🟣Here are my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn! Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll talk about the characters of A Realm Reborn. 🟣 TIMESTAMPS - 0:00 Let's Talk About A Realm Reborn 1:12 SPOILER WARNING Through All of A Realm Reborn 1:29 Overall Impression 4:23 My Favorites 13:31 Story Highlights (ARR Spoilers Here!) 23:51 What I Missed the First Time 27:48 To Skip or Not to Skip ARR I got my PS5 when i was already halfway through New Game + so I don’t have any screen captures of the first half. Also, I’m still finding my voice in these TH-cam videos, still trying to figure out how much gameplay I should include or when is a video too long and what should be it’s own video. But I’m really enjoying the creative challenge 🤩 THIS IS SO MUCH FUN!
i love how much you love and appreciate every little thing in the stories. it makes me appreciate the smaller things too. youve put so much thought into the story and your feelings. love this👍
That roar is there because ARR and every expansion has an 8-man raid teaser. They are: Bahamut's roar, Alexander suddenly moving, Nero talking about Omega, Thancrecd and Ryne talking about the Empty, and Themis talking about Pandaemonium.
@@HeatherJustPlay yes and you should totally do Bahamut’s Coil because you get to see what Alisaie was up to during ARR after she split from Alphi!!!! Do it!!!!!!
@@HeatherJustPlay Yeah there is still a lot more story to go in the Raid Series and other Blue Quests Stories you should definitely check them out. Maybe start with the ARR Blue Quests then work your way up through each expansions Blue Quests.
@@ShellsGhost1 Coils of Bahamut is considered a High End Raid its not part of the Normal Raid roulette you should make a Party Finder group for it. Say that you want to run it Unsync just for story if you want to do it just for the story.
truthfully, many FFs orientated towards shonen anime (art- / story- / character-wise).., but FFXIV really breaks off from that and feels like it's orientated towards gud literature (and not animes or films)
@@pifu7677 Anytime I meet someone new who thinks anime is kids stuff, I change the subject to drama and mystery shows like House, Breaking Bad, or Law and Order. Then I explain a brief summary of Death Note. I ask "If you had a notebook that would kill anyone who's name is written in it, would you use it?" They get hooked with intrigue and I tell them where to watch it. They end up binging the whole show 😂
I played through this for the first time last year, and I don't remember 75% of the names you mentioned in this video, lol. I've come to appreciate the ARR story much more now that I'm at the end because I've been going through and clearing all of the side quests in the zones. The realm feels so much more full and fleshed out and interesting than I realized it was. I plan to also go back and replay the whole story now that I have a different perspective on the story. Especially now that I''ve leveled more jobs and done things like the raids and Bozja, so I can get the extra dialogue bits and whatnot. Great video!
I wanted to clear all the zone side quests too. Like before I proceed with Heavensward, I feel like I should do all the side quests of ARR now since it's all still relevant at this point int he story. But then I wouldn't get to making videos about Shadowbringers and Endwalker until like 2024 lol. I haven't done Bozja yet! I unlocked it but when I got there, I was confused on how it worked so I left 😅
@@HeatherJustPlay I was confused at first too. My brother had to explain it to me. One thing to note is that there are plenty of scenes in the game that change or have extra dialogue options based on what content you've finished. For example, if you play a healer job, there are certain cutscenes where you will actually help heal rather than just watch, or the scene in Endwalker where everyone comes to help, there's a TON that's dependent on what you've completed.
This was really well done! I do want to replay ARR sometime. Since I wasn't completely invested in it, I definitely missed a few things, but I'm sure it's worth coming back to. I also haven't done Coils myself but everyone keeps saying it's a must do! I kind of wish they had integrated more into the MSQ or at least made it a requirement.
Those "forgotten heroes" are the 1.0 players. In the early ARR game there are a few lines of extra dialogue for those of us that were there. Seeing Mother Miounne for the first time in ARR she ALMOST remembered me.
