Revelations from Patch 6.5: "Growing Light", Part 1

[Iscah]

It's nearly time to go rescue Azdaja and get some answers about the Twelve!

As always, please divide your notes by quest group and hide it under spoiler tags, so people can browse discussions on one subject without getting spoiled for others.

Spoiler tag formatting (think "hidden box"):

{hb}Text goes here; use square brackets{/hb}

[Tehmon]

MSQ

I had no expectations going into this, and at the end I'm mostly just relieved it's over. I'm fine with the ending, and I grew to like Zero to some degree at least. No more hat tipping for her, which is the best thing about the ending though! Must say the power of friendship was too heavy-handed this time around, it has always been a theme in Final Fantasy games and the entirety of XIV, but this time it took such massive proportions and it wasn't even cleverly disguised under nice dialogue or excellent voice acting. Whoever is writing the current MSQ, I can't say I'm eager to see them back writing the MSQ for Dawntrail.

So, the clover inside the letter. Any guesses? Perhaps new job related?

The character that came with Erenville, has to be a female hrothgar right?

Other than that, I have nothing to say about the MSQ, for better or for worse.

Myths of the Realm

I was 99% sure that we wouldn't get another '' mankind must prove themselves strong enough to take care of this world by defeating us gods in battle, and after they've done so, we'll return to the star because they don't need us '' storyline, but lo and behold, that's exactly what we got. I cannot deal with this bullshit right now, what a terrible ending to the story. At least Deryk-Oschon is fine and it makes sense for him to live as a man considering him being kind of a wild card in the pantheon, and having connected with the physical realm in a way the other gods haven't but... still. What the hell!?

I'm eager to read what others thought of this nonsense, because I do not have the goddamn strength to dissect it further.

All that to say, I'm quite disappointed.

[aveyond-dreams]

Wow. Predictably in the MSQ there were hardly any consequences bar getting a break from one of the worst female characters in the game besides Y'shtola and Myths ending...was certainly a choice. At least this was the final failure of Endwalker. Or so I'd like to believe.

If nothing else it seems that I'm not the only one dissatisfied with the conclusion to these questlines.

I hope destroying the stories, settings, and characters people were actually invested in was worth this.

[Cleretic]

Finished the MSQ, general no-spoilers feelings: Elevated from 'pretty alright' to 'really good' by one HELL of a trial. I left pretty happy with it, which I wouldn't have if they didn't nail that one fight.

Overall it kinda pitched straight down the middle; nothing super surprising, and I feel like the storyline as a whole maybe could've used an extra twist or two either here or in 6.3, but nothing it did was something it did wrong.

Copious amounts of nods to both the void quests and Eden (and like I suspected, it looks like the mention of the Warring Triad was to guide us down the road to the Void Quests without saying much. If people haven't checked, both Cylva and Unukalhai's dialog has updated after 6.5's MSQ; it's not really new information so much as corroborating accounts on what Golbez was talking about, but that's got its value.

Basically the entire questline runs entirely how we expected up until the final boss of the Lunar Subterrane; I did pick out that part of the dungeon was going to go into Baron (and that it was Baron), but the only real surprising thing in it was Durante as the final fight. And unfortunately he was kinda the weakest part of it; he's not that interesting and kinda doesn't fit the heavily classical-fantasy vibe of the rest of the dungeon.

Fortunately then Zeromus happens, and Zeromus is the best fight we've had in a LONG time; story and gameplay are often different silos, but I think that strong gameplay and difficulty works to sell the gravitas of the story and characters involved, and GOD DAMN does Zeromus' fight sell everything that goes on! It's the first time that I've been healing as an AST and wanted to draw Lady of Crowns. My only complaint in my notes was going to be 'not as gross as the SNES design'... but, well, then she stabbed us with her ribcage, so no, she wins that one.

Zero not keeping around with us is a bit disappointing (especially because if she did join as a PLD, she'd allow us to have an all-female Trust party), but honestly, we've got a big cast; we can do well with characters taking some time off. And in all honesty, Zero's a character that would've felt a bit out-of-place away from Void-centric storylines.

Confirmation of who that letter in the BAnnex was to and from is good, although that clover earring's an enigma; from what I'm aware that's not a symbol that nods towards any known in-universe figures, or historical jobs (unless you wanted to take a REAL long bow towards Green Mage or Geomancer). It's hard to read much into the person Erenville returned with, save that I think we're looking at a hyur, elezen or viera; we can easily rule out lalafel, I don't think the legs are broad enough to be a roe or hrothgar, and I think that angle would've shown a tail if it were miqo or au ra.

Oh yeah, and of course: GAIA! See, we didn't have to make Eden compulsory to have her around and a fun scene contributor!

