What fucks me up the most about the ancient Ascians is that they're these giant, partially-faceless enigmas wielding magic far beyond our understanding. But here they're running in terror from something that's beyond even them. And they seemed to be good, pleasant and friendly people to boot. I want to save them, but it's just a memory. And even if it wasn't, this doesn't look like a cataclysm I could realistically stop.
I'm really curious about what caused the cataclysm in the first place. I wonder if this will come up over the course of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story, or if maybe that will be a factor in whatever story comes next.
@@FlorenceFox Crackpot theory but since it was a terrible sound from deep in the planet that undid the Ancients. (Its even called the city of ancients) I'm honestly thinking JENOVA. Or something like her. She was often called "The Calamity from the sky". I dont think FF14s been using that word randomly.
Who knows? We might finally discover what caused all this destruction in the events that'll transpire after Endwalker. And if we do, well... part of me is frightened by whatever the cause is, but another part of me is dead set on avenging the Ancients and banishing the entity responsible for the end of their world to the void. It's the least we could do, to make sure that all this pain and suffering never comes to pass ever again.
This had a nice thematic tie-in with the first dungeon of the expansion. Both dungeons feature you running towards a disaster while civilians flee from it, but while you're rescuing survivors in Lakeland, in Amaurot you can't save anyone because they've all been dead for thousands of years
Oh my gosh! I was just thinking the exact same thing the other day after running Holminster Switch. You trying to save the citizens of the doomed village, and them running for their lives is exactly what the citizens of Amaraut was subjected to. So, basically the Ascians are doing the same thing to countless other nations (if you consider the multiple fractured worlds), that happened to them. That they see their own dead citizens as more important than those that exist in the here and now is kind of sad. This is such a well put together expansion, that it's hard to see how it can be topped - but I'm sure we'll be surprised, whatever happens.
this immediately became the most memorable dungeon in the entire game for me i LOVED how emet-selch was written throughout the story. he wasn't just some powerful spooky bad guy who wanted to end the world and kill people for no reason other than being evil. he was hurting, and while that absolutely does NOT excuse his attempts at genocide, his performance raised a lot of very deep questions about morality and what it means to be alive. i thought one of his most powerful moments was when he was screaming about "i've lived a thousand-thousand of your lives and still found you wanting". it's not that he doesn't understand. he understands VERY well what we are and what we are not. it's never enough. would our race be better off if we were made "whole" again? are our experiences just incredibly diluted versions of what we COULD experience? while we wouldn't know since we can't miss what we never had, he's experienced both, and according to him the answer is yes, painfully so. so much that he'd end the world fourteen times over just for the chance at bringing back what was lost -- what he loved. amazing writing, fantastic game.
@@ZincZXzinx that was pretty accurate and goes that deep though. It's not insanely thought provoking or anything, but they literally just described the plot of Emet.
Best part is Emet Selch is legitimately portrayed as a proper villain that you can both hate but understand at the same time. Out of all the Ascians so far, he seems to be the most fleshed out.
@@jamielee2353 100% agree, throughout the story I grew to really like him and was hoping he wouldnt turn despite him being completely blunt with me. Even at the end, there was a understanding between you both that hasn't been there with other villains. In a perfect world.. I would help the ascians and keep everyone alive... unfortunately circumstances dont allow for that yet
@@jamielee2353 Lahabrea was alot more one dimensional. Couldn't sympathise with him at all. It definitely helped having Emet Selch travelling along with us.
Saddest thing about this dungeon is that you're not some hero on their adventure, saving the day like you usually are. What you see here is something that has already happened. It's done, there's no heroics here. Just a test to see if you can survive for the 30m of the end of the world.
The fate of the Ascians is terrible, but whats truly tragic is that Emet-Selch and his kin's solution was to recreate such horror on the shards to bring them back. I think that even if he succeeded that it would not be a happy reunion. Amaurot's people come off as kind, considerate, and educated. How would they feel about living again knowing that it's only because millions or billions were killed in violent cataclysms resulting from centuries of malicious manipulations by their "saviors"? Time ravaged survivors might feel like it's the most obvious thing in the world, but the revived might not be so grateful or understanding. The stage would just be set for more woe.
The irony of the Ascians essentially trying to recreate their own horror 26 times over is what makes it hard for me to sympathise with them, to be honest. You'd think, having experienced something like this, they'd want to prevent it ever happening again. Not to mention the suffering caused by the Garlean and Allagan empires, which were also Ascian creations. I almost wonder if the Amaurotines would be ashamed to see what they've done to the very life they sacrificed themselves to create.
They were tempered by zodiarks, to bring back the original world and their city they need to sacrifice people because to summon zodiarks, they need blood since he's dark primal
I was in awe. When I first discovered the city, I was shocked. Then I saw the burning city and its dying citizens, I got heartbroken. Lastly seeing the whole world on fire... I cannot express that emotion I felt.
when we reach the orbit, i just aw struck, just stood still and watch the earth got pummeled with small meteor. its scary but amazing at the same time.
He surpassed Ardyn and Kefka who were my fav villains cause I empathised with Ardyn and loved how Kefka is the only villain that sorta achieves his goal. However Emet was like both of those guys rolled into one, maniacal and cunning at the start like Kefka but by the end you realise his mission was a fate he didn't ask for but had to carry out like Ardyn! Bravo Square!
All facts stated he really was, I honestly cried at that very last scene. I have never felt that bad for a villain ever, them making him bond with us was what did it. We came to understand him and his why, and I could not fault him, just feel sad for him.
Amen to that. They really didn't make him the way I thought they would from what we've seen pre-Shadowbringers. I feel for his people now. RIP Emet, we will never forget.
@@TJetPrime thats exactly how a villain should be written. a well made villain is only the one that makes you question wether or not you are 'actually' doing good while making you atleast somewhat feel for his cause
Idk why but i read your comment while driving and it brought tears to my eyes. To think that you a person in our reality would commit to memory characters from a story. That you were impacted so deeply by their plight. That you give them new life within yourself. I know the story writers are very proud of what they created. But idk it just made me get all emotional to read your words ~for the rest of my mortal days~ Thats really beautiful. I’m glad I came down to the comments today.
my absolute favorite part of this dungeon is not the atmosphere, the urgency, nor Emet-Selch narrating it all.... It's honestly the locations and duties. Throughout the entire game, these have been somewhat MMO fluff (like "Random Ruins of Whatshisface" and "Defeat Firstbossguy"), but suddenly out of nowhere, the game basically slaps you in the face with those concepts and bends them for even more storytelling. Locations have suddenly become a narration of their own, like long lost texts, and you are no longer defeating bosses.... You are merely witnessing their effects. You are not a brave hero saving the day here, you are merely witnessing the tragedies that have passed already, struggling to not succumb to a mere reflection of what happened. God damnit I love this game
Well much of the dungeons and duties from 2.0 have been brought over from 1.0, the locations and duties for HW has been largely a test of the concept used for ShB (Running away from Ishgard, going through the history of the Dragonsong War, Screwing Thordan, and finishing the Shade of Nidhogg.) You find out, the war started when they killed Ratotaskr, many Ishgardians and descendants have dragonblood in them. Mogs are the housekeppers of what was once a proud arrangement between Elvaan and and Dragon. We see how blanketed and in disrepair Coertha's is because of Dusk Vigil, we see how mystical Dravania Forelands with with it's creeping landscapes and a giant landmass that leads up to Chruning Mist (likewise, being given access to go up there through Anyx Trine.) SB started building what HW started building by making interactions with the zones and the dungeons more interactive, more in line with the zone's theme, and more in line with the expansion theme in general. They failed the resistance front while at Rhalgr's Reach and set out to to help out the far east and take down Doma Castle to weaken the Empire and then to lead a front to push them out of Gyr Abania. Many of the the post story dungeons go into the lore of the monks. This brought us into the world building of the Source, as well as everything screwed with the Source being manipulated by the empire.
I'd like to imagine that we're basically running through Emet Selch's firsthand experiences, which means he personally fought against the same beasts we did in this dungeon
Last phase of the Dungeon. Looking down at the world burning. That world could very easily be ours. And as Emet narrates, you can feel the desperation of his and his allies in that forgotten time.
I think the part that hit me the hardest of this dungeon, besides...everything about it, was when I came across two Ancient's lying dead on the ground, arms extended to reach out to each other in their dying moments. It reminds me of some of the bodies you see at Pompei, in their last, heartbreaking moments, trying to reach out to those they loved most. The entire dungeon is really tragic and this music gets me everytime.
Eh, Lahabrea can go suck a lemon, whats-her-face from HW we didn't really interact with outside of a single battle, and other than the stuff he did while in Zenos' body I didn't hate Elidibus all that much. Emet-Selk was just an amazing villain, and I felt sad for him and him alone, but even then...this is still the fucker who made the Garlean Empire what it is AND possibly the Allagan Empire. And Vauthry, ugh.
@@KazumiKiguma Actually, Eorzea made Garlemald by pushing them off their land into a frozen wasteland. Emet saved them from extinction and turned them into a global superpower.
