Shadowbringers was very much a personal journey for me, as was largely the intent of the game I imagine. Its excellent writing between each of the major characters reflected equivalently on the Warrior of Light's development. Its themes of post-apocalyptic despair and the misgivings of humanity of the past are shined brightly on as the shadow of the world is reclaimed. I felt a strong attachment to the setting by the end, an irreplaceable memory of all that transpired that left me walking away at the end bittersweet and in tears. There's a lot to get into, especially in terms of the utopian breakdown in Amaurot, but I would choose to move on with the idea that people on their own can come to play Shadowbringers and think, hear, and feel exactly how these stories came into play.
The music and aesthetics themselves are the best the MMO's ever had too. Though it does similarly work with Heavensward and Stormblood's motif usage, the way tones were remixed and placed in the story were incredible. The oft-memed song is A Long Fall, but I have stronger attachment to Tomorrow and Tomorrow. The cutscenes also have phenomenal lighting and direction, and there's actual animation with some of the scenes now, especially with the latest ones.
The gameplay has also reached new peaks, especially with the latest patch's trial. While there are a lot of issues with how they made classes simpler (that I guess fortunately haven't experienced myself having joined afterwards), the ending rotations in Shadowbringers are still intensely fun to manage, some even for the first time. The solo duties continue to be interesting now since the tail end of Stormblood, and dungeons now let you play with the Scions, which is such a welcome change in terms of making the experience more personal. The raid and trial content especially hits new peaks, with the Seat of Sacrifice being my all time favorite fight in the entire game up to this point. Or at least, my favorite fight on Normal, since I have yet to do any of the Savage/Extreme/Ultimate content.
There are a few issues in the rough through it all. Despite my massive love and respect I hold towards this game and Yoshi-P now, there were definitely still weak points to cross over I can't easily forgive. The first half of the tempest pace breaker and the trashy trolley subplot I could very well have done without. The Alliance Raid, while WONDERFUL NieR fanservice, is mostly disappointing in its story and newest content too. The Raid and postgame Trial storyline are similarly at underwhelming ends here, the latter much worse for the potential it could've explored.
There's still three major patches of content left we haven't seen out of Shadowbringers by the time of this review, but it doesn't matter at this point. Shadowbringers is my favorite FF game, and I recommend anyone reading this make it a point of consideration to get far enough in FF14 to make it to this point.
Pray don't forget us, your bygone kin With one world's end does a new begin And should our soul scatter onto the wind Still we shall live on.
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What’s up with the algorithm on this site? It just feels wrong that a game with 155 ratings is above a game with 3,550 ratings just because the avg is 0.04 higher.
Scores like this reflect a self-selection bias as those playing / rating the expansion are already committed to the MMO. The expansion could only be moderately better than the base game, but because the people rating this already really enjoyed the base game, the score is exaggerated.
Another way to look at it is that there is no circumstance wherein someone who hated FF14 and gave it 0.5 would also play/rate this.
This is a tough one because I agree that, by this expansion having a barrier of entry of hundreds of hours, it does have a bias in its favor. However, as a player who has played all the expansions, I will stand by this and Endwalker as very fantastic, and only very slightly overrated.
I'm not sure whether this post is sarcastic or not, but talk to people who actually play FFXIV and they'll be the first to tell you the MSQ of the base game is total dogshit. Like, the base game's story is notoooooriously dismal so the reasoning of this post just doesn't make sense at all. I haven't made it to Shadowbringers yet, but I'd give FFXIV base game a 2/5 (which is generally the lowest score I'll go, no joking that shit was pain). Heavensward I'd give like a 3.5/5, and if the story keeps improving I could totally see myself giving this an even better grade.
Like this post just makes no sense and all and reads like it was written by someone completely unfamiliar with this MMO.
The large number of zones in this and the aesthetic detail in each one make it worthy of at least a four on that alone. The story was the second-best of the game's expansions. It gave us bunny girls and 2B's "pants." Blue Mage challenges are almost as good as WoWs Mage Tower challenges and being almost as good as the best thing Blizzard ever did is a major accomplishment in and of itself. The first few hours of the expansion had no Alphinaud in them which undoubtedly made it the best part of the MSQ since that one part everyone cries over. Gunbreaker tanks are trash and a reference to the second-worst FF, but Dancer really gives us what the players always wanted out of the game.
In short, it's the second-best expansion of the current hype MMO and in my opinion, from a gameplay perspective, it is just the best expansion of the game. Almost everything it added was a win and the only thing the other expansions have over it for me is I like the general Nihon aesthetic of Stormblood more and the story of Heavensward slightly.
kinda shit pacing but i get they had to basically build up an entire new world, and they did that much better than ARR did in far less time. plus, this has actually great content and story beats. the tempest is one of my favorite areas in any game ever, it just does not get better than that
Another way to look at it is that there is no circumstance wherein someone who hated FF14 and gave it 0.5 would also play/rate this.
Like this post just makes no sense and all and reads like it was written by someone completely unfamiliar with this MMO.
In short, it's the second-best expansion of the current hype MMO and in my opinion, from a gameplay perspective, it is just the best expansion of the game. Almost everything it added was a win and the only thing the other expansions have over it for me is I like the general Nihon aesthetic of Stormblood more and the story of Heavensward slightly.