only good part
Mi primera expansión pagando la coca, es súper desigual y te vende entrar en el conflicto Palestino para pirarse a hacer el weeaboo la mayor parte de la trama, aunque realmente me la bufa porque SOKEN DEJA DE COOKAR OSTS TE VAS A MATAR
This review contains spoilers
Fuck it, it’s good. The Ala Mhigo/Doma split doesn’t really bother me as much as it bothers a lot of other people. The mechanics are objectively better than Heavensward’s, and I love the music. 4.1-4.3 had their issues but feel incomparable to 3.1-3.3, and Yotsuyu- in spite of Square Enix’s ongoing issues in portraying female characters, including her- is a cathartic character for me in a way that not a lot of others are. It’s free now, so there’s no excuse not to play it already if you’ve already played through Heavensward. It’s not without its flaws, but it’s worth a shot. Oh, and this all isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be discussing the colorism with regards to Lyse’s design and Ala Mhigo as a whole, but that’s for another time and place.
I liked it more than HW, but there wasn't too much happening til the very end
Hard not to be bummed out after Heavensward. Just a huge step down in storytelling and characters which makes it kind of a slog to get through 40+ hours of MMO game play (despite some nice improvements). Getting through this expansion really hurt my momentum on the game but looking forward to Shadowbringers!
5 stars for the music and Zenos
(but please learn how to write female characters)
(but please learn how to write female characters)
Enjoyed the Doma half more than Heavensward. The Gyr Albania half falls a little flat for me sometimes but Zenos is hype. Best post story yet. Still killing it on the optional content too.
As messy as the launch was and how fairly standard the story comes across due to previous and later highs, Stormblood was some of the most experimental days of the MMO's years. The modern state of the game would not exist without many of the changes and lessons learned through Stormblood.
This expansion was the first time in this game that I felt the story start to drag. Thankfully, Zenos was a captivating villain, and the climax stuck the landing.
I love me a good rebel story. Cool departure from the established setting that focuses on the down to Earth conflict.
Asahi my beloved.
Doma was cool. Ala mihgo was kinda garbo. Return to ivalice was great (but really it was just because of fan service for a better experience). At the moment of what I've played, Heavensward was a lot better. Hoping Shadowbringers and Endwalker bring it back.
Original thoughts were that Stormblood wasn't quite as exciting for me as Heavensward because I was rushing to try to catch up before Endwalker released at this point, but looking back Stormblood still holds up really well.
Glad I was too late for Raubahn EX.
Glad I was too late for Raubahn EX.
Yugiri and the domans are cool I guess
When did this expansion get so good? My recent replay of Stormblood has made me appreciate far more than my original playthrough, from increasing my opinion on a variety of characters to realizing that this might be the best dungeon content in the game pre-Endwalker. The story itself, while a bit segmented, it still very good, and the general post-basegame content such as optional dungeons and raid series are also superb. I personally wasn't invested as much in the overarching narrative compared to Heavensward, but that's barely a dock against a story that's still really solid overall. It's not just the benchmark between Heavensward and Shadowbringers like some claim, and hey, you might even find it to be better than you remember if you stop and smell the roses. Did I mention this is free too? Go and play yourself some Stormblood.
incredible amounts of content at max level and a compelling and grounded plot compared to what follows and precedes it.
gameplay is the best as it's ever been (actually good for the first time), story is mehhh
telling the same story in 2 different regions at the same time isn't a good idea and we should've gotten ala mhigo as a city instead of a dungeon
i'm neutral towards and that fucking tower platforming made me never want to go there again
i can kinda see what they tried to do with yotsuyu and generally the constructivist themes but nationalism is cringe especially at the ending ughghghgihgih
i didn't hate lyse but she was bland
i only liked the azim steppe as a region tbh
fetch quests were boring, quest design is the same as ARR
i shouldn't've done so many sidequests but i need to level 5 classes for endwalker and im already tired
i'm also already over aether currents just let me fucking fly
i liked the omega deltascape story bcs of the toxic old man yaoi :3
i love alisaie i love alisaie i love alisaie i love alisaie
telling the same story in 2 different regions at the same time isn't a good idea and we should've gotten ala mhigo as a city instead of a dungeon
i'm neutral towards and that fucking tower platforming made me never want to go there again
i can kinda see what they tried to do with yotsuyu and generally the constructivist themes but nationalism is cringe especially at the ending ughghghgihgih
i didn't hate lyse but she was bland
i only liked the azim steppe as a region tbh
fetch quests were boring, quest design is the same as ARR
i shouldn't've done so many sidequests but i need to level 5 classes for endwalker and im already tired
i'm also already over aether currents just let me fucking fly
i liked the omega deltascape story bcs of the toxic old man yaoi :3
i love alisaie i love alisaie i love alisaie i love alisaie
After playing through Heavensward and this, my enjoyment with this game is starting to wane a little...
To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.
In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.
And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.
Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.
I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅
To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.
In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.
And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.
Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.
I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅
Stormblood is pretty good in 4.0 but it suffers from bad pacing. 4.1-4.5 saved this expansion for me and made me love what 4.0 was doing. It's not bad at all, it's just taking time to develop the world
Adding two different regions in one addon sounds great on paper - that's twice the content compared to Heavensward, right? Not really. The total number and size of areas is roughly the same, so both Ala Mhigo and Othard only get half of what Ishgard had. The stories of those two are also separated, but the antagonist is the same (well, there is also Yotsuyu, but she's more of a set piece and does not exist outside of cutscenes). This makes the main story feel even more disjointed.
At the very least, the trials and dungeons were still decent, though I do believe they could have treated Shinryu better than that. Samurai and Red Mage were also good additions.
At the very least, the trials and dungeons were still decent, though I do believe they could have treated Shinryu better than that. Samurai and Red Mage were also good additions.