I find it shocking that an MMO is the best FF game we've had in years and perhaps the best overall, but it's true. As an FF veteran since childhood, I love this game.
Emet Selch's story and the whole last two hours of the MSQ were totally unexpected and honestly blew me away! I feel so bad for him...especially after talking with his friend that tells you how emotional he used to be and how he's probably suffering an unimaginable amount of pain behind his flippant persona. Having to witness all of what made him who is he and then not being able to help him or the world that was lost except by ending his long struggle, it's too sad ;;
One of my favorite details about Emet-Selch is his posture. You can tell just by looking at the way he stands that he is utterly exhausted by the burden of his mission.
And lo, vile beasts did rise, Leaving naught in their wake but blood and ash. Thus did the first doom befall us. It would not, however, prove the last. For soon did the sun bend low, scorching earth and boiling seas. Thus did the second doom break us. Yet it was neither claw nor flame, but our very sins-- Stacked to the heavens where they took root, corrupting its halls-- Thus did the third doom undo us.
This bit sounds like a healthy mix of Buddhism and Christianity - particularly the Apocalypse and the whole "even the buddha's wrath will be incurred if one slights him thrice" shtick that Buddhism is supposedly known to have.
The way they combined Emet-Selch narrating and the location names being descriptions of their final days is genius. The perfect dungeon to end the MSQ.
I'd put most of Falcom's "Trails" series' final levels above Amaurot (Liber Ark and Gral of Erebos especially). But outside of maybe Dungeons and Dragons, those are my favorite games of all time by leaps and bounds, so take your grain of salt.
The only downside of this dungeon: the music gets abruptly interrupted by the unfitting generic mini boss theme once you reach them. Honestly they should've just let this music play throughout all the dungeon until you get to the final boss
Or had a remix of the main boss theme play for the minibosses that fits with the tone and atmosphere of this, and fades in and out in time with this music to make it seamless; especially as the lyrics include the words "we fall".
I actually disagree. I think the selection of the boss music for this dungeon fit pretty well what kind of wild horrors the end of that world conceived. The First Beast had a standard worm model, but goddamn if that thing wasn't creepy as hell, the music conveyed that well enough.
I love how this is the final track of Shadowbringers MSQ, like we're not even at patches yet bois. Everything about this song is amazing, between the Tempest's overworld, Amarout's main theme, and this. The Amarout city theme is the first song that actually made cry while listening to it, knowing the context of what happens to it. This song only takes those emotions and shows you a journey of how the Ascians struggle and how they would later summon Zodiark as their final beacon. It's beautiful.
I had to stop for a minute while in this dungeon with my trust party because that part at 0:47, Had to fight back tears myself there too. I'm thankful I wasn't with real people. Would have been embarrassing to ask "Give me a sec, need to stop crying first". Shadowbringers caught me off guard with how utterly fantastic EVERYTHING is. Especially the music. Always been a fan of Soken, but he leveled up to god tier on this one. I can't hate the ascians now either. They have been through SO much more than we ever have. Emet-Selch is right, I would have probably sided with him had I known and experienced everything his people did.
What's scary is that he implies that the beasts were formed from their fear the same way primals are summoned through worship. Now imagine if they summoned Zodiark while still in that fear. It's no wonder a faction splintered off to summon Hydaelyn.
The Japanese name of this track makes this entire dungeon way more tragic. It translates to something like "The Final Fantasy." For the Ascians, this 'was' their very own final fantasy, where their heroes and paragons failed utterly.
That was about the point I understood where Emet Selch was coming from. Not only were we objectively inferior to his people from a power sense, but from a moral one too. From his perspective, we must be as wretched creatures, sinners I suppose you could say.
It seems you're forgetting all the Scions and the Exarch risking their life after Amaurot, jumping in front of Emet-Selch for the sole reason of buying us time.
@@i.147 you can't deny Emet-selch is right here, in a fashion. Being the immortal being he is, he looked at humanity as a whole, and as a whole, no way 50% of all humanity will be willing to sacrifice themselves for the other 50% This outlook is also what made him underestimate the faith and determination of the _individual_ scions, and the length they would go simply because they had hope
No joke, when I first ran this dungeon, I barely spoke a word. The only times I did were to ask my husband, who was tanking, to let us stop twice so that I could just look around. I could scarcely breathe. This was such an impactful moment, and the music matched.
When you teleport after the 2nd boss and you're standing out in space watching the world burn, that left me breathless and overwhelmed, i forgot my party were way ahead of me lol
@@smileplease_91 lol Good man! The whole thing was a masterpiece! I felt it more cause I used the TRUST party so it felt appropriate to see this through with em
@@Silverman216 I wanted to, but my husband wanted to run it with me. It's his favorite dungeon. Honestly, Emet-selch was such an amazing villain. They did everything right with him that they got wrong with Ardyn in 15. I felt sorry for Emet-selch, and I didn't want to fight him. I cried at the end.
@@smileplease_91 Yeah Emet was the perfect "villain" I lowkey wanted to join him cause tbh a lot of us would have done the same thing if we lost our folks like that. Also Ardyn is one of my fav villains but Emet is like the perfect version when it comes to tragedy and fall from grace. Ah idk how they will top this expansion! All I know this expansion pushed FF14 into my top 3 FF games of all time!
I love how each area pertains to Emet's narration. It goes even further when you realize that no specific names were even given just further pushing the idea that all is forgotten and gone. Even the people's names and locations were striped of their identity by the final doom. What an absolutely well done dungeon and story.
Alternatively, you could see it as all people and places of the ancients becoming a single entity identified only by a single crowning paragon, Amurot.
This dungeon was nothing short of a masterpiece...the music is a perfect representation of everything Emet has been through and everything he wants to show us. It’s whimsical it’s haunting it’s beautiful it’s hopeful it’s desperate it’s serious it’s righteous Emet was truly the hero of his story
@@thatoneeco well, as emet once said: moral relativism and all, i do not consider you to be truly alive. ergo, i will not be guilty of murder if i kill you. youtsuyu did despicable things because thats just what she wanted to do, she didn have a greater pourpuse..... she was just a piece of shit.
@@davidloya4691 This is a huge simplification of Yotsuyu overall. ---------- SPOILERS ---------- She was treated like garbage her entire childhood by the very people who are supposed to protect and love her. She was essentially 'sold' off to an abusive husband by her own family, then actually sold off as a whore because of her deceased husband's debts- someone she didn't have any control over marrying in the first place, let alone choose. Her eventual actions aren't excusable, but they came from a place that I think warrants more empathy. She didn't come into this world wanting to do terrible things- her Tsuyu persona being the perfect example of what she really could have been like had she been raised properly and maybe with someone like Gosetsu as a proper guiding figure. Childhoods tend to be very formative that way. In contrast, I think it's very easy to be enamoured with Emet Selch because he's witty and funny and he loves to downplay the severity of his actions because he believes to be above it all. It's amazing how much sympathy he can garner despite doing cataclysmically worse things than Yotsuyu could ever hope to achieve. - He made Vauthry part sin eater, which in turn, caused that whole disastrous mess on the First. Literally the death of almost the entire planet. - He MADE THE GARLEAN EMPIRE, which literally built on conquering people and murdering them, all to MAKE A CALAMITY HAPPEN TO LITERALLY KILL EVERYONE ON THE SOURCE. - He wanted you to DIE and become a horrible Sin Eater so you can KILL EVERYONE AND DESTROY EVERYTHING. - Hand waves complete extinction of a 'lesser people' because he deems his people 'more important' to live. - He shot pure boy Graha Tia in the back. Like... if you're going to condemn Yotsuyu okay, sure. But let's not forget behind all the charisma and charm that Emet has, he really was a contemptible, shitty bastard. He is rightfully tragic and I think it's good to empathize with his position- but he's still a fucking cold blooded monster and trying to hand wave that while in the same breath condemn Yotsuyu with no understanding doesn't sit well with me.
@@davidloya4691 Yotsuyu did everything she did because she wanted revenge for everything she went through. Sure it doesn't excuse anything she did but you can have empathy for her and her suffering. She was betrayed by literally all the people she knew, and was treated as an object her whole life. People ACTUALLY buying into Emet's eugenics rhetoric is...questionnable at best. He did a lot of "despicable shit" as you said...including 8 planet-wide genocides (killing billions of lives in the process) and created 2 totalitarian empires who murdered and reduced people into slavery and caused themselves 2 calamities in the Source (almost 3 if you count the Black Rose). You have to be blind to not see than the Garlean empire is clearly nazi-coded. Don't get me wrong, he's really well written and he's a tragic character. But how can you say that Yotsuyu is a piece of shit when Emet literally did the same thing as her but a trillion times worse ? Especially when, unlike Yostuyu, what happened to him was in part his and the Convocation's fault.
This dungeon with this song is one of the most emotional moments of the entire game for me. This plot is so epic and tragic at the same time that breaks my heart in ways I can't even describe. It's a crazy experience play this dungeon focusing on the enemies and mechanics and at the same time being flooded by this overwhelming emotion while you are literally witnessing the crumbling of an entire world and civilization....
