Iroha

I've just been wondering if they are ever going to officially tie her into the storyline, given that they are still bringing back her evenf after all these years and the fact that unlike the other crossovers she never actually leaves there is plenty of room for her to take part in future events, I was surprised that she wasn't in some way connected to Eorzea's far east or to Tenzen and that quest line.

It always feels to me like her event deliberately has no real resolution, like they made it specifically so that they could keep her around for later use.. yet they haven't yet and that's confusing.

I love her lore, and the connection to FFXI that she has, and the potential for her to strike out on her own in Eorzea as an adventurer like her master (aka you if you were an XI player) is such a wasted opportunity in my opinion.

Anything to further the storyline,

Anything provided is no longer with any of the Scions associates (which I am already sick of),

Anything no more tied with Graha Tia & Y’shtola (made me cringe further I swear I developed a disdain for furry/cat/ over populated Mi’Qote) obsessed lovers without offending anyone (Buns & everyone else you’re cool!).

Honestly the new storyline should continue but with a brand fresh of new characters & flesh them out rather than all being part of a secret but uber “awesomeness” organization (please pleasee!! Don’t make every character white hair either like the Scions, that trend got old fast).

I assume they keep her around as a yearly event due to the Japanese always respecting who/what came before. It's also an easy way to make FFXI vets who do come and play FFXIV eventually feel like they are seen. She's also a curiosity drive, particularly towards those who are vulnerable to wanting every scrap of content with their waifu in it. Makes'em go try XI out, and let it get a little more profit so they can excuse the little toasters they have it running on still.

It would be cool for her to be a character in XIV, but it'd also just be a little weird. Her entire schtick in XI is to be a time traveling daughter of Tenzen who served the player character in the dark future where the Cloud of Darkness began to erase Vana'diel (in this world, Cloud of Darkness is an extraterrestrial entity more powerful than the Goddess Altana). The entirety of her scenes in XI are her showing up, laying out your great destiny. Occasionally fighting something, and then suffering time traveling paradox phase out/erasure, only to be brought back by being imbued with the Phoenix from Tenzen's blade. She does fight Cloud of Darkness with the player at the end of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, but after that she's pretty much not present within the game (though I haven't been back to do Voracious Resurgence yet).

With that in mind, I have no idea how they'd shape her in XIV, since she's more of a plot device than a character.

It's a crossover event, it has no bearing on the actual main scenario and exists in it's own independent bubble story wise and is there for fanservice, nothing more. The original FFXI event along with the FFXIII and XV events were handled the same way - they have no connection or their events are never referenced in the main scenario, and Iroha is the same.

Ironically enough, her theme music reappears in FFXIV SB's soundtrack during completely unreleated events (such as the Four Lords events), and you can even get it for the Orchestrion too, but I think that was just Soken reusing it with Naoshi Mizuta's permission simply for fanservice, again, and is not representative of something deeper.

we'll see her again when xi is finally put out to pasture

It might be worth noting that Final Fantasy does have a canonical explanation for how the game universes exist in relation to each other, which XIV has stuck to in a few places, and the XI event isn't broken by.

Essentially, every FF game exists as a separate universe within a multiverse, between which is the Void/Interdimensional Rift (the games differ on what exactly they call it, XIV goes for the Rift because it's already got a Void). There are governing cosmic figures over this multiverse, but they mostly don't matter except in the Dissidia games, and while it's possible to traverse this, doing so has only been important in one game: FFV, which didn't use it to cross over.

Iroha has clearly unconsciously traversed it; the main figure who's consciously traversed it is Gilgamesh, who's canonically from FFV and whose appearances are canonical to VIII, XII, XIII(-2) and XIV. There is also a Shinryu around (but not our Shinryu, who is different) and some number of Omegas (which might include our Omega). And then you've got Dissidia, where every character is basically a magic clone of someone in the multiverse except Gilgamesh and Shinryu, who are the real deals and just wandered in aimlessly.

