Heavensward was sublime... I miss it already! Give me hope for Stormblood please!

[Omedon]

As I was hoping, "fantasy japan" has arrived not two days into my Stormblood playthrough to save my Stormblood MSQ experience!

... But not before another rape reference in the Ala Mhigo storyline. Jesus H Christ.

Even getting to Doma though, I find Stormblood can't help going low when it comes to establishing new villains, the scene in the fishing village involving he acting viceroy was just... overkill. Again, give me high fantasy villainy and threats to the cosmos any day over human on human filthiness and suffering.

I absolutely appreciate the Japanese aesthetics over the "hovel in the desert" feel of Ala Mhigo, and man that dungeon out at sea was amazing! Stormblood has gotten a little better for me!

Also I find that I hate the ala mhigan music a little less now that I know that the main theme of the expansion is the imperial national anthem haha! This isn't so much the Doma or Ala Mhigo expansion as it is the Empire expansion!

[Bright-Flower]

As I was hoping, "fantasy japan" has arrived not two days into my Stormblood playthrough to save my Stormblood MSQ experience!

... But not before another rape reference in the Ala Mhigo storyline. Jesus H Christ.

Even getting to Doma though, I find Stormblood can't help going low when it comes to establishing new villains, the scene in the fishing village involving he acting viceroy was just... overkill. Again, give me high fantasy villainy and threats to the cosmos any day over human on human filthiness and suffering.

I absolutely appreciate the Japanese aesthetics over the "hovel in the desert" feel of Ala Mhigo, and man that dungeon out at sea was amazing! Stormblood has gotten a little better for me!

Also I find that I hate the ala mhigan music a little less now that I know that the main theme of the expansion is the imperial national anthem haha! This isn't so much the Doma or Ala Mhigo expansion as it is the Empire expansion!

Regarding the theme, slight spoiler here so feel free to ignore if you want.

There's actually an ala mhigan version of it, that isn't the garlean anthem but rather an altered version of an ala mhigan theme you hear at the end. So it is an ala mhigan theme. The garlean version is just for Gyr Abania, probably a means of incorporating part of the local culture into their rule over them to try and mollify the people a bit.

[Silverquick]

and man that dungeon out at sea was amazing! Stormblood has gotten a little better for me!

Despite all of the things I said early on in this thread... honestly the one redeeming quality of Stormblood is indeed the uniqueness of its dungeons, alliance raids, and 8 mans.

Those are the things that do stick out. And you'll see as you get to them. While not all the dungeons are of the same quality of the First 2, many of them have unique mechanics. And things like the Trials where there are all kinds of innovative things in there including Real Time interactions and Duty Action buttons specific to the Trial or Raid.

And I'm not going to mince words here, the Ivalice Series of Raids remains deadly even with Shadowbringer gear because some of the mechanics are so deadly they still cause full raid wipes. Despite a new expansion you can't really outgear those. Exception being the very first one. The rest are still intense sometimes.

The Omega Raids are odd but fun because of this.

So from a gameplay standpoint, the content is solid... but the MSQ and storyline... well that seriously subpar.

[Bright-Flower]

Despite all of the things I said early on in this thread... honestly the one redeeming quality of Stormblood is indeed the uniqueness of its dungeons, alliance raids, and 8 mans.

Those are the things that do stick out. And you'll see as you get to them. While not all the dungeons are of the same quality of the First 2, many of them have unique mechanics. And things like the Trials where there are all kinds of innovative things in there including Real Time interactions and Duty Action buttons specific to the Trial or Raid.

And I'm not going to mince words here, the Ivalice Series of Raids remains deadly even with Shadowbringer gear because some of the mechanics are so deadly they still cause full raid wipes. Despite a new expansion you can't really outgear those. Exception being the very first one. The rest are still intense sometimes.

The Omega Raids are odd but fun because of this.

So from a gameplay standpoint, the content is solid... but the MSQ and storyline... well that seriously subpar.

Yeah for all my story gripes about SB, gameplay wise it was good. Even Eureka wasn't too bad (outside of Pagos good god)

[Vahlnir]

Yeah for all my story gripes about SB, gameplay wise it was good. Even Eureka wasn't too bad (outside of Pagos good god)

Pagos…



The dragons. Oh god, the dragons...