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Shadowbringers is better than your favorite FF
- Thread starter Zen
- Start date
I love Shadowbringers and it is easily one of my favorite FF stories, but it does have a barrier to entry. HW, SB, and Shb have been an amazing gaming experience, though I can't say I enjoyed ARR too much. I ended up skipping half of it with a jump potion, looked up stuff that happens, and went on my merry way to HW a few years ago. Had no problems since I knew the basic mechanics, but yeah.
Anyway Shb has some dope tunes and that is something everyone can enjoy:
Anyway Shb has some dope tunes and that is something everyone can enjoy:
If the goal was just to flit around forever, then sure, arguably they can just bounce whenever things get dicey. Bouncing whenever someone gets in the way is a recipe for never getting anything done, and they each have their individual reasons for lingering beyond that.
Lahabrea was so arrogant that it blinded him to the peril posed by beings he considered his utter inferiors. Nabriales was complacent and hasty when the blessing of light was dormant. Emet Selch is just plain exhausted and ready for it to be all one outcome or another, "The victor shall write the tale, and the vanquished become its villain". He died almost relieved to have been released from his burdens, his last plea for his people to be remembered.
As to the numbers,
we know that while other Ascians can fill the positions of missing ones in the Lahabrea/Elidibus/Emet Selch trio, there is only one unsundered, undiluted Ascian remaining the universe. One Ascian standing between the continuation of their engineered calamities and the complete, final defeat of their aims. Could that be hypothetically retconned? Yes. Not a level criticism at present.
Shadowbringers specifically is amazing because it fleshes out the lore. It has amazing characters and a highly political story. The dungeons are some of the craziest spectacles I've ever seen in a game and music is tippity of the top notch.
XIV is like a train. It's big and slow. It takes forever to start taking off but once it gets going the momentum just keeps it going faster and faster. By the time I got to Heavensward I continually found myself saying "it can't get any better than this!" only to be proven wrong almost immediately. So, yeah, it's slow to start and I understand why a lot of people in this thread gave up.. but it's one of those things where if you stick with it, it's MORE than worth it.
Nah, it's really not. I'd rather dodge 200 lightning strikes in Final Fantasy X eight times over than sink 40 hours into the shit that is ARR and then another 20 hours of shorty running back and forth to get to even a decent storyline in Heavensward, which still is a far cry from being good.
You're more than welcome to say it's your favorite or the best or whatever, but the barrier to entry to being able to enjoy Shadowbringers is ridiculously high. Most other Final Fantasy games don't have to take up to 20 hours to actually be a good game.
You're more than welcome to say it's your favorite or the best or whatever, but the barrier to entry to being able to enjoy Shadowbringers is ridiculously high. Most other Final Fantasy games don't have to take up to 20 hours to actually be a good game.
And they play nothing alike. If FFXI played like FFXII, I'd be playing it right goddamn now.
As a huge player of FFXIV I will come out and say I do not enjoy the storyline in this game at all. I really like the group/MMO content though, and art style/music are fantastic as ever. The main scenario quests of SHB are the same old shit though, majority just talking to dumbass NPCs with a few (terrible) solo duties and some decent dungeons/trials thrown into the mix.
Ranjit explanation
Prior to Vauthry, Eulmore was leading the charge against the Sin-Eaters. Ranjit as a General of Elmore's forces was chosen to train the reincarnated Milfilia(not the current one or the original) to fight the Sin-Eaters as the Oracle of Light. He became attached and basically became a father figure(similarly to the father role that Thancred has been filling) only to see his new adopted daughter die fighting the Sin-Eaters. He trained each reincarnation of Milfilia and watched them die again and again until Vauthry took control of Eulmore. He followed Vauthry because it meant that it would keep Milfilia from having to die again and again and him having to deal with repeated lose of his "daughter" which has driven him somewhat insane. Basically keeping Milfilia locked up in Eulmore to keep her away from danger if she chose to fight the Sin-Eaters again. He just wants to protect her and in the end, he decides it's better to kill this current Milfilia to start over again so he can have his "daughter" back. His fight with Thancred was basically a fight between two fathers for what they thought would be best for her.
