Hey everyone! I just got done watching the Xbox Showcase, came back here and was greeted with a bunch of super nice comments from everyone excited for this video, so all I can say is THANK YOU! It's such a nice feeling, knowing people are enjoying and looking forward to my content! This is a long one and I'm really happy with how it turned out (apart from my voice getting a bit worn out towards the end)! I was kicking myself a little bit about not including the role quests, raids, and trials, but I'm not ruling out revisiting those for a future video. Look out for a post on the community tab about when the Endwalker video will be ready - I'm aiming for this time next week, but it might take a few days longer. Thanks again, and I look forward to reading all your comments!
My favorite moment in shadowbringers is when I was walking around the slums below eulmore where I talked to an npc that mentioned that someone from above had thrown down a gold hair brush and that maybe she could use it to get in to the city. Then I thought since the eulmoreans just abandon broken items and just toss them down below the small wooden houses would have random luxurious furniture. And sure enough! If you go in to the houses in the slums and you will see that they are broken down and barely holding apart but will have silk carpets and gold plated cabinets etc. Such a cool detail imo.
"I wish I had that spell" Funny that, Break WAS an actual spell back in the day, that would inflict the "Heavy" status effect on the targets. Also, FAST FACT! In all the different boss fights, they get a title card that gives their name, and some type of title or descriptor. Now, before you fight him as Hades, Emet says for the two of you to "fight without title or pretense" Now check his title card, he's introduced solely as "Hades" No title or pretense indeed...
In addition to the fast fact from the OP, most of the Sin Eaters are like "Forgiven X" or "Punished X" or anything that basically implies a wrongdoing of some sort. And then you have Vauthry, who is simply "Innocence."
@@rumasai I've always REALLY LOVED that detail! It says so much about how Vauthry came into being, especially with the context that the other lightwardens are all named after the Greek ideals of *love*. All things that are generally good, but too much of them can lead to horror...
Furthermore, Vauthry was literally groomed to be that way. He is as innocent like a baby regarding his rule over Eulmore in that he is responsible over it but had absolutely no chances to ever go against it.
Glad Yoshi-P put the debate to rest, and said that after thinking it over, he will not be adding an easy way to skip to the most recent expansion. That XIV is built around the story, and he isn't willing to sacrifice that for a slight increase in players.
While I agree the story is very good it's a hard sell trying to get a friend into raiding that has no intention to play that story. Even now they have to rush endwalker, and even skipping cutscenes it's still a multi day project.
@@retzerbil867 I get that, but that's like trying to get people into Harry Potter and telling them to skip the first 6 books. It may be a hard sell, but this is the product: the story, in its entirety. If you start making it optional, you have the utter clusterfuck that retail WoW has become, where new players have no idea what the hell is going on, like Day9.
@@natebroadus8474 I fully agree that starting after where Endwalker ended will lead to confusion regarding the story. I'm on both sides of this argument, since I've played the story from start to finish and have also done a lot of savage and ultimate raids. However, your Harry Potter argument doesn't apply to a video game that have more parts to it than just the story. Harry Potter is a book only, you're not going to find much else from the Harry Potter book than the story. But FFXIV is an MMO that has so much more content to it than the story. Getting "someone in to FFXIV" is very different from person to person, as some might have zero interest in the story and only wants to try out raiding, and right now it's a very hard sell. As an example, my friend right now is getting in to FFXIV to raid and has no intention to ever do the story. FFXIV as a product is much more than a story game, unlike a Harry Potter book. I don't really know what Squex should do as I too don't want the story to be neglected or made confusing and somewhat irrelevant down the road. I feel like a lot of FFXIV players get too caught up in their "side" of what makes FFXIV good, but as someone who really loves both the story and raiding and everything in between I think there should be some alternative for those who only want to raid, and right now their only option is rather lacking. Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is that what FFXIV is, is very subjective. Some people have been playing since ARR and have never even done a second of the story, and some have never stepped foot in savage. Both are equally right.
@retzerbil867 I advise your friend to either get invested or be ready for a long while of irritation. You say that its more than just the story but you also havent mentioned that you advised your friend to just pay for the skip to go to the raids they covet so much. The book analogy was fine because the game is a story based jrpg before an mmo. All the raids are tied to the main story in one way or another. Your friend (and every other raider who only cares about raiding) will either just have to come to terms with that or go play a different game that caters more to their needs. I do not need ffxiv to have WoW numbers to be enjoyable so whether those players wont play due to the story gate is really not all that important to me.
I don’t dislike the y’shtola death fake out, and here’s why; It’s the moment where I really started to wonder if Emet selch’s intentions might actually be good. It’s less about y’shtola being lost in the lifestream and more about our favorite ascian doing something to help us when he could have done nothing, and nobody would have held him responsible for inaction.
Agreed. It’s easy to view that as just another fake death scene, but it really was in the interest of character building for Emet Selch. Heading into Rak’tika, pretty much every player is not going to be jiving with his bullshit. But between saving Y’shtola and the big lore drop he gives that finally humanized the Ascians, players are likely to leave the Greatwood with a far more curious and nuanced interest in everyone’s favorite megalomaniacal madman. It’s a crucial piece in setting him up as such a compelling antagonist.
One of my favourite things about Shadowbringers is that the lead writer *became* the lead because people kept killing off characters that she created without even consulting her (Moenbryda, Ysayle) and she decided she was going to show everyone what they were missing by dismissing her work like that. She buckled down, worked extremely hard, climbed her way up the ladder, and has overseen what I consider to be the golden age of the game. Natsuko Ishikawa took frustration and turned it into a whole new level of mastery of her art. End result: genuinely one of the best stories in all gaming, let alone all Final Fantasy.
Just adding to this, if you weren't aware, she was also responsible for the OUTSTANDING Dark Knight quests also(Pro-tip, if/when you do those, just peep your Journal entries during and after completing them). That was most people's first impression of her storytelling chops, and when she was announced to be doing Shadowbringers, many encouraged others to do those quests to see what they would be in store for.
about the mining section... a lot of people forgot Minfillia's hobby was mining that entire section is a eulogy to minfillia even the mine cart ride down the hill is just like the ramp down to Horizon
I have no shame in admitting that the Crystal Exarch’s original appearance had left such a minimal impression on me that the identity reveal actually did surprise me. “Oh hey! It’s that guy!” :)
tbh, when i started playing FF14, the cristal tower raid was mandatory so i was familiar with his identity and yet while playing shadowbringers it flew past my head the whole time so that when we got the reveal, i was actually surprised and in shock, so for someone like me, it worked perfectly
In my case it had been years since I played through he Crystal Tower questline so G'raha's appearance wasn't so fresh in my mind, but the male Miqo'te model's mouth is very distinctive
Same. That mouth is so distinct I recognized him by that, especially after the tip off in our dialogue choice. They were very specific in setting up Crystal Tower, I'm still in amazement how far they planned. The devs really wanted us to know it was Graha
28:10 This is a translation quirk. In the original Japanese, going all the way back to ARR, it is made crystal clear that Thancred and Minfilia see each other as siblings. Thancred always felt guilty for essentially causing the situation that lead to her father's death (in 1.0), so he dedicated himself to looking out for her. The English version leaves their relationship nebulous to farm "will they, won't they" speculation.
Not to mention that Thancred had been watching over Minfilia since she was a child. The cutscene from 1.0 where the Goobue killed her father was actually an echo flashback and occurred 10 years before the 1.0 adventurer's arrival in Eorzea and 15 years before the intro of 2.0
I like that a key part of Thancred’s actions is that he is looking over Minfilia like a father because it was a mission he was in that caused her to lose one parent, and that is front and center in the 1.0 Ul’Dah thing but it is basically never talked about.
I remember that we were vaguely told about Thancred and Minfilia's backgrounds, so it it was clear to me that the "love" Thancred had was more of a paternal thing.
I think my favorite thing about Shadowbringers is that it's the ONLY time I've ever seen a fantasy universe with the whole "Light and Darkness must be in balance" shtick ACTUALLY SHOWS what happens if the scales tip too much towards Light. Seeing the Everlasting Light weather is beautifully haunting, especially in Amh Araeng due to the melancholic music. It's the best Pre-Night zone to show off how utterly boned the world is.
Technically, this borrows from Final Fantasy 3 where Warriors of Darkness exist as proof that the flood of something can come in both light and dark, so this is not the first illustrated time, but it is the first visually demonstrated time in general for most, if not all, people.
Side node. When you describe some light wardens as being angelic. Many are in the traditional sense, but the point of the one in Malikah’s Well is that it’s more biblically accurate to the description of an angel
Well, before Shadowbringers and the lore reason for summoning 'adventurers from beyond the rift" it was actually the Scions Minfilia had gathered that also had the echo that supposedly joined us. I wish they'd made it clearer about that by having the Duty Support NPC's be Hoary Boulder and such. The adventurers we brought in the ARR trials and stuff had to have the echo and be immune to being tempered :)
That's odd. I distinctly remember Alisaie asking if the WoL has any of their adventurer friends to call on for Susano. Scions with the Echo makes a hell of a lot more sense, though.
@@DynaChris when you’re doing all the Waking Sands quests in ARR the miscellaneous Scions like Arenvald and his friends refer to themselves as “adventurers”. That’s one of the things that tells you who these mysterious “adventurer friends” are ;)
7:26 1. Time is synced up because you're there. The same tether that allows you to travel back and forth also keeps time synced in both locations. 2. This no different than what the Asians do all the time or the Warriors of Darkness did when they came to the source. They cast off their bodies and existed as corporal spirit bodies. The only difference was they had their crystals to maintain themselves. Our friends do not, so finding a way to return them is vital.
I knew someone would call me out on that! 😅 I just find it a bit of a messy explanation, but like most of my admittedly minor complaints, it doesn't take away from the overall story at all.
Is it ever explicitly said anywhere that your tether to the first is what's keeping time synced? Not trying to call you out, I'm just curious if I can find it anywhere.
