Revelations from Patch 6.2: Buried Memories

[Kranel_San]

I saw that and haven't had a chance to post my thoughts on the msq yet I literally stopped playing on that scene and stared at it. So I'm wondering about it but then again those

statues too in The fell Court of Troia gets me wondering also. The ones on the stairs and the sides not where we fight bearice....

You literally stopped playing with like only one or two dialogues left

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about those statues. I'm very curious to learn more about what they represent and why the voidsents have made them since I think it's unlikely that they were made back in the day (Who's in the right mind would construct hundreds of giant statues?)
Also, it seems there's a big room down the stairs but the way is blocked by the statues. I'm kind of disappointed none of the characters have ever paid it any attention even in trust mode but I hope it might one day be expanded upon.

[Rannie]

You literally stopped playing with like only one or two dialogues left

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about those statues. I'm very curious to learn more about what they represent and why the voidsents have made them since I think it's unlikely that they were made back in the day (Who's in the right mind would construct hundreds of giant statues?)
Also, it seems there's a big room down the stairs but the way is blocked by the statues. I'm kind of disappointed none of the characters have ever paid it any attention even in trust mode but I hope it might one day be expanded upon.

I meant as in stopped playing to stare at the screen for a few minutes rofl sorry. I finished the Msq on Tuesday morning finished panda yesterday morning and haven't gotten enough sleep in my book the past two days. Lol 6 hours of sleep while working over nights and not being able to nap isn't good for me.

unless those weren't made by the void sent and at one point were some of the people. The thing that gets Mr curious is the robes

[Raiya]

And off the wall but who else can see Emet kicking and screaming at Hydaelyn, all the while crying out grumpily that he doesn't want to go as she's trying to carry him back? Anyone?

I could see him being rather angry at Hydaelyn at first.... then she just mentions Elpis... and the missing memories hit him harder than the Axe of Light we unfortunately had to hit him with.

I would say the double whammy of being memory wiped of advanced warning of the coming final days thanks to Hermes plus the reason Venat/Hydaelyn couldnt say anything for so damn long was because of the need to ensure key events occured to have a chance at stopping Meteion would have been the biggest "godsdammit" ever heard in the Aetherial Sea.

[Seraphor]

MSQ dungeon

I found Beatrice's castle interesting in the MSQ dungeon. Obviously she is Beatrix from FF9, her portrait even looks like the FF9 character to a T. I never finished FF9 so I wonder if anyone has a take on the paintings in the Castle during the MSQ? All the women seem to have had their faces scrubbed out and only the men remain except the one who looks like a Caster or Ninja. You don't normally see details like this without it being an easter egg/clue/red herring.

Interesting.

I hadn't considered an allusion to FF9's Beatrix, but it does make sense.
Troia in FF4 was a matriarchal queendom, and Beatrix of course led the knights of Alexandria, an all female army.

[Alleo]

About the raid

We did learn a few more interesting things about the Ancient world. Seemingly they also believed in gods which I found quite surprising. (Themis mentioned that the knowledge Athena gained was only for the gods) Also there seems to be places with treasure and Azem was seemingly quite a bit of a adventurer. Wonder if that is a hint that other civilizations had existed. All of this makes it even more clear that the Ancient world was really similiar to our own. Including having evil people that would kill to get what they want.

I wonder if we will find out what happened with Lahabrea. Our Lahabrea feels way more like the evil side of him. He also used fusion and the Ascians may have used the knowledge gained by Lahabreas wife to be able to live outside a body. Since that was seemingly not possible for the Ancients.

Still this old Lahabrea (who really looks nothing like the young one other than the eyes) was also very cold and would kill even his own wife for the good of the star. I can see him in our Lahabrea too with his dedication to bring back the old world no matter the cost.

[Seraphor]

Little thought's that haven't been mentioned so much yet:

MSQ

I feel like we're sleeping on all the FF9 references now. The FF4 stuff is obvious, but 9 is littered everywhere.
Beatrix mentioned above
Memoria
Eidolons
The corrupted Contramemoria using the memoria (auracite) to summon Eidolons, bare a striking resemblance to allagan summoners. I.e. eidolons sealed in gemstones anyone?
And now I'm wondering about those robed figures. Could they have something else to do with summoners?

