I cannot believe that this is the one people have said is the "worst expansion" for years while saying how amazing Heavensward is. Heavensward isn't bad but I feel like people who say this don't remember how fucking badly paced that expansion is while saying this one has tons of filler. I played through both back to back in the span of 2 months so Heavensward and Stormblood are fresh in my mind.

They are structured the exact same but at least in Stormblood it has the narrative context of "we have to convince these oppressed, defensive people who don't want anything to do with us to join our rebellion war effort." So spending your time in the Ruby Sea or The Azimm Steppe don't feel as pointless even if their stories are easily the weakest part. In Heavensward the interesting main story gets completely sidetracked to spend hours on moogle mountain to help them find their sandwich they left on a rock a few miles away and other stupid bullshit like that. While the cataclysm is about to happen. Sorry Estinien, Aymric and everyone else in the ishgard I gotta go fuck around with goblins for 8 hours I can't possibly go fight nidhogg or talk to hysvelgr the moogles NEED ME.

Stormbloods biggest pace breaker is when Krile gets captured and it seems like we are going to save her but then you have to go fight the snake people's primal for some reason. Thankfully this only take 30 minutes but still very odd that they keep strcuturing their stories like this. I wish they would stop its very annoying. But seeing how ff16 does the same thing i guess i should just accept this is their writing style and that the next 3 expansions will be like that too

Really good, most peoples issues with this expansion is from not having the reading comprehension or attention span of an adult. like idk man expansions about poltical drama, rebellion, imperialism, how a systems flaws may not get better before or after occupation, and how broken systems raise broken families and broken people, and how evil is not born, but made as a product of its surroundings. All wrapped up in the tale of a man who lives for the thrill of facing someone who could give him a worthy fight, a fight for reclaiming ones homeland from occupation and raising a nation from slavery to freedom. To find ones culture and ways of life when its been removed from those people during occupation, and also to go fight an ancient superweapon and a powerful primal. Shits good!

My time with Stormblood (MSQ) wasn't bad. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but I also can't help but feel like the game is afraid to actually let you get invested in the story. It feels like every time there's something new or fun going on the game's like "Now wait just a minute, I need you to go and do fuck-off boring task for a while, just in case you were starting to get invested in the story" (fuck-off boring things include but aren't limited to: run around this town to find a captain who will take you somewhere and at one point literally collecting actual shit). I suppose that stuff is in there so that the game doesn't Skip over anything or to break up the pacing, but the pacing already feels pretty glacial so including it feels like the Square Enix team just wanted to waste my time.

All things considered though I liked the Doman part of this expansion, especially it's areas, and I had a good time with it's dungeons and overarching story. Looking forward to what comes next.

This expansion sets out to ask a simple question: Will Lyse ever stop yapping? The answer is no. I can't believe they went from heavensward to this.

The possible reality i'm facing is that people are calling the next two expansions peak because theyre either ever so slightly better than this or because they're sunk cost into the game. Really hope that isnt the case but so far i havent been blown away by this game in any capacity and i couldnt give less of a shit about any of the characters except for a few of the heavensward ones... Mainly because thats a good expansion

I thought it was funny when they remixed an older final fantasy song for a character in this game. I was like oh! look! they're referencing a video game that they wish they were half as good as! adorable😊

definitely overhated in my opinion. before I start talking about the things i liked I'll get the mud out the way. there were a lot of parts of stormblood I really did not like but as an overall experience? i like it just as much as Heavensward if not more..... yeah....
strormblood suffers from really low lows and really high peaks and a bunch of bloats in the middle. the character set for this expansion really was unremarkable and lackluster and didn't really deliver like HW did. the pacing also was questionable at best.
some parts of the expansion were wholly uninteresting and felt uninspired. but I do know of the development issues so I'll cut it some slack

with that out the way....
music? PEAK
worldbuilding? PEAK
politics? PEAK
Bosses? PEAK
They really delivered with this more than HW imo
the themes that stormblood was supposed to tackle were tackled very well in my opinion. guilt. redemption. hardship. perseverance.

Not as strong as Heavensward, especially in the characters department but still quite good. Post Stormblood was actually awesome and that's when it actually got me hooked. Especially once Scaramouche's twin (Asahi) appeared (Without mentioning the very short parts where Estinien appeared which made me go feral but we don't talk about that). I loved Lyse's character development so much though, it was definitely one of my favourite things.