@@HeatherJustPlay The 1.0 players are basically the Warriors of Light on the battlefield in the ARR opener with the calamity. They are getting teleported away into the future. If you are a legacy player from back then, you even see how you pop up in the middle of whatever area you chose. It's so cool. :)
When you talked about Mor Dhona, I had to think about Amh Araeng, which makes probably my most favorite zone in the game, or at least one of them. The music is awesome and the area lives and breathes the events that took place there, it's just so historical and waaah XD I'm curious to learn what you thought about other expansions and your favorites there! Keep up the great work.
When I went through ARR the first time and reached the patch content, I had started feeling the slog of how long it was and all I wanted to do was reach the current content (which at the time was HW when I started). But when I made a new character and replayed through ARR. I had a bit more of a better experience with the story then I had the first go around. Also highly recommend Coil when I did the story on my second alt I did the story with the help of my FC who carried me through it.
I took FOREVER to go through ARR the first time since my partner and I did it together. I forgot a lot of the story on the way >.< since finishing EW I’ve been playing through on a new WoL, and I have found it SO much more intriguing on the second play through, knowing who out of the many characters are important, and what kind of things they are setting up. But I missed so many of those amazing little setups the first time through. Interesting that both your favourite solo duties were ones that did get reworked in the last year! Steps of Faith is brand new (I just did it on my alt character, it is AMAZING!!) and Rhitatyn got updated with one of the 6.X patches. It used to be an 8-person trial but it became more and more a meme as the years went on. Great that so much of it is soloable now, that definitely wasn’t the case the first time I played through - though I had some lovely max-level friends who took me through most of my first times in dungeons 😇 thanks for the amazing video! Appreciate hearing your thoughts ❤️
Great video Heather! Looking forward to future reviews like this one! Also, just wanted to say... I too made the mistake of only doing the MSQ and not bothering about the end expansion raids when I was a sprout, 'till about Shadowbringers (mainly due to anxiety of playing with other people). Until I met a certain character in ShB and wanted to know more about their story and took my first leap into the Eden raids. That's when I discovered it was a mistake to have skipped all the previous ones. There's a lot of lore that expands on the MSQ hidden behind the raids and other content (and people are so nice even if you screw up!). I highly recommend you doing them if you're interested in the lore. I'm currently also grinding the relic weapons because there's also story lore there. I've always been wondering whatever happened at/to the Isle of Val and turns out they've already told that story in Eureka! Also, the Hildibrand questlines never fails to make me laugh out loud, check them out! :) Kudos and keep up the good work!
Yes, I've decided that I'm going to incorporate all the raids as part of my New Game + journey. Seems like there's a lot of lore that I'm missing out on! I've done some of the Hildy quests - hilarious hahah.
I just watched a video where it showed where Revanant's Toll used to be before it was moved. Didn't realize there was some signs of the old camp still there now! How cool!!
omg please do coils! Also I get what you mean about the Yakuza series in comparison to FF14 but this is an MMO so they cant take the same risks with the story compared to stand alone games.
That Bahamut Roar is a tease for the Coils of Bahamut Raids story just like at the end of each expansion theres a tease for that expansions raids story. I would recommend to do the Blue Quests storylines of ARR and previous expansions. In a way the optional endgame storyline raids and other Blue Quests unlocks of each expansions and ARR are optional endings that tie up all the loose ends of that expansion. Edit: Just FYI Coils of Bahamut is considered a High End Raid its not part of the Normal Raid roulette you should make a Party Finder group for it. Say that you want to run it Unsync just for story if you want to do it just for the story.
oh btw. did you encounter the "Hildibrand" quest lines in ARR? real curious on your take (it might not be for everyone, but it's still a "must see" part of ffxiv) .... same goes for the "Crystal towers" & "Coil of Bahamut"
Coils of Bahamut has great story. Basically ESSENTIAL story. I strongly suggest you do it. If you have lv 90 character you can solo most of them unsync. Turn 9 ( or second coil turn 4 ) require some strategy but if you have ONE other people to help it still is very easy. Or maybe you can watch youtube video for the story. Great story anyway.
