A recent fundamental problem with FFXIV

Bluntly put, they've started to reuse old FF games for stories. While there has been hints to them in the past, they usually have left full references outside of MSW. They used to always be references but now they're intertwined. So after they're done with recreating FF7, should we expect Emet-Sephiroth in 7 years or so?

I say this because I find the best stories in FFXIV are the original ones, it's almost is they're shy to just write an original story but when they did, it was the best one. Dawntrail ironically feels like they're reusing ARR.

They know fan service rakes in the money.

FF7R is a ghastly, disfigured replica of FF7 but they don't care.

They defiled FF9 in DT and they don't care.

I have noticed this as well. The 6.x series was just a bunch of FF4 references. They had sprinkled some in before in Heavensward and base Endwalker, but then it just became "recreate this plot point from 4 in 14." Dawntrail stayed mostly original for the first 2/3rds, but then all of a sudden there's a bunch FF9 references, and at least from talking with my friends who played 9, really shallow and uninteresting ones at that. I heard the word "desecrate" more than once.

besides the name, some random songs that dont even fit the scene. and some weird vague references. this ff9 nod has been really fucking bad. its so bad i wonder if they even played the damn game

Uh, Yoshi stated FFXIV would be referencing the series history in every way since before ARR's launch. Did you really expect anything different?

Dawntrail was the start of 10 years journey

Which was the foundation of next 10 years

When Yoshi P said that he didn't mean 2.0 but 1.0 😂😂😂

They have always used other FF as reference. Crystal Tower is literally from FF3. Evil Empire and questiona jesters (Ascians in this case) have always been a recurring theme.

As for FF7 we have had the meteor 1.0/ARR Bahamut and the weapons. Only thing missing is Jenova/Lavos, but they have already hinted to a potential entity for it through Ultima/Heart of Sabik/Athena and some global evil corporation.

problem? nah its great they need to keep it up, the references are great.

I'm worried about the ff11 crossover raids and feel like they would butcher the legacy of ff11 with a watered down experience but I'm hoping the older devs on the dev team that previously worked on ff11 preserves ff11 and make a good series of raids.

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Originally Posted by AngaratoSvartberg

besides the name, some random songs that dont even fit the scene. and some weird vague references. this ff9 nod has been really fucking bad. its so bad i wonder if they even played the damn game

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Honestly the FF9 refernces feel like they were taken from notes from the game, it's doesn't feel like anyone on the team actually played it

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Honestly the FF9 refernces feel like they were taken from notes from the game, it's doesn't feel like anyone on the team actually played it

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Better yet, it feels like they were taken right off the FF wiki instead.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Huh? The Crystal Tower has been there since ARR. Then there was Alexander in HW, then Omega with a bunch of FFV and FFVI fights, and also the direct confirmation that XII and XIV share the same universe with the Ivalice Raids.

Are you people new to the game? I'm asking honestly. It's always had very obvert and shameless elements from older Final Fantasy games plastered all over. Whether you think this is a good or bad thing is for you to decide, but let's not act like this is a "recent" thing, because that's an objective lie.

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There is also a bunch of mobs ripped and upscaled directly from ff11/12 and 13 as well and some mobs from other final fantasy games and dungeon bosses. And alzadaal's legacy being brought in from ff11.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Huh? The Crystal Tower has been there since ARR. Then there was Alexander in HW, then Omega with a bunch of FFV and FFVI fights, and also the direct confirmation that XII and XIV share the same universe with the Ivalice Raids.

Are you people new to the game? I'm asking honestly. It's always had very obvert and shameless elements from older Final Fantasy games plastered all over. Whether you think this is a good or bad thing is for you to decide, but let's not act like this is a "recent" thing, because that's an objective lie.

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FFXIV and XII do not share the same universe. XII and the first Tactics game do, but not FFXIV.

FFXIV has its own version of Ivalice. Just like it has its own version of the Crystal Tower, Doma, Alexandria etc. The differences between XII/Tactics and FFXIV really cannot be reconciled for a number of reasons. But one of the biggest ones is that everything is backwards. In the original Ivalice setting, XII takes place long before Tactics, where as in FFXIV the Tactics references are in the ancient past and the XII references are current day. Including XII's non human races still being around despite them having gone extinct some time between XII and Tactics.

