YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse - A summary, feelings and Final Thoughts, beginning to [E]nd

[Anonymoose]

My goal since the first raid has been to experience the story all at once in NG+ before critiquing; I don't think I'll have a crystallized opinion on it for some time... but I did harbor a quiet dream of surprise weapons / weapon stories and pod / flight unit mounts, lol. RIP Scholar Weiss / Summoner Noir dreams. Mechanics and glams were fun, though.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

While usually 'more is better' it doesn't feel like this for me in this case. I think we got way too much. And now, with half the world dressed in nier glamour and the need of running those raids constantly for coins and even the need to go back in there several weeks in a row for the dwarfs in addition, ff14 feels like a huge part of Nier itself - and I don't really like that. Maybe it depends on how much you like the Nier universe in the first place but even if you are a huge fan, for a crossover this goes beyond any dimension. Personally I would have drawn the line at one alliance raid and wouldn't miss anything, in fact I would have preferred it as I'm kinda disappointed in 'wasting' all three alliance raids [as in 'the whole expansion pack']for the crossover instead of giving us more original or ff-based content.

[Mieck]

I don't think I've enjoyed a 24-person story in the whole game, but the Shadows of Mhach was the most interesting for me personally. I really wanted to like Ivalice, but my expectation was that it would have more to do with XII than Tactics, and my hopes were dashed in that regard. I will say that I was intrigued enough by YoRHa to pick up Automata on PS4.


I feel it speaks volumes that the character I identified with most in this whole story arc was the Dig Site Chief.

[MaikoRaines]

My goal since the first raid has been to experience the story all at once in NG+ before critiquing; I don't think I'll have a crystallized opinion on it for some time... but I did harbor a quiet dream of surprise weapons / weapon stories and pod / flight unit mounts, lol. RIP Scholar Weiss / Summoner Noir dreams. Mechanics and glams were fun, though.

Mate. You and me both. I'll always have that hyped up feeling knowing we were getting it, we got it, and then quietly but gradually let down. I'm still trying to find the supposed Yoshi P quote on him saying "if we can imagine it, it will most likely come true" or something. I hit a brick wall from this what I suspect is hyperbole now.

I feel it speaks volumes that the character I identified with most in this whole story arc was the Dig Site Chief.

.....Yeah hey. He WAS the glue so to speak wasn't he? My new spirit animal. Not gonna lie.

[Jennah]

I came into the NieR raids basically only knowing that 2B was "that woman with the blindfold the internet likes putting into saucy pictures. Oh, she's a robot? Huh."

I feel like I didn't really learn anything more over the course of the raids.
Who are these machines? Why are they here? Am I imagining them, since nobody aside from a few crazy dwarves know they're there? Why was it a big deal when they all changed colors? So, did we save the world or ... something? Oh, they're all gone now. Oh well.

[TaleraRistain]

I consider it the single worst story I've experienced in XIV to this date. I'm also, like another poster, tired of hearing how it's "SO TARO" to excuse the shoddy and careless story. XIV is known for its story and for him to give us something like this spits completely in the eye of that reputation. I'm sure he was forced to do it, but he could have respected the game at least.

[YianKutku]

The Yorha raid series feels like the sort of content which, if retrospective articles about its development are written about it in a year or so, will get headline titles of "What Went Wrong".

[Cilia]

Managed to make it through Bunker on NG+ (dang ol' Factory queues slowing me down like nobody's business).

In short: I noticed no changes, except maybe longer audio from the voice at the start of the Factory and the third boss in Bunker.

Siding with Konogg over Anogg changed a couple lines (and gave the "Heads, I Win" instead of "Tails, You Lose" quest), but nothing more.

I'll finish Tower tomorrow and give a more comprehensive critique.

[Elizar_Naki]

My love for YOKO TARO games is the reason I'm more or less critical of the outcome of the raid. I'm hoping I don't come off as an apologist or anything like that from my post overall. That wasn't my aim at all. I've been playing the NieR/Drakengard games for decades now and it's just... not what I was expecting it to be at the end. Even if we all got what we wanted (9S glam, Flight Unit mounts, glamourable YoRHa weapons etc) I'd still be somewhat critical of the story. I think the build up was amazing but the landing just... didn't stick at the end. If that makes any sense...