Even though there is incredible destruction all around, the music itself is uplifting... Like how the sad piano in the Trench is playing for the ghosts of the ascians, I feel like this music is playing for the glory of the height of ascian civilisation. I feel that... Even at the very end, the ascians held on as long as they could, and there is never shame in that.
@M. Woller Yeah, because the followers of Zodiark wanted to undo the life created by sacrificing a large portion of their population, in order to *hopefully* make Zodiark return the people it ate to exist and create life.
@M. Woller No, it's stated that the followers of zoldiark wanted to sacrifice all of the newly born life to make the comeback of the sacrificed ascians. The followers of hydealyn didn't agree and wanted the new world to belong to the new lifeforms instead, and that the ascians didn't have the right to sacrifice the living new races to make those that were already dead come back.
@@saintgeekSG he speaks the truth though, Zodiark is not good but neither is Hydaelyn. She killed a whole world and splitted the souls and that world to rule them, something is not right.
This whole dungeon was pretty terrifying but also tragically unique due to the fact that the monsters here are being created from the fears of the Ascians due to the fact that their creations are made from their imaginations. That first boss is creepy looking as hell. But seeing them scatter about trying to avoid an inevitable oblivion broke my heart. When I ran into the first one, I fell in love with them as a group of people. They seem so chill. It's crazy how they've always been portrayed as the villians throughout all of FF for the most part but now I find myself questioning if our characters are doing the right thing. I wonder what Hydaelyn will say about this turn of events.
@@djentleman1597 Yeah they create things with their thoughts and because they were scared, their worst fears became real just like everything else they thought before that.
I legitimately do not ever want to run this dungeon ever again. I dont ever want to become desensitized to this. Because the suffering of the Amaurotians is potent with every step you take in this dungeon. Running this dungeon was a spine shivering experience and I dont want that experience to change in my mind. And by the gods just...that final area just brought me to my mental knees.
Honestly, whenever I want to take a breath and just take in the sights - what it all means and how it is relevant to each and every one of us in our every day lives - I'll rerun it in Trust. I'm a speedrunner/raider/optimizer at heart but even I don't want to rush through this. Sometimes I really step back and appreciate being able to both hardcore raid and enjoy this amazingly crafted story content side by side. I love everything about this game and I will never forget even a single moment of it far, far from the day the servers finally go down and our tale reaches its conclusion.
@@TJetPrime Emet was amazing, more appealing than ANY other character in the whole game. I unironically wanted him to win, but alas it IS an MMO so that couldn't happen.
I'm sad I'll never be able to wipe my memory and re-experience this place again for the first time. Now all I can do is watch my mates go thru it for the first time and enjoy their reactions.
My longtime best friend did this with me and told me something along the lines of "Remember this feeling." and I can't help everytime I listen to this song I get a random wave of hopelessness, like there's nothing left to save.
This dungeon truly showed the gravity of a cataclysm, the terror and overwhelming power swallowing an entire planet was mind blowing. This music truly represents that sense of hopelessness imo.
This is easily the best dungeon this game has ever put out. My heart was aching the whole time, and at the end of it all, I wondered if Square Enix would ever be able to make anything this powerful ever again. I hope they do, but honestly, I'm fine if they don't, because the bar has been raised to heights I never could've imagined before.
As excited as I am for Endwalker, it's going to be incredibly hard to top Shadowbringers. This expansion really set the bar high. Absolutely incredible expansion!
just to think that endwalker is gonna be the grand finale of everything from ARR to ShB makes me think it's gonna go out with a bang also with yoshida saying how he wants FF14 to be his lifes work so i can't wait for whats to come
@@EchoFoxtrotOmegaIt did, by making its narrative even more relevant and adding layers upon layers to it. Finishing EW makes you want to play ShB (and the whole MSQ actually) again, which is in my book a proof of how good it is. And given it is actually hard to conclude long spanning stories, and many authors be it in movies, books, or games, have failed it, EW is to me better than ShB because not only did it bring a fitting end to every single thread of story, but it added layers onto them so you see the whole picture in a different light. All of this, without forgetting what's at the core of this story : emotions. Beyond all its grand epic tale, EW chose deliberately to focus on intimate scale sequences. A true masterpiece.
My first time run of this, the entire group agreed that it was probably our favorite dungeon for the expansion. We were just awed by both the music and the scenery (the boss fights were fun too).
Gods, my first run through of this.... I wanted to help them. I WANT to help them.... but I know I can't, as that would be dooming so, so many more....
It's an interesting moral dilemma to argue, for sure. Does being a fracture of a larger being, yet having an identical capacity for emotion and thought as that larger being, invalidate the value of that fracture's life because it came from a greater whole?
This part of ShB I found to be incredibly emotional. I felt so much sympathy for the poor Ascians who suffered through this, yet I couldn't condone Emet-Selch's plans. The poor man has been through a hardship that barely any other being remembers. Beneath the cynical and uncaring exterior, he has just been hurting for millenia wanting to bring his people back. It's no wonder he feels the way he does... yet I still can't condone it. Not mass genocide. This track just embodies the feeling of a tragedy--but one of massively epic proportions. The literal end of a world. A terrible, bloody, fiery oblivion. And there is naught you can do to save it, despite being the hero of both the source and the first... this is all just the recreation of a terrible memory. One that the final remaining Ascians must bear. (okay im done with my essay i just really liked the end of ShB)
It represents not the tragedy of one world ending, but that world ending again and again, at Emet Selch's hands. He is the very terror he sought to banish with Zodiark...
@@ChainedFei Geeez... what if he had succeeded in the task he was going about, do you think? Would he really be able to rejoin all the shards to begin with? The Ascians actions literally voided a portion of themselves in this continuity to begin with, making a shard and everything it was unrecoverable. Doesn't it seem like the path of Zodiark just continues onwards like this? Sacrifice half and half again, unending?
@@camazotzbat5970 I figure that the Ascians serving Zodiark are tempered, and as such, CAN'T question their goals and motives and the things they do to others because the will of Zodiark overrides it... What the ascians never bothered to consider, I think, is that there has to be another way.. but they're not capable of thinking that because Zodiark wishes to be free.
Words can't describe what i felt going through the dungeon the first time. The names of the areas, the constant falling of AOE's, the mix mash of haunting enemies, the 2nd boss doing explosion no matter what, Emet's narration, the futility of the last area. All to show the despair of those final days. Shadowbringers is just plain brilliant.
This theme is just the absolute best. So majestical and beautiful despite what’s unfolding in the dungeon. I wish I could replay this entire expansion without any knowledge of it.
This has become my favorite dungeon, by far. I go through this at least 3-5 times daily, and it never ceases to amaze me. This morning, I noticed the dead Ascians by the door to the second boss, and it's heartbreaking. Despite what the current Ascians are doing to restore their home, you cannot help but hurt for a civilization that has lost everything.
This is FFXIV's "show, don't tell" method. You wanna know how bad the final days looked? Well if my accounts of what happened were not enough, here you go! Experience it yourself. It's why the Kalm recollection event in FF7 is so powerful, you got a taste of how powerful Sephiroth is through gameplay.
Yep,still imho the single best dungeon of the entire game. Dead Ends while good doesn't hold the candle to this from the sheer emotional valve. Endwalker only made this dungeon a 1000x better let alone emotional asf.
What an incredible experience this expansion was. It really gave me the feeling like I was a hero, risking everything to save this beautiful world and its people from destruction. Yoshi and everyone did a fantastic job.
Running this dungeon changed my whole feelings toward the Ascians.. All I could think of while seeing their world burn was that I wanted to help them, and Emet specially. But it's so heartbreaking because I also know that the only way this could end is with me killing him.. that last smile before he was gone was totally devastating..
This was dad, but after doing Endwalker and The Dead ends, this society was going to eventually end like the ones in that dungeon. Probably go the way of the third society
@@EinDose I am calling that he is tempered by whatever caused the Final Days. It'd make too much sense on why he'd even be permitted to be on the convocation (thus the title of Fandaniel), but be how he is in 5.4-5.55. Even if he's a sundered, we know that if a Ascian rises properly to their seat and title they get their memories back from their time as a Amaroutine as shown with Mitron and Loghrif. So Fandaniel should remember everything. So imho either A. The specific shard of him that we see in 5.3 onwards was tempered by the thing that caused the Final Days before he appeared in 5.3. B. Fandaniel was the one to cause the final days himself by witnessing/teaming up with the entity that caused it. C. Fandaniel isn't actually an Amaroutine, but is sort of like what Minfilia was to Hydaelyn before she got caught in reincarnation after stopping the flood of light, mixed with what Elidibus was to Zodiark. He is the voice and lesser-manifestation of the entity that caused the Final Days, ushering in it's own return. but no matter what, Fandaniel clearly knows the way to cause it so we are going to come to a conflict with the creature that caused it in Endwalker.
@@Alovon Not the worst theory I've ever heard! I don't think the thing that caused the End of Days is a primal (partly because that would be way less interesting than alternatives), but that doesn't mean he can't be in league with it organically, and he clearly knows more about the ignition than we do.