Yooooo, enjoyed the vid :DDD I really enjoyed following the dialogue of the grand daughter and grand father of the peoples just outside of Sastasha Also pretty cool about the world building dialogue of the people in the waking sands npc and how it changed every so often I think you would enjoy the coil series and the palace of the dead series. learning about edda was pretty cool haha, had to do it for a raid glam lolol Maybe for coil series maybe make a team and try it on lvl 50s or just steam roll it with lvl 90s for the story, up to you haha My friend tried to convince another of his friends to try out the free trial and we only got up to the end of 2.0, didn't really do the patch stuff cuz real life stuff came up xD but anyway, we did some of the new dungeons and new solos and the dungeon / trial leveling experience after the rework and ohhhhh some of those duties and solo stuff are really streamlined and gets you ready for rest of the expansions. I had lots fun doing the new reworked dungeons and trails, especially the solo duty that replaced old cape westwind. and the stuff that came up after that felt pretty epic haha xD in prae in the last boss, we wiped like 10+ times but was really fun xDDD the move they did to make arr and hw free is pretty big, but yeah I also think time is one of the biggest things for people to make it into HW. the 3.3 trial is what really got me to invest all in story wise for ffxiv lolol. ffxiv is my first entry into the final fantasy series so when I first played it a couple years back, I was straight up blind and the last mmo I played before ffxiv was runescape but back in 2005-2012 (on and off) lolol Witcher 3 left me a need to find game with good story feeling and I ended up playing ffxiv. and since then I've been playing ffxiv lolol. but my favorite story now is our own story that we make when I go raiding and stuff xD wiping to mechanics and over and over and over and finally killing internet bosses has been most fun I've had ever in video games xD the 99% failure makes the 1% success so much worth it lolol
The thing is, they've ALREADY gone back and truncated a lot of ARR, removing parts and changing instances and dialogues to make the story flow better. For example, Rhitahtyn was not always a solo instance. Until fairly recently, it was an 8-man trial! I'm currently playing ARR for the third time, and I'm a fan of some of the changes, but some of the cuts make me sad. :( I remember getting to the Ramuh section of the story and being disappointed that they cut the interlude with the sylphs impersonating your friends, for example. But I'm a fan of the new Rhitahtyn and Lahabrea solo instances. Also, the game has a habit of introducing the 8-man raids at the end of each expansion's base storyline. So the roar at the end of 2.0 WAS Bahamut. (Side note, the Coils of Bahamut is the ending to the 1.0 storyline.) But yes, Alexander stood up at the end of Heavensward. The raids of Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker are all teased after the credits of the X.0 patches. You don't HAVE to do to the 8-man raids, but it's highly recommended because there is content later that references them.
OOOOOOH is that what happened?! I remember being so confused when talking to Y'shtola, Thancred, and Papalymo (maybe also Yda?) in the Sylphlands and they kept asking me if I was actually me and I wasn't sure what they were referring to. "It is actually you right?" I was like... did I miss something? Also, I need to do the 8-man raids. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of lore!
@@HeatherJustPlay Personally I get why they don't make the raids mandatory (except when the bigger world lore would just not add up anymore like with the Crystal Tower Raids), but there is so much world lore and character development that I sometimes get the feeling they should. ^^; Many of these things are getting referred to in later expansions. Especially in Endwalker where everything is neatly tied together and wrapped up, there are small references (like who appears at the harbor in the end) but also really big ones (obviously I can't name those bc. spoilers. :) ) If you are unsure where to start or don't have the time for all of them, I would recommend doing at least the Stormblood 8-people ones. There are not just references to other things in the game but also to other Final Fantasy games.
This just makes me even more excited for what comes next. For context. I started streaming FFXIV on twitch late last year and am only NOW finishing up ARR (still doing the patches). And unlike a lot of the people, I've actually REALLY enjoyed pretty much all of it. I'm used to slow burn, I RELISH slow burn. I mean, like I said, I've been playing this game for over a year and am STILL only in ARR, because I am having so much fun with gathering, crafting, and ALLLLLL the sidequests filled with juicy juicy LORE. Heck, I had so much fun with the side content, I had both my mining and botanist classes above level 50 BEFORE I EVEN HAD ACCESS TO THE MOUNT. My gatherer classes were more than double my highest combat class. So yeah.... If ARR is the weakest thing in XIV?.... Dang.