@@Circka1 Ya know... I think this might be my bad. I might have missremembered or misunderstood that explanation. I just went back and watched that cutscene and he does just say that conveniently the passage of time has roughly equalized. I could have sworn there was something about your ability to stably pass between worlds equalized the flow of time, but I guess I made that one up myself.
won't be able to watch this one for a bit because you've finally passed where i'm at and i don't want to spoil myself, but thank you so much for putting out these amazing videos! they're incredibly well made and entertaining for the short turnaround on each one!
59:00 Regarding the hiding the true identity of Crystal Exarch, the Crystal Tower alliance raid series in ARR wasn't mandatory until I believe it was patch 5.3, hence I think it was supposed to be obvious to whom did the raid series beforehand, and the option of calling his name in the cutscene was only available if you had already done the raid series.
Not only that, but even if you did the raid when it was optional, imagine being part of the original players waiting for Shadowbringers to even come out. Some probably played key points during the game again, fewer probably watched all the cutscenes even optional ones, and then, others would've only picked up playing again after Shadowbringers was finally released. The Exarch's identity could've easily slip from people's minds with everything offered in-between.
@@PreseatheKitsune can confirm exactly this. Crystal Tower being optional content and having done its story literally years previously and never having once revisited it since, had me wholly unprepared for the reveal. I didn't even remember his name at the time, but as soon as I saw his face, I was instantly overcome with emotion because I was 150% sure I would never see that character again. CT was an optional raid series, this is the first time in the game's history that a character from optional content made an appearance in the msq. Of course it blew my damn mind. The devs were trying to hold off on making CT mandatory, but the way they wrote 5.3 literally left no more room for that.
@@Megumi-dz1mm Yeah, it's almost too bad it's mandatory now. It could've remained the same way people insist on taking their friends through the Coils, those same folks being like 'You need to do the Crystal Tower series', and that whole spoiler-no-spoiler way it would make small differences in the game, but still be meaningful. Either way, whether or not the Exarch knows us personally or at a distance, it doesn't much lessen what he's doing. It just turns us into Estinien during that post-Shadowbringers patch with a fanboy meeting their favorite historical figure... annnd then having a moment with mental expectations vs. reality when our WoLs decide to do something dumb.
It was also years after the release of them. Those of us who have played since ARR might remember G'Raha, but not remember his facial details all that well. I know the reveal surprised me, since it'd literally been like, 5 and a half years.
If there is one game i could erase from my memory and replay it again it would be FFXIV. Its a close tie with Elden Ring. I cant believe how many moments this game has that genuinely made me tear up or laugh. Its a gaming masterpiece and it must be preserved. Its such a rich story and i want to replay it again someday.
1:57:05 it alsways confused me why, in this world of magic and magitek, losing your legs was this "I'll never fight again" sentence. Like, bruh, Cid could totally give you robo legs or a proper mech suit or something.
Commenting cause I got to this part in the video but, I think you glossed over the small fact that Ardbert was pretty much unable to interact with anyone for the time he has been here until the Mac shows up. I think this is important because it makes him feel not as alone and makes what happens later when he is unable to save the soldier or warn then all the more heart breaking, but it makes him figure out what his purpose really is when he talks with you after you beat all the light wardens and can no longer hold back all the light. I believe here Ardbert finally realized what his purpose was and was given a chance to fix his mistakes by taking all the light onto himself and becoming the lance that pierces the darkness saving the first which is what he failed to do before.
For me, the Crystal Exarch reveal was so obvious, I looped back around to ruling out G'Raha altogether. Like, literally 10 minutes before it officially revealed him, I'd gone "nah, it's not G'raha, it's just some weird coincidence." So color me surprised! But also, it had been like, 8 years since the Crystal Tower raids had come out; for those who'd been playing since day 1, I suppose it might've been a bigger surprise, since they may have been a bit blurrier on the specifics of the story around it.
Also, when ShB came out, CT was not actually required content yet, so at the time it could reveal and you're like "who?" The ARR revamp made it mandatory and that was 5.3. That said, the community very much encouraged people to do it, much like the Omega raid series prior to Endwalker today.
On the note of the Exarch's identity, I don't believe it was ever meant for it to be some big secret to us the players. But instead I think it was more about the Exarch's own journey and everything he had to do to save us. And him concealing his identity is, in someway, him trying to hide the everything he sacrificed for the one person he believed could save the world.
i have to point out that the meanwhile in garlemald bits are vital to the over-arching narrative of shb. just as we are being the titular shadowbringers of the first, acting as the antagonists to a much older plot to destroy the realm, the source has its band of antagonists acting against a bigger plot. it's not really a coincidence that gaius, estinien and zenos are at the palace at the exact right moment to aid in the tipping of the scale to keep the first and source from merging. it is also incredibly vital that zenos is there, overhearing the truth of the star. for me, the really amazing part of shb is the cyclical nature of the story. in the msq, we keep returning to the pendants' for our chat with ardbert, while we cycle through the various adventures of the first. we start our adventure in the first meeting the shard of our triplet from arr who once guided us to our starting city and now dies awfully. the dark mirroring in the story is also a part of that cyclical nature, and i am surprised you neve touch on the fact that crystal exarch and emet-selch are perfect foils to each other, esp wrt their relationship with the wol. ardbert is ofc also our dark future reflected back at us. ran'jit might be boring to you, but he's also the dark reflection of thancred who is in turn haunted by the reflection ryne is of minfilia (pre-oracle). it's all a big circle and that's why alphinaud is haunted by what he perceives as his dark reflection in vauthry, a comparison that is entirely unfair to him but is there i suppose. shadowbringers is an incredibly wellwritten story, with a very tight narrative. i can't actually say if it is my favourite of the expacks however, as there are details in the others that triumf the overall beats of shb for me. however, the incredibly high quality of the story and its much longed for elaboration of lore is much needed and loved nonetheless. however, i do think my controversial opinion is that shb would mean nothing without preceeding expacks. the emotional beats that it hits requires previous stories to build upon and would be an incredibly generic fantasy isekai story without it. much like a mirror is not worth much without anything for it to reflect, shb cannot work without any of the details mattering.
Not me fully crying at work because this was the first expansion to truly show me the depths of the story and characters. So happy to have seen all of this again, and even find answers to questions I forgot about. Cannot wait for the EW video!
Tbf about the exarch's identity, i did crystal tower back in 2015 right when hw came out. Graha was just another npc that i thought would be forgotten so once the raid was done, i forgot about him. So when shb came out, it wasn't at the top of my list of who he was. For some, the crystal tower raid wasn't even required yet so some people didn't even know who he was. It was probably still fresh for you but it's been about a decade for some of us. Still, great recap video. Much appreciated!
Ah 16:54 Aka “Welcome to Shadowbringers” I remembered my friend who never played the game (still didn’t want to but was alright with wanting to see this) and after the bit I asked him “so should I burn it with fire?” (I was on Machinist so I had the flamethrower) He only replied “get more fuel”
I HATE when people complain that the Exarch's identity was obvious. Alot of people played Crystal Tower on release and barely remember him until Shadowbringers.
Wonderful video as always. Currently working on the post msq for endwalker just for DT's launch so I'll have to skip the next video til I'm done with it. Always tear up when it comes to the post msq quest with seto and ardbert due to losing my dog around the same time. Makes me think of him as not being gone but on a new adventure himself, miss ya Frankie, you were the best.
The "more" to Ranjit is learning he has been essentially the head of the secret service that has always "protected and guided" and trained all of the Minfilias since his father's death, his father having filled that roll before him. I thought that was super cool. It also highlights how old Ranjit actually is, considering he is essentially "just" human. He has to be nearly 100 years old, and still matches the young buck Thancred blow for blow every time.
Honestly, the G'raha reveal caught me by suprise, but mostly because i am one of the few who did not intantly fell in love with him (honestly, this community is so thirsty for cat ears...) and actually forgot he exists...
If you consider the cost of the skip items on the store were just a few months of sub, which an average player would probably take but you don't have to sit down for a few months to get through the "boring" bit (if not you would play normally wouldn't you), then the skip items suddenly might not seem that expensive anymore; ultimately to skip or to experience the story as it is is your own choice.
I think its often understated just how hard it is for a games story to make you care enough about some super unrealistic existential crisis that you can barely conceptualize but somehow they make it work multiple times in ff14
At this point if Y'shtola did die I'd be five expansions down the line like "Oh she's coming back. I know it's been 10 years but it's Y'shtola, she's always fine."
One thing of note about the echo! We actually did see the Star Shower. Multiple times actually if you're a 1.0 legacy character. In 1.0, Hydaelyn shows us the star shower, which is actually a recreation of the meteors that fell during the final days, after being invited to join the Path of the Twelve. In ARR, she shows it to us again when we first receive the first Crystal of Light.
These are the perfect appetisers for the feast that awaits us in Dawntrail! I hope you continue to make these, they’re so gooooood and your voice, even if you do wear it out on us, is really soothing!
About the the crystal exarch reveal, while there was alot of people speculating that it was Graha just about immediately. A lot of us (me including) who kinda forgot that he existed because we played crystal tower during release and it had been like 4 years since we saw him.
it always feels EVERYONE knew it was the cat boi BUT I swear I never figured it out, mainly since I completly forgot who red cat boi was, name and all [I got horrible name/person memory]. So for me it was a GREAT twist, but even with the reveal, I still had no clue who he was :') Until more stories and i go "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, ye totally hated you back in ARR, uh you cool now tho :3"
Fun Fact the Warriors Elidbus summons in the seat of sacrifice are the party members or at least some of them from Final Fantasy 4. The Lala's that he summons use twincast and the only characters to ever use twincast was Palom and Porom, since we don't have children in the game they must of used them as their models for it, both were a white mage and a black mage. There is a Dark Knight that is clearly Cecil, if you look closely it's very similar to his actual dark knight gear. The Bard can Cast holy just like Rosa, and used a bow, and plays a white mage in 4, The Bard and the Dark Knight actually come out togethor which I believe was to symbolize the two being together. and when the Wyrm is summoned it looks like FF4's version of Bahamut that Rydia summons. but has the color of DArk Bahamut from 4. The Ninja is very clearly Edge because it uses Water and Fire. the Warrior there is likely Cid, he mainly used hammers, but could wield axes as well. Shadowbringers feels like a big nod to Cecils story but flipped.
