Eden Story Discussion

[ty_taurus]

Of the savage raid storylines, I think Eden's might be my favorite. I don't think I have any particularly strong feelings about any of them, but I really liked the concept of restoring The Empty and how the concept of Eden was utilized.

Despite this, I really wish the raid tier leaned more into the FF8 influences in regards to its bosses. I really love FF8 and feel it's very underrated, and I feel like the middle aged and newer Final Fantasies never seem to get the same level of representation as the older ones get. So while I can't say I feel the story needs to change for the sake of fan service, I have pondered about a sort of "what if" scenario Eden could've looked like if it leaned more heavily into FF8 and wanted to see what you think of the idea.

I think for this concept, I'd keep the premise largely the same, but changing some of the key points regarding how we went about it. With the first tier, we'd start in the same place, but rather than our introduction to Gaia being E2 with this weird dragon thing, what if it was Adel with Gaia imprisoned on her chest, like a sineater version of Adel? Then, before we start summoning primals to try and restore the other elemental aethers, I'd suggest we have to first draw them from Eden, and in order to do this, Eden has to generate AI warriors of another realm to junction those primals first, with E3 being a boss fight against an AI version of Selphie and Irvine, where we draw GF Leviathan and Brothers from them, but we don't yet know this. Then instead of E4 being Titan, it would be Leviathan, but FF8's Leviathan.

Starting tier 2, we go straight into a fight with the Brothers, commenting on how unlike Leviathan, Eden's earth aspected GF had a very different from than the primal we are familiar with. We'd then go into round 2 of trying to draw more GFs from Eden with AI Quistis and Zell where we get GF Ifrit and Shiva which we transition immediately into with E7 as a duo battle, once again being their FF8 forms. Before we can continue though, Gaia's upset instead results in a dangerous Eden AI being produced, AI Seifer and AI Edea from the Galbadia Garden boss fight, where we draw a dangerous GF Diabolos.

Moving into tier 3, the group believes it's best to avoid dealing with GF Diabolos for the time being and instead proceed to fight the next set of AIs for the remaining elements in the form of AI Squall and AI Rinoa, where we get GF Quezacotl (which we don't encounter in the dungeon), and AI Pandemonium. We fight them and restore the remaining elements by E10, but like in the original story, we need the element of darkness, and decide to fight that GF Diabolos. Then instead of fighting whatever that thing is from E12, when we go to save Gaia, she summons GF Griever, which is the normal E12 boss. She remains as the E12S part 2 boss as "Ultimecia."

Again, this concept is mainly about trying to encounter more FF8 inspired fights, but tries to keep the main plot relatively the same. Many of the same story beats would occur between the fights, just the order and pacing would change, as well as the method of getting from point A to point B. The main thing we lose would be the current E10 and E11 beats, the WOL's versions of primals, as well as Ryne using herself as a vessel for Shiva. And I can't honestly say those are worthy sacrifices for what I propose, though I also don't think my concept is worse either. They're just different takes on the idea, or at least I believe so. I do personally like the idea of having a lot of fights with 2 bosses, which I think is something we don't see enough of.

But I am curious what others think of the idea. Do you think it's cool? Would you enjoy it more? Or do you think the fan service is too much and gets in the way? Or would you personally take some parts of the idea and mix them with the original, but not take the whole thing?

[Jeeqbit]

Of the savage raid storylines, I think Eden's might be my favorite. I don't think I have any particularly strong feelings about any of them, but I really liked the concept of restoring The Empty and how the concept of Eden was utilized.

It was good, but I really want to look out from Amh Araeng and see the usefulness of what we did. Just like how they need to make the Doman Enclave reflect it's current progression when looking at it from Yanxia.

Despite this, I really wish the raid tier leaned more into the FF8 influences in regards to its bosses.

As long as it preserved the element story it would be alright, but the concept of summoning elemental bosses to restore elemental aether is important for what we're doing there. At least we got Eden though, which was a really fun way to kickstart the expansion, because I never got tired of seeing the cutscene.

Anyway though, they do have E12 using Junction attacks.

[Espon]

I prefer when FF14 creates its own stories. I like seeing inspiration pulled from past games, but I more prefer seeing it in the form of random enemies or bosses from past games being utilized or subtle references. I think Eden did things fine with it mostly just utilizing FF8's music but doing its own thing. Having Eden summon random characters to fight runs into similar issues I had with Omega.

Post-Endwalker's story relied too hard on FF4 references in my opinion. While it did try to make its own story out of it, it felt like they were trying to just shove in too many references in towards the end so it didn't stand well on its own. At the end it was all "You defeated Golbez and won the day but here's Zeromus because there has to be Zeromus because he was the final fight of FF4."

The Omega raid series also felt like it was trying too hard to reference old games, especially with it using Exdeath, Kefka, and Chaos without much context to who they're supposed to be.

Crystal Tower and Ivalice content were incorporated into the game's lore much better in my opinion, especially since they branched out into their own things without relying too heavily on the games they're based on. The Crystal Tower itself is a huge part of the story and past events with the Allagans, and Bozja built upon Ivalice.

Also, Nier just felt completely out of place and seemed to only exist so that 2B and friends can fill the quota of being a cameo in every single SE game, except instead of being a short event similar to Lightning's or Noctis', it took up an entire Alliance Raid series.

[CVXIV]

It was good, but I really want to look out from Amh Araeng and see the usefulness of what we did. Just like how they need to make the Doman Enclave reflect it's current progression when looking at it from Yanxia.

I love when games do this honestly, and while you can still go back to the empty to see the progress made it isn't quite the same.
It is always really nice when a game shows that your progress is meaningful and makes an impact on the story around you, which is why I really enjoy a lot of of the blue/yellow quests in the game. While the change isn't physical, it still shows that the NPC's lives are better.

One example I can think of at the moment is the side quests in the ruby sea with that fishing village.
I believe it starts as a blue quest but leads into a chain of yellow quests.

[Fawkes]

I really wish the raid tier leaned more into the FF8 influences in regards to its bosses.

The fact that they dipped a toe in and then never really followed through is what ruined it for me. The first fight was the best. Everything after that was just "this would have been cooler if it were _____". The boob tree is probably the biggest disappointment in raid boss history.

[Aravell]

0/10 No Doomtrain.

Jokes aside, I did kind of like the way they did it. It's alluding to FFVIII instead of directly taking bits of it (such as 'ancient memories succession' instead of 'succession of witches'). Although I wouldn't complain if they did lean more into referencing FFVIII either.

Although, if they did lean more into the FFVIII references, it could end up being not as well received like the void storyline which heavily referenced FFIV.

[Mecia]

Id love to see The Empty become relevant in some manner of content, but the less i see Gaia the better my day is. I have some strongly opinionated comments about Nomura.

[ty_taurus]

0/10 No Doomtrain.

Jokes aside, I did kind of like the way they did it. It's alluding to FFVIII instead of directly taking bits of it (such as 'ancient memories succession' instead of 'succession of witches'). Although I wouldn't complain if they did lean more into referencing FFVIII either.

Although, if they did lean more into the FFVIII references, it could end up being not as well received like the void storyline which heavily referenced FFIV.

I think void is more disliked because it’s MSQ, not because it takes directly from IV. We literally have characters like Fran and Gabranth, but they aren’t the same Fran and Gabranth from XII, hence the different last names. We even see both XIV’s Ramza and the real Ramza from Tactics.

I think with how I outlined my idea, I don’t think it leans exclusively on VIII. The major plot points all remain largely the same, it’s just more the boss fights that change.