Revelations from Patch 5.4

[Fenral]

Parking on the first page, as is custom.

Haven't been playing much lately, and almost forgot to farm Yo-kai medallions before patch. In my defense, I was sucked into Yo-kai Gakuen Y. Working as intended?


MSQ:

Ah, the good old post-climax shenanigans patch. How I've missed you.

G'raha's been a Scion for a full five minutes, and he's already suggesting going to Azys Lla to look for a cure to tempering. That's ma boy. Now we just need an excuse to loop in House Darnus and the last of the Allagan dominoes will have fallen.

I do second the thing about the death flags, though. Good god, how many close-up, voiced-over, "thank you" smiles does one patch need? He's precious, we get it. Probably actually too popular to kill by now, but still. It's not good for my heart...

Fun FFIII note: Owen is the father of Desch, and the "Tower of Owen" is where Desch's original amnesia -> remembrance -> "this is my destiny" sacrifice arc took place. (Y'know, the whole routine that G'raha copied back in 2.X. He's never going to live that one down, is he?) FFXIV's Owen is not a Miqo'te, so probably not XIV!Desch's father, so it seems more like they were using the name just for das funsies. There's still room for an Aria and an Alus. I'm counting on you guys!

It was not lost on me that all of this happened right before the IIIrd legion was put into play. Pretty sure this one was also just for das funsies, but it worked. As the old adage goes: "I lol'd."

Y'shtola as a recovering chuunibyou schoolgirl is also comic gold. The extra 10 minutes of duty time taking her through the Relict was well worth it.

Towers are apparently not Mhachi, though I still wonder how anyone could have identified them as Garlean based on a visual examination. I also didn't hear that declaration in the JP script, but I may have to listen through again.

Rest played out about as good as can be hoped. Nice to see the beginnings of closure in Limsa after 10 real-time years of endless conflict. I don't take other characters' death flags that seriously anymore, but that's okay. We're going all-in on the old-school shounen manga enthusiasm, and honestly, it's 2020. That stuff's balm for the soul.

Werlyt:

This entire storyline just feels empty to me. It's basically all the things I hate about Gundam and its imitators, down to the "only giving characters focus immediately before and/or after they are killed" routine. It's been a slow moving train wreck, boldly careening where everyone has already gone before. Frankly, what's the point?

The only slight deviation from formula so far being that they killed a female pilot first, just to subvert the usual pattern of "all the men die because they simply can't be saved, but of course the one female lives because she's still 'pure.'" (Which is about on the same level as "all the women die so the men can feel sad/angry before they die heroically." The women involved are just props either way.)

All those pilots you didn't want to kill? Guess what, they also suffered horribly before you killed them and were mentally broken to the point of sugar-coating suicide as their only escape. My imagination had already filled in those blanks just fine, but thanks for the graphic depiction all the same. There is literally no amount of catharsis that could make this okay.

I really don't have much to say that's constructive. I sure am glad it's not MSQ, I guess. There's an extra quest after the boss, but I've had my fill of tragedy porn for one patch.

Eden's Promise:

What. A. Ride. In the spirit of things, I'm not even going to bother organizing my thoughts into any kind of coherent order.

The stakes for this series were all over the place. The storytelling, the pacing, the bizarre (possibly production-related) narrative choice of leaving the focal character out until the second act. FFXIV hasn't been this crazy and experimental since Shadows of Mhach. It has that "just do whatever" attitude of the Sakaguchi era, so I'm kind of a fan, all things considered. It'll definitely be better played through as one story.

Loved Griever!Thancred, did not love the missed opportunity for "Maybe I'm a Lion" after a phase change. Last boss theme had strong Shinryu vibes, but if it was a remix of something I couldn't place it. It'll come to me, maybe.

What even was that thing, though? Definitely reminiscent of Nomura's early work as monster artist for FF5, though, so again, I'm kind of a fan, whatever it was supposed to be. Also, the stock and junction system was cool.

Seems like this is where all the lore was hiding. Moose wanted a friendly Ascian? Meet Lohgrif. AKA Gaia. Who is also not a fanatical Zodiark worshiper, so this entire situation strongly indicates that only the Unsundered are tempered, and the reincarnates are able to act independently of Zodiark's will. Which indirectly explains Fandaniel. 6.0 is going to be wild.

And that ending. I'm not sure precisely how much of the storyboard for FF8's ending FMV they ripped off, but it was a lot. Cool to see that same editing in a real-time cutscene. That's probably the best possible homage to a game that was all about pushing the limits of available technology.

Kinda disappointed we missed the festival, after that much buildup. I was expecting just a little more closure to what will quite possibly be the last appearance of Ryne and Gaia for some time. Though perhaps that just means we'll see more of them soon.