As someone who originally did skip ARR and restarted on a new account 2 years ago to go through EVERYTHING no matter what it is, I'm definitely glad I went through it the second time around! I am never sure how long things are in games only because I play so very slowly so everything takes a long time for me to get through anyway haha, but yes it's a lot. But ARR showed me that maybe I can like games for the story - I used to think I was someone who didn't care about story in games, just about how much fun I can have while pushing buttons haha! ALSO!!!!!! YAKUZA 0!!! I love that game too, and the story has been great so far yeah! As always I am getting through it so extremely slowly but it is certainly a good time, and I was so glad to see that you talked about it! I'm looking forward to seeing the second video!
Beeing scared of Castrum Centrey, than looking up guides, looking out for mechanics in the fight.. => that whole fear, excitement and accomplishment of doing mechanics in parties, is why many of us raid :D (think you have a raider ader deep within you, you should explore more.., 1st Crystal Towers, than on ARR extreme trails, and at some point on Coils of Bahamut)
Oh boy, I just realized that you haven't done the 8-man raids and HOLY COW are you missing out on some exceptional story, especially Omega. Please do these!
does ng+ alow you to see Revenant's toll build up over time, or is it all finished by default? If the latter, you should google how it looked throughout ARR originally (and even how it was just like 1 tent in 1.x lol) it's really neat
Revenant's Toll has so much lower players their now then back then, considering that during A Realm Reborn it was constantly filled with End Game Players now all End Game Players are at the zones in the newest expansion not Revenant's Toll.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against them revisiting ARR, they already streamlined some of the patch content around the time 5.3 came out and after that I see the problem that another rework might cause. While it seem fairly easy to do it for MSQ, a lot of what happens there gets mentioned and referenced in side content, be it blue quests, side quests or when you talk to random npcs and not only in ARR but later expansions may fall back to this too. They'd have to look through every single text line in game and maybe change a lot of side quests too to make it consistent.
I liked ARR and know people who thought it was genuinely good. My personal thoughts on skipping ARR, if you feel it is a drag then maybe yeah. I don't want to see people drop out because they are actively having a bad time before the game "gets good." as for Yakuza, yeah that series is so great. I played since the original, but Yakuza 0 is the one where a lot of people jumped into the series. Great starting point and glad they made it because it made the series more popular and now we're even getting Ishin after waiting for ages for a localization.
I have Yakuza Kiwami sitting on my shelf. I was in the middle of Lost Judgement when I picked up FFXI V - still have to finish. I'd love to do the whole series! So good.
🟣Here are my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn! Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll talk about the characters of A Realm Reborn.
🟣 TIMESTAMPS -
0:00 Let's Talk About A Realm Reborn
1:12 SPOILER WARNING Through All of A Realm Reborn
1:29 Overall Impression
4:23 My Favorites
13:31 Story Highlights (ARR Spoilers Here!)
23:51 What I Missed the First Time
27:48 To Skip or Not to Skip ARR
I got my PS5 when i was already halfway through New Game + so I don’t have any screen captures of the first half. Also, I’m still finding my voice in these TH-cam videos, still trying to figure out how much gameplay I should include or when is a video too long and what should be it’s own video. But I’m really enjoying the creative challenge 🤩 THIS IS SO MUCH FUN!
14:30 and there it is, the moment that brought a tear of joy to my eye 🥹
I thought of you when I said it 😜
i love how much you love and appreciate every little thing in the stories. it makes me appreciate the smaller things too. youve put so much thought into the story and your feelings. love this👍
That roar is there because ARR and every expansion has an 8-man raid teaser. They are: Bahamut's roar, Alexander suddenly moving, Nero talking about Omega, Thancrecd and Ryne talking about the Empty, and Themis talking about Pandaemonium.
Ooooooh! Wow totally didn’t know that!