44:02 I think i got lucky with this segment of the story. From the start of post SB til right before this, id super-binged the MSQ before burning out and taking a break for like 2 weeks, came back right into this part fresh
I do really really wish you'd cover the raids. The Eden series specifically feels so integral to the story of the First. Also id like to hear you gush about the Ultimecia stuff
1:15:09 I don't know if you were playing when Shadowbringers was released, but the final bit of the Hades fight, after the QTE, is less going super sayan, and more desperate struggle. See, there's a flaw that most early expansion trials face, where they don't have itemlevel syncing attached to the duty, only level. As such, level 80+ people going in from duty finder will likely be 80+ and with the best itemlevel possible for 80, and those above 80 synced down to best possible 80 itemlevel. So what happens is the bosses just melt. When Shadowbringers was new, the final bit of the Hades fight has the shadows slowly coming in from the outer edge of the arena making it's way closer to center, and standing in it was a heavy bleed effect. I remember my first time in, Hades was at 2% when the entire ground became overtaken with shadow, no Light, and we had to fight through the bleed for that desperate last push. It was insanely epic and I am dismayed how people don't get to experience that, unless they go in with the min itemlevel sync option intentionally on. I think I am forever going to remember it as one of the most epic boss fights I've done. That and, the final boss of Endwalker is also insane. Side note: The remember us line is probably the second time a game brought on actual crying. Fuck me that hit hard. On an additional note: 1:26:35 Regarding Star Shower. Back in 1.0, when you started a character, the first thing you would see is a star shower. This is a callback to that, but I do wish they made that more apparent for people who didn't play 1.0. I only knew about it from watching stuff on 1.0 sometime in early ShB.
I started during Stormblood, but it took a while for me to get into the game and I didn't end up really getting hooked til after Shadowbringers came out. Still, I'm kinda speaking from current experience where we wiped the floor with him, similar to the Endwalker final boss. And about the star shower, I did cut a line from the video about the WoL seeing one in their dream at the start of ARR, but that's just a dream and not the "real thing". Really wish they made it clearer cos it feels like a retcon to those of us who haven't played 1.0.
Finished patch content for ShB last night; did not guess vauthry was thr warden, figured it was the lion with him & meol being sin eaters and by proxy, the people who "never left eulmore" was not something I raised an eyebrow at at the beginning of the xpac. I also rock the Amano WoL glamour from the crystal tower on my warrior. 💀
Shadowbringers remains as my favorite part of this whole game. It definitely has parts i didnt enjoy and slow moments like the rest. But the highs were so much higher and the cheesy anime style ending with emet selch really clicked for me. I had completely forgotten about that Thancred "dying" moment. That and Y'shtola were both pretty egregious and a part of fiction i despise that likes to sprinkle itself in every expansion it seems, fakeout deaths. But they were forgettable enough in the grand scheme. Im one of the fools who didnt see the g'raha reveal coming. And i started this game just before endwalker so i had to do crystal tower during msq. Just when i was playing that part of the msq it felt like side content so i barely payed attention/skipped through some cutscenes. When the exarchs identity was revealed i had a little fuzzy memory trying to remember if i should know who he was lol.
my favorite part about the crystal exarch was when the Alliance raids werent required before 5.3 you could do shadowbringers without ever knowing who he is. When i started playing i was very focused on only doing msq i didnt rly do anything else when i was finally done i then started doing content and when i got to the alliance raids i was oh shit its him. I legit dont like that they made the alliance raids a must now because now everyone who plays shadowbringers knows its graha. i get it as he joins 5.3 and forward but man it was so cool when i saw him in the alliance raids because i legit didnt know also it was rly cool how people told me you could call out his name if you met him and if you didnt your character just kinda looks at him like he exists.
This series of retrospectives is amazing Dyna, great work! My partner and I were reflecting the other day that now that we're here, waiting for Dawntrail, on how Shadowbringers is still overall in our opinions the best expansion. It's not to say the others aren't good, I think Stormblood even gets a bit of an overly bad rep (even though I think the best of that expansion was all post base MSQ personally.) but it's just crazy how good Shadowbringers was. Hell crazier to think about is the series before and after. I've been playing on and off since the og XIV...more or less...and while ARR and on made a great splash before, especially after Heavensward being so superb, Shadowbringers made XIV a phenomenon. The Scions went from recurring NPCs to well known FF characters. Endwalker was great too, but its highs were only possible thanks to what ShB started (I sort of see the two as complimentary in a way.). I gotta put out there too that the post game side content of Shadowbringers was all, at least storywise, great for the most part because, aside from the Nier storyline...the Eden raid series, Werlyt, and the Bozjan Front stories all complimented the MSQ in a really nicely tight knit way that stands out from the other expansions. Eden served as a pseudo conclusion to both Ryne's arc and the arc of the 1st in general, Werlyt I thought was a great conclusion to Gaius' arc as well as one half of illustrating the later half of the Garlean war, and Bozja serves essentially as a conclusion to the war with Garlemald, pushing things back to the capital (where obviously Endwalker comes in.). I know gameplay wise Bozja was overall divisive, and I think for good reasons, but story wise there was so much going on and a lot of it was legitimately interesting. From the history of Bozja as a country, to everything happening with the IVth legion, to all the individual appearances of many familiar NPCs during the war. It's almost worth a retrospective in of itself, especially since so much of it goes unnoticed by players due to the nature of the whole events' gameplay. Thinking back on it all, it all ties back to the MSQ in a really cool way that makes it all seem like multiple parts of a whole picture. The post game content of the other expansions, many of them being good on their own, tended to have a more "loose' connection to the MSQ at the time but all the ShB stuff felt like compliments to it. I really admire the cohesiveness of it all.
I wanted to add something small to your opening. I think it was maybe an unintentional stroke of genius to have Biggs and Wedge open the expansion, since they and their bloodlines were responsible for stopping the calamity this time. If I remember right, Cid was not alive to help. I also heavily disagree with skipping or that it should be free. One, lets put it into perspective. How many months does a newbie take to go from ARR to Shadowbringers, even with dilligent play? If you are really desperate to just skip to that part of the story, then you are actively choosing to have less new game to play and moving forward several months of progress. Furthermore, if skips were free, people would miss out on background details which actually make the story more rewarding. A prime example is how Jessie Cox correctly guessed back in ARR that the Crystal Tower could be used like Auricite. That didnt happen until Shadowbringers, but he is pretty friggin proud of guessing that. Without context, of what you're protecting or just who certain characters like G'raha are, I think you lose a lot.
These video's are amazing mate keep it up, I understand not everything could be covered since the video is all ready so long just following the events of the MSQ but I really hope you'll do more videos that cover the raid storylines and maybe even some dungeons/ trials that have story quests of their own and the job quests for each expansion.
I believe the reveal of the Exarch's identity only truly works when you have been playing the game since at least the Heavensward patch cycle and had completed Crystal Tower in that time. I did Crystal Tower back in ARR/HW era, so G'raha had been pretty much erased from my memory until the Exarch reveal. Having to go through the patch cycles for both Heavensward and Stormblood (as in the actual real world years for them) will make you forget characters from side stories, so when the reveal happened it was a genuine shock for me. And making them mandatory for MSQ removes a ton of the mystique since things that are required to progress the main story tend to stick with you more. When Shadowbringers released Crystal Tower was still optional content. Crystal Tower is also the only time where they don't allow a break in continuity, because you are more than able to hold off on doing the optional Primals in Heavenward until after starting Shadowbringers. Which creates some hilarious breaks of continuity. Side quest stories take place when they were added in terms of the MSQ's timeline. So I find it funny more than anything that Urianger and Y'shtola can show up to discuss Sephirot, Sophia, and Zurvan with you in Azys Lla while being comatose back at the Rising Stones. I know this because this happened to me. Had finished Shadowbringers and was cleaning up content I had skipped.
I get what you mean about the side stuff - I did the Eden raids after I finished Endwalker and seeing Thancred turn up on the First was a bit jarring 😂
ShB was phenomenal but the one missed opportunity they had was to make the Red and Blue Jongleur end up being two parts of one sin eater, and fuse together to form Meltigemini from FF9. Like come on. That boss's design SCREAMS perfect for sin eater. Also, you say "It was very obvious it was G'raha Tia" and while I agree, there was a STAGGERING amount of people that said it wasn't him. I remember from before ShB launched saying it was G'raha, and I had people actually say I was an idiot for thinking that and that "They wouldn't bring back some shitty side character and make them a focal point of an expansion."
I'm glad I was clueless about the exarch because I happened to take a year long break after I finished HW, it made Shadowbringers that much better for me, I actually thought he was kinda sus until I learned who he really was
HOOOOOOME!! RIDING HOOOOOOOOOOME!!!! (gonna watch this when i get HOOOOOME!!!) vid watched, another great one as always! of course not exactly an unpopular opinion, but as of pre-dawntrail, the tale of the artist alphinaud and his assistants is undoubtedly my favorite expansion in ffxiv :)
Managed to beat Shadowbringers a few mins before this aired lol. Just gotta get through the patch quests and then I'll be able to watch the whole thing!
Oh no! I finished the last Stormblood quest today so I could finally watch your video, about it and the next part is already coming! A break please! :D
I think it was either three or four month until Shadowbringers was when I join but the mean reason I had join was a friend told me they where removing the GARO event. So after that long PVP event grind by the time I got all the gears and mounts my paladin job was lvl 75. then I when back to the MQS so when coming to Shadowbringers so everything was still fresh for me and ya this expansion deserve the hype it get's.