That's because it's not all there yet. Like the other expansions, more story, more dungeons, more raids, and more trials are added in patch every 7 weeks or so up until we start talking about the next expansion(6.0) at 5.5. That's where the sub money is really going. There are probably 2 or 3 more parts to the Eden raid and 3 teirs of 24-man raids based on Neir to be released. Take some time off from the game and come back for the patches that have something that you are interested in. What is there now is only meant to keep you busy for so long until the next content is released soon.
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That's funny because I was enjoying myself from the first minute of creating my character, let alone 20 hours. I said it above, if you go into the game thinking 'when does it get good', that mindset is already antagonistic and that will define your experience with it. Same with my first time playing X versus my second playthrough where I went in with a better attitude.
I couldn't agree more with both of these.
Yeah, Yoshi P even says to take breaks in between patches. If you don't have a personal house, there isn't really any reason that you have to stay subbed when waiting for content. There's nothing wrong with taking a break and no reason to rush through the content.
I'm never going to play through A Realm Reborn and the other expansions that I need to in order to even play Shadowbringers, so I'll never have an actual opinion on the game. I guess it goes without saying that I view the barrier of entry to be a problem, in this case.
I'd have to stop and really think about whether or not it means more to me than 6, but it's the first game in the series since then that feels like it's on that level.
It's not the same thing as a game that is 100% crafted around being a single player experience and it never will be, but it also doesn't have to be in order to evoke a lot of the same feelings and hit the same notes.
The story will pick up though, and you will know when it happens. 2.x is a slow burn, and slower than it really needs to be, but everything you're doing now has a payoff sooner or later.
It's not the same thing as a game that is 100% crafted around being a single player experience and it never will be, but it also doesn't have to be in order to evoke a lot of the same feelings and hit the same notes.
A big part of why 14 is suddenly being showered in adoration is because it's finally nailed both those things to a degree that merits being compared to the offline titles, especially for people who think that modern FF writing has gotten pretty shaky.
Combat gets... better, with higher levels, if not fundamentally different.
The story will pick up though, and you will know when it happens. 2.x is a slow burn, and slower than it really needs to be, but everything you're doing now has a payoff sooner or later.
So much praise and I'd love to experience it myself, but truth be told I never will. I'm a huge final fantasy fan but not a mmo kinda guy. Never played 11, tried a free trial of 14 on PlayStation at some point. Its just too much of a commitment but I'll take everyone's word on it.
Different strokes and all that. I had no preconceived notions about the game when I started playing. My best friend and his wife just wanted a game for us all to play and this happened to be it. My mindset wasn't antagonistic when I started playing, it became antagonistic the longer I did play. I'm sorry, but ARR is a slog. If it wasn't such a bore Yoshi-P wouldn't be planning to revamp it to make it less tedious. The first enormous part of the game is almost universally seen as the worst part, in no small part because the story is dull and the quest design, which in no small part due to the nature of MMO's, is just not good. Everyone has their own justifications for playing a game. But playing the first 20 hours of Final Fantasy XIII to get actual full control of the cristarium is a valid criticism, and the same goes for FFXIV.
There are so many great character moments placed in between though. I mean, i get that this might be the case if you are expecting constant event-related revelation but there is so much quality content involving all the main cast.
There is so much revelation and finality to some storylines that were established years ago. It's not the spectacle that really sells it. All of the ascian stuff is well and good, but moments like this are what really give shadowbringers its' soul, and why none of the content should really be skipped to get there.
Spoilers for a small scene in shadowbringers. This scene gave me chills, it's still one of the ones i think about most. There is nothing approaching this much emotional catharsis in stormblood.
Literally just beat Shadowbringers, and I have to say...
No.
This is massively overrated imo.
Let me go into specifics.
I think the story absolutely is among the better ones, the world is well realized and has a very unique vibe to it, and the villain I would even agree is the best in the series. But that is where it kind of stops for me.
The fact that it is so inextricably tied to MMO gameplay completely holds back the experience compared to other entries in the series. I truly wish that this storyline had somehow been used for a single-player FF16, had it... I might agree. But it's not. And because it's not, the great story and world and villain is entirely bogged down by the MMO formula.
