Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

I finally played through the MSQ myself. I did it with JP voices. Here are my thoughts.

  1. Wuk Lamat is very cute. Her JP voice fits perfectly with her spunky attitude. You can tell that she's young, hot blooded and friendly. She gives off a bit of tsundere too and her JP voice actress sells the stutters to give off the impression that she's full of bluster to hide her inexperience. This will be a journey for her as much as it'll be for us.
  2. Was a bit jarring to hear the tonal shifts for the voices given that I played on EN voices for some 10+ years. But I got used to it pretty quick. My one real complaint about JP over EN voices is that JP voices sound pretty generic across the board. They are great at being animated and expressing emotions, but stuff like unique accents from different cultures get lost because JP VAs can't really fake an accent. At least not enough for non japanese to tell. For them it might be a difference in dialect rather than accent.
  3. I listened to Wuk's En voice too to make comparison. I agree with @Gravemind that it isn't maybe as bad as everyone is making it out to be but I feel like it's a Yong Yea type of situation where the voice just doesn't fit the character more than the VA just being outright awful. As much as I dislike the troon himself, he would probably be much better voicing a different kind of character. Wuk is very loud and bombastic and requires a voice more natural sounding than someone trying to force it out. If the troon goes too hard, he'll end up sounding more like a boy and I feel like him doing a constant battle of trying not to oversell it leads him to a situation where he sabotages himself in order to fit with his vision of how the character should sound like. You want a character to sound natural so when you have a situation where people can sense that you're obviously playing pretend, not everyone will be able to suspend belief enough to let it slide.
  4. During the duty, we got a taste of a new possible AOE skill for WAR. It looked really similar to the move Ravana uses where he cleaves the huge pizza in front of him except it's a circle AOE. Good, maybe more circle AOEs will piss of Lynx Fagelli some more so he can make more videos malding about it like a petulant child.
  5. When Wuk mentioned she had a brother that attended the Studium, I immediately called that it was the miqo from the key art. Obvious, but it was gratifying anyway to have it confirmed.
  6. Erenville is being set up to be Wuk's foil. The very obvious japanese trope of having a boy and girl as childhood friends. The girl is bubbly, friendly and optimistic while her male counterpart is supposed to be cynical, low energy and a buzzkill. Moenbryda and Urianger 2.0. Now whether or not that dynamic is going to capture me a second time has yet to be seen but they've laid some small hints that their friendship is strained. At least on his side.
  7. Looks like Urianger, Thancred and possibly Estinien are going to be the champions of another claim to the throne. My money is on the princess girl at the top of the key art.
  8. I'm predicting that all the claims to the throne are just adopted children of the current ruler. Maybe they'll throw a curve ball and one of the claims will be a biological kid.
  9. Interested in seeing the birthplace of blue magic as well as other cultural aspects. A lof of modernized things and animals like the corgis and chihuahuas supposedly came from the "New World" so I'd like to know more.
  10. Apparently they have cerulium there in large quantities, yet Garleans never attempted to annex the continent for themselves to take their resources. According to Wuk, Turallyions knew about Garleans and their propensity to invade other lands and felt relief knowing they wouldn't be a target any time soon when the empire collapsed. I'd like to know more in detail how they managed to stay off the radar for so long. Hopefully there's a better explanation other than them just being really out of the way.
  11. Lastly, so far I like how female hrothgar are in game. I was afraid the facial movements and expressions would be weird, but they were fine. I've heard some complaints from people that female hrothgar don't look beastial enough or that their muzzles aren't long enough, yet 9 times out of 10 when I ask which face they like more, they pick the face that looks the most uncally valley, cats the live action musical looking one out of them all. So you want them to have longer muzzles, but you like the most human looking one of the bunch? You're retarded. Their faces look fine. All of them.
Edit:

I will continue to main Monk. I know it's become a meme job at this point but I have too much of a sentimental attachment to monk to main another job. I just love the martial arts aesthetic too much. So I will be going through DT as Monk. But I will be picking up both Viper and Picto when it comes out and dropping Ninja to my alt.
 