Honestly there's a few options in shadowbringers that are just.. correct. "I think she's mad at me..." Is the only proper option. Also can we just talk about how Emet is a sorcerer with nigh-invincble powers... and just right up shoots a bitch. That was -personal-
There's a bunch of those in Endwalker, too. "Stare meaningfully at Estinien", for example! Also, using magic on someone channeling a magic-absorbing spell probably wouldn't work ;)
2:48 as someone who has seen MANY reactions, I don't think i have seen more than 2 people understand that before the flashback. I have seen more people not understand even after the flashback who had to be told by chat about it afterward than people who understand before the flash.
I'ma be honest, saying you should just be able to skip all of the previous expansion to play ShB immediately is not a solid take. Most of what makes Shadowbringers so cool is all the setup it had from those expansions. I'm all for making DT the new starting point.. but just dropping people into Shadowbringers? They're gonna feel as disjointed as confused as people in your average WoW expansion.
I think if they added an in-game recap for skippers, it'd be just fine. I wouldn't recommend anyone skip any of the story, but there's always gonna be people who want to cos of hearing about how good ShB is and not wanting to play basically 3 full RPGs to get there. Plus people already do it via paid story skips, and I think charging for those per-character is daft.
@@DynaChris Yeah, they would need to add recaps for every expansion. If you can start at ShB, you should also be able to start at HW, SB and EW. I fear if handled poorly it could become a timewalker situation like in World of Warcraft, where it ends up mostly just confusing new players rather than help them. I agree that if you give new players the choice to start at ShB, knowing the legacy that expansion has, while also saying 'Hey, you can play 150 hours less' it might send the signal that ARR, HW and SB are not worth it. The community doesn't help in that regard. I see various videos these days that ARR surprised them, because it's talked down so much, while HW floors them because it's amazing, two whole expansions before the venerated expansion. I am not a huge fan of the paid story skips truth be told.
@@DynaChrisplaying through the story is a major part of the game, if people dont want to play the story I just dont think the game is for them and they can go play WoW or Runescape instead
I'll keep it a buck, I did not know it was Graha Tia until the big reveal. I just got so lost in the fantasy of everything that I think when I asked him early on and he said he wasn't, I was just kinda like oh I guess it's not. But as soon as the hood flew off I gasped! Lol maybe I'm just not smart, but I just got so lost in the story that I was just willing to believe whatever I was told, and too wrapped up in the fantasy to try and speculate or predict, just fully living moment to moment in everything.
This reminds me... I know Everyone loves the Chais, and I do so wish we could see them again, but.. Did we ever get a resolution for the fact that they THREW THAT GUY OFF A TWELVE-DAMNED BALCONY?
I think I remember Mr. Chai apologising to the painter in post-Shadowbringers with the painter not quite forgiving them, but choosing to help with his projects as the new mayor anyway.
Any single aspect of Shadowbringers’ MSQ would be a hard sell that can be poorly written but that all of them are combined together and just *work* is nothing short of miraculous and the reason why people love Ishikawa-san so much. The story shouldn’t have worked but she did.
Love the video! I don't think you gave nearly enough credit the story between Ryne, Thancred and Ran'jit though. Minifilia giving Ryne her new hair and eye colour is linked to Ryne's earlier rant with Urianger where she feels like a burden and she doesn't even exist as her own person, so at least letting the OG Minfilia-Thancred's Minfilia-will make someone she cares for happy. It's all about identity. Ran'jit talked a lot about wanting to protect the Oracle and that Thancred could not protect her like he could because he came to care for a previous Minfilia that he fought alongside and treated like a daughter. Ryne isn't his Minifilia either, though. She's never been allowed to be her own person, always bogged down by her birthright. It's why Urianger apologises to her because it was *him* who came up with the idea of sending Minfilia to the First and so it was *him* who gave this long line of Oracle's all of the war, strife, pain and lack of identity that they all struggle with. Thancred distances himself from Ryne so much because he cannot come to terms with loosing his Minfilia but he also loves and respects her so much, he doesn't want to go against his Minfilia's wishes to protect Ryne's decision. It's just a constant hourglass hanging over his head: waiting to find out when or if he'll loose Minfilia forever, despite everything he's done to get back to her. He comes to love Ryne as family over time, in the same way he did with OG Minfilia. It's why Thancred and Ran'jit are compared to father's so much, their story is a mimic of the bittersweetness of a parent having to let go control over their child and become their own person. It's out of love, but the fear and the tension that comes with letting someone they love make their own bad decisions, to go out into a world that may hurt you multiple times... Thancred is an ass a lot of the time (as any real father can be when faced with a daughter coming to terms with who she is as an individual and not waiting on their every word anymore) but at least he's not keeping her locked away with no physical freedom either. She ends up with this identity crisis *because* she's finally been given the freedom to even begin questioning who she is and what she wants. But yeah the quest chains in that part of the story definitely bog that all down 😪
Something I find make Thancred's story so compelling is that he's not just trying to bring back the original Minfilia because of how close they were, but because of the immense guilt he carried over the death of her father during the goobbue incident back in 1.0, and the feelings of inadequacy that came with that feeling of helplessness. That if he were enough, Minfilia's father would still be alive. Hellbent on protecting her and not wanting to accept his own failures and shortcomings as a person, burying himself in his work to both distract and improve. He struggles to accept Ryne because he can't accept that he failed, that he wasn't good enough. All of this coming to ahead when facing Ran'jit, a stark reflection of those failures and shortcomings where he must let go of his guilt and need to protect, least he turn into what Ran'jit had become. The scene after the fight is not only Thancred saying one final farewell to someone he considered family, but finally accepting that he did the best that he could, that he failed, that no one not even Minfilia blames him for all that had happened. Allowing himself finally move forward with his life and not let his failures be what defines him as a person. It's this acceptance that allows him to see Ryne as the individual that she is, and be the supportive presence the she needed him to be. Hope this came out clear and concise.
Since, I'm watching someone play through it right now, I was very down to spoil myself on Shadowbringers... But the Endwalker video I will hold off until I get through it myself. If the guy I'm watching takes the normal break between the two that he normally does, then I'll be to it LONG before he is.
I've got a bit of a plan that involves the raids, but Eureka/Bozja would take quite a while if I did them because NG+ isn't available for them and with Bozja especially I'd be missing solo battles which I'd want to include. I'm not against the idea of making an alt and skipping through the cutscenes to unlock them at some point in the future, though.
Its kinda funny how people always evaluate games on how many hours of story they got. Then when you finally got a game with hundreds of hours of excellent story, people are insistent they must be allowed to skip it. You just can't win.
If crystal tower wasn’t made mandatory, I might’ve forgotten about g’raha. And considering they did make it mandatory after shb’s release, other people forgot too
@@DynaChris JOKES ON YOU. IM INTO THAT SHIT. Seriously, the videos you've put out has been stellar. This has been such a treat. Looking forward to Endwalker's video!
It always felt like a plot contrivance to me that we just so happen to want to go around preaching about Ardbert exactly while Elidibus is gallivanting about in his skin and preparing to give his speeches.
Hey everyone!
I just got done watching the Xbox Showcase, came back here and was greeted with a bunch of super nice comments from everyone excited for this video, so all I can say is THANK YOU! It's such a nice feeling, knowing people are enjoying and looking forward to my content!
This is a long one and I'm really happy with how it turned out (apart from my voice getting a bit worn out towards the end)!
I was kicking myself a little bit about not including the role quests, raids, and trials, but I'm not ruling out revisiting those for a future video.
Look out for a post on the community tab about when the Endwalker video will be ready - I'm aiming for this time next week, but it might take a few days longer.
Thanks again, and I look forward to reading all your comments!
I would love to see a video that focuses on the normal/alliance raid stories in the future. Might be a good idea if the community want it
My favorite moment in shadowbringers is when I was walking around the slums below eulmore where I talked to an npc that mentioned that someone from above had thrown down a gold hair brush and that maybe she could use it to get in to the city. Then I thought since the eulmoreans just abandon broken items and just toss them down below the small wooden houses would have random luxurious furniture. And sure enough! If you go in to the houses in the slums and you will see that they are broken down and barely holding apart but will have silk carpets and gold plated cabinets etc. Such a cool detail imo.
"I wish I had that spell"
Funny that, Break WAS an actual spell back in the day, that would inflict the "Heavy" status effect on the targets.
Also, FAST FACT!
In all the different boss fights, they get a title card that gives their name, and some type of title or descriptor.
Now, before you fight him as Hades, Emet says for the two of you to "fight without title or pretense"
Now check his title card, he's introduced solely as "Hades"
No title or pretense indeed...
It really is all the tiny details like that that make Shadowbringers so good for me.
Machinist has an ability that does that! Truly, a reminder of ancient times...
In addition to the fast fact from the OP, most of the Sin Eaters are like "Forgiven X" or "Punished X" or anything that basically implies a wrongdoing of some sort. And then you have Vauthry, who is simply "Innocence."
@@rumasai I've always REALLY LOVED that detail! It says so much about how Vauthry came into being, especially with the context that the other lightwardens are all named after the Greek ideals of *love*. All things that are generally good, but too much of them can lead to horror...
Furthermore, Vauthry was literally groomed to be that way. He is as innocent like a baby regarding his rule over Eulmore in that he is responsible over it but had absolutely no chances to ever go against it.
Glad Yoshi-P put the debate to rest, and said that after thinking it over, he will not be adding an easy way to skip to the most recent expansion. That XIV is built around the story, and he isn't willing to sacrifice that for a slight increase in players.
While I agree the story is very good it's a hard sell trying to get a friend into raiding that has no intention to play that story. Even now they have to rush endwalker, and even skipping cutscenes it's still a multi day project.
So they want the reward without doing the work thats so very worth sinking your teeth into?
Skill issue tbh
@@retzerbil867 I get that, but that's like trying to get people into Harry Potter and telling them to skip the first 6 books.
It may be a hard sell, but this is the product: the story, in its entirety.
