Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Dave.]

So I'm in the final zone... and this is the stupidest fucking thing I've seen in this game so far. This entire expansion has been utterly disjointed in its concepts. "BRO DID YOU WATCH GAME OF THRONES, LETS DO GAME OF THRONES!" "YO MAN I JUST PLAYED CYBERPUNK 2077! LETS DO CYBERPUNK WITH SOULS!" "HEY MAN I JUST GOT DONE PLAYING SOMA AND BINGING ALTERED CARBON! LETS DO THOSE TOO!" Like fucking hell, it feels like I'm playing three fucking expansions at once. What the fuck is going on?

 

[Well Intentioned]

The claims of "media literacy" never cease to amaze me, the only thing stopping them from sound like conspiracy theorists is their belief that they're correct. You don't need to be media literate to fucking enjoy something, and it's okay to enjoy things for the wrong reasons, and it's okay to dislike something for a reason outside of big brain media literacy. And sometimes, this seems really hard for them to understand, you can like or dislike something, for a reason you can't comprehend, just that it does or doesn't hit you the right way. You don't need to write a five paragraph essay about what you dislike, you just know that it didn't get or hold your attention; I don't really give a shit about the Mona Lisa in an artistic sense. I like that it's a very old painting that still exists; but I'm not gonna fart huff about brush strokes, color choice, DaVinci's intent, and all that other shit, it's just some fucking woman.

I find people touting "media literacy" around simply mean "reading comprehension" and or critical thinking skills, and it's usually used as a criticism of someone who doesn't like something they do.

Again, the issue has been on execution or direction. I don't really care that they cast a troon for a character role -- it's very common in JP media to have different genders cast for roles (Goku from Dragon Ball, for example) and it's not being held up as a selling point by SE or whatever.

The issue is with the execution. Wuk Lamat is far from the only character that suffers from pisspoor writing and direction. Zoraal Ja is another character that suffers from really bad characterization. Thancred's VA seems to be suffering from a head cold at different points in the story. Etc.

XIV has always been about positive stories and trying to find the good in people and blahblahblah. There's nothing wrong with feel good stories, and it's been fun seeing where/how they try to do that (outside of EW, which was basically just 'the power of friendship compels you.')

There are so many of these type of exchanges:

"The place was attacked by Bad Guy."
"Yes, the place was attacked by Bad Guy."
"Bad guy attacked the place. It is a Bad Thing."
"But family."

Where what just happened is repeated over and over again. I understand that they have to err on the side of caution because they don't know when a player is going to put down the game and fuck off, and they want to be able to refresh people, but it's excessive to the point of insulting to the player's intelligence.

There's a lot of good/interesting stuff sort of lurking underneath the surface, but it fails to realize any of it, like a two-headed Mamool Ja at the abortion temple.

 

[Kheapathic]

Fucking finally free of this menace... still have to catch Furcacauda though.

 

[eggbread]

Out of morbid curiosity I've stuck with English voices. Wuk Lamat has only gotten worse. The guy can almost make a passable female voice when it's just normal dialogue, but the moment he has to show any emotion that goes completely out the window and the Wuk starts sounding like a 13 year old boy.

I'm curious to see just how bad it will get later.

It's probably because if he has to change his voice to yell or put any inflection on it it will lose the facade. The troon voices are basically like trying to suck your stomach in really hard and force a perfect posture but for your vocal chords. The second you do anything abrupt and dramatic it's obvious that it isn't your natural state.

 

[Duncan]

Been taking my sweet time with the expansion. Just beat the first Trial using Trusts because I didn't feel like waiting through the DPS queue. Every time I get annoyed at the story/sick of listening to Wuk Lamat I go play PVP as Picto which is actually really fun. I've always like XIV's PVP but playing Picto in PVP is just fun as fuck imo.

 

[Kier Starmer]

It's also because HRT fucks your vocal cords, it appears I was graced by god. Went to login and I had ran out of game time, played Elden Ring expansion instead. Reading all your comments and this sounds insufferable. I thought Elpis was the equivalent of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child apparently Living Memory wants a word.

PVP as picto was actually fun too I admit.

 

[Fcret]

It's also because HRT fucks your vocal cords, it appears I was graced by god. Went to login and I had ran out of game time, played Elden Ring expansion instead. Reading all your comments and this sounds insufferable. I thought Elpis was the equivalent of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child apparently Living Memory wants a word.

PVP as picto was actually fun too I admit.

I would definitely not recommend spending money on this until 7.2 when we actually start getting forays and shit. What we got on launch is extremely weak and almost insulting. I considered unsubbing completely but I sub in six month stints and my sub literally reupped last week so I'm already locked in through 7.1.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I know I've said it before, but now it's less a "maybe" and more an absolute - Shadowbringers was a fluke. The team accidentally wrote something compelling. They've proven that they're quite sorry about that.

June was a stacked month between Wrath of the Righteous and Elden Ring getting their DLCs, so I've been waiting to see the early impressions.
I don't think I've seen a single person who has been overall positive about it. I don't think they get to say "well, you see, covid" to magically get out of this one's glaring flaws.
Seems like a pretty easy pass.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Just finished MQ.

This shit story is worse than Stormblood, lmao. YOSHI P needs to make an expansion where you either fuck that stupid cat lady in the ass or kill her, one of the two.