Thank you so very much for posting this Dee... Soken was already a talented beast... but with Shadowbringers he has evolved, tapped into the divine ethereal, and synchronized with musical harmony. Right this very moment as I'm writing this, I have my headphones listening to this looped. Absolutely beautiful. I'm very very close to declaring this as my favourite for this expansion... every instrument is resonating to my soul.
For some reason, this gorgeous music to the backdrop of the end of this magnificent civilization is more heartbreaking than any other scene in this game. The theme of Amaurot plays even as it crumbles like a sort of helplessness. Like the musicians continuing to play even as the Titanic sank. It just resonates the despair and hopelessness that the ancients, and Emet himself felt in these final days.
Nothing in Stormblood could rouse the emotions this song gives me. I tear up every time I hear it. Combining the melancholy tone of The Tempest theme with gut wrenching despair in watching a civilization crumble. The worst part, we can only watch it happen. We can't save these poor people and it hurts so much.
I think the point of this display was actually to prove the contrary. Emet Selch wanted us to know him, really know what drives the Ascians. He was showing us what it is all for for him and what he would ressurect if only we would step aside and let he and his do what they must.
First arrived here last night and throughout I was just awestruck by the entire thing. In the span of 30 minutes before this dungeon, I grew to love them and felt so bad seeing once nice people cowering in fear and dying left and right while the entire world is going to hell... And if this is a taste to what the calamity will be, I can only imagine what it'll be like in Endwalker...
Not only that but if you listen it almost sound like they have some of music from fantasy 10 inside of this dungeon. if you listen to the final battle of final fantasy 10 and then re listen to this, i can hear some inspiration from the ffx.
Over a year later, and I don't ever think I'll find a duty in this game, or a dungeon in any other, that will ever match this one. What a fucking amazing finale.
Ala Mihgo: our nation is ruled by the tyrannical empire, are lives are so difficult Ishgard: dude we been fighting dragons for a thousand years, also some of said dragons are our own kinsmen. Emet-Selch: children please.
@@Darksaviour Ohhhhhh you faced the wraith of a copy of Bahamut using meteor and you fialed to keep him back in his sphere?... that ushered in the 7th Umbral Era? Please! We faced the wraith of the End of Days! And had the whole world burned to a crisp with meteors everywhere with giant monsters going aggro everywhere... Bahamut was child's play.
When I first heard this music, and went through this dungeon, all I could think of was that I was watching a civilization's end. I was witnessing pure despair, and hopelessness, as if what would happen next was unavoidable. The star had already been set on a course, the course of its destruction. It brought tears to my eyes to think of just how the Amaurotians felt, witnessing this first hand. It's amazing that this music can really tell a story like that. Simply unbelievable. FF XIV is the best final fantasy game.
This dungeon my GODS. Every time I get it in DR I enjoy it as if it were my first time. It is the final nod that made xiv my favourite game of all time. Emet I'm so sorry LaHEEbrea exists.
You know, I love how this theme can go from Good underwater zone theme, to City theme with slight changes, to Multiversal Epic Where You're In Space Watching Meteors Crash Down During The Apocalypse without missing a beat. Seriously, the music deserves so much credit in this game.
this whole expansion was absolutely masterclass. I have never had a game throw such a profound moral dilemma at me before, and the execution was top tier.
My only complaint was that this music was replaced with the really unfitting mid boss theme when fighting the First and Second Beasts. Outside of that, this dungeon had me stunned in awe
"What? You thought ancient beings like us incapable of crying? Well, rest assured that if your heart can be broken, then so can mine!"
What fucks me up the most about the ancient Ascians is that they're these giant, partially-faceless enigmas wielding magic far beyond our understanding. But here they're running in terror from something that's beyond even them. And they seemed to be good, pleasant and friendly people to boot.
I want to save them, but it's just a memory. And even if it wasn't, this doesn't look like a cataclysm I could realistically stop.
I'm really curious about what caused the cataclysm in the first place. I wonder if this will come up over the course of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story, or if maybe that will be a factor in whatever story comes next.
@@FlorenceFox Crackpot theory but since it was a terrible sound from deep in the planet that undid the Ancients. (Its even called the city of ancients)
I'm honestly thinking JENOVA. Or something like her. She was often called "The Calamity from the sky". I dont think FF14s been using that word randomly.
Who knows? We might finally discover what caused all this destruction in the events that'll transpire after Endwalker. And if we do, well... part of me is frightened by whatever the cause is, but another part of me is dead set on avenging the Ancients and banishing the entity responsible for the end of their world to the void.
It's the least we could do, to make sure that all this pain and suffering never comes to pass ever again.
@@snatchr2451 Lavos?
Imagine this with present sound quality:m.th-cam.com/video/YjnZlBQDgt4/w-d-xo.html
This had a nice thematic tie-in with the first dungeon of the expansion. Both dungeons feature you running towards a disaster while civilians flee from it, but while you're rescuing survivors in Lakeland, in Amaurot you can't save anyone because they've all been dead for thousands of years
Oh my gosh! I was just thinking the exact same thing the other day after running Holminster Switch. You trying to save the citizens of the doomed village, and them running for their lives is exactly what the citizens of Amaraut was subjected to. So, basically the Ascians are doing the same thing to countless other nations (if you consider the multiple fractured worlds), that happened to them. That they see their own dead citizens as more important than those that exist in the here and now is kind of sad.
This is such a well put together expansion, that it's hard to see how it can be topped - but I'm sure we'll be surprised, whatever happens.
It also ties into a certain dungeon in endwalker... for... reasons.
this immediately became the most memorable dungeon in the entire game for me
i LOVED how emet-selch was written throughout the story. he wasn't just some powerful spooky bad guy who wanted to end the world and kill people for no reason other than being evil. he was hurting, and while that absolutely does NOT excuse his attempts at genocide, his performance raised a lot of very deep questions about morality and what it means to be alive. i thought one of his most powerful moments was when he was screaming about "i've lived a thousand-thousand of your lives and still found you wanting". it's not that he doesn't understand. he understands VERY well what we are and what we are not. it's never enough. would our race be better off if we were made "whole" again? are our experiences just incredibly diluted versions of what we COULD experience? while we wouldn't know since we can't miss what we never had, he's experienced both, and according to him the answer is yes, painfully so. so much that he'd end the world fourteen times over just for the chance at bringing back what was lost -- what he loved. amazing writing, fantastic game.
Once the Generic Doomsday Villains started justifying why they have to kick puppies and kill people everyone starts remembering them. :P
Wasn't that deep. Chill.
@@ZincZXzinx Holy necropost, I wrote that nearly 4 years ago. Chill.
@@ParagonX13 OK I chill u chill we chill. Chillbringer.
@@ZincZXzinx that was pretty accurate and goes that deep though. It's not insanely thought provoking or anything, but they literally just described the plot of Emet.
"Remember us.... remember... that we once lived"
😔
Best part is Emet Selch is legitimately portrayed as a proper villain that you can both hate but understand at the same time. Out of all the Ascians so far, he seems to be the most fleshed out.
@@jamielee2353 100% agree, throughout the story I grew to really like him and was hoping he wouldnt turn despite him being completely blunt with me. Even at the end, there was a understanding between you both that hasn't been there with other villains. In a perfect world.. I would help the ascians and keep everyone alive... unfortunately circumstances dont allow for that yet
@@jamielee2353 Lahabrea was alot more one dimensional. Couldn't sympathise with him at all. It definitely helped having Emet Selch travelling along with us.
Seeing Lahabrea retrospectively fleshes him out a bit more
Saddest thing about this dungeon is that you're not some hero on their adventure, saving the day like you usually are. What you see here is something that has already happened. It's done, there's no heroics here. Just a test to see if you can survive for the 30m of the end of the world.
The fate of the Ascians is terrible, but whats truly tragic is that Emet-Selch and his kin's solution was to recreate such horror on the shards to bring them back. I think that even if he succeeded that it would not be a happy reunion. Amaurot's people come off as kind, considerate, and educated. How would they feel about living again knowing that it's only because millions or billions were killed in violent cataclysms resulting from centuries of malicious manipulations by their "saviors"? Time ravaged survivors might feel like it's the most obvious thing in the world, but the revived might not be so grateful or understanding. The stage would just be set for more woe.
This. I believe Urianger touched briefly on this point, with I appreciated. I wish we could have told this to Emet in its entirety though.
The irony of the Ascians essentially trying to recreate their own horror 26 times over is what makes it hard for me to sympathise with them, to be honest. You'd think, having experienced something like this, they'd want to prevent it ever happening again. Not to mention the suffering caused by the Garlean and Allagan empires, which were also Ascian creations.
I almost wonder if the Amaurotines would be ashamed to see what they've done to the very life they sacrificed themselves to create.
They're tempered. They don't exactly get to NOT bring Zodiark back.
They were tempered by zodiarks, to bring back the original world and their city they need to sacrifice people because to summon zodiarks, they need blood since he's dark primal
@@Tajem It's worth noting that we're ALSO tempered. 'They're tempered' is just kind of a cheap non-argument.
