Revelations from Patch 5.4

[Fenral]

-snip-

This isn't really about the MSQ any more.

Honestly, I think we have very different memories of FF9. The majority of deaths were either throwaway characters who we knew for all of five minutes or sympathetic antagonists redeemed at the last moment to fulfill the quota of someone dying. Also a large number of soldiers and civilians, but only a few had names, and again, not much screen time. Quite a few inexplicable survivals as well (looking at you, Puck).

Still, you seem to have remembered it as a nuanced exploration of mortality, and I do as well. For me, it wasn't how few or how many people died, but how that affected these people who were taking us on this journey. It also had a modest runtime and then ended. I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I had to sit through two, three, four times that and watch everyone drop, one by one. I think that's the only difference here.

Maybe it's not as frequent as it used to be, but what matters is that the things we've lost still matter. I honestly don't think anyone left in the story at this point is operating on the assumption that they can't die. They just aren't. It's not that the writers are "afraid," they're just busy taking other risks, having basically done meaningful loss to death already. Everyone has at least one recently deceased friend or family member, even minor characters, not to mention all the losses they've shared. No need to maximize their tragedy-per-second just because it's off CD again.

It's also just part of the natural progression of long-runners to eventually settle into something that works and stick with it, and let's face it, a lot of the early storytelling was just oppressive to the point of absurdity. There's nothing remotely nuanced about "if it even looks at you and your soul isn't special, we have no choice but to kill you." I think they were banking on pulling in more of the Attack on Titan grimdark crowd than they did, and have since been adjusting everything that wasn't already in the pipeline before they had feedback to respond to.

And we all know things always could start going badly again, they just haven't. Yet. Complain again in 20 years when we're still on the boat to Elfhelm but somehow managed to pick up three more comic-relief characters.

[Enla]

Main Scenario

As others have stated this patch absolutely felt like they were trying desperately to wrap up loose plot threads. While I absolutely appreciate that we got more of Merylwyb given how she was all but shunted aside in favor of Raubahn or Kan-E-Senna, I cannot help but feel a little frustrated with how the tempering plotline was so neatly wrapped up. Entire expansions worth of this being a looming threat and it's more or less wrapped up within a single patch. It feels... Cheap might be the best word to describe it?

I'm willing to see where they go with it. Or, more importantly, to see WHY all this rushing to tie up loose ends was even necessary. So for now I'll just catalogue it as a particularly underwhelming end to perhaps the most interesting C plot in the game for me.

The same goes for Fandaniel. I'll withhold judgment until we see more of his character and the potential plot they're setting up. Because I can't necessarily fault the character for feeling fantastically one note when Emet Selch was in much the same situation based off the few teasers we got of him leading into Shadowbringers. Still I desperately hope that there's more to him than this. Or that there will be a third entity that will balance Fandaniel and Zenos' relative lack of depth.

Which, to be fair, isn't a bad thing if handled properly. I think the issue for me here is that while Fandaniel seems one-note but /fun/ in a campy sort of way, Zenos has long outstayed his welcome in my eyes. I can see their interplay getting very old, very quickly if a balancing factor isn't added to the dynamic.

All in all, could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse. So I'll take what I can get.

Sorrow of Werlyt

Fun fight all things considered. No complaints there.

I am however a little bit frustrated that we have such a mustache twirling villain to make Gaius look better by proxy. I was really looking forward to this being a proper story of redemption for Gaius. But no amount of him claiming blame can really counterbalance how often the story kinda rug sweeps it away by having Valens chewing up the scenery in the background.

It's a shame because Gaius' story has such raw potential to tell a satisfying tale about how even though you attempt to change for the better, the people whom you've hurt along the way still matter. Instead we're getting 'Gaius did nothing wrong actually, and if he did there were worse elements of the Empire out there' and it just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth for what could have been.

Valens on the other hand is a god damned creep and I'm not sure if I should commend the writing team for making me this uncomfortable or to run for the hills.

Also please god not more Zenos. Please.

Edit: Someone at SE recognized the uncomfortable implications of Livia and Gaius apparently being lovers and is HARD walking back on that in this patch. 'He kept her at arm's length'. 'Unhealthy obsession'. This is kinda why it's hard to take the redemption seriously when they're scrubbing clean most of the things Gaius does need to atone for.

Eden

Glad for more Ascian lore. Mildly annoyed that us being Azem, and thus able to empathize with what Gaia was going through was never addressed. I didn't expect Mitron or Gaia to recognize us, but you /HAD/ to have completed the 5.3 storyline to even do this rung of the Eden questline. All it would take is the WoL flashing their soul crystal to open up that line of communication.