I wasn't really aiming that part of my rant at you. Like I said, the members of my FC who're as familiar with Taro's work as you are just don't wanna hear criticism of anything he does, and they keep trying to defend everything, even this raid series, like it's something I'm just "not getting" because I'm new to his work, so I'm a little on edge whenever I see that phrase or a variant of it. They refuse to see this raid series, or anything Taro's done, as having any flaws--he's a "mad genius" who always creates "masterpieces," and they make excuses for any critique anyone else gives of his work. I prefer, like you said, to stay critical/objective of things even if I'm a fan. I'm a huge fan of KH and NGE, but I can acknowledge those franchises' flaws, and if FF14 ever somehow managed to do a crossover with one of them and Nomura or Anno pulled crap like this, I'd be one of the first to call them out on it.

Your last sentence makes perfect sense to me, btw. I absolutely loved everything Dark Apocalypse gave us from 5.1 through 5.4, and even with only one Taro-verse game under my belt, I was waiting to see where things would go and how they'd explain everything. 5.5 and 5.55's answer, unfortunately, was "they didn't," and it soured my view of the raid story enough to ruin my experience with it. A good story needs a good ending, after all, not to mention a clear idea of what's happening and why. But I do still enjoy the mechanics of the raids, and obviously I'm enjoying rocking the YoRHa chic look for the time being (and also still holding out vain hope for a flight unit mount sometime before ShB ends, contenting myself with the Gabriels until then), so yeah, it's not like I didn't get anything out of the experience.

If you're too picky about consistency, you'll just spend your time not liking it. After all, Square Enix is the publisher of these games, between the constant fan service in FFXIV patting the fans on the back. With each new content: "Did you see? We know you like this FF, we thought of you."

Most (and I stress most) of FF14's other fan service and callbacks had an in-game purpose behind it; the ones that don't are generally shorter, temporary events rather than permanent content. The CT raids called back to FF3, but the Tower had a reason for being there in Eorzea. The winks and nods to FF3 fans were there, but enough was explained about the Eorzean versions of them that I never felt lost having not played FF3. Same with Mhach and whatever it was a callback to (if anything); Ivalice a little less so the way it called attention to some of its Easter eggs mid-raid without explaining them, but I got enough of the gist to clear things and know what was happening most of the time and what everything was within the context of this reality. The NieR raids, on the other hand, felt like all flash and no substance, all reference and no fleshing out. To put it plainly and long-winded:

Why was the Factory here? How long has it been there? Why did we have to blow open the entrance if the first part is an open-air facility? Why has nobody else seen this place via amaro or airship travel before now if it's an open-air facility? Why couldn't WE see it from MT. Gulg? Why is there a corpse room (yes, I remember that fight in Automata, but why is it HERE?)? Why is the second half filled with "mineral dust" (which I've done enough research to get the callback but refuse to name because the raid doesn't)? Why is Engels the only returning boss from Automata itself when every other boss is a new creation? What exactly is Hobbes testing and why? Why is there a tank just hanging around in the middle of a factory? Why do we never see the crashed Bunker until after the attack on Komra even though it looks like it's been there a while? Why is only the underground section of the Bunker's outer ring broken while the above-ground part of the ring looks largely intact? Why does the ceiling on the broken underground portion actually look broken while the floor just looks bent, like it was purposefully built this way so we'd have a half-pipe to slide down? How did the Bunker crash perfectly on top of the alien ship? Why does the Bunker have an elevator down to the alien ship? Why does the WoL know to CALL it an alien ship in the lead-up to Tower even though nobody's ever called it that at any point in the raid story's dialogue? How did the "sphere" (again, not using the proper term because the raid doesn't) get here? Why does it choose to create white Androids as the primary antagonists? Why, according to the implications of Konogg's last message, are its motivations being influenced by copy Anogg's desire for revenge? Or is it the other way around and copy Anogg's desire for revenge stems from the sphere's malevolence? If the former, why is something with that sort of godlike creative power so easily influenced by one of its own creations? If the latter, has copy Anogg been subconsciously helping the sphere, and how does she ultimately break free of that? Where does she go between Bunker and Tower? Does she get sucked away to Earth, and if so, how? What caused the portal in the first place? If everything here--including 2B and 9S--are re-creations of the sphere, and 2B and 9S are only there because they "hacked" their data into it to disrupt its actions, WHEN did they find/hack into it in the Automata timeline? If the sphere was far enough ahead to give us the corpse room and the Red Girl from the game's finale, why is 9S still spouting off his "nothing the machines say has any meaning" mantra from the beginning of the game? How does 9S manage to hack a group of organic beings into a digital space? Why is 9S's character model about the same height as 2B's when they're both custom-built NPCs that should have had different heights? Why, when the portal is sealed, are the Tower, the sphere, 2B, 9S, the pod(s), and copy Anogg forced to return to (presumably) Earth while the Factory, the Bunker, the alien ship, copy Glagg, and all the Machine detritus are allowed to stay? When was copy Glagg even made, and why does he keep freaking out (reference 4 that I'll be ignoring because the raid doesn't address it)? If he was made recently, does that mean there's another sphere, or that the first one is back/still here? Are we not gonna address the can of worms that opens up regarding Kholusia's future? If he wasn't made recently, how long ago was he made, and why, and--again--why didn't he vanish back to Earth with all the other stuff the sphere created? Why is he only just now starting to freak out? And either way, are we not gonna address that copy Glagg's schizo attitude is gonna be seriously problematic for Komra in the long term if he gets to stay in charge? How does copy Anogg come back if the portal's closed? Does she even come back at all, or is it just some fever dream Konogg has while possibly committing suicide? Admittedly, I'll give the writers a little credit for that last puzzler since it's the ending, and those can be open-ended and still entertaining, but most of the rest of the above is all very basic storytelling questions, and other alliance raids actually take time to address similar questions in their own stories. The only answers we get to most of the above, to use a few examples:

-why is the Factory here? To remind you of the one in Automata.
-why was there a corpse room? To remind you of that fight and provide a convenient source of replacement parts for 2P.
-why was there "mineral dust" in the second half? To remind you of White Chlorination Syndrome. What does WCS have to do with the events of this raid? Nothing, but remember when it happened in the actual NieR games?
-why is Engels back? Popularity/recognizability with either the fans or the devs.
-why are the Bunker and the alien ship here? Because you'll recognize them from Automata.
-why does the "broken" floor of the Bunker look like an intact half-pipe for you to slide on? So the devs could give you a half-pipe to slide on (and a finicky one at that, given all the times it refuses to acknowledge that I'm there and won't let me slide).
-why is there an elevator from the Bunker to the alien ship? Because the devs wanted to use both locations.
-why does the WoL know to call it an alien ship? Because the player knows what it is if they played Automata too.
-how does 9S hack living beings into a digital space? Dev hand-waving so they could use hacking space as a location.
-why does the Tower vanish but the Factory and Bunker stay behind? So you can keep visiting those solo versions of them that the devs put work into.
-why does copy Anogg have to leave but copy Glagg gets to stay? Drama.

What's the IN-UNIVERSE answer for any of the above? There is none, just sit back and giggle at the nostalgia of it.

And, of course, the most important question of all: does the fact that every server in the game sided overwhelmingly with Anogg mean that there's long-term Konogg-allied content that we'll never get to see?

[Alleo]

I consider it the single worst story I've experienced in XIV to this date. I'm also, like another poster, tired of hearing how it's "SO TARO" to excuse the shoddy and careless story. XIV is known for its story and for him to give us something like this spits completely in the eye of that reputation. I'm sure he was forced to do it, but he could have respected the game at least.

Fully agree with your points. I was already skeptical when I heard that a whole raid would be used for Nier but I still tried to keep an open mind. Then I was really disappointed by the first raid that bascially gave us no real answers but I just read that we all have to wait because Taro reveals important plot points always towards the end. This sentence was used again and again at each new step until the end where we got the six week quests where people still said that something big must await us because Taro is just that great. Now its at least seemingly over and there was no big surprise at the end. We did not get real closure with the twins and we have no single clue on what happened with the chief of the dwarfes.

Overall I am not someone that likes to put people on a pedestal for having some great games in the past. Taro is like everyone else just a human and can produce bad stories too. Maybe he was restricted by Yoshida and his team, maybe is was the restriction on how much they can do as quests or maybe he was just simply not good with that story. In the end a raid story can never really go into the depth of a whole game. He can shove a lot of information towards the last part of his games but that simply might not work for something that is so small in comparsion.

In the end for me this was the worst raid story, heck even the worst story overall in this game. I just hope that we dont give whole raids to others again. Let them do events like the Garo stuff, thats perfectly fine. Then we would not need to think how it would fit in the world or even write a deep story. All that could have happened was the sighting of the orb and then have the Nier characters come and help us. We get some cool rewards, people that played Nier can be happy about the characters and stuff and at the same time we could get a raid that would not only fit into the game but also deepens the lore of the world.