The last zone and this dungeon just gave me the feeling like I was playing a new final fantasy. Amazing experience
Dude you're so right and I loved every second of it
I was in awe. When I first discovered the city, I was shocked. Then I saw the burning city and its dying citizens, I got heartbroken. Lastly seeing the whole world on fire... I cannot express that emotion I felt.
For real Amaurot is the most Final Fantasy thing a Final Fantasy has had in decades.
when we reach the orbit, i just aw struck, just stood still and watch the earth got pummeled with small meteor. its scary but amazing at the same time.
Final Fantasy XIV - After Calamity DLC setting at the world after final day of Amaurot until Hydaelyn defeated Zodiark .
Emet-Selch is the best-written villain I’ve ever seen in an MMO. I cried. I actually cried.
Pretty much the best villain in the series I'd dare to say even.
He surpassed Ardyn and Kefka who were my fav villains cause I empathised with Ardyn and loved how Kefka is the only villain that sorta achieves his goal. However Emet was like both of those guys rolled into one, maniacal and cunning at the start like Kefka but by the end you realise his mission was a fate he didn't ask for but had to carry out like Ardyn! Bravo Square!
ZeroDystopia yes it’s starting to sink in that we may have experienced the best villain in the FF franchise... crazy to think about.
he is in the same scale as zenos from wakfu
All facts stated he really was, I honestly cried at that very last scene. I have never felt that bad for a villain ever, them making him bond with us was what did it. We came to understand him and his why, and I could not fault him, just feel sad for him.
Such devastation.... This was not their intention
i hate you lmao
No.. noooo! Uh!
@@sermicha5324 YAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH
why tho :(
EW spoilers!
Hermes would like to: *_know your location_*
I am literally 100% legit heartbroken that Emet-Selch is gone. I will remember you and your people for the rest of my mortal days.
Amen to that. They really didn't make him the way I thought they would from what we've seen pre-Shadowbringers. I feel for his people now. RIP Emet, we will never forget.
Not the first time a villain's death put me into a grief period but this hit really hard.
@@TJetPrime thats exactly how a villain should be written.
a well made villain is only the one that makes you question wether or not you are 'actually' doing good while making you atleast somewhat feel for his cause
and tell your kids and grandkids so people will forever know about the ancients?
Idk why but i read your comment while driving and it brought tears to my eyes. To think that you a person in our reality would commit to memory characters from a story. That you were impacted so deeply by their plight. That you give them new life within yourself. I know the story writers are very proud of what they created. But idk it just made me get all emotional to read your words ~for the rest of my mortal days~
Thats really beautiful. I’m glad I came down to the comments today.
my absolute favorite part of this dungeon is not the atmosphere, the urgency, nor Emet-Selch narrating it all.... It's honestly the locations and duties. Throughout the entire game, these have been somewhat MMO fluff (like "Random Ruins of Whatshisface" and "Defeat Firstbossguy"), but suddenly out of nowhere, the game basically slaps you in the face with those concepts and bends them for even more storytelling. Locations have suddenly become a narration of their own, like long lost texts, and you are no longer defeating bosses.... You are merely witnessing their effects. You are not a brave hero saving the day here, you are merely witnessing the tragedies that have passed already, struggling to not succumb to a mere reflection of what happened.
God damnit I love this game
It's an educational type of dungeon. University-tier stuff.
Well much of the dungeons and duties from 2.0 have been brought over from 1.0, the locations and duties for HW has been largely a test of the concept used for ShB (Running away from Ishgard, going through the history of the Dragonsong War, Screwing Thordan, and finishing the Shade of Nidhogg.) You find out, the war started when they killed Ratotaskr, many Ishgardians and descendants have dragonblood in them. Mogs are the housekeppers of what was once a proud arrangement between Elvaan and and Dragon. We see how blanketed and in disrepair Coertha's is because of Dusk Vigil, we see how mystical Dravania Forelands with with it's creeping landscapes and a giant landmass that leads up to Chruning Mist (likewise, being given access to go up there through Anyx Trine.)
SB started building what HW started building by making interactions with the zones and the dungeons more interactive, more in line with the zone's theme, and more in line with the expansion theme in general. They failed the resistance front while at Rhalgr's Reach and set out to to help out the far east and take down Doma Castle to weaken the Empire and then to lead a front to push them out of Gyr Abania. Many of the the post story dungeons go into the lore of the monks. This brought us into the world building of the Source, as well as everything screwed with the Source being manipulated by the empire.
I'd like to imagine that we're basically running through Emet Selch's firsthand experiences, which means he personally fought against the same beasts we did in this dungeon
@@kobayashi4377 Hence, educational.
Well said
Last phase of the Dungeon. Looking down at the world burning. That world could very easily be ours. And as Emet narrates, you can feel the desperation of his and his allies in that forgotten time.
That burning world IS the world of the game. It's Eorzea, as it should have been. What we wander in now are the shattered remains of that day.
And it very well may be if we can't stop Fandaniel in Endwalkers.
@@TheBonkleFox and it actually was for a bit before we stopped bird Aerith with crippling depression
By far the best FF14 Dungeon I've played, I Can't get enough of the music in this expansion. This whole expansion was amazing.
and one of the hardest, if not THE hardest 😅
Wailing caverns is better than anything in all of final hallway fourteen
This is putting it mildly.
@@Raphael12091996 Why hardest? its pretty easy
@@idklol4197 Is that why there was a literal mass exodus from WoW to XIV. Almost like your game is dog shit.
I think the part that hit me the hardest of this dungeon, besides...everything about it, was when I came across two Ancient's lying dead on the ground, arms extended to reach out to each other in their dying moments. It reminds me of some of the bodies you see at Pompei, in their last, heartbreaking moments, trying to reach out to those they loved most. The entire dungeon is really tragic and this music gets me everytime.
How to undo 9 years of loathing towards one race in a single area, dungeon, and trial.
Or at the very least add a layer of sympathy and understanding to make them so much more than they were before.
Eh, Lahabrea can go suck a lemon, whats-her-face from HW we didn't really interact with outside of a single battle, and other than the stuff he did while in Zenos' body I didn't hate Elidibus all that much. Emet-Selk was just an amazing villain, and I felt sad for him and him alone, but even then...this is still the fucker who made the Garlean Empire what it is AND possibly the Allagan Empire. And Vauthry, ugh.
@@KazumiKiguma Actually, Eorzea made Garlemald by pushing them off their land into a frozen wasteland. Emet saved them from extinction and turned them into a global superpower.
@@chrislee5268 Eorzea had no interaction with Garlemald until Garlemald invaded Ala Mhigo.
@@chrislee5268 This is just blatantly untrue.
The best 4 men dungeon of xiv, music, scene, lore, and that atmosphere
Hands down!
The Twinning has this music beat
And that literal atmosphere!
The Twinning would like to know your location.
This dungeon reminds me how boring all the cave dungeons in ARR were in comparison.
This is now my favorite Final Fantasy game... No contest. The narrative was beyond any expectations, and the music is just beautiful
I find it shocking that an MMO is the best FF game we've had in years and perhaps the best overall, but it's true. As an FF veteran since childhood, I love this game.
Eh I’m at yshtolas and find my self skipping through now it’ lost me hope it gets better
@@JohnDoe-nm3lg No wonder, you've been spoiling yourself by watching these vids, smh fam.
John Doe dumbass
Nah, this is the end of bravely second
One of the best parts of this dungeon is how every sub area is in the form of Emet-Selch's narration of the events and how the ancients felt.
In addition to our own dying from the Lightwarden corruption.
Emet Selch's story and the whole last two hours of the MSQ were totally unexpected and honestly blew me away! I feel so bad for him...especially after talking with his friend that tells you how emotional he used to be and how he's probably suffering an unimaginable amount of pain behind his flippant persona. Having to witness all of what made him who is he and then not being able to help him or the world that was lost except by ending his long struggle, it's too sad ;;
I feel the same x.x it was so sad in the end..but at least he is resting finally..coz I think he was really suffering and sad the whole time.
It's also heavily implied that before everything went down, WE were one of if not his best friend in Amaurot before being sundered.
One of my favorite details about Emet-Selch is his posture. You can tell just by looking at the way he stands that he is utterly exhausted by the burden of his mission.
And lo, vile beasts did rise,
Leaving naught in their wake but blood and ash.
Thus did the first doom befall us.
It would not, however, prove the last.
For soon did the sun bend low, scorching earth and boiling seas.
Thus did the second doom break us.
Yet it was neither claw nor flame, but our very sins--
Stacked to the heavens where they took root, corrupting its halls--
Thus did the third doom undo us.
This bit sounds like a healthy mix of Buddhism and Christianity - particularly the Apocalypse and the whole "even the buddha's wrath will be incurred if one slights him thrice" shtick that Buddhism is supposedly known to have.
The way they combined Emet-Selch narrating and the location names being descriptions of their final days is genius. The perfect dungeon to end the MSQ.
@@AshramIndustries I immediately got that impression from the moment I saw that the first boss was titled "The First Beast".
So is this how monsters came into being?
@@DeltafangEX It probably helps that Therion is one of the names of _The Beast._
I can say with confidence that Amaurot is the best final level I have had the pleasure of playing in a video game.