If you start making it optional, you have the utter clusterfuck that retail WoW has become, where new players have no idea what the hell is going on, like Day9.
@@natebroadus8474 I fully agree that starting after where Endwalker ended will lead to confusion regarding the story. I'm on both sides of this argument, since I've played the story from start to finish and have also done a lot of savage and ultimate raids.
However, your Harry Potter argument doesn't apply to a video game that have more parts to it than just the story. Harry Potter is a book only, you're not going to find much else from the Harry Potter book than the story. But FFXIV is an MMO that has so much more content to it than the story.
Getting "someone in to FFXIV" is very different from person to person, as some might have zero interest in the story and only wants to try out raiding, and right now it's a very hard sell. As an example, my friend right now is getting in to FFXIV to raid and has no intention to ever do the story.
FFXIV as a product is much more than a story game, unlike a Harry Potter book.
I don't really know what Squex should do as I too don't want the story to be neglected or made confusing and somewhat irrelevant down the road. I feel like a lot of FFXIV players get too caught up in their "side" of what makes FFXIV good, but as someone who really loves both the story and raiding and everything in between I think there should be some alternative for those who only want to raid, and right now their only option is rather lacking.
Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is that what FFXIV is, is very subjective. Some people have been playing since ARR and have never even done a second of the story, and some have never stepped foot in savage. Both are equally right.
@retzerbil867 I advise your friend to either get invested or be ready for a long while of irritation. You say that its more than just the story but you also havent mentioned that you advised your friend to just pay for the skip to go to the raids they covet so much. The book analogy was fine because the game is a story based jrpg before an mmo. All the raids are tied to the main story in one way or another. Your friend (and every other raider who only cares about raiding) will either just have to come to terms with that or go play a different game that caters more to their needs. I do not need ffxiv to have WoW numbers to be enjoyable so whether those players wont play due to the story gate is really not all that important to me.
I don’t dislike the y’shtola death fake out, and here’s why;
It’s the moment where I really started to wonder if Emet selch’s intentions might actually be good. It’s less about y’shtola being lost in the lifestream and more about our favorite ascian doing something to help us when he could have done nothing, and nobody would have held him responsible for inaction.
Agreed. It’s easy to view that as just another fake death scene, but it really was in the interest of character building for Emet Selch. Heading into Rak’tika, pretty much every player is not going to be jiving with his bullshit. But between saving Y’shtola and the big lore drop he gives that finally humanized the Ascians, players are likely to leave the Greatwood with a far more curious and nuanced interest in everyone’s favorite megalomaniacal madman. It’s a crucial piece in setting him up as such a compelling antagonist.
Oh I don't disagree about it being a huge part of Emet-Selch's character development, but Y'shtola in particular has a habit of almost dying 😛
@@DynaChrisshe has 9 lives. She can afford losing a few 😂
@@DynaChris she’s a cat, can you blame her for being dramatic?
In addition, it's a demonstration of Emet-Selch's power. What took a relative and three Padjals back home, he does with a snap of his fingers.
One of my favourite things about Shadowbringers is that the lead writer *became* the lead because people kept killing off characters that she created without even consulting her (Moenbryda, Ysayle) and she decided she was going to show everyone what they were missing by dismissing her work like that. She buckled down, worked extremely hard, climbed her way up the ladder, and has overseen what I consider to be the golden age of the game.
Natsuko Ishikawa took frustration and turned it into a whole new level of mastery of her art. End result: genuinely one of the best stories in all gaming, let alone all Final Fantasy.
Justice for Moenbryda!
The exact opposite of GRRM 😂
Just adding to this, if you weren't aware, she was also responsible for the OUTSTANDING Dark Knight quests also(Pro-tip, if/when you do those, just peep your Journal entries during and after completing them). That was most people's first impression of her storytelling chops, and when she was announced to be doing Shadowbringers, many encouraged others to do those quests to see what they would be in store for.
@@star20alpha Oh cool! I'm actually levelling DRK and PLD at the moment, and I gotta say the DRK quests stand out even more in the contrast.
@@star20alpha The questlogs also change whether you have your DRK crystal equiped or not.
about the mining section... a lot of people forgot Minfillia's hobby was mining that entire section is a eulogy to minfillia even the mine cart ride down the hill is just like the ramp down to Horizon
I have no shame in admitting that the Crystal Exarch’s original appearance had left such a minimal impression on me that the identity reveal actually did surprise me. “Oh hey! It’s that guy!” :)
It's the mouth that got me. I dunno why, it just looks really distinct 😂
tbh, when i started playing FF14, the cristal tower raid was mandatory so i was familiar with his identity and yet while playing shadowbringers it flew past my head the whole time so that when we got the reveal, i was actually surprised and in shock, so for someone like me, it worked perfectly
In my case it had been years since I played through he Crystal Tower questline so G'raha's appearance wasn't so fresh in my mind, but the male Miqo'te model's mouth is very distinctive
@@DynaChris no diddy
Same. That mouth is so distinct I recognized him by that, especially after the tip off in our dialogue choice. They were very specific in setting up Crystal Tower, I'm still in amazement how far they planned. The devs really wanted us to know it was Graha
idk who did the VA but god damn did Lyna blow it out of the water with every scene they were in. Probably the best voice work the game has seen.
The voice crack when she's breaking down after the attack on the Crystarium, man, her whole speech there always gets me tearing up there.
Yeah I HAD to include that line after the battle where she breaks down. That hit so hard!
I'm #1 Lyna simp
28:10 This is a translation quirk. In the original Japanese, going all the way back to ARR, it is made crystal clear that Thancred and Minfilia see each other as siblings. Thancred always felt guilty for essentially causing the situation that lead to her father's death (in 1.0), so he dedicated himself to looking out for her.
The English version leaves their relationship nebulous to farm "will they, won't they" speculation.
Yeah, I thought it was weird that romantic love was implied a couple of times, even though Thancred himself shot it down way back in post-Heavensward.
Not to mention that Thancred had been watching over Minfilia since she was a child. The cutscene from 1.0 where the Goobue killed her father was actually an echo flashback and occurred 10 years before the 1.0 adventurer's arrival in Eorzea and 15 years before the intro of 2.0
I like that a key part of Thancred’s actions is that he is looking over Minfilia like a father because it was a mission he was in that caused her to lose one parent, and that is front and center in the 1.0 Ul’Dah thing but it is basically never talked about.
I remember that we were vaguely told about Thancred and Minfilia's backgrounds, so it it was clear to me that the "love" Thancred had was more of a paternal thing.
I think my favorite thing about Shadowbringers is that it's the ONLY time I've ever seen a fantasy universe with the whole "Light and Darkness must be in balance" shtick ACTUALLY SHOWS what happens if the scales tip too much towards Light.
Seeing the Everlasting Light weather is beautifully haunting, especially in Amh Araeng due to the melancholic music. It's the best Pre-Night zone to show off how utterly boned the world is.
Technically, this borrows from Final Fantasy 3 where Warriors of Darkness exist as proof that the flood of something can come in both light and dark, so this is not the first illustrated time, but it is the first visually demonstrated time in general for most, if not all, people.
Why am I getting teary-eyed at the retelling of 5.3... such perfection, I love this story
Side node. When you describe some light wardens as being angelic. Many are in the traditional sense, but the point of the one in Malikah’s Well is that it’s more biblically accurate to the description of an angel
Well, before Shadowbringers and the lore reason for summoning 'adventurers from beyond the rift" it was actually the Scions Minfilia had gathered that also had the echo that supposedly joined us. I wish they'd made it clearer about that by having the Duty Support NPC's be Hoary Boulder and such. The adventurers we brought in the ARR trials and stuff had to have the echo and be immune to being tempered :)
That's odd. I distinctly remember Alisaie asking if the WoL has any of their adventurer friends to call on for Susano. Scions with the Echo makes a hell of a lot more sense, though.
@@DynaChris Yeah, that's because at that point they were looking for more justifications, and the game jokes about it a lot.
@@DynaChris when you’re doing all the Waking Sands quests in ARR the miscellaneous Scions like Arenvald and his friends refer to themselves as “adventurers”. That’s one of the things that tells you who these mysterious “adventurer friends” are ;)
7:26 1. Time is synced up because you're there. The same tether that allows you to travel back and forth also keeps time synced in both locations.
2. This no different than what the Asians do all the time or the Warriors of Darkness did when they came to the source. They cast off their bodies and existed as corporal spirit bodies. The only difference was they had their crystals to maintain themselves. Our friends do not, so finding a way to return them is vital.
I knew someone would call me out on that! 😅
I just find it a bit of a messy explanation, but like most of my admittedly minor complaints, it doesn't take away from the overall story at all.
Is it ever explicitly said anywhere that your tether to the first is what's keeping time synced? Not trying to call you out, I'm just curious if I can find it anywhere.
@@Circka1 Ya know... I think this might be my bad. I might have missremembered or misunderstood that explanation. I just went back and watched that cutscene and he does just say that conveniently the passage of time has roughly equalized.
I could have sworn there was something about your ability to stably pass between worlds equalized the flow of time, but I guess I made that one up myself.
The twin's father single-handedly united the fanbase in their hatred towards him xD
won't be able to watch this one for a bit because you've finally passed where i'm at and i don't want to spoil myself, but thank you so much for putting out these amazing videos! they're incredibly well made and entertaining for the short turnaround on each one!
Im sorry but dont worry fellow WoL. Ill watch for you and be very excited for you!!
i am in the same boat, only up to lvl 74 in msq right now.
It'll still be here when you're done! Hope you enjoy the story!
59:00 Regarding the hiding the true identity of Crystal Exarch, the Crystal Tower alliance raid series in ARR wasn't mandatory until I believe it was patch 5.3, hence I think it was supposed to be obvious to whom did the raid series beforehand, and the option of calling his name in the cutscene was only available if you had already done the raid series.