FFXIV doesn't directly link itself to other FF games, outside of crossover events if you count them as canon. It's possible that the XI raids will break this trend, but it's more likely based on precedent (crystal tower raids, ivalice raids etc) that they will work their own version and adaptation of XI lore into FFXIV lore. Though IS possible we'll just like, go through a portal to XI's vana'diel, that's not how they've handled raids drawing from FF history in the past. Though they DID just have the Nier characters show up through a portal so it's possible I guess.

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

Bluntly put, they've started to reuse old FF games for stories.

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What do you mean started? Since ARR with the crystal tower raids, they were pulling and referencing from FF3.

Hell, unrelated to FF, I'd hazard a guess that Mor Dhona's night theme has some strikingly similar notes or melody to SMB3's sky (cloud) theme.

But Final Fantasy 14 is not only an MMO by itself with an "original" story, but it's also a love letter to the previous games and other Square related titles that have existed before.

Omega was introduced in 5, but it brought over a tournament arc that dragged in bosses from previous Final Fantasies, more-so from 6.

POTD's lich and the "Notice of Death" used in the cutscenes (at a higher pitched than what I'm used to hearing it) when you get past floor 50 is a direct reference to Tactics Ogre.

Granted, the FF4 inclusion at the end of EW was very 80's - 90's "my lord, I shall enact my evil plan and eliminate the good-doers. Leave everything to me. I won't fail you" sort of anime shenanigans. So that was a fun bit of nostalgia feeling imho.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

FFXIV doesn't directly link itself to other FF games, outside of crossover events if you count them as canon. It's possible that the XI raids will break this trend, but it's more likely based on precedent (crystal tower raids, ivalice raids etc) that they will work their own version and adaptation of XI lore into FFXIV lore. Though IS possible we'll just like, go through a portal to XI's vana'diel, that's not how they've handled raids drawing from FF history in the past. Though they DID just have the Nier characters show up through a portal so it's possible I guess.

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Yeah, only two things in FFXIV are "linked" with other games. One being our bro Greg who jumps through the various games, the other is Nier.

And while the Nier story itself was a bit too repetitive from Nier Automata itself, it could still be used as a hook for something else later from the persistent Nier villain, those Seeds of Destructions porting through worlds.

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

Bluntly put, they've started to reuse old FF games for stories.

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They view this game as a "Final Fantasy themepark". So they see re-using things from the older games as an important part of it.

The reason they do this is because everyone has a different definition of what Final Fantasy is. Some people only played FF7. Some people only played FF9. Some people only played FF8. Some people only played FF15 or FF16. Some people played none of them. So they have to have elements from all of them such that it "feels" like final fantasy to people who come from different Final Fantasy games.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

And alzadaal's legacy being brought in from ff11.

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This one makes me laugh because Alzadaal was originally a bastardization of "Alexander", much like Dalamud and Bahamut.

Now, it's just become it's own entirely separate thing...kinda like Ogre Nix/Organics.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

FFXIV and XII do not share the same universe. XII and the first Tactics game do, but not FFXIV.

FFXIV has its own version of Ivalice. Just like it has its own version of the Crystal Tower, Doma, Alexandria etc. The differences between XII/Tactics and FFXIV really cannot be reconciled for a number of reasons. But one of the biggest ones is that everything is backwards. In the original Ivalice setting, XII takes place long before Tactics, where as in FFXIV the Tactics references are in the ancient past and the XII references are current day. Including XII's non human races still being around despite them having gone extinct some time between XII and Tactics.

FFXIV doesn't directly link itself to other FF games, outside of crossover events if you count them as canon. It's possible that the XI raids will break this trend, but it's more likely based on precedent (crystal tower raids, ivalice raids etc) that they will work their own version and adaptation of XI lore into FFXIV lore. Though IS possible we'll just like, go through a portal to XI's vana'diel, that's not how they've handled raids drawing from FF history in the past. Though they DID just have the Nier characters show up through a portal so it's possible I guess.

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Iroha already showed up as a traveler from another world in an event back when Rhapsodies started, so I wouldn't be surprised if they build on that.

