FINAL FANTASY XIV - YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse | Trailer on Official FFXIV YT channel

[ForsakenRoe]

The story's great once you grasp the shape of it, but it's way too subtle for this game, way too subtle for this community,

Pretty condescending to wave away criticism of a story many believe was 'mid' with 'you just don't get it, it's too nuanced for you/this community to get on the first run through'

Nah, it wasn't very 'subtle', it was just mid, carried by coomers going feral over 2B's rear chassis, and a few slightly interesting mechanics (but not enough to salvage the raid series)

[Sindele]

I mean, I thought I was fairly clear in suggesting it's too nuanced given the context that surrounds it, too. 'Great' doesn't imply 'flawless' in the slightest - there's a lot missing in the execution - just that there's a very compelling core to it when you can actually get at it.

It's certainly moderately condescending. But we've also got a nearly 1000-page thread with some of the most deliberately bad-faith readings of a text I've ever seen that perpetually resurfaces around here, so I'm fairly well convinced of the truthfulness underlying it.

E: Actually, I'm going to expand on that first point a bit. Guess I'll use a dropdown since we don't have spoiler tags..

One of the biggest conflicts is that Yoko Taro basically never provides completely wrapped conclusions in the first place, much less happy and satisfying completely wrapped conclusions. FFXIV, conversely, tries its damnedest to put a bow on everything. Endwalker was basically an entire expansion of putting neat little bows on everything. It's an incredible tonal dissonance when taken as part of the whole FFXIV experience, and on its own I think that fact alone was enough to put a stake in its heart for a whole lot of people. Even the ending isn't really an ending in the way that FFXIV continually provides and reinforces the expectation of. Something that we cannot completely solve, someway, somehow, however obliquely, however unexpectedly - how often does that really happen?

And yet, it's integral to the story and vital to both the message and the metaphor. That's something hard to reconcile.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It's less about it not being "subtle" or "nuanced", and more that getting the whole story requires a reasonable knowledge of the entire Drakengaard/Nier franchise. Which is a lot to expect from a crossover in an otherwise unconnected game.

[Zarkovitch]

Nier got good glams and the fight are alright. I skip the story because of Nier wacky stuffs.

[NatPagle]

100% agree with Skiros here. We don't need more of Yoko Taro's phoned in garbage. He completely disrespected XIV with what he delivered story wise. He can stay far away. The combat developers can come back (so long as they keep those red balls away). Mechanics were fun.

I wouldn't mind a tie-in like the Yo-kai. Give us Nier/Drakenguard themed weapon glams.

[Kazhar]

It wouldn't be a Yoko Taro thread without people doing their best impression of the Rick & Morty high IQ meme.

[Reimmi]

The worst alliance raid storyline, bar none? Why would you like it lmao. The entire thing made zero sense.

Idc about the story, just gimme more nier stuff.
they never gave us any of the weapons for one

[Sindele]

It's less about it not being "subtle" or "nuanced", and more that getting the whole story requires a reasonable knowledge of the entire Drakengaard/Nier franchise. Which is a lot to expect from a crossover in an otherwise unconnected game.

The thing is: I don't really think you do. There's two stories intertwining here, but the one that asks for foreknowledge is the less important one that exists largely just to set up the actual content of the raids. It's effectively just window dressing for the central story of the twins and Komra, for which everything you need to know winds up in the Portable Archive.

[Shurrikhan]

I just hate that they had ample opportunity to make the raid's place in the story make at least some degree of sense (e.g., some part of the Light Waste's answer to the issue of the world becoming unable to sustain life being to simply replicate the world and let it grow from there, not alive but nonetheless lively, in a sort of antithetical mirror to all that G'raha attempted in allowing life itself to live on within the First)... and instead settled for "Dere's a portal in dis here hill! I wonder where it goes!"

[Absurdity]

Pretty condescending to wave away criticism of a story many believe was 'mid' with 'you just don't get it, it's too nuanced for you/this community to get on the first run through'

Nah, it wasn't very 'subtle', it was just mid, carried by coomers going feral over 2B's rear chassis, and a few slightly interesting mechanics (but not enough to salvage the raid series)

Those interesting mechanics also came at the expense of bosses with bullet-sponge health, so by the time you got to 50% you had already seen every mechanic twice.