Not only that, but even if you did the raid when it was optional, imagine being part of the original players waiting for Shadowbringers to even come out. Some probably played key points during the game again, fewer probably watched all the cutscenes even optional ones, and then, others would've only picked up playing again after Shadowbringers was finally released. The Exarch's identity could've easily slip from people's minds with everything offered in-between.
@@PreseatheKitsune it certainly slipped my mind when it happened
@@PreseatheKitsune can confirm exactly this. Crystal Tower being optional content and having done its story literally years previously and never having once revisited it since, had me wholly unprepared for the reveal.
I didn't even remember his name at the time, but as soon as I saw his face, I was instantly overcome with emotion because I was 150% sure I would never see that character again. CT was an optional raid series, this is the first time in the game's history that a character from optional content made an appearance in the msq.
Of course it blew my damn mind.
The devs were trying to hold off on making CT mandatory, but the way they wrote 5.3 literally left no more room for that.
@@Megumi-dz1mm Yeah, it's almost too bad it's mandatory now. It could've remained the same way people insist on taking their friends through the Coils, those same folks being like 'You need to do the Crystal Tower series', and that whole spoiler-no-spoiler way it would make small differences in the game, but still be meaningful. Either way, whether or not the Exarch knows us personally or at a distance, it doesn't much lessen what he's doing. It just turns us into Estinien during that post-Shadowbringers patch with a fanboy meeting their favorite historical figure... annnd then having a moment with mental expectations vs. reality when our WoLs decide to do something dumb.
It was also years after the release of them. Those of us who have played since ARR might remember G'Raha, but not remember his facial details all that well. I know the reveal surprised me, since it'd literally been like, 5 and a half years.
If there is one game i could erase from my memory and replay it again it would be FFXIV. Its a close tie with Elden Ring. I cant believe how many moments this game has that genuinely made me tear up or laugh. Its a gaming masterpiece and it must be preserved. Its such a rich story and i want to replay it again someday.
1:57:05 it alsways confused me why, in this world of magic and magitek, losing your legs was this "I'll never fight again" sentence. Like, bruh, Cid could totally give you robo legs or a proper mech suit or something.
Commenting cause I got to this part in the video but, I think you glossed over the small fact that Ardbert was pretty much unable to interact with anyone for the time he has been here until the Mac shows up. I think this is important because it makes him feel not as alone and makes what happens later when he is unable to save the soldier or warn then all the more heart breaking, but it makes him figure out what his purpose really is when he talks with you after you beat all the light wardens and can no longer hold back all the light. I believe here Ardbert finally realized what his purpose was and was given a chance to fix his mistakes by taking all the light onto himself and becoming the lance that pierces the darkness saving the first which is what he failed to do before.
For me, the Crystal Exarch reveal was so obvious, I looped back around to ruling out G'Raha altogether. Like, literally 10 minutes before it officially revealed him, I'd gone "nah, it's not G'raha, it's just some weird coincidence." So color me surprised!
But also, it had been like, 8 years since the Crystal Tower raids had come out; for those who'd been playing since day 1, I suppose it might've been a bigger surprise, since they may have been a bit blurrier on the specifics of the story around it.
Also, when ShB came out, CT was not actually required content yet, so at the time it could reveal and you're like "who?" The ARR revamp made it mandatory and that was 5.3.
That said, the community very much encouraged people to do it, much like the Omega raid series prior to Endwalker today.
On the note of the Exarch's identity, I don't believe it was ever meant for it to be some big secret to us the players. But instead I think it was more about the Exarch's own journey and everything he had to do to save us. And him concealing his identity is, in someway, him trying to hide the everything he sacrificed for the one person he believed could save the world.
Fandanial was incredible I loved him it was a nice change of pace for FF14 we needed him he was the perfect mirror for Zenos
i have to point out that the meanwhile in garlemald bits are vital to the over-arching narrative of shb. just as we are being the titular shadowbringers of the first, acting as the antagonists to a much older plot to destroy the realm, the source has its band of antagonists acting against a bigger plot. it's not really a coincidence that gaius, estinien and zenos are at the palace at the exact right moment to aid in the tipping of the scale to keep the first and source from merging. it is also incredibly vital that zenos is there, overhearing the truth of the star.
for me, the really amazing part of shb is the cyclical nature of the story. in the msq, we keep returning to the pendants' for our chat with ardbert, while we cycle through the various adventures of the first. we start our adventure in the first meeting the shard of our triplet from arr who once guided us to our starting city and now dies awfully.
the dark mirroring in the story is also a part of that cyclical nature, and i am surprised you neve touch on the fact that crystal exarch and emet-selch are perfect foils to each other, esp wrt their relationship with the wol. ardbert is ofc also our dark future reflected back at us. ran'jit might be boring to you, but he's also the dark reflection of thancred who is in turn haunted by the reflection ryne is of minfilia (pre-oracle). it's all a big circle and that's why alphinaud is haunted by what he perceives as his dark reflection in vauthry, a comparison that is entirely unfair to him but is there i suppose.
shadowbringers is an incredibly wellwritten story, with a very tight narrative. i can't actually say if it is my favourite of the expacks however, as there are details in the others that triumf the overall beats of shb for me. however, the incredibly high quality of the story and its much longed for elaboration of lore is much needed and loved nonetheless. however, i do think my controversial opinion is that shb would mean nothing without preceeding expacks. the emotional beats that it hits requires previous stories to build upon and would be an incredibly generic fantasy isekai story without it. much like a mirror is not worth much without anything for it to reflect, shb cannot work without any of the details mattering.
Not me fully crying at work because this was the first expansion to truly show me the depths of the story and characters. So happy to have seen all of this again, and even find answers to questions I forgot about. Cannot wait for the EW video!
Tbf about the exarch's identity, i did crystal tower back in 2015 right when hw came out. Graha was just another npc that i thought would be forgotten so once the raid was done, i forgot about him. So when shb came out, it wasn't at the top of my list of who he was. For some, the crystal tower raid wasn't even required yet so some people didn't even know who he was. It was probably still fresh for you but it's been about a decade for some of us. Still, great recap video. Much appreciated!
Ah
16:54
Aka
“Welcome to Shadowbringers”
I remembered my friend who never played the game (still didn’t want to but was alright with wanting to see this) and after the bit I asked him “so should I burn it with fire?” (I was on Machinist so I had the flamethrower)
He only replied “get more fuel”
Chop chop, time for Endwalker FFXIV Man
Been checking for this all day. Let's GOOOOOOOOO
I HATE when people complain that the Exarch's identity was obvious. Alot of people played Crystal Tower on release and barely remember him until Shadowbringers.
No way I just finished watching the Stormblood video last night and I woke up to this!! I’m excited
Wonderful video as always. Currently working on the post msq for endwalker just for DT's launch so I'll have to skip the next video til I'm done with it. Always tear up when it comes to the post msq quest with seto and ardbert due to losing my dog around the same time. Makes me think of him as not being gone but on a new adventure himself, miss ya Frankie, you were the best.
The "more" to Ranjit is learning he has been essentially the head of the secret service that has always "protected and guided" and trained all of the Minfilias since his father's death, his father having filled that roll before him. I thought that was super cool. It also highlights how old Ranjit actually is, considering he is essentially "just" human. He has to be nearly 100 years old, and still matches the young buck Thancred blow for blow every time.
Thank you for making me genuinely sob again re-living the post-ShB story. Very excited to experience the story in Elpis once again next week.
Honestly, the G'raha reveal caught me by suprise, but mostly because i am one of the few who did not intantly fell in love with him (honestly, this community is so thirsty for cat ears...) and actually forgot he exists...
If you consider the cost of the skip items on the store were just a few months of sub, which an average player would probably take but you don't have to sit down for a few months to get through the "boring" bit (if not you would play normally wouldn't you), then the skip items suddenly might not seem that expensive anymore; ultimately to skip or to experience the story as it is is your own choice.
Yeah it's worth it if you skip on a new character but if you just want to skip dawntrail you pay more to get less
I think its often understated just how hard it is for a games story to make you care enough about some super unrealistic existential crisis that you can barely conceptualize but somehow they make it work multiple times in ff14
I made shadowbringers so much harder on myself during my playthrough. I kept referring to Ardbert as my ghost boyfriend and... i cried. A lot.
Ah, so my "nighttime visit" line applied to someone after all :p
At this point if Y'shtola did die I'd be five expansions down the line like "Oh she's coming back. I know it's been 10 years but it's Y'shtola, she's always fine."
One thing of note about the echo! We actually did see the Star Shower. Multiple times actually if you're a 1.0 legacy character. In 1.0, Hydaelyn shows us the star shower, which is actually a recreation of the meteors that fell during the final days, after being invited to join the Path of the Twelve. In ARR, she shows it to us again when we first receive the first Crystal of Light.
These are the perfect appetisers for the feast that awaits us in Dawntrail! I hope you continue to make these, they’re so gooooood and your voice, even if you do wear it out on us, is really soothing!
In all fairness graha reveal was shocking to some players because his original story wasnt mandatory for msq😅
God, ShB was so god damn peak.
Peak of a playground slide maybe. The expansion was fine.
About the the crystal exarch reveal, while there was alot of people speculating that it was Graha just about immediately. A lot of us (me including) who kinda forgot that he existed because we played crystal tower during release and it had been like 4 years since we saw him.
I love the Ardbert WOL moments. He’s my favorite character.
it always feels EVERYONE knew it was the cat boi
BUT
I swear I never figured it out, mainly since I completly forgot who red cat boi was, name and all [I got horrible name/person memory]. So for me it was a GREAT twist, but even with the reveal, I still had no clue who he was :')
Until more stories and i go "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, ye totally hated you back in ARR, uh you cool now tho :3"
Fun Fact the Warriors Elidbus summons in the seat of sacrifice are the party members or at least some of them from Final Fantasy 4.
The Lala's that he summons use twincast and the only characters to ever use twincast was Palom and Porom, since we don't have children in the game they must of used them as their models for it, both were a white mage and a black mage.