Raid

Totally called Lahabrea's true name being Hephaestus, or a transliteration at any rate, and my ancient greek isn't even that good.

Kinda miffed how they basically skipped over that second keyward in P6. What was her story and what was she merged with?
Hesperos had this whole vampire/castlevania thing going. I was hoping for other such allusions to perhaps other classic games.
Any ideas on possible references here or with P7 for that matter?

[Fenral]

MSQ

We're definitely getting some FFIV/FFIX blending going on. Memoria was the final dungeon of IX, connected to the original Crystal, and also where you fought the four fiends as cameo bosses (not the archfiends). Eidolon was that game's name for summoned creatures. Hearing "Troian Beauty" on a harpsichord ended up getting Beatrix's FFIX theme stuck in my head. Layers, I tell you.

This Golbez seems to be evil for the hell of it, but it's not like Zemus wasn't an asspull to begin with. We only got a biref flash of it, but it seems he's the one who killed Unukalhai? This could have interesting implications if the devs decide to just go there like they did with Estinien.

"Zero...mus?" is where my mind went first, but this could be a red herring, like how everyone was so sure Regula would become Kefka. I need her hat /tip yesterday.

So much lore-dropping on the voidsent. It's Shadowbringers all over again. Maybe this will be enough to call certain walking encyclpaedias back from the beyond to break down how much of this actually hold up with what we "knew" before, but it all seems to fit. I wonder if we'll finally see Doga and Unei in their monster forms.

Panda-monium

Just like with Eden, it's the middle patch that tells us what's actually going on. Athena was a master manipulator who conditioned Erich into codependence just to keep him close as a research subject. CBU III says, "We can make awful moms, too."

Keeping Athena's final objective vague seems like obfuscation for the sake of it, though I did notice the merger she did with Lahabrea is reminiscent of the Ascian Prime fusion dance, and we did get an Igeyohrm namedrop that could lead to some small something.

Proto-Carbuncle abusing reflect in new and interesting ways was fantastic.

Island Sanctuary

The hook for this is really just, "Tataru is now rich enough to buy you an island." I lol'd. That's about as far as I've gotten with it, but apparently she's got another scheme going on. The break from serious plot is nice.

[Tehmon]

Raid letters letters aye aye

So when Themis mentions that Venat told him that she had journeyed with a familiar like us in the past, was that to be taken literally as in our time in Elpis? She doesn't mean Argos, I suppose. But '' journey '' is a bit much for our brief time in Elpis.

[Vyrerus]

Main Story

I like the adult body the alchemists surprised Vrtra with. I wonder if this patch is a testing bed for them, to try and gauge how people feel about aging up characters. If there's possibly an age up for the twins coming in 7.0.
Laughed pretty hard at Estinien's between CS dialogue just before entering the void. Saying he did them a favor, because they beefed up their new Alzadaal Ruins protectors, since he destroyed yet more of them last time.

The dungeon was very atmospheric if a bit boring. Dungeon bosses are already very easy, and trash pack dungeon bosses are always extremely easy. So the first boss was ZZZZZ. How about that Ferdiad look alike, huh? Just Troian Bishop. Beatrix could be an FFIX ref as others as stated, but she didn't really feel like it other than the name. She had some really big boobs, though. I guess the big eye = Beatrice having one eye in IX might be sort of a monstrous call? Also her AOEs she draws on the ground look like Morgott's Great Rune from Elden Ring. Just made me think the devs been hip deep in that, and wanting to get it out of their head.

Scarmiglione is such a mouthful. I kind of wish they went with the localization's memory/time saving name of Milon instead. His fight was OK.

Afterwards we interact with Voidsent, who begrudgingly view us as either the new lords of the castle or just too strong to eat. Marking a big difference between them and Sineaters of the First. My guess would be that by being made of active energy, they're closer to living than Sineaters made of passive energy. The Sineaters were also directed by the Ascians into being spreaders of their condition, rather than just eating people. And with the exception of Lightwardens, the Sineaters all die the first time around, I guess because their aether is so stagnate it sinks right into the ground.