What I mean by this is not just the cooldown-based battle system, which I don't inherently mind, but the structure of getting to a new area > having to do chores, i mean sidequests, doing the dungeon of the area, getting the major story beat, moving on. It is so formulaic and repetitious that it feels absolutely inorganic. And the variety of types of quests are still somewhat sparse -- and I say this as someone who has played multiple MMOs and even generally likes FFXIV.
But my like for FFXIV does not mean I cannot see the flaws in the system. And that system inextricably holds back all of the creative aspects of Shadowbringers and prevents them from truly shining over the single player entries in the franchise.
As a few others have said, the process of there being 6 specific things to fell and going area by area to cure each one is also somewhat boring and feels manufactured precisely for that formula. Ie, it's a MMO so we need multiple zones, so each zone you will do exactly this thing and then move on and do the same. I understand, also, that this same formula is used in certain single player games (like, say Kingdom Hearts), but that absolutely holds it back and creates this giant lull. Other Final Fantasy games tend not to follow this format. And even this one sort of gave me hope that it might defy it by having the two different paths at the beginning, where you don't actually "Finish the zone", and then become locations you have to revisit later. And that is partially why the first few hours of Shadowbringers are so good. But it's not long before it all devolves into that more rote formula I'm talking about. And that's a major black mark against it.
It's a real annoyance that even after you get to the climax and path to the end, that because you enter a new zone... we have to stop and halt the extreme rising action to do chores for another area... because it's a MMO, before we're allowed to continue on.
I could go on, but at the end of the day this entire expansion feels like massive missed potential of a fantastic FF16. The villain ultimately IS amazing. And the story ultimately IS good, but it's good in the sense of a great set up and opening hours, and then a great conclusion -- with just a so-so middle. And I truly think had this just been a single player game, that would have been fixed.
This is to say nothing about the massive barrier of entry of course, which mandates (no exaggeration) hundreds of hours of this exact same kind of MMO gameplay on repeat ad nauseum, threaded through different stories of varying quality.
No.
This is massively overrated imo.
Let me go into specifics.
I think the story absolutely is among the better ones, the world is well realized and has a very unique vibe to it, and the villain I would even agree is the best in the series. But that is where it kind of stops for me.
The fact that it is so inextricably tied to MMO gameplay completely holds back the experience compared to other entries in the series. I truly wish that this storyline had somehow been used for a single-player FF16, had it... I might agree. But it's not. And because it's not, the great story and world and villain is entirely bogged down by the MMO formula.
What I mean by this is not just the cooldown-based battle system, which I don't inherently mind, but the structure of getting to a new area > having to do chores, i mean sidequests, doing the dungeon of the area, getting the major story beat, moving on. It is so formulaic and repetitious that it feels absolutely inorganic. And the variety of types of quests are still somewhat sparse -- and I say this as someone who has played multiple MMOs and even generally likes FFXIV.
But my like for FFXIV does not mean I cannot see the flaws in the system. And that system inextricably holds back all of the creative aspects of Shadowbringers and prevents them from truly shining over the single player entries in the franchise.
As a few others have said, the process of there being 6 specific things to fell and going area by area to cure each one is also somewhat boring and feels manufactured precisely for that formula. Ie, it's a MMO so we need multiple zones, so each zone you will do exactly this thing and then move on and do the same. I understand, also, that this same formula is used in certain single player games (like, say Kingdom Hearts), but that absolutely holds it back and creates this giant lull. Other Final Fantasy games tend not to follow this format. And even this one sort of gave me hope that it might defy it by having the two different paths at the beginning, where you don't actually "Finish the zone", and then become locations you have to revisit later. And that is partially why the first few hours of Shadowbringers are so good. But it's not long before it all devolves into that more rote formula I'm talking about. And that's a major black mark against it.
It's a real annoyance that even after you get to the climax and path to the end, that because you enter a new zone... we have to stop and halt the extreme rising action to do chores for another area... because it's a MMO, before we're allowed to continue on.