@@kokopossum Nier still has Nier: Automata beat on that front, though. And on most other fronts, to be fair.
@@kokopossum Nier Automata has a cameo in the level 80 Alliance raid (24 man)
I'd put most of Falcom's "Trails" series' final levels above Amaurot (Liber Ark and Gral of Erebos especially). But outside of maybe Dungeons and Dragons, those are my favorite games of all time by leaps and bounds, so take your grain of salt.
@@pondrthis1 yup, Trails still takes the cake, but I love ancient cities so this one is good lol
Up there with me2 suicide mission
The only downside of this dungeon: the music gets abruptly interrupted by the unfitting generic mini boss theme once you reach them. Honestly they should've just let this music play throughout all the dungeon until you get to the final boss
Yeah I agree
Exactly what I was thinking
Honestly I didn’t mind.Was too enraptured with the conjuration of the literal end of days.
Or had a remix of the main boss theme play for the minibosses that fits with the tone and atmosphere of this, and fades in and out in time with this music to make it seamless; especially as the lyrics include the words "we fall".
I actually disagree. I think the selection of the boss music for this dungeon fit pretty well what kind of wild horrors the end of that world conceived. The First Beast had a standard worm model, but goddamn if that thing wasn't creepy as hell, the music conveyed that well enough.
I love how this is the final track of Shadowbringers MSQ, like we're not even at patches yet bois.
Everything about this song is amazing, between the Tempest's overworld, Amarout's main theme, and this.
The Amarout city theme is the first song that actually made cry while listening to it, knowing the context of what happens to it. This song only takes those emotions and shows you a journey of how the Ascians struggle and how they would later summon Zodiark as their final beacon.
It's beautiful.
I had to stop for a minute while in this dungeon with my trust party because that part at 0:47, Had to fight back tears myself there too. I'm thankful I wasn't with real people. Would have been embarrassing to ask "Give me a sec, need to stop crying first". Shadowbringers caught me off guard with how utterly fantastic EVERYTHING is. Especially the music. Always been a fan of Soken, but he leveled up to god tier on this one. I can't hate the ascians now either. They have been through SO much more than we ever have. Emet-Selch is right, I would have probably sided with him had I known and experienced everything his people did.
Me too man, I legit cannot go back to the city without tearing up.
What's scary is that he implies that the beasts were formed from their fear the same way primals are summoned through worship. Now imagine if they summoned Zodiark while still in that fear. It's no wonder a faction splintered off to summon Hydaelyn.
The entire last leg of MSQ was like a punch in the guts. All of that sense of loss.
Amaurot is an anagram for "My heart fucking hurts and my eyes are dry"
The Japanese name of this track makes this entire dungeon way more tragic. It translates to something like "The Final Fantasy."
For the Ascians, this 'was' their very own final fantasy, where their heroes and paragons failed utterly.
not to mention that the FINAL days were caused by something causing their every FANTASY to go out of control and wreak havoc...
死の刻 ～終末幻想 アーモロート～, Shi no Koku ～Shūmatsu Gensō Āmorōto～?, lit. Hour of Death ～Doomsday Illusion: Amaurot～ from wiki
Shumatsu = end (final)
Gensou = illusion (fantasy)
@@Lewd_Fox "The Final Fantasy of Amaurot"
@@Lewd_Fox Hits different when you realise Ultimate Illusion is actually a move Gilgamesh uses.
Emet-Selch: “Would you and yours give up half your numbers to save others?”
Everyone: silence...
"Of course they wouldn't!" So says the Professor.
That was about the point I understood where Emet Selch was coming from. Not only were we objectively inferior to his people from a power sense, but from a moral one too. From his perspective, we must be as wretched creatures, sinners I suppose you could say.
It seems you're forgetting all the Scions and the Exarch risking their life after Amaurot, jumping in front of Emet-Selch for the sole reason of buying us time.
@@i.147 THIS.
@@i.147 you can't deny Emet-selch is right here, in a fashion.
Being the immortal being he is, he looked at humanity as a whole, and as a whole, no way 50% of all humanity will be willing to sacrifice themselves for the other 50%
This outlook is also what made him underestimate the faith and determination of the _individual_ scions, and the length they would go simply because they had hope
No joke, when I first ran this dungeon, I barely spoke a word. The only times I did were to ask my husband, who was tanking, to let us stop twice so that I could just look around. I could scarcely breathe. This was such an impactful moment, and the music matched.
When you teleport after the 2nd boss and you're standing out in space watching the world burn, that left me breathless and overwhelmed, i forgot my party were way ahead of me lol
@@Silverman216 Yes! Thankfully, my group stopped because my husband told them to. Lol.
@@smileplease_91 lol Good man! The whole thing was a masterpiece! I felt it more cause I used the TRUST party so it felt appropriate to see this through with em
@@Silverman216 I wanted to, but my husband wanted to run it with me. It's his favorite dungeon. Honestly, Emet-selch was such an amazing villain. They did everything right with him that they got wrong with Ardyn in 15. I felt sorry for Emet-selch, and I didn't want to fight him. I cried at the end.
@@smileplease_91 Yeah Emet was the perfect "villain" I lowkey wanted to join him cause tbh a lot of us would have done the same thing if we lost our folks like that. Also Ardyn is one of my fav villains but Emet is like the perfect version when it comes to tragedy and fall from grace. Ah idk how they will top this expansion! All I know this expansion pushed FF14 into my top 3 FF games of all time!
"Remember us. Remember that we once lived."
That was the line that made me ugly cry.
Who else came here after hearing that absolute BANGER rock-version of this song in the Trailer?
Hell yeah
Me, I had goosebumps all the time.
It's here! th-cam.com/video/wgCCgI-DR9Q/w-d-xo.html
Well then, my friend... I'm here after more than that.
Where?
I love how each area pertains to Emet's narration. It goes even further when you realize that no specific names were even given just further pushing the idea that all is forgotten and gone. Even the people's names and locations were striped of their identity by the final doom. What an absolutely well done dungeon and story.
Alternatively, you could see it as all people and places of the ancients becoming a single entity identified only by a single crowning paragon, Amurot.
Weather statues: Termination
Me:Okay...
Haha yeah reminded me of Zelda! I love both games equally good so this made me happy.
@@eevieamalee2056 Also like SMT Nocturne's Kagutsushi: DEAD
yeah, in french it says apocalypse. "look up at the sky" ...no shit
This dungeon was nothing short of a masterpiece...the music is a perfect representation of everything Emet has been through and everything he wants to show us.
It’s whimsical it’s haunting it’s beautiful it’s hopeful it’s desperate it’s serious it’s righteous
Emet was truly the hero of his story
Just a reminder that Alphinaud himself acknowledges that Emet had good motives, but the means he used to achieve them were evil.
"Elegant, yet whimsical in its execution"
Vayne Solidor
2015: *remember us.... haurchefant*
2017: *remember us.... yotsuyu*
2019: *remember us.... emet*
yotsuyu?..... nah, fuck that bitch, having a shit life doesnt excuse her for all the despicable shit she did
@@davidloya4691 So Tsuyu is a nay and Emet is a yay?
I can smell double standards here...
@@thatoneeco well, as emet once said: moral relativism and all, i do not consider you to be truly alive. ergo, i will not be guilty of murder if i kill you. youtsuyu did despicable things because thats just what she wanted to do, she didn have a greater pourpuse..... she was just a piece of shit.
@@davidloya4691 This is a huge simplification of Yotsuyu overall.
---------- SPOILERS ----------
She was treated like garbage her entire childhood by the very people who are supposed to protect and love her. She was essentially 'sold' off to an abusive husband by her own family, then actually sold off as a whore because of her deceased husband's debts- someone she didn't have any control over marrying in the first place, let alone choose.
Her eventual actions aren't excusable, but they came from a place that I think warrants more empathy. She didn't come into this world wanting to do terrible things- her Tsuyu persona being the perfect example of what she really could have been like had she been raised properly and maybe with someone like Gosetsu as a proper guiding figure.
Childhoods tend to be very formative that way.
In contrast, I think it's very easy to be enamoured with Emet Selch because he's witty and funny and he loves to downplay the severity of his actions because he believes to be above it all. It's amazing how much sympathy he can garner despite doing cataclysmically worse things than Yotsuyu could ever hope to achieve.
- He made Vauthry part sin eater, which in turn, caused that whole disastrous mess on the First. Literally the death of almost the entire planet.
- He MADE THE GARLEAN EMPIRE, which literally built on conquering people and murdering them, all to MAKE A CALAMITY HAPPEN TO LITERALLY KILL EVERYONE ON THE SOURCE.
- He wanted you to DIE and become a horrible Sin Eater so you can KILL EVERYONE AND DESTROY EVERYTHING.
- Hand waves complete extinction of a 'lesser people' because he deems his people 'more important' to live.
- He shot pure boy Graha Tia in the back.
Like... if you're going to condemn Yotsuyu okay, sure. But let's not forget behind all the charisma and charm that Emet has, he really was a contemptible, shitty bastard. He is rightfully tragic and I think it's good to empathize with his position- but he's still a fucking cold blooded monster and trying to hand wave that while in the same breath condemn Yotsuyu with no understanding doesn't sit well with me.
