Continuing my journey through FFXIV with the expansion everyone is lauding! I did notice that Shadowbringers is one of the Top 5 highest rated games on this site so I was curious to see how it goes.
And it went...pretty fantastically for the most part! This is by far my favorite bit from FFXIV so far. Filled to the brim with amazing characters, music, dungeons and trials (My favorite batch of them so far) and probably one of the best villains in recent memory, there isn't a ton for me to complain about in this expansion.
With all that being said...it's certainly not perfect. The pacing, while probably better than anything else that has come by for FFXIV, still has areas in the story where the MC is doing what's essentially chores which really breaks up the urgency of the story. In addition, much like Heavensward, the way the community hypes up the story with words like "Best FF story since FF whatever" or "It will change your life" is probably not setting it up for success.
And ultimately I can't help to notice the fact that I had to play this game 200+ hours to get to these shining moments. Yes, there are plenty of high points along the way (Despite not enjoying Stormblood a whole ton, I still think back to parts of the patches for that expansion), it is a lot to ask of players especially when parts of the MSQ is so time-consuming or simply drab. You're also spending a lot of your time just watching cutscenes...which I feel like for those that have a problem with that wouldn't have stuck around this long
I'm curious how this arc concludes with Endwalker but perhaps it will be better to let this game breathe a little. Perhaps this is not a surprise when I've been cramming 10 years of content into a few months! But I enjoyed my time with Shadowbringers and curious how they wrap this all up.
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The above is what I wrote after finishing 5.0. After finishing the patches, I totally see why people love this expansion so much. After being worried by a couple pretty slow patches narrative-wise, it really blew up in the middle with a thrilling patch with all the spectacles, development and closure I was looking for when I finished Shadowbringers. I admit that reviewing these expansions are hard due to all the expanded narrative that comes with the patches and the more I play through, the more I realize how strong they are.
And it went...pretty fantastically for the most part! This is by far my favorite bit from FFXIV so far. Filled to the brim with amazing characters, music, dungeons and trials (My favorite batch of them so far) and probably one of the best villains in recent memory, there isn't a ton for me to complain about in this expansion.
With all that being said...it's certainly not perfect. The pacing, while probably better than anything else that has come by for FFXIV, still has areas in the story where the MC is doing what's essentially chores which really breaks up the urgency of the story. In addition, much like Heavensward, the way the community hypes up the story with words like "Best FF story since FF whatever" or "It will change your life" is probably not setting it up for success.
And ultimately I can't help to notice the fact that I had to play this game 200+ hours to get to these shining moments. Yes, there are plenty of high points along the way (Despite not enjoying Stormblood a whole ton, I still think back to parts of the patches for that expansion), it is a lot to ask of players especially when parts of the MSQ is so time-consuming or simply drab. You're also spending a lot of your time just watching cutscenes...which I feel like for those that have a problem with that wouldn't have stuck around this long
I'm curious how this arc concludes with Endwalker but perhaps it will be better to let this game breathe a little. Perhaps this is not a surprise when I've been cramming 10 years of content into a few months! But I enjoyed my time with Shadowbringers and curious how they wrap this all up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above is what I wrote after finishing 5.0. After finishing the patches, I totally see why people love this expansion so much. After being worried by a couple pretty slow patches narrative-wise, it really blew up in the middle with a thrilling patch with all the spectacles, development and closure I was looking for when I finished Shadowbringers. I admit that reviewing these expansions are hard due to all the expanded narrative that comes with the patches and the more I play through, the more I realize how strong they are.