EDIT: Also, I owe Ardbert an apology: he's no longer the biggest screwup in all of FFXIV, because oh my god Golbez, I don't think there's a single way you could've screwed the world around you up any worse than you already did, you score a straight 0%, that is impressive.

...also, wow, Igeyorhm is pronounced like that?

It's too late here for me to do the new alliance raid, but I have done Margrat's opener. There's not a whole lot to say about it beyond that I love Margrat and this is the best custom delivery NPC.

[Aeromancer]

"That's all from me. Go forth, Warrior of Darkness, and make your triumphant return to the First!"

That's a real line of dialogue that Y'shtola really, actually says. Has she become the anchor for Crystarium High School's daily announcements? What the hell? And Zero talking about "bringing resplendent Light to bear against our foe"?? Since when have EITHER of these characters spoken that way? It's like they've given up all pretense of these "characters" being anything more than Writer McMouthpieces who spout off poorly written dialogue while shuttling us to the next location to reveal the next magical doohickey that will solve all of our problems. Because Cid already knew how to make it, and can produce, shockingly, exactly the amount of said doohickey that we need upon a moment's notice. Not at all excited for Dawntrail if this is the quality of writing we will continue to receive.

[Lunaxia]

MSQ

/tencharacters

So it's not just me who thinks the dialogue has been appalling for this set of patches? I'm actually still stuck somewhere in 6.4 limbo, because even skipping through the dialogue in the previous patch was torture. It just felt excruciatingly bad, particularly in comparison to their old work. It was so jarring I was having one of those "is this different, or has it actually always been like this, and I'm just older?" moments.

[Yuella]

Wow. Predictably in the MSQ there were hardly any consequences bar getting a break from one of the worst female characters in the game besides Y'shtola and Myths ending...was certainly a choice. At least this was the final failure of Endwalker. Or so I'd like to believe.

If nothing else it seems that I'm not the only one dissatisfied with the conclusion to these questlines.

I hope destroying the stories, settings, and characters people were actually invested in was worth this.

lol. Endwalker is awesome from start to finish.

[aveyond-dreams]

It's like they've given up all pretense of these "characters" being anything more than Writer McMouthpieces who spout off poorly written dialogue while shuttling us to the next location to reveal the next magical doohickey that will solve all of our problems.

As much as I wish this were not the case, this is how I feel about the current state of the writing.

[GrizzlyTank]

"That's all from me. Go forth, Warrior of Darkness, and make your triumphant return to the First!"

That's a real line of dialogue that Y'shtola really, actually says. Has she become the anchor for Crystarium High School's daily announcements? What the hell?

Not the first time Y'shtola have talked flattering.

[Fenral]

MSQ

So endeth "Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker: The Movie". No real twists, just a few internal reveals of information that was already presented to the player. No real consequences, either, but who are we kidding? This was never going to be more a stand-alone adventure meant to fill the gap between expansions. Mission accomplished.

Baron level crosses "obligatory Memoria reference" off the list, and also felt more than a little like an FF16 collab dungeon. Wonder if they snuck in some Rosaria assets...

I was actually on the fence about whether or not this incarnation of Golbez would be allowed a shot at redemption, and double surprised that he actually lived!

Zero job-changing (back) to Paladin was on the table from the beginning, but it's funny how the story waited until basically the last relevant second. No "Zero to hero" pun? We got to be Orthodox twinsies, though.

Localization was a little... weird this time around? Some rewrites deliver the same information in slightly different order, as necessitated by Japanese syntax, but a lot of this patch just felt like rewrites for the sake of rewrites. Zero has this big character moment in JP where she actually lists off the names of _all_ the NPCs you took her to meet over the last few patches, but in EN she just names a couple places like it's some great effort or something. Considering who she started off this arc as, I think being able to actually remember names is the bigger character moment. Poor Jullus.

Hell of a soundtrack, though. FF4 Pixel Remaster left holding the collective beers of Soken and the sound team, for sure. Everyone else will be farming weapons, I'll be farming the orchestrion roll.

Good to see (and hear!) Gaia again, after everything. Hopefully now she can just sort of Estinien her way into future Crystarium developments, now that she has one fabulously overdesigned boot in the door already.



Actually pretty rare that we're left without any kind of dour cliffhanger before the expansion hand-off patch. Forget rare, this is basically the first time, isn't it?

And now Krile's lack of urgency sorting through the mail is brought into context: it's old mail. The Students won't be headed to Tural on a request, necessarily, but to figure out what Galuf got up to there, and why it's not on the books. That's already a more interesting hook than we got from fanfest. Given we know she's adopted, could this tie into Krile's past somehow?

Lastly, the smaller one is better. Fite me.

I'll get to Myths when work calms down a bit. I even surprised myself not doing it first...