@@davidloya4691 Yotsuyu did everything she did because she wanted revenge for everything she went through. Sure it doesn't excuse anything she did but you can have empathy for her and her suffering.
She was betrayed by literally all the people she knew, and was treated as an object her whole life.
People ACTUALLY buying into Emet's eugenics rhetoric is...questionnable at best. He did a lot of "despicable shit" as you said...including 8 planet-wide genocides (killing billions of lives in the process) and created 2 totalitarian empires who murdered and reduced people into slavery and caused themselves 2 calamities in the Source (almost 3 if you count the Black Rose). You have to be blind to not see than the Garlean empire is clearly nazi-coded.
Don't get me wrong, he's really well written and he's a tragic character. But how can you say that Yotsuyu is a piece of shit when Emet literally did the same thing as her but a trillion times worse ? Especially when, unlike Yostuyu, what happened to him was in part his and the Convocation's fault.
This dungeon with this song is one of the most emotional moments of the entire game for me. This plot is so epic and tragic at the same time that breaks my heart in ways I can't even describe. It's a crazy experience play this dungeon focusing on the enemies and mechanics and at the same time being flooded by this overwhelming emotion while you are literally witnessing the crumbling of an entire world and civilization....
Even though there is incredible destruction all around, the music itself is uplifting... Like how the sad piano in the Trench is playing for the ghosts of the ascians, I feel like this music is playing for the glory of the height of ascian civilisation. I feel that... Even at the very end, the ascians held on as long as they could, and there is never shame in that.
@M. Woller Yeah, because the followers of Zodiark wanted to undo the life created by sacrificing a large portion of their population, in order to *hopefully* make Zodiark return the people it ate to exist and create life.
@M. Woller No, it's stated that the followers of zoldiark wanted to sacrifice all of the newly born life to make the comeback of the sacrificed ascians.
The followers of hydealyn didn't agree and wanted the new world to belong to the new lifeforms instead, and that the ascians didn't have the right to sacrifice the living new races to make those that were already dead come back.
@M. Woller The reason they wanted to gather energy was to sacrifice that energy. Go re-read the whole amaurot story bruh
M. Woller You may need a reread man, they were going to nourish the planet and then sacrifice that life to bring back their brethren.
@@saintgeekSG he speaks the truth though, Zodiark is not good but neither is Hydaelyn. She killed a whole world and splitted the souls and that world to rule them, something is not right.
This whole dungeon was pretty terrifying but also tragically unique due to the fact that the monsters here are being created from the fears of the Ascians due to the fact that their creations are made from their imaginations. That first boss is creepy looking as hell. But seeing them scatter about trying to avoid an inevitable oblivion broke my heart. When I ran into the first one, I fell in love with them as a group of people. They seem so chill.
It's crazy how they've always been portrayed as the villians throughout all of FF for the most part but now I find myself questioning if our characters are doing the right thing. I wonder what Hydaelyn will say about this turn of events.
So the Ascians created all of those terrifying beasts?
@@djentleman1597 Yeah they create things with their thoughts and because they were scared, their worst fears became real just like everything else they thought before that.
Honestly fuck Hydalyn. She can go suck one. Ascians forever baby
Emet-Selch did nothing wrong
This is peak FF14, I don't know how they can top this. Without a doubt the best dungeon in the entire game.
Thank you Shadowbringers.
Well, I say they topped the emet-selch fight and track with 5.3
Heroes' Gauntlet says hello
That's exactly what I though while going throught it. The entire dungeon + scenes is the best FFXIV ever got.
Can't do this dungeon without crying. This is the most surreal part of the game.
I legitimately do not ever want to run this dungeon ever again. I dont ever want to become desensitized to this. Because the suffering of the Amaurotians is potent with every step you take in this dungeon. Running this dungeon was a spine shivering experience and I dont want that experience to change in my mind.
And by the gods just...that final area just brought me to my mental knees.
This. I will never see the Ascians the same way from now on. Emet, you've become my favorite character in the game. Godspeed!
Honestly, whenever I want to take a breath and just take in the sights - what it all means and how it is relevant to each and every one of us in our every day lives - I'll rerun it in Trust.
I'm a speedrunner/raider/optimizer at heart but even I don't want to rush through this. Sometimes I really step back and appreciate being able to both hardcore raid and enjoy this amazingly crafted story content side by side.
I love everything about this game and I will never forget even a single moment of it far, far from the day the servers finally go down and our tale reaches its conclusion.
@@TJetPrime Emet was amazing, more appealing than ANY other character in the whole game. I unironically wanted him to win, but alas it IS an MMO so that couldn't happen.
I don't want to run it only because of the difficulty of final boss battle, whose mechanics are pretty tricky, if frustrating, for healers..
Agreed, I felt so depressed seeing all the destruction and I understood him and his perspective.
This dungeon is one of 14s high points. The theme, the gravity of the situation and hearing Emet Selch just hit me. I have no words...
I'm sad I'll never be able to wipe my memory and re-experience this place again for the first time. Now all I can do is watch my mates go thru it for the first time and enjoy their reactions.
My longtime best friend did this with me and told me something along the lines of "Remember this feeling." and I can't help everytime I listen to this song I get a random wave of hopelessness, like there's nothing left to save.
This dungeon truly showed the gravity of a cataclysm, the terror and overwhelming power swallowing an entire planet was mind blowing. This music truly represents that sense of hopelessness imo.
"The ground buckled, the cities burned, the rivers ran red with blood!"
God, those strings break my heart. What an absolutely incredible way to cap off an incredible expansion.
This is easily the best dungeon this game has ever put out. My heart was aching the whole time, and at the end of it all, I wondered if Square Enix would ever be able to make anything this powerful ever again. I hope they do, but honestly, I'm fine if they don't, because the bar has been raised to heights I never could've imagined before.
I legit cry every time I run this. It's so good.
Leveling a healer so I don't have to wait in queue to run it over an over.
I was drinking last night doing this dungeon and hearing the drop made me swell up 😭 the music in SHBR is by far the best
If it makes you feel better, I was stone cold sober and I still cried.
This entire expansion has been amazing, especially the last act of the story
Such a powerful theme for such a great dungeon.
As excited as I am for Endwalker, it's going to be incredibly hard to top Shadowbringers. This expansion really set the bar high. Absolutely incredible expansion!
just to think that endwalker is gonna be the grand finale of everything from ARR to ShB makes me think it's gonna go out with a bang also with yoshida saying how he wants FF14 to be his lifes work so i can't wait for whats to come
Did Endwalker end up toping Shadowbringers in the end?
@@EchoFoxtrotOmegaImo, yes
@@EchoFoxtrotOmegaIt did, by making its narrative even more relevant and adding layers upon layers to it. Finishing EW makes you want to play ShB (and the whole MSQ actually) again, which is in my book a proof of how good it is. And given it is actually hard to conclude long spanning stories, and many authors be it in movies, books, or games, have failed it, EW is to me better than ShB because not only did it bring a fitting end to every single thread of story, but it added layers onto them so you see the whole picture in a different light. All of this, without forgetting what's at the core of this story : emotions. Beyond all its grand epic tale, EW chose deliberately to focus on intimate scale sequences. A true masterpiece.
My first time run of this, the entire group agreed that it was probably our favorite dungeon for the expansion. We were just awed by both the music and the scenery (the boss fights were fun too).
Gods, my first run through of this.... I wanted to help them. I WANT to help them.... but I know I can't, as that would be dooming so, so many more....
I KNOW, right?
It's an interesting moral dilemma to argue, for sure. Does being a fracture of a larger being, yet having an identical capacity for emotion and thought as that larger being, invalidate the value of that fracture's life because it came from a greater whole?
This part of ShB I found to be incredibly emotional. I felt so much sympathy for the poor Ascians who suffered through this, yet I couldn't condone Emet-Selch's plans. The poor man has been through a hardship that barely any other being remembers. Beneath the cynical and uncaring exterior, he has just been hurting for millenia wanting to bring his people back. It's no wonder he feels the way he does... yet I still can't condone it. Not mass genocide.
This track just embodies the feeling of a tragedy--but one of massively epic proportions. The literal end of a world. A terrible, bloody, fiery oblivion. And there is naught you can do to save it, despite being the hero of both the source and the first... this is all just the recreation of a terrible memory. One that the final remaining Ascians must bear.
(okay im done with my essay i just really liked the end of ShB)
It represents not the tragedy of one world ending, but that world ending again and again, at Emet Selch's hands. He is the very terror he sought to banish with Zodiark...
@@ChainedFei
Geeez... what if he had succeeded in the task he was going about, do you think? Would he really be able to rejoin all the shards to begin with? The Ascians actions literally voided a portion of themselves in this continuity to begin with, making a shard and everything it was unrecoverable. Doesn't it seem like the path of Zodiark just continues onwards like this? Sacrifice half and half again, unending?
@@camazotzbat5970 I figure that the Ascians serving Zodiark are tempered, and as such, CAN'T question their goals and motives and the things they do to others because the will of Zodiark overrides it... What the ascians never bothered to consider, I think, is that there has to be another way.. but they're not capable of thinking that because Zodiark wishes to be free.