There is a Dark Knight that is clearly Cecil, if you look closely it's very similar to his actual dark knight gear.
The Bard can Cast holy just like Rosa, and used a bow, and plays a white mage in 4, The Bard and the Dark Knight actually come out togethor which I believe was to symbolize the two being together.
and when the Wyrm is summoned it looks like FF4's version of Bahamut that Rydia summons. but has the color of DArk Bahamut from 4.
The Ninja is very clearly Edge because it uses Water and Fire.
the Warrior there is likely Cid, he mainly used hammers, but could wield axes as well.
Shadowbringers feels like a big nod to Cecils story but flipped.
Oh man, Shadowbringers is an experience I wish I could relive again with an erased mind
44:02 I think i got lucky with this segment of the story. From the start of post SB til right before this, id super-binged the MSQ before burning out and taking a break for like 2 weeks, came back right into this part fresh
I will never forget the moment when Vauthry transformed into the innocence.. The really "Oh no he is hot moment"
I'd give anything to play Shadowbringers back when it first launched, or even to just replay it as if it were my first time.
I do really really wish you'd cover the raids. The Eden series specifically feels so integral to the story of the First. Also id like to hear you gush about the Ultimecia stuff
I've been meaning to replay FFVIII (among others) at some point, so maybe I'll do something after that so it's fresher in my mind :)
1:15:09
I don't know if you were playing when Shadowbringers was released, but the final bit of the Hades fight, after the QTE, is less going super sayan, and more desperate struggle. See, there's a flaw that most early expansion trials face, where they don't have itemlevel syncing attached to the duty, only level. As such, level 80+ people going in from duty finder will likely be 80+ and with the best itemlevel possible for 80, and those above 80 synced down to best possible 80 itemlevel. So what happens is the bosses just melt. When Shadowbringers was new, the final bit of the Hades fight has the shadows slowly coming in from the outer edge of the arena making it's way closer to center, and standing in it was a heavy bleed effect. I remember my first time in, Hades was at 2% when the entire ground became overtaken with shadow, no Light, and we had to fight through the bleed for that desperate last push.
It was insanely epic and I am dismayed how people don't get to experience that, unless they go in with the min itemlevel sync option intentionally on. I think I am forever going to remember it as one of the most epic boss fights I've done. That and, the final boss of Endwalker is also insane.
Side note: The remember us line is probably the second time a game brought on actual crying. Fuck me that hit hard.
On an additional note: 1:26:35
Regarding Star Shower. Back in 1.0, when you started a character, the first thing you would see is a star shower. This is a callback to that, but I do wish they made that more apparent for people who didn't play 1.0. I only knew about it from watching stuff on 1.0 sometime in early ShB.
I started during Stormblood, but it took a while for me to get into the game and I didn't end up really getting hooked til after Shadowbringers came out. Still, I'm kinda speaking from current experience where we wiped the floor with him, similar to the Endwalker final boss.
And about the star shower, I did cut a line from the video about the WoL seeing one in their dream at the start of ARR, but that's just a dream and not the "real thing". Really wish they made it clearer cos it feels like a retcon to those of us who haven't played 1.0.
@@DynaChris it def needs to be clearer
Wait, your Shadowbringers video is up!? Dude, amazing work.
Finished patch content for ShB last night; did not guess vauthry was thr warden, figured it was the lion with him & meol being sin eaters and by proxy, the people who "never left eulmore" was not something I raised an eyebrow at at the beginning of the xpac.
I also rock the Amano WoL glamour from the crystal tower on my warrior. 💀
Shadowbringers remains as my favorite part of this whole game. It definitely has parts i didnt enjoy and slow moments like the rest. But the highs were so much higher and the cheesy anime style ending with emet selch really clicked for me.
I had completely forgotten about that Thancred "dying" moment. That and Y'shtola were both pretty egregious and a part of fiction i despise that likes to sprinkle itself in every expansion it seems, fakeout deaths. But they were forgettable enough in the grand scheme.
Im one of the fools who didnt see the g'raha reveal coming. And i started this game just before endwalker so i had to do crystal tower during msq. Just when i was playing that part of the msq it felt like side content so i barely payed attention/skipped through some cutscenes. When the exarchs identity was revealed i had a little fuzzy memory trying to remember if i should know who he was lol.
Shadowbringers was peak ffxiv
my favorite part about the crystal exarch was when the Alliance raids werent required before 5.3 you could do shadowbringers without ever knowing who he is. When i started playing i was very focused on only doing msq i didnt rly do anything else when i was finally done i then started doing content and when i got to the alliance raids i was oh shit its him. I legit dont like that they made the alliance raids a must now because now everyone who plays shadowbringers knows its graha. i get it as he joins 5.3 and forward but man it was so cool when i saw him in the alliance raids because i legit didnt know also it was rly cool how people told me you could call out his name if you met him and if you didnt your character just kinda looks at him like he exists.
another great video. glad you stopped worrying about the length of the vid, i sat here and watched the whole thing. thanks for making this content.
I cut quite a few bits out of this (role quests for example) so imagine how long it'd have been if I didn't!
This series of retrospectives is amazing Dyna, great work! My partner and I were reflecting the other day that now that we're here, waiting for Dawntrail, on how Shadowbringers is still overall in our opinions the best expansion. It's not to say the others aren't good, I think Stormblood even gets a bit of an overly bad rep (even though I think the best of that expansion was all post base MSQ personally.) but it's just crazy how good Shadowbringers was. Hell crazier to think about is the series before and after. I've been playing on and off since the og XIV...more or less...and while ARR and on made a great splash before, especially after Heavensward being so superb, Shadowbringers made XIV a phenomenon. The Scions went from recurring NPCs to well known FF characters. Endwalker was great too, but its highs were only possible thanks to what ShB started (I sort of see the two as complimentary in a way.).
I gotta put out there too that the post game side content of Shadowbringers was all, at least storywise, great for the most part because, aside from the Nier storyline...the Eden raid series, Werlyt, and the Bozjan Front stories all complimented the MSQ in a really nicely tight knit way that stands out from the other expansions. Eden served as a pseudo conclusion to both Ryne's arc and the arc of the 1st in general, Werlyt I thought was a great conclusion to Gaius' arc as well as one half of illustrating the later half of the Garlean war, and Bozja serves essentially as a conclusion to the war with Garlemald, pushing things back to the capital (where obviously Endwalker comes in.). I know gameplay wise Bozja was overall divisive, and I think for good reasons, but story wise there was so much going on and a lot of it was legitimately interesting. From the history of Bozja as a country, to everything happening with the IVth legion, to all the individual appearances of many familiar NPCs during the war. It's almost worth a retrospective in of itself, especially since so much of it goes unnoticed by players due to the nature of the whole events' gameplay. Thinking back on it all, it all ties back to the MSQ in a really cool way that makes it all seem like multiple parts of a whole picture. The post game content of the other expansions, many of them being good on their own, tended to have a more "loose' connection to the MSQ at the time but all the ShB stuff felt like compliments to it. I really admire the cohesiveness of it all.
I wanted to add something small to your opening. I think it was maybe an unintentional stroke of genius to have Biggs and Wedge open the expansion, since they and their bloodlines were responsible for stopping the calamity this time. If I remember right, Cid was not alive to help.
I also heavily disagree with skipping or that it should be free. One, lets put it into perspective. How many months does a newbie take to go from ARR to Shadowbringers, even with dilligent play? If you are really desperate to just skip to that part of the story, then you are actively choosing to have less new game to play and moving forward several months of progress. Furthermore, if skips were free, people would miss out on background details which actually make the story more rewarding. A prime example is how Jessie Cox correctly guessed back in ARR that the Crystal Tower could be used like Auricite. That didnt happen until Shadowbringers, but he is pretty friggin proud of guessing that. Without context, of what you're protecting or just who certain characters like G'raha are, I think you lose a lot.
The solo duty as Thancred is the reason I picked up Gunbreaker, I'd been making White Mage for so long
These video's are amazing mate keep it up, I understand not everything could be covered since the video is all ready so long just following the events of the MSQ but I really hope you'll do more videos that cover the raid storylines and maybe even some dungeons/ trials that have story quests of their own and the job quests for each expansion.
If I remember, Crystarium was already showed during the production of XIV. I'm glad they managed to bring that in ShB
I believe the reveal of the Exarch's identity only truly works when you have been playing the game since at least the Heavensward patch cycle and had completed Crystal Tower in that time. I did Crystal Tower back in ARR/HW era, so G'raha had been pretty much erased from my memory until the Exarch reveal. Having to go through the patch cycles for both Heavensward and Stormblood (as in the actual real world years for them) will make you forget characters from side stories, so when the reveal happened it was a genuine shock for me. And making them mandatory for MSQ removes a ton of the mystique since things that are required to progress the main story tend to stick with you more. When Shadowbringers released Crystal Tower was still optional content. Crystal Tower is also the only time where they don't allow a break in continuity, because you are more than able to hold off on doing the optional Primals in Heavenward until after starting Shadowbringers. Which creates some hilarious breaks of continuity.
Side quest stories take place when they were added in terms of the MSQ's timeline. So I find it funny more than anything that Urianger and Y'shtola can show up to discuss Sephirot, Sophia, and Zurvan with you in Azys Lla while being comatose back at the Rising Stones. I know this because this happened to me. Had finished Shadowbringers and was cleaning up content I had skipped.
I get what you mean about the side stuff - I did the Eden raids after I finished Endwalker and seeing Thancred turn up on the First was a bit jarring 😂
ShB was phenomenal but the one missed opportunity they had was to make the Red and Blue Jongleur end up being two parts of one sin eater, and fuse together to form Meltigemini from FF9. Like come on. That boss's design SCREAMS perfect for sin eater.
Also, you say "It was very obvious it was G'raha Tia" and while I agree, there was a STAGGERING amount of people that said it wasn't him. I remember from before ShB launched saying it was G'raha, and I had people actually say I was an idiot for thinking that and that "They wouldn't bring back some shitty side character and make them a focal point of an expansion."
