Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (2015)

To no one's abject surprise, I have been replaying Heavensward through an alt account I own.

I had honestly forgotten how nicely the narrative went, even through the dozens of fetch quests and kill quests, and how the characters were all particular to themselves in one way or another. To this day, I cannot explain the hate for Haurchefant that some people have... he's literally better than G'raha with his infatuation for the WoL.

Honestly the peak of what FFXIV's storytelling could be.

Not much to say other than this was a fantastic expansion to play through. The way the base game ended was kind of insane and then seeing how everything played out from that point on was a treat. I feel a bit mixed on the changed voice actors and one or two of the Scions felt a bit odd in here, but perhaps that will get further explanation later? There's some spoilery plot stuff I want to gush about below.

I love the way the Warriors of Darkness were handled in the post-Heavensward quests so much. As a concept, they already kind of piqued my interest back when I played FFIII but I found them somewhat underwhelming there. In this game, their backstory is definitely among my favorites I've seen in gaming, even if it wasn't given a ton of screentime. Them being a group of heroes who did everything right and defeated the bad guys only to see the world they were trying to protect on the brink of destruction is awesome to begin with. But that they then went and gave up their bodies in order to travel to and destroy another world in the hopes of saving theirs is insanely cool. The idea that I'm standing in the way of a group of heroes who already made the ultimate sacrifice really hit me in the feels just right and reminds me a lot of the ending section of Earthbound. I kind of hope we'll get a chance to see them again further in the story, but I kinda doubt it, with how final their leaving felt.

Anyway... rant over.

I wasn't 100% on board with a story focusing so heavily on the dragons for some reason initially but I think they pulled off the politics between them and the people Ishgard quite well. Really good shit here overall.

I'm super pumped to see what Stormblood brings!

Finally cleared floor 50 in the Palace of the Dead! I made the poor decision of switching from Lancer to Red Mage before finishing up the post Heavensward quests and needed to grind to level 60. Didn't expect the PotD queue times to be so bad. I must have sat in queue for floors 41-50 a combined total of four hours (one sitting was three hours) this weekend before deciding to use the party finder. And even then, I only found people willing to do a full clear from floor 1 up through 50 so I had to start all over and do em in one sitting.

Here's hoping the 51-60 queue times won't be so bad.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is a solid expansion & a huge step up over A Realm Reborn in terms of story, but it does still have some pacing issues and you can still see some growing pains in some respects. Not my favourite expansion (that goes to either Shadowbringers or Endwalker depending on the day), but still a great one.

9/10

3/5

At first shot - I simply couldn't progress with this one and had to DNF it. Was super burnt out from playing through A Realm Reborn and simply couldn't deal with any more MMO questing structures. Brief moments of enjoyment during the main story of ARR from a story perspective - but found the gameplay mostly unenjoyable. Was halfway through the process of levelling up my scholar job which was also tedious.

Later, I revisited and finished the heavensward quests. I thought the story was decent, but it's pacing was terrible. Interrupted by really uninteresting and superficial storylines too frequently, which detracted from it in a big way. The gameplay was improving throughout this expansion, but was never exceptional. There were some moments where I enjoyed it. I hate that levelling other jobs is a 1 level a day grind, feels like a job. The soundtrack was good. The cutscenes were okay, but there should have been more voiced ones. The story of the main quest was nowhere near as good as people talk about, in my opinion. There is way too much bullshit.

I did one more revisit to play through the rest of the Heavensward to Stormblood quests. I think they were a big improvement over Heavensward itself. The story was both paced and delivered in more interesting ways, and the story itself was interesting (until the last little bit). This section was a 4/5 on it's own. As a full package the game is still a 3/5 all things considered. Onto Stormblood.

Heavensward is immediately better than A Realm Reborn, and is marked by its remarkable momentum and consistency. ARR's patch content ends on a high note and a bombshell twist, and Heavensward takes this peak of quality and runs with it. There's one or two dips along the way, I'm looking at you, moogles and the placement of the Dravania/Idyllshire/Matoya interlude, but musically, mechanically, and narratively, this takes the rare moments of great in A Realm Reborn and makes them the norm.

Also, this expansion introduces the Dark Knight job, and their questline is the actual best writing in the game. 50-60 is a dip, but other than that it's the high water mark of the entire MMO, MSQ and sidequests be damned.

I have finally finished all the post-patch Heavensward content. I added 5 hours to my playtime because a house in Lavender Bed's was available and I WANTED IT MORE THAN ANYTHING...

I did not get it.

Total Play Time: 11 days, 14 hours, 16 minutes

With my 64 hours to beat Heavensward base and now 62 hours to beat the post patched content... I am marking Heavensward as completed at 126 hours total.

• A Realm Reborn + Patch: 160 hours
• Heavensward + Patch: 126 hours

--

The patched content was another great addition to the MSQ and I can't wait to keep going!

I just finished the base game of Heavensward but won't be marking the expansion as completed on here until after I get through all the post patch MSQ quests. I lost some of my attachment to some characters and got confused on some plot points because of my long break but near the end, it all finally came back together and I had a BLAST! It was a definite improvement over ARR MSQ (which I still really enjoyed!) I am looking forward to making my way through the patched content so I can hopefully save somebody dear to my heart! Those who know... know!

For reference:

It took me 9 hours to finish the last 17 quests of the MSQ. I am at a total of 9 days, 8 hours, 38 minutes of playtime which means took me 64 hours to complete the the base game of Heavensward compared to my 160 hours in ARR... not bad.

I guess writing about it here that I was frusturated about not having played and been caught up is the kick in the pants I needed? Had a good 6 hours session yesterday and am taking a quick smoke break after having played for two hours today. I will be jumping right back into it, here in a moment!

I am mostly just focusing on MSQ right now. I played for a few hours with an old friend that I met via the Novice Network back in March to catch up on side quests I had and could barely remember. I got my combat rotations back in my head for my Bard and am just having a great time!

I even drank a Fantasia potion! Due to my break, my attachment to my little Lala decreased a bit and I wanted to use the new race introduced in Shadowbringers!

Super frusturating!

WHOA!

I went on vacation all of April and when I got back, I could only muster the energy to play the FFXV event and get all those items. I was SO EAGER to be fully caught up by the time Shadowbringers came out (I had early access!) but it was not to be the case. I will definitely be picking this back up shortly but for now, I guess I am taking an extended break.

Got pretty well burnt out by playing the base game and patched MSQ so have only been casually jumping into Heavensward until my engine gets recharged but as with ARR, the game is still amazing! I have got a vacation coming up and hope to have this expansion finished before so that when I return from my vacation I can then knock out Stormblood and spend a month or two getting myself fully prepared for SHADOWBRINGERS!

Great MMO!