@@HeatherJustPlay yes and you should totally do Bahamut’s Coil because you get to see what Alisaie was up to during ARR after she split from Alphi!!!! Do it!!!!!!
@@Nyx_Oskurita I've been trying to do it for weeks since I recently realized it existed but the queue never pops.
@@HeatherJustPlay Yeah there is still a lot more story to go in the Raid Series and other Blue Quests Stories you should definitely check them out. Maybe start with the ARR Blue Quests then work your way up through each expansions Blue Quests.
@@ShellsGhost1 Coils of Bahamut is considered a High End Raid its not part of the Normal Raid roulette you should make a Party Finder group for it. Say that you want to run it Unsync just for story if you want to do it just for the story.
oh yes.. , talking to NPCs "next to the quest giving NPC" can give some interesting dialogues
I was definitely smiling by the end of finishing that duty 😂 Hell Yeah!
I'm replaying the story and I just got to that Lalafell that breaks his fast on Garleans xD I love that line so much lol
Haha it’s definitely a treat! 😝
I've always said ARR is very much a Shonen anime like Bleach, Naruto, or DragonBall Z. Then the patch hits and goes George R R Martin real fast.
Lol wow this is accurate 😝
truthfully, many FFs orientated towards shonen anime (art- / story- / character-wise).., but FFXIV really breaks off from that and feels like it's orientated towards gud literature (and not animes or films)
@@VampireNoblesse Animes can be good literature tho- Just gotta find the right ones
@@pifu7677 Anytime I meet someone new who thinks anime is kids stuff, I change the subject to drama and mystery shows like House, Breaking Bad, or Law and Order. Then I explain a brief summary of Death Note.
I ask "If you had a notebook that would kill anyone who's name is written in it, would you use it?" They get hooked with intrigue and I tell them where to watch it.
They end up binging the whole show 😂
@@Daecoth Insidious. 👏👏
I played through this for the first time last year, and I don't remember 75% of the names you mentioned in this video, lol. I've come to appreciate the ARR story much more now that I'm at the end because I've been going through and clearing all of the side quests in the zones. The realm feels so much more full and fleshed out and interesting than I realized it was. I plan to also go back and replay the whole story now that I have a different perspective on the story. Especially now that I''ve leveled more jobs and done things like the raids and Bozja, so I can get the extra dialogue bits and whatnot. Great video!
I wanted to clear all the zone side quests too. Like before I proceed with Heavensward, I feel like I should do all the side quests of ARR now since it's all still relevant at this point int he story. But then I wouldn't get to making videos about Shadowbringers and Endwalker until like 2024 lol. I haven't done Bozja yet! I unlocked it but when I got there, I was confused on how it worked so I left 😅
@@HeatherJustPlay I was confused at first too. My brother had to explain it to me. One thing to note is that there are plenty of scenes in the game that change or have extra dialogue options based on what content you've finished. For example, if you play a healer job, there are certain cutscenes where you will actually help heal rather than just watch, or the scene in Endwalker where everyone comes to help, there's a TON that's dependent on what you've completed.
This was really well done! I do want to replay ARR sometime. Since I wasn't completely invested in it, I definitely missed a few things, but I'm sure it's worth coming back to. I also haven't done Coils myself but everyone keeps saying it's a must do! I kind of wish they had integrated more into the MSQ or at least made it a requirement.
LET'S DO IT TOGETHER!
no honorable mention for "Such Devastation" in the favorite lines section? xD
This was not my intention.
Those "forgotten heroes" are the 1.0 players. In the early ARR game there are a few lines of extra dialogue for those of us that were there. Seeing Mother Miounne for the first time in ARR she ALMOST remembered me.
Oh wow seriously? Ok I need to find more info about this.
@@HeatherJustPlay The 1.0 players are basically the Warriors of Light on the battlefield in the ARR opener with the calamity. They are getting teleported away into the future. If you are a legacy player from back then, you even see how you pop up in the middle of whatever area you chose. It's so cool. :)
Whattt! That’s so cool!! 🤯
@@Sketchblopp man, I had totally forgotten about that.