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I really got to give the JP voices a try; always ran with the English VAs, but the JP actors sound fairly solid.
 
You know, the moment that Gaia was dragged back up to make a cameo, it all clicked. The shitty writing, the obsession with crystals, the constant references to LIGHT and DARK, the fucking nonstop "comic" moments that give Whedon a run for his money and seem tonally out of place with everything -- of course! The whole sequence was just farmed out to Nomura. No wonder it would be the second time I just started skipping cutscenes!

Wuk just sounds like a gay man. It's pretty flat. The range of emotive expression is pretty limited here.
The more you emote, the more clear it is that it's a masculine voice, so they... don't emote. The limitation means that when the character should have the kinds of emotive swings we might expect of, say, Astarion, we instead get... not quite a stoic tone, but something closer to that camp than to an energetic one.

I love how the void shit could've been anything else entirely and it'd have as much bear-in to this story's progression into dawntrail. What a fantastic waste of time.
This is legitimately just a Japanese conversational + storytelling thing. You play enough semi-modern JRPGs you will see it constantly.
There's always a debate as to what extent localization should meddle with the source material, and there's plenty of examples of it clearly overstepping its bounds to draw from in recent memory. But I would be in favor of chopping these scenes out from the non-JP client versions of the game, if only because it feels like it translates poorly in this game's storytelling.
Whereas a film can make these sequences interesting, "remember this thing someone said five minutes ago?" in a faded filter lacks the same punch.
 
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Apparently they have cerulium there in large quantities, yet Garleans never attempted to annex the continent for themselves to take their resources. According to Wuk, Turallyions knew about Garleans and their propensity to invade other lands and felt relief knowing they wouldn't be a target any time soon when the empire collapsed. I'd like to know more in detail how they managed to stay off the radar for so long. Hopefully there's a better explanation other than them just being really out of the way.

A lot of that comes down to Ascian manipulation and having the Garleans focus on Eorzea/Dalamud project/etc.
 
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There's always a debate as to what extent localization should meddle with the source material, and there's plenty of examples of it clearly overstepping its bounds to draw from in recent memory. But I would be in favor of chopping these scenes out from the non-JP client versions of the game, if only because it feels like it translates poorly in this game's storytelling.
Whereas a film can make these sequences interesting, "remember this thing someone said five minutes ago?" in a faded filter lacks the same punch.
I fundamentally agree that it's deeply annoying, but unfortunately the potential downsides to rewriting cutscenes and character actions to flow more naturally in English are astronomical.

Extra money spent on different versions, new character motions/timing in cutscenes, ad nauseum. It would require perfect execution, and even then purists would complain.

I just don't see a way around it. Well, aside from an 80-year campaign to make Japanese writers more normal.
 
I love how the void shit could've been anything else entirely and it'd have as much bear-in to this story's progression into dawntrail. What a fantastic waste of time.
The void has enough character and mystery behind it that it could have been it's own expansion to mirror Shadowbringer. We are speedrunning inter-dimensional conflict in post patch content. Everything in the story is laid bare almost immediately. The villains don't try to hide their intenions, they all show up and immediately get themselves killed. I guess that's fine for a faction that does want to kill themselves but maybe give them a motivation worth caring about. And again Y'Sthola exists only to move the plot forward when they write themselves into a corner. Not only did she single-handedly figure out atmos and using it for travel into the void, but she also figured out how to siphon light aether from the first direct into the void. She can do all that but she still can't figure out how to get back to the first to visit Runar.
 
No. The japanese are not going to start putting gay pronoun bullshit into their games. It is a japanese product, stop trying to change an entire social culture to fit your delusions in a disguise of inclusion.
I really hope Koji and the rest of the localizing team don't cowtow to these terminally insane people.
I guess that's fine for a faction that does want to kill themselves but maybe give them a motivation worth caring about.
Rubicante was the only one I liked out of the bunch. He was at least able to interact with us on a deeper level and had a higher purpose than his mustache twirling, laughably evil villain tropes of his kin. He was able to prove that there are voidsent that exist that are good and legitimately want to do the right thing and that he was just a really good guy manipulated into doing some bad stuff by the very person who destroyed the world he loved.