Sure I wouldn't want the focus to be pulled away from Gaia and Ryne's relationship, which was at the core of this storyline and in direct contrast to that of Mitron and Loghrif's. However it felt like a wasted opportunity for the WoL to process through their own revelations about their base selves and to comfort Gaia with the knowledge that she isn't technically alone in her circumstances.

All in all, minor nitpicks aside, I did enjoy this story.

[ObsidianFire]

MSQ

I think they did a good job balancing the fact that we can cure Tempering now with the reality that it requires a ton of aether to do so and can't be done en masse. It's... pretty obvious that they'll never realistically be able to unTemper everyone (especially individuals they have no access to), but that they can unTemper people at all is a very good thing. Especially when there's a lot of towers that have popped up world-wide that seem to do exactly that...

What I will be curious to see is what will happen with tribes like the Vanu Vanu and the Ananta where the bulk of the tribe doesn't like summoning (or getting Tempered) and the faction doing the summoning of Primals is a minority that was doing so when they weren't Tempered (at least to start out with). There doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from still summoning Primals and getting Tempered all over again if they really want to... and there are cases where a small minority of people just want to cause problems for no good reason. Vanu Vanu in particular comes to mind as an example where a small sub-set of the tribe didn't like that other tribes had a good relationship with Ishgard and purposely summoned Bismark to wreck that relationship while not being Tempered...

Watching the Ironworks figure out how to unTemper people with the equivalent of machine learning was funny to watch. And I really want ice crystals in real life for my PC! It's nice to see the Scions get some breathing space and a solid win in the Source before all the nonsense will start up next patch.

On boy. Frandaniel. I am reminded of why I can never put FF9 on the very top of my list of FF games. And it's because of Kudja... who Frandaniel sounds more and more like the longer he talks. To the point I'm thinking the reason FF9 isn't more annoying is because it has no voice-acting. Because I cannot see myself sitting through an entire game of a villian like Frandaniel and... I very much remember Kudja saying many lines that are exactly like his. At least in content if not in theatrics.

I feel like Frandaniel is a constant reminder that... the Ascians are not good people. They like causing chaos. And there nothing quite so chaotic as destroying the world. Also, I really doubt the Ascians would want to clue in anyone who was a good person to their power set. What if they used that power set for the other side (which is one of the reasons we are so annoying for the Ascians to deal with)? So there's probably a lot more people in the ranks of the Ascians who want to cause chaos than actually care about what state the world is in. And the two Ascians that cared the most about the state of the world just got axed. No one is riding herd on the other Ascians so we get this. Go figure.

Zenos is... being Zenos... apparently he's going on a quest to get a better weapon? I really hope he bites off more than he can chew somewhere along the line since that would make him more interesting...

The new towers are... a concern. To put it lightly. For one thing, they've popped up everywhere and not just Eorzea. For another... they're apparently Tempering people... to be loyal to Garlemald? Maybe we'll finally get our Garlean primal? Regardless, the idea of a bunch of towers all over three continents putting out aether and seemingly having something to do with the Final Days being recreated isn't good. Given that the dragon is "Lunar Bahamut" specifically... I'm uncomfortably reminded of the Lunar Cry in FF8 and how it's more or less a beacon to the moon to let it know it's time to dump monsters onto the Planet. Only we know what's in our moon and it's nothing as benign as a bunch of mindless monsters... The idea that Zodiark to have something to do with this is very freaky. Another thought is how in FF4... there's Lunar versions of all the summons... so... maybe that could be it too.

All in all, good breather story patch of getting some much-needed research done before the chaos really starts up again in 5.5.

Eden

As someone who played a lot of FF8, this was a really fun raid tier. The music was great. Seeing references to Time Compression, Draw/Sock/Cast, and Junctioning was really awesome (and a bit groan-inducing).

Mitron and Logrif make for really good foils of Fandaniel. Sure they are Ascians, but it's pretty obvious they didn't want to keep the world around just because the Unsundered Ascians were telling them too. They genuinely want to keep at least their world around and stay alive in it, particularly with each other. I definetly was getting Squall/Rinoa-type vibes from them. It's also nice to get confirmation that yes, the Ascians that get killed are going to get reborn same as everyone else does. Hopefully without Zdoiark's influence. And without their past lives' influence now that we let all the Convocation Memory Stones dissipate into the aether. Now if we can just keep the world around for them to get reborn into...