Regardless, the OP's point is that they've recently recycling entire storylines from other games in the series and just reframing them instead of just referencing them. Project Meteor, the Crystal Tower, Alexander, Matoya, Doma, Eden, etc are all references to other games in the series, but the XIV iterations were all their own distinct things. I think a lot of people are misunderstanding that.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Regardless, the OP's point is that they've recently recycling entire storylines from other games in the series and just reframing them instead of just referencing them. Project Meteor, the Crystal Tower, Alexander, Matoya, Doma, Eden, etc are all references to other games in the series, but the XIV iterations were all their own distinct things. I think a lot of people are misunderstanding that.

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I'm not a FF player outside of 14, I've only ever played a few hours of 9, maybe 2 of 13 and then bits of side games (Crystal Chronicles, Theatrhythm). I knew that 14 would always have references to other FF games in it when I started but never felt like me not understanding what said references were negatively effected my ability to enjoy the story. Sure most of the primals/trials were things from previous games, but they were still changed to fit the lore of the world. I didn't need to know who Matoya was in relation to whatever game she originated from, because she was tied with Y'shtola. It didn't matter if Eden was originally from another game, because the story around it was completely relevant to the plot of 14. When I first did Omega, I didn't understand any of the references to other games in the boss fights and it kinda made me not care as much about it, but it still included characters from 14 in the storyline and made it relevant so even without the nostalgia from fighting all these bosses from other FF games it was fun.

Part of me wishes I didn't play a bit of 9, because I was so aware of the references in the second half of the game that after a while I started wondering if the reason I wasn't really getting into the story was that I couldn't understand all of the references it was taking from it, as I never finished playing 9. Even Golbez and the storyline in 6.x felt slightly better as it was tied in with stuff that felt directly relevant to the world of 14. With Alexandria, they haven't fully explained what it even is yet. Is it some part of the 12th shard even though it was said to be successfully rejoined? What does "successfully rejoined" even mean now if one tiny part can still survive? Or was it something more like the 1st where an isolated pocket of the land was spared from the calamity and that's what merged? They could explain this post-MSQ sure, but I was really lacking on reasons to get emotionally invested in the whole area because the ties I did have an interest in finding out about (Erenville's hometown/family, investigating another reflection + it's relation to Krile) were sidelined for a completely new plotline and characters that were possibly all based on a game I know next to nothing about. Even the music was stuff from 9, right? (which felt like it didn't really fit the mood of the area along with the ominous soundtrack of Heritage Found, but i think that's more a personal taste thing)- I didn't remember any of it, but said to myself "what's this fairy tale ass music that sounds like it could be from some other older FF game lmao" when Sphene was first introduced and it didn't click in until a bit later that "oh, it is."

Yes its Final Fantasy 14, I understand that, but I know I'm not the only person who plays this game because I enjoy the story and world its created- not because it's a Final Fantasy game.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Uh, Yoshi stated FFXIV would be referencing the series history in every way since before ARR's launch. Did you really expect anything different?

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references =/= plagiarizing the entire plot

The story was nothing like IX's story so the idea that it does anything to 'tarnish' it is a ridiculous notion.
Other than Alexandria's architecture and loose history(that does not even line up with IX's in the first place before things 'changed') the closest thing is Otis(Ortis?) being a somewhat Steiner character and even that is far removed, that's already more than Sphene's similarities to Garnet.
It's clearly done that way so it can be its own thing than a rehash of IX's story which wouldn't fit and would confuse players who haven't played IX, the story itself didn't even try to be anything like IX.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

They know fan service rakes in the money.

FF7R is a ghastly, disfigured replica of FF7 but they don't care.

They defiled FF9 in DT and they don't care.

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dunno about the ff7 part, FF7 rebirth is probably going to be GOTY for me, dawntrail is going to be disappointment of the year

STARTED TO?
My brother in christ they've been referencing other FF games since 1.0
Almost every final fantasy game is like this.

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Originally Posted by Krisom

The story was nothing like IX's story so the idea that it does anything to 'tarnish' it is a ridiculous notion.
Other than Alexandria's architecture and loose history(that does not even line up with IX's in the first place before things 'changed') the closest thing is Otis(Ortis?) being a somewhat Steiner character and even that is far removed, that's already more than Sphene's similarities to Garnet.
It's clearly done that way so it can be its own thing than a rehash of IX's story which wouldn't fit and would confuse players who haven't played IX, the story itself didn't even try to be anything like IX.