I like Solution 9. Instead of Mexico just make cyberpunk the whole expansion.

 

[Fcret]

I know I've said it before, but now it's less a "maybe" and more an absolute - Shadowbringers was a fluke. The team accidentally wrote something compelling. They've proven that they're quite sorry about that.

I don't think people were really expecting it to be Shadowbringers quality or even Endwalker quality. My expectations were more like Stormblood or mid-level ARR. The core story also isn't terrible when you look at it at a high level.

The issue is that it progresses at a snail's pace. So many things that would have been three unvoiced dialogues in the open world have been stretched into 5-10 minute long voiced cutscenes and the characters spend so much time saying a whole lot of nothing. There is a baffling lack of solo duties or even "go to X and fight the Y that appears" style stuff.

The most shocking thing to me is that someone presumably played the MSQ in QA and signed off on it. That person needs to be booked into a mental asylum asap.

 

[Mr. Idiot]

@ChromaQuack Can’t respond or quote your quiz rage post so this’ll have to do:

As someone who also got outraged over the quiz bit, with the first bit the game is to some slight credit at least merciful enough to near the end of each pillar go ‘This lines/doesn’t line up with what was explained’ to “subtly” tell you if you should activate it or not and if you give the wrong answer at least 3 times the host will even say ‘there’s 2 correct pillars and they’re not next to each other.

As for the 2nd question, I guessed it correctly right away but this bit amused me:

even the game itself lowkey mocks her for this.

 

[ChromaQuack]

The core story also isn't terrible when you look at it at a high level.

The first half aka "travel around with an idiot to get them enough life experience to become a passable leader" is ok, I would even say I enjoyed the whole competition arc and learning bits and bobs about Tural.

The second half is a mess, it sucks shit from every conceivable angle.

 

[Rungle]

Could have explored the other shards.
Could have explored other planets.
Could have had another antagonist in the First trying to bring back the flood or some shit

 

[ChromaQuack]

Could have explored the other shards.
Could have explored other planets.
Could have had another antagonist in the First trying to bring back the flood or some shit

Coulda let me explore fucking fantasy texas and fantasy 'merica, have blue lizard stage a succesful coup and let me go full 1776 on his ass but no, we have to repeat the one plot point from the past 10 years again.

 

[Rungle]

Coulda let me explore fucking fantasy texas and fantasy 'merica, have blue lizard stage a succesful coup and let me go full 1776 on his ass but no, we have to repeat the one plot point from the past 10 years again.

I thought Y'shtola would betray the party at first even when she saw the void portal in EW setting in motion the next expansion.
Had a theory she'd use it to go back to the first and try to reunite with her lover but it goes terribly wrong turning her into an antagonist.

Caaaant have good story telling.

 

[Kier Starmer]

It's undeniable though that we need some Scions to die. The audience is tired of them and at this point, they are walking character husks. The female va eng for Alisienne is just delightfully awful, the scene where Estinein thinks she is the brother is a reminder of that. The jp actors are fine as usual but for a game saying a "new story", they are taking the wrong risks and pissing off both audiences.

It's so weird for Reddit of all places to turn on the game so hard but honestly, the game with forum culture has been slipping since SB, SB was just fucking abysmal.

 

[Kane Lives]

It's undeniable though that we need some Scions to die. The audience is tired of them and at this point, they are walking character husks. The female va eng for Alisienne is just delightfully awful, the scene where Estinein thinks she is the brother is a reminder of that. The jp actors are fine as usual but for a game saying a "new story", they are taking the wrong risks and pissing off both audiences.

It's so weird for Reddit of all places to turn on the game so hard but honestly, the game with forum culture has been slipping since SB, SB was just fucking abysmal.

Doesn't even need them to die. Remember the Company of Heroes? They fucked off after ARR (and the melee DPS role quests) and didn't overstay their welcome. Most of the lesser scions were similar. Writers could have easily wrote them into lesser roles and brought up new people to replace them.

 

[CptnSnshn]

The only good part of this Expac was the Moblins, Goblins are always the best part of FF14.

 

[Kier Starmer]

Do you think the release time has also exasperated this very tepid response?

It is releasing a week after one of the biggest game in recent history long awaited DLC. The Steam summer sale week along with summer just being the worst release window for games in general.

For me personally the game is an afterthought because the Elden Ring DLC is out and I don't know why that game is so fucking rewarded. I have completed that game tens of times, with numerous builds, there are some great summer sale deals too with a ton of JRPGs.

It just feels like they could have QA'd this game for a month or so and streamlined it. By just reading people's criticism the loop does not feel as rewarding because of constant cutscenes. EW was so heavy but the idea of worse than that makes me wonder about even picking up the game tbh. I agree SBr feels like a fluke

 

[Soycast Guy]

I can’t help but roll my eyes every time the culture clusterfuck in dawntrail is shown to be full of peace, love, and happiness. I get it’s Japanese happy idealistic writing, but c’mon, I can’t take it seriously. Especially as an American with how cultures here literally cannot fucking mix. Except with East Asian cultures, which generally just mind their own business. Though if you look at Muslims, they want to kill anyone who isn’t Muslim, so that doesn’t mix well with anyone else here. So right from the get-go I couldn’t take this story seriously. It’s just too unbelievable.