I love the FF multiverse stuff, because there's just barely enough thought put into it to have some logical grounding and explanations, but to still have a bunch of inexplicable weirdo nonsense going on.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Essentially, every FF game exists as a separate universe within a multiverse, between which is the Void/Interdimensional Rift (the games differ on what exactly they call it, XIV goes for the Rift because it's already got a Void).

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The Rift in FFXIV is what separates the shards of the sundered world. There is no confirmation that it stretches further than that – the closest is Omega reproducing things it has seen via the Rift, but between its inability to distinguish fact from fiction and that "things from other FFs" encountered in Eorzea tend to be copies rather than direct crossovers, there's no guarantee that Omega hasn't simply found either similar copies or legends in the other shards.

Of course, there's the question of just how Omega got the ability to interact with the rift when it was built on an unsundered planet, but it's possible that it evolved the ability after arriving on Etheirys.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

The Rift in FFXIV is what separates the shards of the sundered world. There is no confirmation that it stretches further than that – the closest is Omega reproducing things it has seen via the Rift, but between its inability to distinguish fact from fiction and that "things from other FFs" encountered in Eorzea tend to be copies rather than direct crossovers, there's no guarantee that Omega hasn't simply found either similar copies or legends in the other shards.

Of course, there's the question of just how Omega got the ability to interact with the rift when it was built on an unsundered planet, but it's possible that it evolved the ability after arriving on Etheirys.

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It's not clear exactly how this Rift interacts with the other Rift, or if they're even different (much like how the space between Earth and the moon and the space between the Earth and Mars are both 'space'), but both of them do exist. After all, Gilgamesh is more loudly 'the Gilgamesh from FFV' here than he is in most other FFs. And in the English translation, the Kefka minion confirms Dissidia NT is somehow canon.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

After all, Gilgamesh is more loudly 'the Gilgamesh from FFV' here than he is in most other FFs.

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Is he, though? As I said, plenty of other FF characters have appeared here as copies of their original-game selves while actually being entirely native to FFXIV's world.

How would you tell the difference between "Gilgamesh who is the actual same character as in FFV" and "Gilgamesh who is a copy of the character in FFV"?

Gilgamesh is the genuine article, same VA and model and characterization as the one that appeared in Mobius where he has ENG VA lines about his encounters in FFV, VIII, XII and XIII-2. with the ones in IX and XI being separate characters (though Gilgamesh [FFV] has been to Vanadi'el at some point as he wields the Hauteclaire [FFXI] in his XIV boss model). As opposed to XIV Ultros being a separate and distinct entity for example.

Unless they make a distinction in any upcoming side content, they could have distinguished this Gilgamesh from the one from FFV onward like they did with Ultros [XIV]. That they decided not to means Gilgamesh is more than likely the one that Bartz encountered.

There's also the story of Enkidu, which is an FFV thing, and whose primal form is even based directly on his FFV appearance.

Yeah, there's plenty of cameos that are native to the game's universe, but they are all very clearly explained as having in-universe origins in generalities if not specifics. But there is just straight-up no explanation for Gilgamesh aside from 'yeah, he's the same guy'--which itself is accurate to Gilgamesh, because in most games he turns up he's the only guy actually crossing over from another game.

Our Omega's an interesting one, because if we take the Kefka situation to be 'he somehow had contact with and recreated Actual Factual Kefka', then he might plausibly be an Omega from one of the other games, but he can't be all of them because XV's Omega is in the same position of 'has an in-universe origin but also a history of dimensional travel'.

Wait. I assumed that she was just brought back to Vanadiel in the FF 11 side of the crossover event. Like how that miqote had a storyline in 15 on their side of the noct event. I don’t know anything about Iroha’s story in 11 but if she’s the player character’s student (and seemingly filled a g’raha- or future!Trunks-like role in time traveling from the bad ending to help the PC), then I assume it’s a significant role? How can she just disappear from their storyline and stay on Etherys indefinitely?