Eden being a Sin Eater version of Mitron checks out given how monstrous Hades' true form is. Thinking about how much aether an Ascian has access too and it all getting stagnated all at once... yeah, I can buy it just fine. Also explains all the funky Creation Magic Eden has that the other Lightwardens lack.

Gaia being an Ascian that isn't Tempered by Zodiark. Woof. And this is why I can see the Unsundered being so adamant about giving people the memories of their lives in Amarot back and probably getting Zoidark to Temper them. The last thing any of them would want is someone with Gaia's skill-set working against them.

Werlet

If nothing else... Emet-Selch totally succeeded at utterly trashing Garlemald's sense of morality. And any hope it has of surviving whatever's coming next intact.

This does go back to one thing I keep waiting to get explained... and that is where the heck Gaius managed to somehow get as much a sense of honor as he has. And his general lack of racisim compared to... most other high-ranking Garleans we meet. To top that off... he almost comes across like he is legitimately shocked at how bad the rest of Garlemald has gotten. It almost feels like he was so busy doing his actual job in the provinces, he wasn't back in Garlemald to see how low the people back home well falling. Gaius is also one of the very few characters who... kinda just springs up out of nowhere still. The furthest back thing we know about him was that he was the second-in-command of the XIth Legion before being made the Legatus of the XIVth Legion. And that's... pretty much it. How he got to that rank in the first place? We've got nothing. I do think Gaius has just about had it with the current Garlean situation though.

I didn't think we'd see Allie get split off from her brothers this soon though. It... opens up some options for the ending. Which is going to be screwy no matter who it is. Zenos' data coming into contact with the WoL is... probably not going to go the way anyone thinks it will.

Role Quest Epilogue

Having Unakalhai and Cylva spearhead the effort to see if the Void is salvageable feels right. It always felt... odd... that the Scions on the Source might be working on that when... they really have no tie to the Void and the Source has plenty of problems of it's own. But with Novradant saved and the Empty being brought back to life, it feels right for a Shard that same so close to Flooding would want to help it's sister shard that did Flood recover. Or at least, see if it's feasible.

Personally, I can't see the Void be actually fixed sometime in the game's lifetime, as the Voidsent make for too good enemies to be summoned (and it might also cause weird timeline issues too). But I could see the promise of it being "someday" fixed in the far future. Even Novradant waited a century after the Almost Flood to be fixed... so it's reasonable that the Void would take even longer to fixed as the Flood of Darkness did fully happen.

[Ultimatecalibur]

A fair amount of stuff in this patch seems like it is setup for 6.X content.

MSQ

Zenos is... being Zenos... apparently he's going on a quest to get a better weapon? I really hope he bites off more than he can chew somewhere along the line since that would make him more interesting...

I suspect this will be setup for the 6.X relic series. Zenos crafting his own "relic" weapon (Muramasa being a good name) to face us with and us respond in kind by reforging Murakumo/forging our own comparable weapon could make for a fine "climatic" relic weapon series.

Role Quest Epilogue

Personally, I can't see the Void be actually fixed sometime in the game's lifetime, as the Voidsent make for too good enemies to be summoned (and it might also cause weird timeline issues too). But I could see the promise of it being "someday" fixed in the far future. Even Novradant waited a century after the Almost Flood to be fixed... so it's reasonable that the Void would take even longer to fixed as the Flood of Darkness did fully happen.

This for me felt like the setup for 6.X content. Either the next Diadem/Eureka/Bozja or the next PotD/HoH. It being the next PotD/HoH is actually pretty reasonable if they are planning on adding it in 6.0.

[Merrnryn]

Not really a spoiler since it has been done before in one of the side stories. The trope of roping someone back in through means of blackmail and extortion is in no way right. If the said person wishes to come back it shouldn't have to be because they are hunted down and forced through means of false manipulations and lies.

The whole blackmail/extortion thing angered me because it's low, illegal, and shows VERY poor morals and on top of it extremely poor writing. The scions are supposed to represent a higher standard and that of role models, that their abuse and, the coercion of a person (pixel or not we're talking legality, morals, and poor writing) was laughed about, to begin with only to be done again is just plain wrong.

Yes, I do like the character they are doing it too, that is here nor there, as it is just plain wrong, to begin with.

[Gobio]

a well written character : "remember us"
fandaniel : "lalalalalala"

[Enla]

Not really a spoiler since it has been done before in one of the side stories. The trope of roping someone back in through means of blackmail and extortion is in no way right. If the said person wishes to come back it shouldn't have to be because they are hunted down and forced through means of false manipulations and lies.

