Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.4

MSQ stuff

So Fandaniel wants to die or so he claims. At 1st I thought they made him like Kefka, but now I'm starting to think he's inspired by Kuja. He even has his own dragon. Both are theatrical, want to destroyed the world when he dies. Maybe finding out he was just a pawn by the Unsundered Ascians and not thier equal despite the memories changed his mentality? Its clear that he's manipulating Zenos and I can't help but feel that Fandaniel probably wants to be killed by WoL, since he's proven to permanently kill Ascians whereas Zenos will just stab him. Sure, he'll die, but that means his soul could still be reincarnated and he doesn't want that.

Fandaniel also talks about how the 1st of the beasts has roared, could this be Lunar Bahamut? We know he wants to recreate the Final Days, could that mean he wants to create those terminus beasts. In this case using people's fear to create them.

Sorrow of Werlyt

Not much to add other than the revelation that Severa was Garlean half-breed. Might explain why she has a black Garlean 3rd eye? This reminds when Arenvald said said his mother used a knife to gouge a mole that was growing on his forehead because she feared it was a sign of a growing 3rd eye. Maybe it was after all?

Eden

Nice to know the true names of 2 other Ascians. I guess the theory that they're names after Greek gods turned out to be true

MSQ Critique

So I had high hopes for the MSQ after 5.3 and the 0.4 generally stir up some fantastic set pieces, 2.4 Ishgard confrontation with Iceheart, 3.4 has some rousing forshadowing for both Ala Mihgo and The First, 4.4 although cryptic at times had some really stellar moments so wtf happened here?

5.4 feels like filler besides the very last moments which dont add nearly as much to the narrative as one is required due to the fact 5.5 is the end of the expansion. Emet, Iceheart, The Griffon felt like great additions to the narrative not a bland Kefkfa knockoff and a even blander Psychopath which we have battled like 4 or 5 times to the point i can name his attacks and would inevitably be a unfulfilling to battle yet again

Essentially all the cool Garleon crap is sidelined alot for Porxie stuff, ya its cool they found a way to cure tempered souls and Ga Bu but that dragged on longer than it should, Nero has like 2 lines and no comment on Giaus (but thats abit too petty) the whole "oh no Limsan pirates dont want peace" comes and goes so quickly i doubt the plot would loose any girth if they removed it or minimized it to not take up such a bizarre chunk of the MSQ. We should be introduced to the bare minimum of what 6.0 will have not bum around in minimal affairs when larger threats are among us.

Fandaniel was introduced in the very last quest, says hell end the world with towers and leaves. We know his motives its just its no where near as interesting as literally any other villain we had and contrast Zeno's bland personality and motives incredibly poorly to the point of boredom. Still we know the towers enthrall people somehow but i still have no real grasp on how the plot will go and not in a "so many paths" type of way but a "oh...theyre doing that" sorta way but somehow more vague

5.4 feels like a massive step down in the SHB saga but perhaps its my fault for having expectations 5.5 will either be a huge dud or redeem this MSQ patch

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.

Got done with MSQ and Werlyt today.

MSQ

Supes disappointing. While character interactions are nice I'm very much an inquisitive person, and next to nothing of importance was learned this patch.

We're back on the Source, with the hypothetical cure for tempering! Let's make it work, even though that's gonna take jumping around half the continent! Yay, it worked on Ga Bu! Now let's go force it on the 2nd Order patriarch to get peace between the Limsans and kobolds going, but wait, first pirate drama with Merlwyb! (Who really thought the kobold was gonna shoot her dead?) Yay we did it, now after all that the story is finally moving as Fandaniel's towers (apparently Garlean make, w/e) start showing up everywhere. He shows up, announces his omnicidal intentions via recreating the Final Days, blasts us with his "Lunar Bahamut," and takes his leave. Woo.

"The first beast has roared." - Probably a reference to the Beasts as they were depicted in Amaurot. Lunar Bahamut?
"Lunar Bahamut" - the moon is Zodiark's prison, so this thing is drawing on his power? Plausibly.

So, assuming the towers do temper they temper to Garlemald / the Emperor? Huh.

DAMN YOU ZENOS, STEPPING ON AME-NO-HABAKIRI! I wanted that thing!

Estinien back to the stage soon! Please look forward to it!

Werlyt

Yeppers, just more "Gaius was the one decent Legatus in a corrupt system" I've come to expect from this plotline.

Gaius' data in Emerald? Did not guess that. They're putting Zenos' in Diamond. Fun times.

Fight was pretty easy. Main Tanked it, one run clear, only one Vuln Up debuff and didn't get knocked off the platform, so that's cool. Nice phase 2 music, I'll need to listen to it on YouTube.

Aaaaaaaaaand van Varro is just as much a disturbing creep I pegged him for, with a side order of torture and a disappointing motive besides!

At least the post-fight quest explicitly states Gaius was off-put by Livia's obsession with him, so that whole "My quarters, one hour." bit back in ARR probably was him reprimanding her in private for being so messy back in the Waking Sands.

Well, whatever. Two rematches with our self-proclaimed "bestie" incoming? Good times.

I'll get to Eden tomorrow when my sciatic pains are not so bad. No time tonight.

Side notes:
-Still no cool crafted weapons for GNB / DNC, even though everyone else got bitchin' Zurvan weapons.
-Voice work is pretty rough in places, which I similarly attribute to the Rona.

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.