Most of the content wasn't particularly memorable though, except towards the end. Being able to play other characters during duty actually surprised me and it was fun, glad they added that. Now that one dungeon at the end where you have a few important characters was pretty cool (Would 100% do it anytime just to hear Aymeric say ''you underestimate me'' again)

Have to add that I really love the Azim Steppe and the Bardam's Mettle dungeon. The Azim Steppe was definitely my favourite part of the expansion.

Great introduction/re-introduction to new/old characters. Now I can't wait to get into Shadowbringers cause that transition from SB to ShB was amazing.

See you again for more simping.
-A dear Estinien/Heavensward men enjoyer

ps: I did the great hunt on extreme and the apparently very rare mount dropped and I got it. it was my first and only run. beginners luck? big W honestly

Stormblood
(Finished on October 5th)

(Note half of this review is just me ranting about Monks off the playstyle of two games I just so happened to be playing at the same time feel free to skip that)

Post-Heavensward
I forgot if I already brought this up.
Anyway, what if Estinien went joker mode. Pretty cool follow up to the events of Heavensward, although these kind of quests do kinda make me think "some of this feels like it shoulda been in the main expansion?" but I understand why this is the case, I guess.
Like post-ARR there's some rando missions laid throughout that are supposed to be like "hey! here's the stuff that's leaning into Stormblood get excited!" but it still felt very weird leading up to it. I never really know how to judge these quests/patches as they mostly act as a medley of prepping for the next expansion, of course but then it flip flops to wrapping up a lot of loose ends from the prior expansion. (also this expansion took a bit longer than the other two so much of this honestly left my brain).

STORMBLOOD (Proper)

Leading up to this expansion, I had heard all sorts of opinions regarding this section of FF14. I wasn't entirely sure how to tackle it at first other than to have an open mind and just go through the motions as I went from quest to quest. While I think I understand the hangups a lot of other people had with Stormblood, I still enjoyed it most of the way through. It just has a few sections of GLACIAL pacing, and some really rough character writing depending on where you're coming in from. It's a divisive expansion, but overall I enjoyed it, if only a couple of steps behind Heavensward.


I think one of the more standout points about Stormblood is just how damn good the instances are in this expansion. Heavensward was definitely a step above A Realm Reborn in terms of scenario and the required dungeons, but Stormblood has maybe 1 or 2 dungeons that feel 'mid'. I really enjoyed just about every dungeon or trial that the expansion had, from the Susanoo giant sword blocking QTE to the Mario Party-esque trials of Bardam’s Mettle. The only dungeon I don't think I cared about was the grave shipyard but it was kinda neat as what I think is a FFV callback?

I also really liked most of the areas throughout the middle chunk of the expansion. I'll get to the first and last chunk later, but from the sprawling streets of Kugane to the rolling plains of the Azim Steppe, to the overwhelming Dairyu Moon Gates from the bottom of the Yanxia basin
there was a lot of really nice locales throughout the expansion. You get this weird diving mechanic also which gets shoehorned into a lot of places throughout the expansion, but your first use of this is in this huge ocean map with a bunch of underwater locales throughout.

The main issue regarding Stormblood is that it does have some really slow parts in its plot. It reminds me of Fire Emblem! No but actually, the whole 'we need to gather and unite the oppressed masses to rebel over their imperialist overlords", the arid environments of Gyr Abania, the nomadic tribes... it felt like I was getting a fusion of Thracia, Blazing Blade and Fates Birthright all in one! I mean, if you squint, Yotsuyu is basically like Aversa. I’m not crazy. Regardless, I did enjoy the new rotation of the cast for this expansion, as I appreciated the return of Alisaie into the main lineup for this expansion and in always happy whenever Raubahn is present. On the other hand, Lyse is so milquetoast. I had heard whining and complaining about some of the characters in this being really rought and while I don't think its all that bad -sometimes you like a toxic bitch, who doesn't?- but Lyse really is just way more pushed than she really needs to be. To give her some credit, she's mostly just mid, but she's got so little sauce for who's supposed to be the central character for this expansion. I don't know, I was kind of waiting for her to commit some atrocity- hell if she did do that at least she'd be somewhat more interesting. Nearing the end of the expansion I was wondering if she was gonna do something into post-Stormblood, but nah she ends up leaving the Scions to help rebuild Ala Mhigo.