I think I like Endwalker more. I love the message of hope and the small character moments.
I'm glad I was clueless about the exarch because I happened to take a year long break after I finished HW, it made Shadowbringers that much better for me, I actually thought he was kinda sus until I learned who he really was
Please keep talking about games when you're done with this xiv series! You have a really good style
HOOOOOOME!! RIDING HOOOOOOOOOOME!!!! (gonna watch this when i get HOOOOOME!!!)
vid watched, another great one as always! of course not exactly an unpopular opinion, but as of pre-dawntrail, the tale of the artist alphinaud and his assistants is undoubtedly my favorite expansion in ffxiv :)
Managed to beat Shadowbringers a few mins before this aired lol. Just gotta get through the patch quests and then I'll be able to watch the whole thing!
Ooh, enjoy! There's some GREAT stuff in there!
Oh no! I finished the last Stormblood quest today so I could finally watch your video, about it and the next part is already coming! A break please! :D
I think it was either three or four month until Shadowbringers was when I join but the mean reason I had join was a friend told me they where removing the GARO event. So after that long PVP event grind by the time I got all the gears and mounts my paladin job was lvl 75. then I when back to the MQS so when coming to Shadowbringers so everything was still fresh for me and ya this expansion deserve the hype it get's.
Honestly there's a few options in shadowbringers that are just.. correct. "I think she's mad at me..." Is the only proper option.
Also can we just talk about how Emet is a sorcerer with nigh-invincble powers... and just right up shoots a bitch. That was -personal-
There's a bunch of those in Endwalker, too. "Stare meaningfully at Estinien", for example!
Also, using magic on someone channeling a magic-absorbing spell probably wouldn't work ;)
Final Fantasy 6 would be a good example of what would happen if Emet-Selch used his magic to overpower the Crystal Exarch.
2:48 as someone who has seen MANY reactions, I don't think i have seen more than 2 people understand that before the flashback.
I have seen more people not understand even after the flashback who had to be told by chat about it afterward than people who understand before the flash.
Really? The ring was painfully obvious!
@DynaChris On the ground it is, the cause of the majority of those seem to be not seeing the ring on his hand.
Edit: seeing/remembering
I'ma be honest, saying you should just be able to skip all of the previous expansion to play ShB immediately is not a solid take. Most of what makes Shadowbringers so cool is all the setup it had from those expansions. I'm all for making DT the new starting point.. but just dropping people into Shadowbringers? They're gonna feel as disjointed as confused as people in your average WoW expansion.
I think if they added an in-game recap for skippers, it'd be just fine. I wouldn't recommend anyone skip any of the story, but there's always gonna be people who want to cos of hearing about how good ShB is and not wanting to play basically 3 full RPGs to get there.
Plus people already do it via paid story skips, and I think charging for those per-character is daft.
If they dont want to play the game as it is intended then there are plenty of other mmos that will cater to their needs.
@@DynaChris Yeah, they would need to add recaps for every expansion. If you can start at ShB, you should also be able to start at HW, SB and EW. I fear if handled poorly it could become a timewalker situation like in World of Warcraft, where it ends up mostly just confusing new players rather than help them. I agree that if you give new players the choice to start at ShB, knowing the legacy that expansion has, while also saying 'Hey, you can play 150 hours less' it might send the signal that ARR, HW and SB are not worth it. The community doesn't help in that regard. I see various videos these days that ARR surprised them, because it's talked down so much, while HW floors them because it's amazing, two whole expansions before the venerated expansion. I am not a huge fan of the paid story skips truth be told.
@@zedorian6547who are you to decide how ppl should play the game? get off your high horse.
@@DynaChrisplaying through the story is a major part of the game, if people dont want to play the story I just dont think the game is for them and they can go play WoW or Runescape instead
ShB is the best FF story since FF9. Fantastic antagonist, forever an Emet stan.
I'll keep it a buck, I did not know it was Graha Tia until the big reveal. I just got so lost in the fantasy of everything that I think when I asked him early on and he said he wasn't, I was just kinda like oh I guess it's not. But as soon as the hood flew off I gasped! Lol maybe I'm just not smart, but I just got so lost in the story that I was just willing to believe whatever I was told, and too wrapped up in the fantasy to try and speculate or predict, just fully living moment to moment in everything.
This reminds me...
I know Everyone loves the Chais, and I do so wish we could see them again, but.. Did we ever get a resolution for the fact that they THREW THAT GUY OFF A TWELVE-DAMNED BALCONY?
I think I remember Mr. Chai apologising to the painter in post-Shadowbringers with the painter not quite forgiving them, but choosing to help with his projects as the new mayor anyway.
@@b.h.4249 oh phew...
Ehhhh.... It was the times? 😂
16:30
Welcome to shadowbringers
some of the best FFXIV content right now.
I don't know about that, but I appreciate the compliment!
Any single aspect of Shadowbringers’ MSQ would be a hard sell that can be poorly written but that all of them are combined together and just *work* is nothing short of miraculous and the reason why people love Ishikawa-san so much. The story shouldn’t have worked but she did.
Love the video! I don't think you gave nearly enough credit the story between Ryne, Thancred and Ran'jit though. Minifilia giving Ryne her new hair and eye colour is linked to Ryne's earlier rant with Urianger where she feels like a burden and she doesn't even exist as her own person, so at least letting the OG Minfilia-Thancred's Minfilia-will make someone she cares for happy. It's all about identity. Ran'jit talked a lot about wanting to protect the Oracle and that Thancred could not protect her like he could because he came to care for a previous Minfilia that he fought alongside and treated like a daughter. Ryne isn't his Minifilia either, though. She's never been allowed to be her own person, always bogged down by her birthright. It's why Urianger apologises to her because it was *him* who came up with the idea of sending Minfilia to the First and so it was *him* who gave this long line of Oracle's all of the war, strife, pain and lack of identity that they all struggle with. Thancred distances himself from Ryne so much because he cannot come to terms with loosing his Minfilia but he also loves and respects her so much, he doesn't want to go against his Minfilia's wishes to protect Ryne's decision. It's just a constant hourglass hanging over his head: waiting to find out when or if he'll loose Minfilia forever, despite everything he's done to get back to her. He comes to love Ryne as family over time, in the same way he did with OG Minfilia. It's why Thancred and Ran'jit are compared to father's so much, their story is a mimic of the bittersweetness of a parent having to let go control over their child and become their own person. It's out of love, but the fear and the tension that comes with letting someone they love make their own bad decisions, to go out into a world that may hurt you multiple times... Thancred is an ass a lot of the time (as any real father can be when faced with a daughter coming to terms with who she is as an individual and not waiting on their every word anymore) but at least he's not keeping her locked away with no physical freedom either. She ends up with this identity crisis *because* she's finally been given the freedom to even begin questioning who she is and what she wants.
But yeah the quest chains in that part of the story definitely bog that all down 😪
Something I find make Thancred's story so compelling is that he's not just trying to bring back the original Minfilia because of how close they were, but because of the immense guilt he carried over the death of her father during the goobbue incident back in 1.0, and the feelings of inadequacy that came with that feeling of helplessness. That if he were enough, Minfilia's father would still be alive. Hellbent on protecting her and not wanting to accept his own failures and shortcomings as a person, burying himself in his work to both distract and improve. He struggles to accept Ryne because he can't accept that he failed, that he wasn't good enough. All of this coming to ahead when facing Ran'jit, a stark reflection of those failures and shortcomings where he must let go of his guilt and need to protect, least he turn into what Ran'jit had become. The scene after the fight is not only Thancred saying one final farewell to someone he considered family, but finally accepting that he did the best that he could, that he failed, that no one not even Minfilia blames him for all that had happened. Allowing himself finally move forward with his life and not let his failures be what defines him as a person. It's this acceptance that allows him to see Ryne as the individual that she is, and be the supportive presence the she needed him to be.
Hope this came out clear and concise.
Fandaniel is basically XIV's version of Kefka. Chaos and death for the sake of it.
They share the same outlook but he's nowhere near as great as Kefka was IMO
Since, I'm watching someone play through it right now, I was very down to spoil myself on Shadowbringers...
But the Endwalker video I will hold off until I get through it myself. If the guy I'm watching takes the normal break between the two that he normally does, then I'll be to it LONG before he is.
I for one won't complain if you do follow-up videos for the raids of Heavensward through Endwalker!
I’d love to hear you make a retrospective of the raid series’ stories, or eureka/bozja
I've got a bit of a plan that involves the raids, but Eureka/Bozja would take quite a while if I did them because NG+ isn't available for them and with Bozja especially I'd be missing solo battles which I'd want to include. I'm not against the idea of making an alt and skipping through the cutscenes to unlock them at some point in the future, though.
Its kinda funny how people always evaluate games on how many hours of story they got. Then when you finally got a game with hundreds of hours of excellent story, people are insistent they must be allowed to skip it.
You just can't win.
I think everyone should play every expansion
Gonna watch this while waiting for my flight home!!
RIDING HOOOOME!!!
DONT LOSE HOOOOOPE
Unless you're riding a Boeing
Incredible recap and analysis as always :)
been waiting for this for a week, thank you!
pretty good uploader man! keep it up!
If crystal tower wasn’t made mandatory, I might’ve forgotten about g’raha. And considering they did make it mandatory after shb’s release, other people forgot too
Awww yiss, been waiting for this video!
Can't wait to watch this
oh look! a movie!
Just for that, I'm gonna make the Endwalker video 3 hours long 😛
@@DynaChris JOKES ON YOU. IM INTO THAT SHIT.
Seriously, the videos you've put out has been stellar. This has been such a treat. Looking forward to Endwalker's video!
It always felt like a plot contrivance to me that we just so happen to want to go around preaching about Ardbert exactly while Elidibus is gallivanting about in his skin and preparing to give his speeches.
When I played Shadowbringers the Crystal Tower was not required so I had absolutely zero idea who he was! Lol