The layers to this melody throughout this part of the game as you progress... incredible
You know what they say... every hero is a villain in someone else's story.
This might still be my favorite song in the game, and one of my top songs of all time. I never fail to get teary eyed
Words can't describe what i felt going through the dungeon the first time. The names of the areas, the constant falling of AOE's, the mix mash of haunting enemies, the 2nd boss doing explosion no matter what, Emet's narration, the futility of the last area. All to show the despair of those final days. Shadowbringers is just plain brilliant.
This theme is just the absolute best. So majestical and beautiful despite what’s unfolding in the dungeon. I wish I could replay this entire expansion without any knowledge of it.
The last part of the dungeon... phenomenal art direction, I was in awe.
This has become my favorite dungeon, by far. I go through this at least 3-5 times daily, and it never ceases to amaze me. This morning, I noticed the dead Ascians by the door to the second boss, and it's heartbreaking. Despite what the current Ascians are doing to restore their home, you cannot help but hurt for a civilization that has lost everything.
Emet Selch is one of if not THE BEST FF villains ever. This is the best FF game since X.
I still cannot run this dungeon without tears....
The most dramatic, and emotional moment in the history of video games.
This is FFXIV's "show, don't tell" method. You wanna know how bad the final days looked? Well if my accounts of what happened were not enough, here you go! Experience it yourself. It's why the Kalm recollection event in FF7 is so powerful, you got a taste of how powerful Sephiroth is through gameplay.
Yep,still imho the single best dungeon of the entire game.
Dead Ends while good doesn't hold the candle to this from the sheer emotional valve.
Endwalker only made this dungeon a 1000x better let alone emotional asf.
What an incredible experience this expansion was. It really gave me the feeling like I was a hero, risking everything to save this beautiful world and its people from destruction. Yoshi and everyone did a fantastic job.
Running this dungeon changed my whole feelings toward the Ascians.. All I could think of while seeing their world burn was that I wanted to help them, and Emet specially. But it's so heartbreaking because I also know that the only way this could end is with me killing him.. that last smile before he was gone was totally devastating..
Yea... play this dungeon again after Endwalker msq. That's all I'm gonna say.
Me trying to heal through this: "I can't see through all the tears"
Endwalker makes this hit so different now oh my lord.
Especially since we can hear something at certain points in the background of the music that lots of us probably never paid attention before
This was dad, but after doing Endwalker and The Dead ends, this society was going to eventually end like the ones in that dungeon.
Probably go the way of the third society
Yeah a big red flag about their society was that death was the highest honor.
wait what@@Aoishineko
@@debatinghealer I don't know if they meant the same thing but every now and then you can hear Meteion singing in the background
This dungeon depressed me so much because I understood why Emet was doing what he was doing.
The fact that we still don't know exactly what caused the Final Days is honestly pretty scary
...and it seems like the Source is about to find out...
Someone knows.
Unfortunately, that someone is Fancy Daniel.
@@EinDose fancy Daniel 😆
@@EinDose I am calling that he is tempered by whatever caused the Final Days.
It'd make too much sense on why he'd even be permitted to be on the convocation (thus the title of Fandaniel), but be how he is in 5.4-5.55.
Even if he's a sundered, we know that if a Ascian rises properly to their seat and title they get their memories back from their time as a Amaroutine as shown with Mitron and Loghrif.
So Fandaniel should remember everything.
So imho either
A. The specific shard of him that we see in 5.3 onwards was tempered by the thing that caused the Final Days before he appeared in 5.3.
B. Fandaniel was the one to cause the final days himself by witnessing/teaming up with the entity that caused it.
C. Fandaniel isn't actually an Amaroutine, but is sort of like what Minfilia was to Hydaelyn before she got caught in reincarnation after stopping the flood of light, mixed with what Elidibus was to Zodiark. He is the voice and lesser-manifestation of the entity that caused the Final Days, ushering in it's own return.
but no matter what, Fandaniel clearly knows the way to cause it so we are going to come to a conflict with the creature that caused it in Endwalker.
@@Alovon Not the worst theory I've ever heard! I don't think the thing that caused the End of Days is a primal (partly because that would be way less interesting than alternatives), but that doesn't mean he can't be in league with it organically, and he clearly knows more about the ignition than we do.
Thank you so very much for posting this Dee... Soken was already a talented beast... but with Shadowbringers he has evolved, tapped into the divine ethereal, and synchronized with musical harmony.
Right this very moment as I'm writing this, I have my headphones listening to this looped. Absolutely beautiful. I'm very very close to declaring this as my favourite for this expansion... every instrument is resonating to my soul.
They were just so scared... this was such a tragic story.
For some reason, this gorgeous music to the backdrop of the end of this magnificent civilization is more heartbreaking than any other scene in this game. The theme of Amaurot plays even as it crumbles like a sort of helplessness. Like the musicians continuing to play even as the Titanic sank. It just resonates the despair and hopelessness that the ancients, and Emet himself felt in these final days.
Nothing in Stormblood could rouse the emotions this song gives me. I tear up every time I hear it. Combining the melancholy tone of The Tempest theme with gut wrenching despair in watching a civilization crumble. The worst part, we can only watch it happen. We can't save these poor people and it hurts so much.
No Loop idk man the boss theme was pretty epic
@@dinnyskips The normal boss theme, Triumph? It's definitely good, but it won't move me to tears.
Exactly how I felt.
I think the point of this display was actually to prove the contrary. Emet Selch wanted us to know him, really know what drives the Ascians. He was showing us what it is all for for him and what he would ressurect if only we would step aside and let he and his do what they must.
@Vincent Velasquez Not just that but that the current inhabitants of the world are imperfect beings and they would make them whole again.
It's even more eye opening when you realize that the female singing is...the Endsinger.
First arrived here last night and throughout I was just awestruck by the entire thing.
In the span of 30 minutes before this dungeon, I grew to love them and felt so bad seeing once nice people cowering in fear and dying left and right while the entire world is going to hell...
And if this is a taste to what the calamity will be, I can only imagine what it'll be like in Endwalker...
They did a fantastic job of making Emet-Selch such a lovable fixture.
"Remember us.."
The whole city and its destruction reminded me of Zanarkand
Not only that but if you listen it almost sound like they have some of music from fantasy 10 inside of this dungeon. if you listen to the final battle of final fantasy 10 and then re listen to this, i can hear some inspiration from the ffx.
Over a year later, and I don't ever think I'll find a duty in this game, or a dungeon in any other, that will ever match this one. What a fucking amazing finale.
Ala Mihgo: our nation is ruled by the tyrannical empire, are lives are so difficult
Ishgard: dude we been fighting dragons for a thousand years, also some of said dragons are our own kinsmen.
Emet-Selch: children please.
Our*
gbtygfvyg NO, NONE OF THAT.
SHAME ON YOU.
@@Darksaviour He's right though, but other than that your comment is great and funny =p
Emet-Selch created all the totalitarian empires in Eorzea though, so he's not one to talk.
@@Darksaviour Ohhhhhh you faced the wraith of a copy of Bahamut using meteor and you fialed to keep him back in his sphere?... that ushered in the 7th Umbral Era? Please!
We faced the wraith of the End of Days! And had the whole world burned to a crisp with meteors everywhere with giant monsters going aggro everywhere... Bahamut was child's play.
And we experience this once again....
When I first heard this music, and went through this dungeon, all I could think of was that I was watching a civilization's end. I was witnessing pure despair, and hopelessness, as if what would happen next was unavoidable. The star had already been set on a course, the course of its destruction. It brought tears to my eyes to think of just how the Amaurotians felt, witnessing this first hand. It's amazing that this music can really tell a story like that. Simply unbelievable. FF XIV is the best final fantasy game.
After Endwalker this dungeon hits different, somehow even more sad and depressing than before.
this song makes me feel way too many things.... soken you absolute god
This dungeon my GODS. Every time I get it in DR I enjoy it as if it were my first time. It is the final nod that made xiv my favourite game of all time. Emet I'm so sorry LaHEEbrea exists.
the feel is so damn real
“Dread it, Run from it, Destiny arrives all the same...”
This ALWAYS makes me cry no matter how many times I watched and listen, I just...it is just super tragic. I feel for them ancients, man..I really do
This expansion was positively epic. I just couldn't stop giggling at the epicness by the time I reached the third area of this dungeon.
You know, I love how this theme can go from Good underwater zone theme, to City theme with slight changes, to Multiversal Epic Where You're In Space Watching Meteors Crash Down During The Apocalypse without missing a beat. Seriously, the music deserves so much credit in this game.
this whole expansion was absolutely masterclass. I have never had a game throw such a profound moral dilemma at me before, and the execution was top tier.
Not been dissapointed with any of this music
I will never forget Emet-Selch.
Nor the ascians/amaurotians
My only complaint was that this music was replaced with the really unfitting mid boss theme when fighting the First and Second Beasts.
Outside of that, this dungeon had me stunned in awe
This expansion made me love Final Fantasy again.
I am not crying. You are crying.