Zero is hot. I was fanning myself for the rest of the patch. We're surmising that the Memoria are just Auracite by another name, but they look like elongated Crystals of Darkness to me. It also seemed from that still that the corrupted WoLs of the 13th were actively brandishing them to induce transformation. To me, they seem more akin to Ancient Concept Crystals that can impart their contents onto other beings.

Since the trial was ??? before then, I figured that one of the other 4 would be coming, and I was right. Some people are expressing confusion about her hair, but in FFIV her hair itself is the wind she uses in battle. The only thing I would have liked more is if they could have given her hair a more pronounced wind effect to show that. But I guess Jojo's Bizarre Bayonetta was a lot of fun, anyway. Haven't done extreme yet, but one thing missing from normal was her petrification attack from FFIV.

Azdaja is alive, and had been subdued by Golbez. Golbez is very interesting to me. He's got that vague thing the Ascians had going for them back in 2.0/3.0. He refers to his war a dozen or so times, but at the end after Rubicant and Cagnazzo agree to scheme together, he talks about how no sacrifice is too great for his ambition, but also that it's ironic that the "blessed damned" have thrown open the gate. Then there was a still of him towered over what looked like a white robed Amaurotine. It makes me think he fought Elidibus in the past.

Definitely looking forward to more of this storyline!
Also yeah, I suspect something will happen to Zero to induce a Zeromus transformation, but it's just as likely that it's a red herring. Of course, if it's not, get ready for the jokes about, "Zeromussy." and what not to spiral out of control.

Pandaemonium

Highly enjoyable fights. Tree boss really wrecking some shit. It seemed a little bit hurried though. For all the interesting things going on there was actually very little dialogue. They also up'd the ante quite a bit. We only fight one abominable creation, and that's FFV's Carbuncle. The rest were all Hemitheos of different flavors. I was a little bit surprised that the 2 and 3 bosses were different people.

As far as characters go, loved that it was revealed that basically Lahabrea was a man so blinded by the love of his wife that he never stopped to consider if she was using him rather than loving him until it was too late. That combined with his relenting to Elidibus on the matter of trying to salvage the keywarders and facility, even divested of his emotional side, really just handed us another, "Damn, the Ancients had a larger capacity for love than we do."
There was also the slight commentary of toxic relationships wherein the one seeking to understand/change the mind of the toxic person almost always fails, and continues to be abused.
So Athena's will is so strong that even just a short time melded together, she will usurp his mind, so he had to cut his emotions off. Yet, we still don't know how he goes from being that old, hurt man to being the crazy zealot in ARR. I imagine it's some mixture of recombining with his old self post-sundering along with all the already told to us for years reasons.

It also makes me think though, what if Athena completely took him over after that, and if they'll try to tie that into the Ascian Prime meld at the end of Aetherochemical Research Facility.

And finally, definitely got a wake up slap when Pandaemonium came out of the Aitiascope.

Side Story/Islands

Island questline funny. Island too chill for me atm, though. Not that I don't wanna build a jillion things, but to me it reeks of busy work rather than fun. I have enjoyed going to my friends' islands though.

There's a sidequest related to the Sky Pirates, the Redbills, that becomes available after you start the Island Unlock with Tataru. It eventually leads to another encounter with The Talons, as well as with Leofard's grandfather. Who sells you paintings of the Scions at 20k gil a pop. I bought an Alisaie portrait, and put it up in my FC house.

On another note, it's very weird to me that my portrait isn't showing my glamour over this silly crafted set look.

[Gogoglovitch]

I don't think the FFIX reference people are seeing actually is one.

If Beatrice were actually meant to be a reference to Beatrix, I'd think she'd have more elements of her, like having a prominent eyepatch, or actually being named Beatrix. (FFXIV has never been shy about taking names wholesale from past installments before.

Instead, I think she's a reference to, well, Beatrice. Dante's guide through heaven in The Divine Comedy. The Four Archfiends are all named after Divine Comedy characters, as are the two named voidsent in Zero's realm. That seems a much more likely source of inspiration to me.