I could go on, but at the end of the day this entire expansion feels like massive missed potential of a fantastic FF16. The villain ultimately IS amazing. And the story ultimately IS good, but it's good in the sense of a great set up and opening hours, and then a great conclusion -- with just a so-so middle. And I truly think had this just been a single player game, that would have been fixed.
This is to say nothing about the massive barrier of entry of course, which mandates (no exaggeration) hundreds of hours of this exact same kind of MMO gameplay on repeat ad nauseum, threaded through different stories of varying quality.
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The revamp will change the amount of quests and cut out the filler, but the story will be the same. It really doesn't work as a criticism that all of ARR is a bad game just because of that. Again if it wasn't a good game, we wouldn't have three expansions. It just sounds like it wasn't for you or your group, and wasn't what you were looking for.
I honestly hated the first half of ARR but once i hit the level 40 quests through the patch content i loved the story sure its sort of slow but its building characters up and establishing events
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I like your post a lot, and I agree that at the end of the day, you can't simply forget that XIV is an MMORPG that works within said framework. I still rank it top. In spite of said limitations, and actually because of them, the story was able to be this good. We would not have this if XIV were a single player game. It would be written differently. It would play out differently. Yoshi P is an MMO fan himself for that matter, so I disagree that simply by virtue of being an MMO does it suffer in comparison to single player FF games. Much of its success is because it is an MMO that has had room for three expansions. Yes, you explore each new zone. Yes, you do sidequests. You also learn a lot of the lore, and the zones are fleshed out into their own entities and not simply backdrops to the band of heroes. I'd also like to point out that for every FF game there's a formula present. Go to new area, cutscene happens, explore area or enter a dungeon, more cutscenes. More dungeon, another cutscene. Enter a town, cutscene. Boss battle, cutscene.
Here's something a SP FF can never even come close to approaching - telling a saga with four games' worth of character development and narrative, seeing its cast grow beyond simply winning the day against the big bad. It's able to tell a story across a long time span convincingly with well developed characters and plotlines. No other FF has pulled it off at that scale. It can do this because it's an MMO with the resources and -time- to make it work. Lastly, XIV is all about players' emotional investment. Attempting to take this and force it into a much shorter offline title robs it of the attachment you grow to your character and the cast over the preceding three games of content before Shadowbringers. That's why this expansion succeeds. Pros and cons.
Yeah no, I played all my mmorpgs hours already in college, can't spend hundreds of hours now in the hopes that after dozens and dozens and dozens of fetch quests and kill that monster and escort that npc and go through this dungeon with oh so deep lore that nobody cares because you have to rush through there might be some good story. Might.
Can, but you shouldn't. It's like hoping into the 4th season of a critically acclaimed show.
Clearly they don't.
I mean if people actually cared about the lore Square would probably sell lore encyclopedias or something...
In dungeons or raids? Nope, nobody cares. Outside questing? Yes of course.
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I probably should have chosen a tamer one, but it isn't meant to disparage the other games in the series. I'm tired of the collective nose turning this game elicits because SE dared to make it a mainline title. At this point, it's undeniable that it deserves a spot at the table.
Then this topic doesn't make sense. The claim should be "FF14 is better", not the expansion only.
The dungeons and raids are heavily tied to the story in this game. Most of them you unlock through the story.
Stormblood bosses and overall theme and aesthetic is unmatched!
I'm not the only one who has made these same criticisms about the game. As another example many would say that FFXIII was a bad game, but it also got two sequels. Bad games get sequels all the time. It's why we have a yearly Call of Duty. Now, I'm not saying XIV is a bad game as a whole, they did redeem themselves the farther they got along. But XIV also has had more time to get turned in to a good game than most. Consider that for all intents and purposes XIV is nearly a decade old at this point.
Again, you're more than welcome to enjoy the game, many people do. But the barrier of entry to get to the good parts of the game is absolutely a topic worth discussing, especially if you want to claim it as being the best game in the series.
To be honest, the entirety of FF14 (except maybe the base game, but i did like it to the contrary of others thoughts) is my favorite FF game. and shadows bringers is by far the best expansion within ff14. I wish they had a single player version of the story for the holdouts that refuse to play it because its online. It barely feels like its online honestly, and the interactions i have with others is overwhelmingly positive, where as WoW for example is typically a bad experience.