When you talked about Mor Dhona, I had to think about Amh Araeng, which makes probably my most favorite zone in the game, or at least one of them. The music is awesome and the area lives and breathes the events that took place there, it's just so historical and waaah XD I'm curious to learn what you thought about other expansions and your favorites there! Keep up the great work.
When I went through ARR the first time and reached the patch content, I had started feeling the slog of how long it was and all I wanted to do was reach the current content (which at the time was HW when I started). But when I made a new character and replayed through ARR. I had a bit more of a better experience with the story then I had the first go around. Also highly recommend Coil when I did the story on my second alt I did the story with the help of my FC who carried me through it.
I took FOREVER to go through ARR the first time since my partner and I did it together. I forgot a lot of the story on the way >.< since finishing EW I’ve been playing through on a new WoL, and I have found it SO much more intriguing on the second play through, knowing who out of the many characters are important, and what kind of things they are setting up. But I missed so many of those amazing little setups the first time through. Interesting that both your favourite solo duties were ones that did get reworked in the last year! Steps of Faith is brand new (I just did it on my alt character, it is AMAZING!!) and Rhitatyn got updated with one of the 6.X patches. It used to be an 8-person trial but it became more and more a meme as the years went on. Great that so much of it is soloable now, that definitely wasn’t the case the first time I played through - though I had some lovely max-level friends who took me through most of my first times in dungeons 😇 thanks for the amazing video! Appreciate hearing your thoughts ❤️
Oh wow I must’ve played Rhitatyn right after it became solo - how interesting! And thanks for watching 😊
Great video Heather! Looking forward to future reviews like this one!
Also, just wanted to say... I too made the mistake of only doing the MSQ and not bothering about the end expansion raids when I was a sprout, 'till about Shadowbringers (mainly due to anxiety of playing with other people). Until I met a certain character in ShB and wanted to know more about their story and took my first leap into the Eden raids.
That's when I discovered it was a mistake to have skipped all the previous ones.
There's a lot of lore that expands on the MSQ hidden behind the raids and other content (and people are so nice even if you screw up!). I highly recommend you doing them if you're interested in the lore. I'm currently also grinding the relic weapons because there's also story lore there. I've always been wondering whatever happened at/to the Isle of Val and turns out they've already told that story in Eureka!
Also, the Hildibrand questlines never fails to make me laugh out loud, check them out! :) Kudos and keep up the good work!
Yes, I've decided that I'm going to incorporate all the raids as part of my New Game + journey. Seems like there's a lot of lore that I'm missing out on! I've done some of the Hildy quests - hilarious hahah.
Regarding your love of Mor Dhona if you had played 1.0 then you could watch Revenants Toll being built over several patches.
I just watched a video where it showed where Revanant's Toll used to be before it was moved. Didn't realize there was some signs of the old camp still there now! How cool!!
omg please do coils! Also I get what you mean about the Yakuza series in comparison to FF14 but this is an MMO so they cant take the same risks with the story compared to stand alone games.
It’s on the list! And yes I totally get that but I feel like they stick the landing with every expansion, regardless of it being an MMO, you know?
That Bahamut Roar is a tease for the Coils of Bahamut Raids story just like at the end of each expansion theres a tease for that expansions raids story.
I would recommend to do the Blue Quests storylines of ARR and previous expansions.
In a way the optional endgame storyline raids and other Blue Quests unlocks of each expansions and ARR are optional endings that tie up all the loose ends of that expansion.
Edit: Just FYI Coils of Bahamut is considered a High End Raid its not part of the Normal Raid roulette you should make a Party Finder group for it. Say that you want to run it Unsync just for story if you want to do it just for the story.
ARR didn’t get good for me until minfillia got taken. And now I’ve been stuck doing lvl 50 MSQs for a month 😂
7:25 "Lived in" is probably what you're looking for.
oh btw. did you encounter the "Hildibrand" quest lines in ARR? real curious on your take
(it might not be for everyone, but it's still a "must see" part of ffxiv)
....
same goes for the "Crystal towers" & "Coil of Bahamut"
I have! Haven't done them all but Hildy is hilarious haha.
