Revelations from Fan Festival 2016 Tokyo

[Nestama]

Yeah, that 'Ivalice map' seemed to share similarities with that notorious 'Complete Vana'diel World Map' that was also going around online for a while which the FFXI development team officially debunked as incorrect and not canon. So take that with a grain of salt.

For real? I wonder which part of Ivalice is canon, then...
Don't get me wrong, I love the world of Ivalice as much as the next guy, but the people begging for Viera make me hope it never happens and I still hope that this is just another 'Crystal Tower' situation. After all, would you not rather have an explorable zone of Ivalice and not a 120 minute raid of it?

[WhiteArchmage]

For real? I wonder which part of Ivalice is canon, then...

The thing is that THAT particular map is not canon, because it puts landmasses that shouldn't be around in the same time period (like that OTHER incorrect map that pasted together the world map from XII with the one from Tactics, when a more complete map shown in the opening movie from XII disproves it). The series goes XII -> XII: Revenant Wings -> Tactics -> Vagrant Story -> Tactics Advance -> Tactics A2 (with Time Travel sending it to after XII/RW).

While I'd rather an explorable Ivalice instead of a raid zone which I'd dread doing every week, this is not the game for that; new areas are more "original" content (even Azyz La, even if it IS based off the Floating Continent!) I'm happy that the dev team is giving such a large nod to the Ivalice Alliance sub-series, especially after the subtler nod they've already given them.

[Cilia]

Without context, there's not much to go on when they say "Ivalice"... assuming we've not been thrown for a loop. Context is everything!

Omega could be cool since it apparently has closer ties to the MSQ than Alexander, but the fact it has the subtitle "The Bend of Time" also has me kind of wary - another time-warping giant mecha is just what we need after Alexander. And I'm personally disappointed Nero didn't turn over that new leaf.

Since I already got Dark Knight it's going to be hard to hype me up for new classes... sorry...

Swimming? Just like flying. Interesting, but... it's functionally the same thing in reverse, so...

Not sure what to make of the new beast tribe and primal. It's too early to really say much; Lakshmi is rare to see, and I don't know enough about Hindu mythology to really make a guess at her personality or abilities.

[Nestama]

Well Lakshmi was also in FFVI (Starlet), so for now we can assume she's a healer of sorts.

[SolipsisticBuddhist]

not only was Spider-Man one of only two manifestation of samurai in Western comics (the other being the blatantly obvious Silver Samurai)

This is a bit of an off topic point but your comment here isn't remotely correctly. Katana, Wolverine and Sunfire are just three heroes off the top of my head with a closer relationship to the traditional role of the Samurai. In particular Wolverine who often plays up the role of a Ronin whenever he decides to run off on his own. Google "Spider-Man Samurai" and the only thing you going to find is the figure that's being spread around after the shirt reveal. But there is ZERO connection between Spider-Man and Samurai beside that figure and no "canonical" basis for this connection.

[Anonymoose]

This is a bit of an off topic point but your comment here isn't remotely correctly. Katana, Wolverine and Sunfire are just three heroes off the top of my head with a closer relationship to the traditional role of the Samurai. In particular Wolverine who often plays up the role of a Ronin whenever he decides to run off on his own. Google "Spider-Man Samurai" and the only thing you going to find is the figure that's being spread around after the shirt reveal. But there is ZERO connection between Spider-Man and Samurai beside that figure and no "canonical" basis for this connection.

Honestly, I just read that whole thing nodding in agreement, really. It was a rushed, bad way to phrase "When looking for representations of Samurai in Marvel (which is precisely what I was inspired to do two days ago) the hits are overwhelmingly Silver Samurai and Spider-Man." After exactly that result, I supposed that Silver was way too obvious and Spidey was way too obscure and maybe I'd keep an eye out for, like, Tom Cruise or Kill Bill (considering he compromised on 007 for Machinist).

I'll fix it. (And add another "stop phrasing things concretely just because you're moving on immediately" post-it to the stack.)

[Belhi]

Considering Garlemald is the main bad, this could be us getting involved with rebels in Garlemald proper.

Regardless, I find the inclusion of swimming suggests to me that we will be spending a fair bit of our time close to or of the coast. After all, why include swimming without any real areas to swim around in.

[Keever]

Hmm... Ananta... Lakshmi... Hindu mythological references, Vishnu & Lakshmi, Vishnu and Garuda...

Anyone remember that story about the primal Garuda and the Lord of Snakes? "Lord", but Lakshmi and the entire tribe are all female. Could it be relevant?

And they inhabit the mountains near Ala Mhigo. That puts them awfully close to Xelphatol... how d'you think the Ixali and the Ananta feel about each other, eh?

And another thing: Ramuh was an avatar of Vishnu in Hindu mythology. Could any of this possibly pertain to him? What about the Ramuh/Rhalgr connection? Is every figure of religious importance in Eorzea just an important Allagan? (Answer: possibly!)

That's as far as my string of thought takes me.

[Fenral]

Omega could be cool since it apparently has closer ties to the MSQ than Alexander, but the fact it has the subtitle "The Bend of Time" also has me kind of wary - another time-warping giant mecha is just what we need after Alexander. And I'm personally disappointed Nero didn't turn over that new leaf.

The Crystal Tower was also billed as having ties to the MSQ. Even if Nero didn't turn over a new leaf after CT, his new lack of character development could end up just as non-canonical as his last appearance, so don't worry about it too much.

My big ? for the fest is, "If Nero's involved in the 8-man raid, who the hells is going to be involved with Eureka?" One comment from Yoshida after the last Fan Fest makes me think he's building towards Garlemald vs. Allag for 5.0, but the most likely suspects for our Estinien and Ysayle roles are going to take a ton of work to bring back together at this rate.

...

On a completely unrelated note: BREAK OUT THE JAM PROJECT, I GET TO WEAR THE GOLDEN ARMOR. GARO x FFXIV, the crossover I never knew I wanted. Curiously, they're doing it before RDM comes out, even though Garo fights with a rapier. /shrug

(now back to FFXV)

[PondHollow]

The new alliance raid will see us return to ... WAIT, WHAT!?

Unless they specifically said that we are returning to Ivalice, the reasonable first interpretations is that it's the the Ascians who are doing the returning. Connections between the Ascians, Ivalician elements and the void (their names, Cu Chulainn's entry in the lorebook etc) are too consistent and pervasive to avoid that.

The only curiosity is that this sort of thing demands to be in the MSQ.