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SPOILER AHEAD:
Everkeep is a mechanical lifa tree
Zoraal ja fills a similar role to Kuja and Garland
Wuk Lamat has similar character traits to Zidane (one can also argue her being a hrothgar is a subtle reference to trance zidane)
Viper is literally the Zidane class
Sphene and Krile both fill similar roles to Garnet. Sphene is meant to be a direct Garnet expy though Sphene goes through a different character arc than Garnet while Krile fits Garnet's actual role more clearly
Otis is obviously Steiner yeah
Queen Eternal/Queen Engine looks similar to Necron, and the battle theme has callbacks to necron's theme
Oblivion is kinda similar to Tantalus
It's definitely not a rehash but the callbacks are plentiful and some story beats are the exact same, primarily with the whole souls thing

Yes. They've been "referencing" other Final Fantasies since the beginning, but the really big references were side content. Before they made CT mandatory for MSQ for Shadowbringers, which is where the "HERE'S ANOTHER FINAL FANTASY!!!!" cracks started showing in the story, every reference was not part of the main XIV story. CT, Ivalice and Nier were 24 mans. Omega and Alexander were raids. And yes, they borrowed enemies. Every FF has done that since the very beginning. We're not complaining about that. You're going to see a Bahamut. You're going to see some variation of the summons/primals/eidolons. You're going to see things like a Cactuar, or a Tonberry, or any of the hundreds of iconic FF enemies.

However, even when they did put a nod, or a similar story in the MSQ, it was always presented as "here's XIV's take on it". Such as the aforementioned Shadowbringers reference to III's lore, in which the world had been consumed by light. Then we come to the post Depression Bird content for EW. It's literally just IV. They added two new NPCs, jazzed up the plot a tiny bit, and went "Here's IV. Here are iconic IV places, here are iconic IV bosses, here are iconic IV plot devices. Including the moon. Again." Also, we're going to sideline THE ACTUAL GODS DAMNED GODS into 24 man content, instead of giving them the focus they deserve. When you start sidelining the actual XIV story for references? That's when you know you've gone too far. And it's continuing into Dawntrail. We're just straight up ripping from IX for MSQ content again.

Im kinda wondering if op making brain rott for this discussion...this game is heavily built of fan service and refrences...hell bozja save the queen, ivalice, mustadio, diamond weapon, omega raid, fran, lightning, dragon quest event....with op logic this game been suffering this since the start

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Originally Posted by ROOTFayth

dunno about the ff7 part, FF7 rebirth is probably going to be GOTY for me, dawntrail is going to be disappointment of the year

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The gameplay has been really good so i disagree with that
the story is pretty bad but if they deliver on content i'll enjoy it more than endwalker in the end

The only ones here I agree with are with Everkeep and Otis parts which I picked up during the story. (Even though the Iifa Tree is referenced in text separately)
Zidane 'job' is a bit hit and mostly miss. You can argue that Reawaken is a Trance and that the dual-blade is a reference to Zidane but everything else is so far removed, there's no other aesthetic it takes from Zidane that comes directly from IX, Zidane is a Thief and doesn't have any aesthetics of a Viper that takes from its name if someone told me "I feel like Zidane when I play Viper!" I'd be stunned wondering why because outside of those two, and one of them might just be its own thing I don't see the resemblance.

I personally think Sphene is NOTHING like Garnet and I can't for the life of me see that from Krile at all even personality wise nor the journey they take.
Wuk Lamat isn't similar to Zidane at all (and I am not going to humour the her being a Hrothgar is reference to Zidane at all, not to be rude sorry.)- Zidane is competent well rounded individual that people come to for advice and offers it and naturally from the start fits into the leader role even with resistance he gets from Steiner and later Garnet due to his own actions. You could argue that they go out their way to help people but that's a such a generic trait of a good-willed protagonist but swap the roles of Wuk Lamat and Zidane in their respective games and it'd be a completely different story, I don't see them being similar at all.

I would love to hear the Necron part of the of Queen Eternal's theme if you don't mind just telling me what section of their song plays if you will, IX is my favourite FF game I'd love to hear it (and can't believe I would have missed it, unless it's incredibly subtle).