The others didn't seem to care about their lot in life. They were happy being these immortal, powerful fiends and using their power to pick and weaker people. None of them showed any interest in Golbez's actual plan, they just went along with whatever he did because he dangled an aether steak around under their noses and they agreed to join him only because he promised them more power. Rubicante was different. Unlike his brothers and sister, he was an actual hero before he turned. He mourned the destruction of his world, the world he wanted to protect and honed his magic to do so and even lost his friend to do. Even after turning, he still retained his mortal heart and joined Golbez because he actually believed in what Golbez was trying to do. He wasn't looking for excuses to pick on the weak, he didn't brag about his immortality instead lamenting his inability to die. He became strong mostly on his own strength instead of stealing from others. He just really wanted to save his world, to see it's beauty and majesty again and when he's defeated, he doesn't curse us or curse his fate. He's relieved to finally be able to rest and that he met his end in a world he looked upon and saw how colorful and full of life it was, reminding him of his own home.

In the end Rubi is getting what he wanted. Even though he won't be alive to see it.
 
The localisation team is in itself heavily compromised these days. Koji is either largely absent or allowing it to happen since his replacement who stepped into his former role is a woman known as Kate who goes by 'she/they' pronouns and has gleefully admitted to pushing to change the fae to go by they/them pronouns, as seen here:

 
The localisation team is in itself heavily compromised these days. Koji is either largely absent or allowing it to happen since his replacement who stepped into his former role is a woman known as Kate who goes by 'she/they' pronouns and has gleefully admitted to pushing to change the fae to go by they/them pronouns, as seen here:

It probably only went through because tbh, I can't really tell what they are just by looking at them and I don't really care about a bunch of pixies who are a fictional race of magical beings.

Afaik, they could have done the same for loporitts but they didn't so it's not all bad. Ultimately, Yoshi has the final say in what actually goes through and he's been based enough so far despite some of his EN team trying to push narratives in the west.
 
The localisation team is in itself heavily compromised these days. Koji is either largely absent or allowing it to happen since his replacement who stepped into his former role is a woman known as Kate who goes by 'she/they' pronouns and has gleefully admitted to pushing to change the fae to go by they/them pronouns, as seen here:


That decision makes sense from the source material they were drawing on (Scottish/Irish/British folklore) and there is a justification you could make.

Unfortunately, I feel pretty safe in stating that it is doubtful the reason was to honor source material and was just an excuse to backdoor Current Year gender special bullshit via false pretenses.
 
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Business as usual.
 
It feels like Wuk's VA can't hold a candle to everyone else. The accent feels inconsistent, and at times I heard an American accent slip through. They should not have casted this person, maybe have them as an NPC but not a soon to be major character.
 
You can always guess that the freaks are miqo’tes.
I've never seen a troon playing a hume or an elezen. I imagine because they're the less "cutesy" races. Every female hume I personally know was an actual woman. Usually still annoying as shit blue-hair types, but still.
 
I've never seen a troon playing a hume or an elezen. I imagine because they're the less "cutesy" races. Every female hume I personally know was an actual woman. Usually still annoying as shit blue-hair types, but still.
I’ve always played a Hyur. Guess I’m basic, but I wouldn’t wanna be associated with a certain part of the FFXIV community.
 
Rubicante was the only one I liked out of the bunch. He was at least able to interact with us on a deeper level and had a higher purpose than his mustache twirling, laughably evil villain tropes of his kin. He was able to prove that there are voidsent that exist that are good and legitimately want to do the right thing and that he was just a really good guy manipulated into doing some bad stuff by the very person who destroyed the world he loved.
Rubicante being based is pretty much 1:1 with his FF4 counterpart as well.

On another note (to avoid doubleposting)
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This is one of the best posts in that thread.
 
I’ve always played a Hyur. Guess I’m basic, but I wouldn’t wanna be associated with a certain part of the FFXIV community.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more of the other races once the graphic updates start landing. I know a lot of people really liked the improvements to elezen and roes.
 
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