Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (2015)

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!

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.