This review contains spoilers
I don't usually write reviews for games I play but Stormblood truly frustrated me in so many ways that I have all of these feelings inside me that I just wanna throw onto here.
It feels like the story of FFXIV comes to a halt after Heavensward with the beginning of this expansion. Everything interesting and fun about Lyse is thrown out the window and she's made worse with the big plot hole that she is one of the very few rosy pink skinned, blue eyed, blonde Hyur from Ala Mhigo. I really liked Lyse's character prior to this expansion. With her revealing her big lie to everyone and expressing her need to help the refugees of Ala Mhigo I was so excited to see where her storyline would lead. Unfortunately as soon as the expansion begins her personality is stripped from her and I found myself mourning it at the same level I mourned Papalymo.
The story quickly turns from one of revolution to just another white saviour narrative. Square Enix has always been known to whitewash their own characters but it particularly stings when the player realises that the characters of Minfilia and Lyse were, in a narrative sense, never supposed to be white considering they hail from Ala Mhigo. While colourism is it's own issue in this expansion, so is cultural appropriation. With Ala Mhigo being inspired by West Asian culture, I found it very confusing as to why the New World armour sets look like cheap Party City Native American costumes. Not only did it break immersion completely, but seeing an armour set like this in a completely different setting just rang tone deaf on Square Enix's behalf. I hardly believe having a Native American headdress armour piece in FFXIV is appropriate.
The most interesting part of this expansion is when the gang flee to Doma and we're introduced to a more developed and interesting setting and politics. While I do find that the Azim Steppe map is far too big and empty, it makes up for it in its writing of the tribes that live there. It definitely feels like the developers had a lot of fun working on Doma's liberation that they tossed the Ala Mhigo narrative to the side until the very last ten or so quests where they then decide the gang needs to head back to defeat the bad guys. And then that's it, main expansion over.
While I did like the patch quests considerably more than the main expansion, Yotsuyu's "redemption" is abysmally written. With her being a villain created by the abuse she faced by the people around her, you would think it would have been especially hard to turn it on her and blame her for her own trauma. But no, it seems like Square Enix chose to go with the harder method and write a victim-blaming narrative where Tsuyu can only be redeemed in death. The rest of the patch quests beyond that had me glued to my screen and did a great job of building up suspense for the beginning of Shadowbringers. |
It feels like the story of FFXIV comes to a halt after Heavensward with the beginning of this expansion. Everything interesting and fun about Lyse is thrown out the window and she's made worse with the big plot hole that she is one of the very few rosy pink skinned, blue eyed, blonde Hyur from Ala Mhigo. I really liked Lyse's character prior to this expansion. With her revealing her big lie to everyone and expressing her need to help the refugees of Ala Mhigo I was so excited to see where her storyline would lead. Unfortunately as soon as the expansion begins her personality is stripped from her and I found myself mourning it at the same level I mourned Papalymo.
The story quickly turns from one of revolution to just another white saviour narrative. Square Enix has always been known to whitewash their own characters but it particularly stings when the player realises that the characters of Minfilia and Lyse were, in a narrative sense, never supposed to be white considering they hail from Ala Mhigo. While colourism is it's own issue in this expansion, so is cultural appropriation. With Ala Mhigo being inspired by West Asian culture, I found it very confusing as to why the New World armour sets look like cheap Party City Native American costumes. Not only did it break immersion completely, but seeing an armour set like this in a completely different setting just rang tone deaf on Square Enix's behalf. I hardly believe having a Native American headdress armour piece in FFXIV is appropriate.
The most interesting part of this expansion is when the gang flee to Doma and we're introduced to a more developed and interesting setting and politics. While I do find that the Azim Steppe map is far too big and empty, it makes up for it in its writing of the tribes that live there. It definitely feels like the developers had a lot of fun working on Doma's liberation that they tossed the Ala Mhigo narrative to the side until the very last ten or so quests where they then decide the gang needs to head back to defeat the bad guys. And then that's it, main expansion over.
While I did like the patch quests considerably more than the main expansion, Yotsuyu's "redemption" is abysmally written. With her being a villain created by the abuse she faced by the people around her, you would think it would have been especially hard to turn it on her and blame her for her own trauma. But no, it seems like Square Enix chose to go with the harder method and write a victim-blaming narrative where Tsuyu can only be redeemed in death. The rest of the patch quests beyond that had me glued to my screen and did a great job of building up suspense for the beginning of Shadowbringers. |