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Wait. I assumed that she was just brought back to Vanadiel in the FF 11 side of the crossover event. Like how that miqote had a storyline in 15 on their side of the noct event. I don’t know anything about Iroha’s story in 11 but if she’s the player character’s student (and seemingly filled a g’raha- or future!Trunks-like role in time traveling from the bad ending to help the PC), then I assume it’s a significant role? How can she just disappear from their storyline and stay on Etherys indefinitely?

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That's exactly how they ended it regarding Iroha barring any details cropping up in the Voracious Resurgence storyline that FFXI is currently in the middle of which i can't speak to as I haven't reached that story content yet. And the XIV XI event doesn't have a XI side of it. It basically is a epilogue that's only found in XIV. There's a reason they're very good at telling stories in a MMO in XIV and it's because they've been doing it and improving on that kind of storytelling since 2002 with FFXI. With the storyline in XI being where you're just an Adventurer building up your reputation not a WoL.

So is her absence just not noticed at the moment by the 11 characters cus she was off doing her own thing beforehand? Or is her absence noted but currently unexplained? Is she assumed dead? Assumed to have time travelled back to her future?



And, with regards to the OP, I liked her well enough and I think the connection to 11’s world and characters is neat. It could be cool to have Iroha involved in a story in 14. You could easily introduce her in a storyline I think, even if someone hasn’t done the crossover. Then, if you did do Maiden’s Rhapsody, you might get some special acknowledgment in dialogue. Kinda like Alisiae and whether or not you ran coils before she came back into the msq post-HW.

I can't answer that as while I am at the final boss fight for Rhapsodies of Vanadiel I have not beaten it yet as I can't justify being subbed to two MMOs at the moment. So I can't speak to how her absence is handled in FFXI but there was a different XI character in a prior storyline who is erased in a existential way and it was handled as if it was permanent* but with Rhapsodies of Vanadi'el being a curtain call for the game and it's 5 prior expansions said character does make an appearance of sorts, and at the time the Dev team was under the assumption that RoV was the last planned story content, until YoshiP approved the budget for FFXI's 20th anniversary which is why the XI Dev team is now doing the Voracious Resurgence storyline currently.

So I can see Iroha being stuck on Etherys. We'll find out in a day or so as there is a JP language only 5 hour livestream for XI's 20th anniversary on the 8th. It's either gonna be my wildest dreams as a fan of FFXI or a funeral where they announce the hardware death of the last PS2 Devkits that they have to use to make XI content (yes really, which is why YoshiP has been trying to get XI on the cloud in some fashion to avoid such a instance).

*: And just to clarify, the story beat in question isn't undone iirc and the character was treated as if they were written out permanently for about 4-5 years, but the Devs at the time of RoV's planning were under the impression "this is it" so they, naturally, wanted to include that character for the game's send off.

tbf the beginning of RoV has her talking about how she was set adrift to get back to the past, and that the spirits guided her back. I believe her story in XIV's crossover is that she was waylaid in Eorzea by accident while traveling back in time (it's been a hot minute since I've done the event,) so I would assume she would connect back to the spirits that were bringing her back to 884 Vana'diel and return to where she should be. After all, she isn't around once the event ends and RoV plays out otherwise. ;)

I'm not sure where exactly it all fits in, but Iroha is presently lost in the Sky Realm in a Granblue Fantasy crossover event (another part of FFXI's 20th anniversary festivities).

The story seems to involve Promathia/Shinryu escaping Abyssea and creating a split timeline in the Sky Realm where the sky is red (and not blue). The captain (that is, the PC) is pulled into a cavernous maw and winds up in this alternate timeline, where the world seems to be intersecting with Vana'diel and Abyssea. I don't know enough about XI to pinpoint where it falls in the Rhapsodies timeline, but everyone (Prishe, Prishe, Ulmia, Lilisette) seems to recognize Iroha (except Iroha).


It's also worth mentioning that Shantotto (because of course she's in it) indirectly references her trip to Eorzea.

It's post Rhapsodies going by your description, given the Granblue Devs ( or at least the director) is a huge ffxi fan I'm not surprised they used Abyssea. It had some neat implications awesome music and could have been further explored but I guess they just wanted to keep Abyssea to a 3 add-on storyline.