The two main villains this time around are really fun though, I was really shocked when I heard people were on the fence with Zenos. I guess I can kinda understand with how simple his motives are, but Zenos is so delightfully hammy I can't help but love whenever he's on screen. Hell, if I had one problem with Zenos it'd be that he didn't have enough screentime, he shows up every now and then but it's divvied up between the two main villains, who already take a bit of a break for a 1/3rd of the expansion.

I did wanna get cocky this expansion and see if I could manage two jobs at the same time throughout the expansion but it got to the point where I was underlevelled for pretty simple missions so I decided to hang up the MNK clothes and go full time as a Dark Knight. This felt like a fine decision to me, although I was still left grumbling to myself that I wish levelling was significantly easier in general.
Dark Knight continues to be probably one of the more interesting classes on the docket, continuing the Sidurgu and Rielle sidequest with a new addition in Myste- a young boy who’s stolen a portion of your aether for the purpose harnessing it and of finding some closure for those that have died. The end of this questline was really cool so I'm excited to see what the next expansions have in store, since they brought the writer for the DRK questline onto shadowbringers.

I did decide to try a bit of Samurai as well, considering its one of the new additions in this expansion. It's a little overwhelming at first as its a class that starts out at level 50, using a lot of skills that weave in and out of similar combos. Once I got the hang of it though it felt...okay. I'll probably load into leveling for it every now and then but don't think I'll be wanting it to become a mainstay in my arsenal. Part of me wanted to get back into MNK-ing after a small break throughout the post-HW questline, however with how bad DPS wait times are and how same-y MNK can get I just wasn't feeling up to switching over to that job to level it up.

I had planned an entire rant in my Baldurs Gate review where I wanted to talk about how much I wish Monk was a cooler class but I figured I'd cut that out since it was already a lengthy review, so I'll just graft it into here- man I wish Monk was so much cooler (BG3's version of monks are fine, they're just weird and require a bit of tooling- it just took me 9 levels to get an ability I thought was cool enough). Part of that desire to rant was predicated on going through MNK in FF14 around the same time, though. I always liked classes and weapons that utilized martial arts or bare-handed fighting in their gameplan. It's a unique way of handling the traditional swords and magic (or guns, Fallout has unarmed skills too) you come to find in these types of games by kind of tossing both out the window. No swords, just your bare strength- no magic, but the Ki in your soul. But in reality, what you get is a really boring questline and some okay feeling combat.
It did kinda worry me that Dark Knight was considered the best job sidequest by a wide margin when looking into it- mostly because I wasn't sure if this meant there'd be this wide gap in quality between that and the rest of the jobs. Not sure how consistent of a given that is just yet, but as it stands for Monk, I never really wanted to know what the Monk dude was up to or what's up with the rivalling tribes or whatever.
Also while I do like the new mechanics introduced for Monk in Stormblood, there was a part of me that just wants Monks to have a more interesting energy to them- Lyse being the closest thing to a Monk in the main cast is maybe the worst example you could produce. I dug the pugilist storyline enough, and at first I kinda understood what the ARR Monk arc was going for- I just wish it went more into a spiritual or a more personal direction.
Or you could just make your martial artist class storyline just be Kengan Ashura, that'd be sick. I don't care how involved and bizarre it'd be make the Monk storyline turn into a damn tournament arc with corrupt-business-conspiracy-superhuman-experimenting-nonsense and lemme learn moves that look like they'd break my bones just as much as they break my opponents'. They should give me a suplex like Sabin's- it doesn't need to take the enemy model off screen or anything- but I'd like some allusion that my Monk could just be like Sabin. Some Monk combos should almost look like Bogartian power geysers- Monk abilties that almost feel as good as God Hand roulette attacks- maybe even just give me a BM 'Taunt' ability like im Kiryu.
Hell, give me Asura's 6 arms- why not!
I don't literally need Star Platinum behind my back, but if I had an attack where the animation were my PC holding a stance and an outburst of flying fists came from the side, creating an illusion that I'm just rapidly firing blows from nowhere, I'd think "Monks're really cool!"- instead its some neat acrobatics and whatnot but, not really what I had in mind. You get some neat supermoves in the new 'Master Gauge’ mechanic in Stormblood, it just requires a lot more I guess I wouldn't mind so much but I do like a lot of the Monks that appear in the standard FF games up to the point that I've played. Sabin, Tifa, Yang- hell I think the FFT Monks have more carnal moves early on- they get a damn Ki blast! (Looking over this before I post the review, forgot to mention how much I liked Matthew's playstyle in the most recent XB3 expansion. You can make non-action brawlers feel good!!)
I just wish Monks had a lot more going for them is all. It feels like the class should be flashier and more 'unga' -and maybe by the endgame of FF14 it gets neater moves, I don't know- but I was getting really bored playing Monk by this point (also Baldurs Gate 3s' monk up until Level 9), in terms of questline, moveset and . I could go further into how even non-action game move animations can go a long way, however I started talking about Pokemon and I felt like I should save that for later.