Coils of Bahamut has great story. Basically ESSENTIAL story. I strongly suggest you do it.
If you have lv 90 character you can solo most of them unsync. Turn 9 ( or second coil turn 4 ) require some strategy but if you have ONE other people to help it still is very easy.
Or maybe you can watch youtube video for the story. Great story anyway.
Maggie! I play the old Praetorium when Maggie had more screen time. The new one really felt a bit less meaningful now but still have our magitek
Yooooo, enjoyed the vid :DDD
I really enjoyed following the dialogue of the grand daughter and grand father of the peoples just outside of Sastasha
Also pretty cool about the world building dialogue of the people in the waking sands npc and how it changed every so often
I think you would enjoy the coil series and the palace of the dead series. learning about edda was pretty cool haha, had to do it for a raid glam lolol
Maybe for coil series maybe make a team and try it on lvl 50s or just steam roll it with lvl 90s for the story, up to you haha
My friend tried to convince another of his friends to try out the free trial and we only got up to the end of 2.0, didn't really do the patch stuff cuz real life stuff came up xD but anyway, we did some of the new dungeons and new solos and the dungeon / trial leveling experience after the rework and ohhhhh some of those duties and solo stuff are really streamlined and gets you ready for rest of the expansions. I had lots fun doing the new reworked dungeons and trails, especially the solo duty that replaced old cape westwind. and the stuff that came up after that felt pretty epic haha xD in prae in the last boss, we wiped like 10+ times but was really fun xDDD
the move they did to make arr and hw free is pretty big, but yeah I also think time is one of the biggest things for people to make it into HW. the 3.3 trial is what really got me to invest all in story wise for ffxiv lolol. ffxiv is my first entry into the final fantasy series so when I first played it a couple years back, I was straight up blind and the last mmo I played before ffxiv was runescape but back in 2005-2012 (on and off) lolol Witcher 3 left me a need to find game with good story feeling and I ended up playing ffxiv. and since then I've been playing ffxiv lolol. but my favorite story now is our own story that we make when I go raiding and stuff xD wiping to mechanics and over and over and over and finally killing internet bosses has been most fun I've had ever in video games xD the 99% failure makes the 1% success so much worth it lolol
I'm almost done ARR right now, and I'm so burnt out! I don't know if I can make it...
The thing is, they've ALREADY gone back and truncated a lot of ARR, removing parts and changing instances and dialogues to make the story flow better. For example, Rhitahtyn was not always a solo instance. Until fairly recently, it was an 8-man trial! I'm currently playing ARR for the third time, and I'm a fan of some of the changes, but some of the cuts make me sad. :( I remember getting to the Ramuh section of the story and being disappointed that they cut the interlude with the sylphs impersonating your friends, for example. But I'm a fan of the new Rhitahtyn and Lahabrea solo instances.
Also, the game has a habit of introducing the 8-man raids at the end of each expansion's base storyline. So the roar at the end of 2.0 WAS Bahamut. (Side note, the Coils of Bahamut is the ending to the 1.0 storyline.) But yes, Alexander stood up at the end of Heavensward. The raids of Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker are all teased after the credits of the X.0 patches. You don't HAVE to do to the 8-man raids, but it's highly recommended because there is content later that references them.
OOOOOOH is that what happened?! I remember being so confused when talking to Y'shtola, Thancred, and Papalymo (maybe also Yda?) in the Sylphlands and they kept asking me if I was actually me and I wasn't sure what they were referring to. "It is actually you right?" I was like... did I miss something? Also, I need to do the 8-man raids. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of lore!
@@HeatherJustPlay Personally I get why they don't make the raids mandatory (except when the bigger world lore would just not add up anymore like with the Crystal Tower Raids), but there is so much world lore and character development that I sometimes get the feeling they should. ^^; Many of these things are getting referred to in later expansions. Especially in Endwalker where everything is neatly tied together and wrapped up, there are small references (like who appears at the harbor in the end) but also really big ones (obviously I can't name those bc. spoilers. :) ) If you are unsure where to start or don't have the time for all of them, I would recommend doing at least the Stormblood 8-people ones. There are not just references to other things in the game but also to other Final Fantasy games.
