Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood (2017)

Stormblood is more of Final Fantasy XIV, a game I've already found a lot of comfort in, so it's no surprise that from a gameplay point of view there isn't much for me to say. However when it comes to the story, I found it to be lacking in execution. There'll be some major spoilers in this review, but I'll tag them properly because I'd be pissed if someone spoiled me in regards to these.

Many of the payoffs from major plot points often aren't all that satisfying, and the plot armor on the main cast is just obnoxious sometimes. I was very frustrated to see that one of my favorite moments in the expansion, Gosetsu's "Death", was basically rendered moot because in the end they decided he just wouldn't die and was actually totally fine for some inexplicable reason. Having him meet his end while protecting the people he cared about and bringing an end to Yotsuyu's reign of terror was perfect, in my eyes. We even had a nice buildup in the form of Gosetsu coming to terms with the way the Dotharl tribe view death. That whole segment was a pretty nice way to have him grow as a character but everything felt undermined by that post-credits scene. It felt as if it undermined Yotsuyu's fate as well.

The expansion as a whole has an issue with villains just not being all that interesting, I think. I made a status update the other night about how Grynewaht was really lame and how I hoped to see his little story arc have some sort of interesting tie up but that disappointed as well. It was certainly a little tragic, or would have been, if the game had given me any reason to care for this guy. He just comes off as another faceless bad guy except this time they decided to give him a name to make him seem more important. The big issue is he has just as much character as any of the other Garlean generals or soldiers you run into in the game, so the final confrontation with him just feels limp.

Fordola is handled better, but also comes out feeling a bit underdeveloped. A few times near the end she lists off the names of some of her allies/friends that died and I remember pausing for a moment and wondering if I was supposed to know who they were or something. I imagine not, since I think most of her backstory occurs prior to the events of the game, but it seemed odd to give these characters names when you never see them or hear anything else about them. Maybe it's something I missed or forgot about, but it was hard to feel anything without any context for her relationship to these people. Yotsuyu suffers from a similar (but slightly less pronounced) issue where she also goes on a big rant about her tragic past that ultimately can't have much impact because there wasn't enough setup for it.

I actually really liked Zenos as a villain. He's bloodthirsty in a fun way, and it was nice to have him be more prominent during the main campaign than the last couple big bad guys in this game. I appreciated the fights with him, though I don't entirely understand why the last two were the only ones the Warrior of Light stood a chance in. He seemed basically invincible in the first few and I expected there to be some sort of tool we'd use to weaken him for a more fair fight, but nope. We just waltz in and beat the shit out of him when it was impossible before. I can't think of anything that happened between those fights to make the main character so much stronger than they were previously. Zenos himself even acknowledges that you've become stronger, as if you underwent some fundamental change during the story of this expansion. It comes off as kind of funny because I think this is the only story in the game so far where you don't undergo some major growth or shift in power. That final dungeon and battle were really cool though. Easily some of my favorite parts of Stormblood, so it was nice to end off on a strong note.

It was great to see Lyse get much more of the spotlight in this expansion. I always wanted to know more about her in both the base game and Heavensward, but she never got all that much attention until now. You could probably argue that she's the real main character here, with the way her story plays out. I only wish she had had a bigger role in the final fight to bring it full circle. Regardless, I very much enjoyed the way her character was handled throughout.

I've been focusing a lot on story and characters here but I want to take a little to say I found the new maps/environments added in Stormblood to be of very high quality. They're a lot of fun to explore and feel much more exciting than the frozen wastelands that dominated much of Heavensward. I also love that I can swim underwater now. Deep water kind of freaks me out a bit, and the game managed to trigger that fear with some of the optional underwater locales, which is definitely a point of praise for me, even if it wasn't really intended.

And yes, I did spend a couple hours of my playtime climbing the tower in Kagane just for two sightseeing entries. Afternoon well spent.

I think in the end my biggest nitpick with this expansion is that it doesn't really feel like what I come to Final Fantasy for. The majority of the plot has you very down in the weeds helping to orchestrate a rebellion and it really comes off as more of a Fire Emblem type of thing. It's even punctuated at the end with a fight against a massive god-dragon, if you needed any more reason to believe. It also comes off as not all that related to the plot of A Realm Reborn or Heavensward, save for the returning characters. I wanted the fantasy monsters the series is known for to play a bigger role in the story here.

In one hand, I'm glad this was a later expansion and not the beginning, or I'd dropped FFXIV never to look back.

On the other hand, that this is paid content, that I paid actual money for this, after Heavensward was excellent in every point, borders the insulting.

Painfully narmy writing, horrible quest design (let's do the fifteenth fetch quest in a row! And I'm not even give you a quest marker, just walk around this area of the map looking at the floor!), a bad plot with no real reason to care about, forgettable dungeon design, and a ridiculous final battle.

I'll admit its good spots too tho: some characters are interesting (M'naago and Soroban, mostly), and the music is great. Aaaaand... that's about it.

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood has some great gameplay segments & encounter design (possibly some of the best in the entire game), but it's held back from surpassing Heavensward by a story that felt like two expansions smushed into one (still better than A Realm Reborn's story though). Far from a bad expansion, but still the weakest link due to just how great Heavensward, Shadowbringers, & Endwalker are.

8/10

3/5

Possible that I was just in the right headspace to enjoy this, but I enjoyed Stormblood more than Heavensward. I felt the story was gripping throughout, had a nice level of groundedness to the story. I felt that the meandering parts of the questline were less offensive than in Heavensward as well, however there was definitely a good amount of filler. The gameplay improved heavily during this expansion as well.

Of particular note, a parley sequence towards the end of the expansion was the most enjoyable cutscene to watch for me so far.

It turns out I had a 4 day free trial (wish SquEnix told me) and I was already halfway through Stormblood but lost interest (and subscription time). The asian aesthetic was exhausting honestly - whilst I didn't play Mists of Panderia at launch, I much prefer that take on the theme than Stormblood's. The story was fine with some good characters and designs (Lyse, Gosetsu, Raubahn), but was a minor step back from Heavensward.

I am expecting to give the expansion a higher rating once I finish the post-patch content and I'm excited to see how it will compare to Heavensward.

After Heavensward played itself out, I was more than ready for Stormblood; the writing team had found their footing, the gameplay was starting to include spicier mechanics even in the main story, and the next expansion was going to include a rival character and a focus on the Ala Mhigan and Doman subplots that defined the patch content and served as a backdrop to the Eorzean politics that were consistently interesting? Sign me up! The dungeon and trial design is another step up, further being more complex, visually interesting, and just flat-out entertaining, too!

And then I got A Realm Reborn 2: This Time It's At Least Fun To Play.

The pacing is atrocious and repetitious and fillery again. The narrative is disinterested in exploring anything meaningful outside of "empire bad" and Zenos as a villain is missed potential to the extreme.

At least the DRK questline is better than ever.