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That's where we disagree though. ARR is a good game with tedious parts, not a slog as a whole. I enjoyed creating a character and exploring the zones. I enjoyed the style of narrative presentation. I enjoyed the characters, they took time to grow but they did. It's a slow burn, and that isn't for everyone. But I do think the more people that give it a chance, the better the community will be.
I only made it to level 14 before quitting, barely starting I know, but there are just too many other games that I didn't want to spend so much time on just FF14. Unless I have friends playing it I don't see myself coming back.
I am incredibly curious to see Shadowbringers, since I've heard so much good stuff about it, but I don't want to put in the time/money to get to that point.
I am incredibly curious to see Shadowbringers, since I've heard so much good stuff about it, but I don't want to put in the time/money to get to that point.
I agree that FFXIV as executed, as an expansion to a MMO, plays on what has come before and helps strengthen the characters (especially your player character) because of that. However, I don't think any of that is intrinsically important and were Shadowbringers to be transformed into a standalone single player game, it could manage just about the same effect. The "party" is great in this, better than any of the previous expansions even -- and part of that is due to a near reboot of just about every single one of the characters. Even a character like Thancred, whose story relies heavily on pre-existing material, could get by with just about no changes even without the prior expansions. You don't have the impact of seeing what had come before, but you would still be able to get his actions and the story surrounding him based purely on what is told within Shadowbringers. Basically, the "Emotional investment" of the player to this point is a lame excuse that isn't really viable. If it wasn't Urianger but instead Rianger -- and he played exactly the same role, nothing would change. The story could operate as it does, no prior knowledge of his character required. And in a single player game you would just get a bit more backstory/a sidequest focusing on what his deal is anyway... sort of like how Thancred's is already integrated into the main story.
I also think, like the vast majority of silent protagonists, the player character would be much stronger if he were actually a character that regularly spoke. As it stands, even with the dialogue choices you are given, the protagonist has a lot of personality anyways. And at the end of the day, if they didn't want to do that, they could still do a created character in a single player game, like so many others do, and play that the exact same way it is played now.
As far as the formula goes. Yes single player games have a formula as well, but it is not nearly as obvious. The mere nature of making things "quests" with a log detracts from the organic structure of prior FFs. Additionally, in a single player game you never run into a situation where you can't continue with the main story until you hit a mandated level. That is only done to gate progression in a MMO. In a single player FF you could go into something even if you're "underleveled" and probably prevail. And if not, you can go grind, but even that feels less structured than the way this MMO handles it.
I do wanna do new game plus at some point to get the parts I missed.
Okay, I love Final Fantasy XIV and Shadowbringers, but at the same time I was slightly disappointed in Shadowbringers because... (Shadowbringers spoilers)
I felt that Shadowbringers was one huge distraction to the events in Eorzea and the coming war with Garlemald. As someone who went into Shadowbringers blind, I felt the world was going to be expanded as we get closer to Garlemald but instead, we are sucked away to a completely new realm. I also felt because of how the story was told (travelling to each region and slaying light wardens), it became a bit of a drag going to each new region and then doing a lot of story filler to get to the light wardens.
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I disagree that the impact would still be present. The whole of XIV's narrative structure is built around the idea that the player is their character. The cast is only rebooted insomuch as their class roles. Their personalities aren't alien to prior expansions. I don't believe for a second that Shadowbringers would elicit nearly as much regard as a standalone title. For that matter, it would simply be an entirely different game, with a different development approach and likely a different set of minds behind it. It would be similar in concept only. The personal investment you put into your character is part of the narrative's draw - you are the character, and the narrative has treated you this way since ARR. In short it's aimed at you and not at 'the main protagonist'. Yes the idea behind Shadowbringers could be made into a single player RPG. But it would be different from the ground up, with different approaches to narrative and presentation, dialogue, and likely lore. It isn't as simple as taking Shadowbringers, tying some ends, and making it FFXVI. It can only exist as it is because XIV is an MMO with two previous expansions preceding this, that the player has journeyed through and bonded with their character. It is not the same as starting a new game with a fresh protagonist.
