Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood (2017)

I've played a lot of MMOs in my 35 years on this earth; for some reason based on how everyone talked about it, I expected Final Fantasy 14 to be better and more distinguished from the crowd, but thus far it doesn't seem to be. I had thought that this would be a more story oriented MMO, like The Old Republic (one of my personal faves and I still play that pretty often many years later), because of the Final Fantasy pedigree, but at least the beginning of the game is just like any other MMO, with too-long text-boxes, not enough voiced dialog, and frankly boring scenarios that have been done to death.

Overall the gameplay mechanics are a perfunctory amount of fun and I definitely support how the whole thing is playable on a controller (I'm playing on my Xbox Series X in the open beta for that platform), but I don't think this is gonna stick me for the long run unless the content gets more developed and modern as you advance through the game to newer content. If that is the case, though, they should consider just letting players bump up to start at that stuff because the first 25 or so levels (I think I'm around 24 or 25) that I have seen are kind of a bore.

So I'm nearing the final stretch of this expansion if the quest levels are to be believed and I just...ugh...

Grynewaht is such a lame villain. Even if he's not the "main" villain. I get that to a certain extent he's meant to be lame but even as a comedic relief type of villain he veers more into the annoying side of things rather than anything fun or interesting. Now that I've played FFV and seen what they were able to pull off 31 years ago with a similar type of character in Gilgamesh (who honestly stole the show in that game), this guy just pales in comparison.

I'm very curious to see if his character is somehow redeemed or made more palatable in the remaining quests, but I have my doubts. In the meantime, it'd be cool if my band of heroes would maybe try to stop him from escaping after every defeat instead of just standing and watching as he runs away. He's just gonna come back with more forces every time.

I started my Stormblood playthrough on 06AUG19 but haven't actually started Stormblood MSQ just yet. I've been having some fun with Glamour, Squadrons and then just today, the Moonfire Faire! I did a small amount of apartment redecorating as well. :) The poster I got from the Moonfire Faire doesn't match my apartment at all... I might take it down but let's see how I feel long term.