Sorry for the tangent I needed some outlet in which to spew this out, its been stuck in my head for a few weeks.

For what its worth I think this isn't a huge step down from Heavensward, and its just about as good on a lot of fronts, its just sandwiched between an incredibly slow beginning and parts of the end of the scenario. Much of what lies in between I think is a lot neater but anytime you have to traverse back to the Gry Abania map, it always feels a lot more monotonous of a task getting much of anything done. Glad that it's getting added along with HW in being free for new players, as I think this being the first paid content users had to go through for a while there might have been a bit of a mean joke.

The second massive expansion of this game.

It’s an interesting one considering that unlike Heavensward which had a clear singular storyline, stormblood is divided into the ala mhigo revolution and the doma conflitc.

The former overall was really fun and engaging, while the latter at moments felt like the pacing was dragging for far too long.

Im not sure how the upcoming expansions will compare but I also found that the map and locations for this expansion were confusing. Very often I found myself having difficulties navigating.

Once I got past the main storyline, came the patch quest for this expansion. 4.1 and 4.2 were alright but 4.3 was fantastic and definitely the highlight of Stormblood for me.

By far the weakest out of the Final Fantasy XIV expansions. With more quests than it's predecessor "Heavensward" you would think there would be a lot to unpack, however I found this expansion to be way less impactful or interesting than the previous one. The story suffers from the sheer length of the quests, unable to fill them with enough interesting bits to justify their length. The beginning and post-game drag on for way too long with nothing really happening and expecting you to care. The story does pick up at around the middle to end of the main expansion with some good and memorable characters and great bosses to match. Makes me wish it was like this throughout the entire expansion but I digress. I definitely prefer Stormblood over A Realm Reborn for the side content, dungeons and bosses alone. Definitely not the worst, but could definitely be better.

In which the Warrior of Light and gang intervene in not one but TWO foreign conflicts and build a state-sponsored mineral extraction business in a vaguely Middle Eastern, war torn nation. That this somehow came out in the middle of the 2010s, with headlines about Iraq and Afghanistan fresh in our collective memory, baffles me.

I never get the impression that Final Fantasy XIV has a good grasp on its politics either in-game or in relation to the real world, but by centering Stormblood on a global conflict, it becomes so much harder to ignore how weak its storytelling is the moment things drift away from wizards and demons, and into councils and war rooms. Especially in a world where we continue to see real wars and real refugee crises, it's hard to stomach Final Fantasy XIV's sloppy facsimile. (There's a line spoken by a character who's usually presented as comic relief about how helping refugees requires a profit motive, and it's gross.)

To Stormblood's credit, things do even out when the game recenters its "light versus dark" conflict that leans more into a typical Final Fantasy tale of crystals and gods and cool anime dudes, and between the additional trials, dungeons, raids, classes and side stories, and a handful of new mechanics, Stormblood adds so much to Final Fantasy XIV as a game. Newer duties, made with more experienced players in mind, build on Final Fantasy XIV's already strong dungeon and raid experience, with Stormblood's post-game offering some of the best encounters in the whole of Final Fantasy XIV. On that front alone, Stormblood serves as maybe the strongest of the first two Final Fantasy XIV expansions, even if it's a step back when it comes to storytelling.

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.

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.