The whole blackmail/extortion thing angered me because it's low, illegal, and shows VERY poor morals and on top of it extremely poor writing. The scions are supposed to represent a higher standard and that of role models, that their abuse and, the coercion of a person (pixel or not we're talking legality, morals, and poor writing) was laughed about, to begin with only to be done again is just plain wrong.

Yes, I do like the character they are doing it too, that is here nor there, as it is just plain wrong, to begin with.

Ten characters of response.

Except almost none of the Scion's is supposed to be 'role models'. Most of them have moral codes, but I'd argue only a handful of them actually care about being morally upright at all times. They're still all good people who work for the greater good and care deeply about those around them. But with the exception of Scions like Alphinaud almost all of them are willing to bend the laws of decency in the name of getting a job done. To what extent however depends on the Scion. Though out of all of them Tataru has one of the looser moral compasses when it comes to the greater good. Since acquiring Estinien's aid is for the greater good she'll go out of her way to cajole him into helping.

You might not like it and that's perfectly fine! But it's not bad writing to have characters be morally grey and do questionable things. The Scion's never set out to be any supreme moral authority that doesn't allow for shades of grey in their actions. Just to do good and keep the realm safe.

[NoblePigeon]

MSQ only, cause it's the only one I have enough iLevel for so far

Loved it. I needed a breather after the entirety of ShB, and I'm glad they're taking time to set things up again. I don't think the tempering cure was rushed at all. We've had to deal with the consequences of tempering since 2013, there's been PLENTY of buildup to finally figuring out a solution. And it's not as if said solution was found out instantly, was it? It was gradually, over the course of the expansion.

[Lium]

MSQ

I'm not gonna lie, I was bored for much of this patch. The dungeon was kind of fun and I always like to see Matoya. It's especially fun to see the back and forth between her and Y'shtola. Alphinaud spilling the beans about how she used Matoya's name on the First was hilarious. We rarely see Y'shtola flustered, but Master Matoya is the only one who can do that to her.

The highlight for me was seeing Ga Bu cured. That was a touching moment. Though in the Navel, it was super weird that the kid's parents were still lying there dead. After all this time? Za Da didn't just kick them into the lava or something? I know it was for dramatic impact when Za Da was cured to see what he had done, but I thought that was really odd.

And speaking of tempering. Curing this HUGE THING that's been plaguing the star from the start of the game so quickly seemed rushed and sudden. I understand the name of this update is Futures Rewritten, and all the major players here are rewriting a new future for Eorzea, but curing tempering so quickly - and with magic pigs - seemed out of left field. But that seemed to be a re-occurring theme here.

Back in ARR, the Lominsans were shown as being the main instigators of the troubles with all the beast tribes in the region. Y'shtola and Merlwyb had a few private chats about that. It was nice to see the admiral take ownership of the wrongs her people had committed, but again, this was so sudden. The last time we saw two races trying to reconcile past sins, it took an entire expansion to resolve. (Heavensward). Which again, was yet another theme. Heavensward. It was all over this patch. Yoshida did say we should brush up on our Heavensward content, and he wasn't kidding. More to come on that, no doubt. Then there was the whole reconciliation with the pirates. Again, that seemed so sudden and was just kind of like "Oh, since we're here we may as well go do this thing.".

And speaking of ARR, we're back to fighting primals again. There was a moment I fully expected Urianger to summon me to the Waking Sands to take down Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit. Fortunately that didn't happen. Because I felt like after all we've dealt with, from the Dragonsong War up till now, fighting primals again seemed so anti-climactic. Though to be sure, Elidibus was a primal and that's what we've essentially been dealing with in Eden. And at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if WE are a primal.

And about us, I feel like my character spent this entire patch doing exactly what I was doing in real life. Just watching. Aside from the dungeon and some fetch quests, we honestly didn't need to be there, and we didn't really do anything. Whether we were there or not, the story would have unfolded exactly the way it did. We had a small part when we gave Alisae some of our aether, but other than that, we really didn't have a purpose here. The main stars here were Alisae, Graha, and Merlwyb. We were just there.

L

[Mieck]

Not a spoiler, so I won't hide it.

The person mentioned sounds different to me too. There's times that it's almost the same, almost familiar, but it's like somebody doing a bad imitation....

From memory... the last time we had voiced lines from either Cid or Nero was... 3.5 The Far Edge of Fate in 2016? Possibly Stormblood intself, but also 2016. Plenty of characters have changed (meaning since the recast in 3.0). Also, yes, lines are being recorded from home and Soken had to do a pass on all the lines for 5.3 to try and even out any kinks. I imagine they had to do the same for this patch, too.


I think it was the same actors, just that it has been a long time since they had to do these voices