This just makes me even more excited for what comes next. For context. I started streaming FFXIV on twitch late last year and am only NOW finishing up ARR (still doing the patches). And unlike a lot of the people, I've actually REALLY enjoyed pretty much all of it. I'm used to slow burn, I RELISH slow burn. I mean, like I said, I've been playing this game for over a year and am STILL only in ARR, because I am having so much fun with gathering, crafting, and ALLLLLL the sidequests filled with juicy juicy LORE. Heck, I had so much fun with the side content, I had both my mining and botanist classes above level 50 BEFORE I EVEN HAD ACCESS TO THE MOUNT. My gatherer classes were more than double my highest combat class. So yeah.... If ARR is the weakest thing in XIV?.... Dang.
Oh you are in for QUITE the ride with the expansions. It ONLY gets better and I'm so excited for you!!
As someone who originally did skip ARR and restarted on a new account 2 years ago to go through EVERYTHING no matter what it is, I'm definitely glad I went through it the second time around! I am never sure how long things are in games only because I play so very slowly so everything takes a long time for me to get through anyway haha, but yes it's a lot. But ARR showed me that maybe I can like games for the story - I used to think I was someone who didn't care about story in games, just about how much fun I can have while pushing buttons haha! ALSO!!!!!! YAKUZA 0!!! I love that game too, and the story has been great so far yeah! As always I am getting through it so extremely slowly but it is certainly a good time, and I was so glad to see that you talked about it! I'm looking forward to seeing the second video!
Oh please tell me when you finish Yakuza 0. It is SUCH a good story! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
@@HeatherJustPlay Will do!
Beeing scared of Castrum Centrey, than looking up guides, looking out for mechanics in the fight..
=> that whole fear, excitement and accomplishment of doing mechanics in parties, is why many of us raid :D (think you have a raider ader deep within you, you should explore more.., 1st Crystal Towers, than on ARR extreme trails, and at some point on Coils of Bahamut)
Crystal Tower is actually required as part of the ARR MSQ so I did those but haven't done the others! Coils is next on my list!
Oh boy, I just realized that you haven't done the 8-man raids and HOLY COW are you missing out on some exceptional story, especially Omega. Please do these!
I will! And I'll make videos about them!
@heatherjustplay are you going to play FFXVI?
The thing with ARR is that it's the base game and sets the tone going forward. So of course it's long.
Make the others too :D
does ng+ alow you to see Revenant's toll build up over time, or is it all finished by default? If the latter, you should google how it looked throughout ARR originally (and even how it was just like 1 tent in 1.x lol) it's really neat
It's all finished by default but just Googled and wow!!
Revenant's Toll has so much lower players their now then back then, considering that during A Realm Reborn it was constantly filled with End Game Players now all End Game Players are at the zones in the newest expansion not Revenant's Toll.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against them revisiting ARR, they already streamlined some of the patch content around the time 5.3 came out and after that I see the problem that another rework might cause. While it seem fairly easy to do it for MSQ, a lot of what happens there gets mentioned and referenced in side content, be it blue quests, side quests or when you talk to random npcs and not only in ARR but later expansions may fall back to this too. They'd have to look through every single text line in game and maybe change a lot of side quests too to make it consistent.
Oh yeah that’s true. They’d probably have to make a lot of changes throughout all of FFXIV.
I liked ARR and know people who thought it was genuinely good. My personal thoughts on skipping ARR, if you feel it is a drag then maybe yeah. I don't want to see people drop out because they are actively having a bad time before the game "gets good."
as for Yakuza, yeah that series is so great. I played since the original, but Yakuza 0 is the one where a lot of people jumped into the series. Great starting point and glad they made it because it made the series more popular and now we're even getting Ishin after waiting for ages for a localization.
I have Yakuza Kiwami sitting on my shelf. I was in the middle of Lost Judgement when I picked up FFXI V - still have to finish. I'd love to do the whole series! So good.
PLAY COILS :)