But again I feel that the while there are similarities the major themes of the story are just so mismatched that DT heavily pushes forward the community/culture as opposed to the theme of IX even the character journey don't match for any character that's supposedly a parallel to their IX counterpart.
It's like people think that "This is DT re-telling the story of XI" when really they using material in a way that fans of IX can enjoy it and those who never played IX would be oblivious to it even being a reference and not be lost.

The only time I thought this went a bit too far was in EW's .1-.4 patches.
Though that might be a detriment to be playing the game before, I am not sure how it'd affect people who haven't played IV but I do know people who have not touched IX(or interested FF in general) and they didn't know any better for the IX references in this game.

The problem isn't the fan service as such.

The problem is how poorly they incorporate the fan service into the game at times and how much players who want to relive the old FF games then turn around and spoil things for those who haven't played them. Too many players of the other games want to show off their knowledge without regard to how that knowledge can turn out to be a spoiler for others.

I'll be fair - this is not a fault that is limited to FFXIV. Just about every game I've ever played that tries to incorporate some sort of fan service outside of out of the way Easter eggs fails to do it well. As much as some players might ask for fan service, they rarely end up pleased with the result. There are almost always complaints about how it didn't do justice to the original.

Better to leave the fan service to the non-canon crossover events that are totally separate from the lore and story of the game's world if it's necessary to add it.

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

I say this because I find the best stories in FFXIV are the original ones, it's almost is they're shy to just write an original story but when they did, it was the best one.

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Didn't Natsuko Ishikawa say a big part of the inspiration for Shadowbringers was older FF games that she grew up on? It definitely has that same kind of story progression.

I want to be clear on this: I don't mind and actually quite enjoy all of the references to the Final Fantasy series in the game. I haven't play all of the previous games, but I've played enough to catch the references here and there and have looked up some others. Having enemies and various summons from the other games turned into Primals and making raids themed around them is great! It's only when the game starts directly lifting characters and plot beats from the old games that it starts to feel lazy and uninspired for me, like the 6.x patch series MSQ. Like I love FFX, it's very close to my heart, but I don't actually want Titus, Yuna, or any of the FFX cast (or renamed characters very obviously based on them) to show up in the main story, ever. It would feel lazy and pandering.

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Originally Posted by ROOTFayth

dunno about the ff7 part, FF7 rebirth is probably going to be GOTY for me, dawntrail is going to be disappointment of the year

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Maybe if you enjoy fanfiction-tier stories about timelines and dimensions and stupid shit like that.

Tbf the twelve stuff is uninteresting a pretty nothing , i don't think it was " sidelined" more so they had nothing for it and your quest effectively making it so they don't have to consider them when writing new content going forward. I feel the same about gridania not progressing as much as the other arr cities ( and tbh the expac cities too ). Its not being sidelined they have nothing for it , its a hold over from a different game made by different people and have no interest in it really.

I think it is a matter of how. There is a difference between having an in game reference to a previous title, or revisiting a theme. But it is another thing when it starts to feel as if the game is screaming at you, "Look, we have The Thing You Used To Like here in this expansion! Please like it for no better reason than that you nostalgically remember another game."

The Crystal Tower and a lot of other callbacks worked just fine on their own in FFXIV even if you didn't know the earlier titles, because they were well built-up and embedded in the lore of FFXIV itself.

Having Alexandria in Dawntrail gets more of a, "Why is this even here?" response from me. This isn't integrating one of my previous experiences, this is more like airdropping a tacky souvenir of one into a place where it doesn't even meaningfully connect to the game I am currently playing.

I for one was complaining even back in Ivalice raids - Just lifting entire characters and locations from Tactics/XII felt really off.

Crystal Tower worked a lot better because all the leg work they made making sure it made sense with Allag and the Void (and let's face it, III had a rudimentary enough plot it's a lot more easy to repurpose elements of it).

Still, the bottom line is that both were at the time side-content, not main story, with CT being elevated to MSQ only after they let it stew long enough and made sure it was ingrained in the lore of FF14 specifically. Not writing an original story that stands on its own before starting to lean in on the references is what is starting to grate me.

I don't mind past FF references if they're handled in a way that makes them organically fit into the setting and feel like their own thing.

The Crystal Tower raids were fine to me in that respect, but the Ivalice ones were not.

Unfortunately, the DT alliance raids are shaping up to be a case of the latter.

Now if they only pulled references from other games, like Starcraft!