Final fantasy XIV any good?

[Tyrr]

7.1 is out, I haven't played the game since August, lets take a look at the current Steam reviews for Dawntrail ...

...

oh shit

 

[Elttharion]

Wow, thats bad. Square is fucked if this game continues to bomb like this.

 

[Thalstarion]

It'll be really funny if it's still nominated for various awards at the Game Awards. Especially if it actually wins some.

'Best Ongoing Game' or 'Best Voice Acting' would be particularly ironic given the criticisms.

Yoshi-P and his team will continue to ignore any meaningful criticism either way.

 

[Vyvian]

It's kind of a sadness because the content of Dawntrail has been pretty great overall.

They banked and gambled so hard on everyone loving Wuk Lamat that she's basically tanking the entire expansion the more she sticks around. She's not the only problem with the story and such but she's basically the amalgamation of everything.

 

[Rahdulan]

The mad lads did it.

 

[Caim]

That's a stand-alone mobile game, not the entirity of FF14 ported to mobile.

 

[The Last Blackguard]

Yes Kate is going to be a problem for this game, she already has become a major one with Dawntrail considering it's her first time truly in charge without Koji's oversight.

She successfully pulled off another chameleon trick, laying relatively low for years until she finally got the big seat and Dawntrail is what she has to show the world.

Not even just her aversion to offending anyone, a lot of the "soul" Koji brought to localization is just gone. Funny or interesting item descriptions? Gone. Off-color jokes that border on lewd? Gone. That's just off the top of my head. It's dry and inoffensive, it has no teeth.

Spoiler

Even when they talk about thousands of dead babies it just feels Disneyfied.

Incredible that codex is defending Koji Fox.

Anyways, mixed feelings on the MSQ aside, I'm having a good time with DT. Main issue is what a nothingburger boring villain Zoraal Ja was until his dying speech.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes Kate is going to be a problem for this game, she already has become a major one with Dawntrail considering it's her first time truly in charge without Koji's oversight.

She successfully pulled off another chameleon trick, laying relatively low for years until she finally got the big seat and Dawntrail is what she has to show the world.

Not even just her aversion to offending anyone, a lot of the "soul" Koji brought to localization is just gone. Funny or interesting item descriptions? Gone. Off-color jokes that border on lewd? Gone. That's just off the top of my head. It's dry and inoffensive, it has no teeth.

Spoiler

Even when they talk about thousands of dead babies it just feels Disneyfied.

Incredible that codex is defending Koji Fox.

Anyways, mixed feelings on the MSQ aside, I'm having a good time with DT. Main issue is what a nothingburger boring villain Zoraal Ja was until his dying speech.

I think the main issue with Zoraal Ja is that he is quiet, and since he is a prince in a capital surrounded by goodnatured ostensible friends and family and close allies, he can't speak his mind openly. The only way to know was if he was the protagonist of a visual novel and you were reading his thoughts. So you don't get to feel that he is souring, unlike Zenos who is either on the border away from the capital and rules through fear so he can talk loudly about warring with Eorzea, or he is alone with Fandaniel and can reveal how jaded and tired he is. Whereas Zoraal Ja didn't confide in his lieutenant either.

 

[Thalstarion]

Heh. Square Enix brought Tracy Fullerton onto the board of directors.

Source: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/pdf/ar_2024en.pdf

The individual in question has a long track record of utterly insane rhetoric and an obsession with diversity and being on the 'right side of history'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAv6shzOCSA

It's a shame to see these sort of ideologues gain influence within a Japanese company and whilst this affects Square Enix as a whole, I can't imagine FFXIV pivoting away from its current mistakes with such people working for the company in major positions.

 

[Tyrr]

Heh. Square Enix brought Tracy Fullerton onto the board of directors.

I saw the picture and read the name first as "Tranny Fullerton".

 

[Ghost Of Iron]

This entire game was carried off of the world building efforts of ARR and Heavensward, now that they've used up (and outright wrecked) all the capital from those efforts, there's really nothing of worth or interest in the lore or world anymore.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I joined a fresh run of the new 24 man boss fight to see the inside. Got to glimpse the second phase arena. It was neat, but after 30 minutes I got bored and remembered why I don't raid in FF14. It's the same issue as when I did the 8 man raids during Shadowbringers, which is that the fights have binary pass/fail mechanics where every single player needs to do every single mechanic correctly every single time, or else a lot of people die, which means you do not have enough people to survive the upcoming mechanics. So rather than persevere to the end like in a WoW raid fight, instead the survivors just leap off of the edge of the arena to wipe and reset. And you do this over and over and over. It doesn't matter whether you do your part right. The odds are that when you have 24 people and it only takes one person making one mistake to end the attempt, then you're going to have to do this over and over again many, many times until the stars align and you get that one flawless run where nobody dies, and then it becomes a question of DPS.

 

[Sergio]

The current free login campaign made me remember why I stopped subbing this game. It's just same shit all over again, and again, and again. The developers don't have the balls to try anything new. So boring.

I'm stupid enough to think that the new open zone won't be just a spam of FATEs (again) and that the Beastmaster limited job will actually be very cool (and have more than 3 hours of content).

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Abandoned the Chaotic raid and decided to do Delubrum Reginae Savage instead (the permadeath raid where at best you have a 70% chance of being self-rezzed if you use the resistance phoenix down beforehand, or can only be rezzed by a healer limit break 3. Otherwise, RIP). Half the raid died on the first boss and it became an attrition run, but we made it to the end with 5 minutes left on the clock. Got the Cerberus mount. Not sure if I want to do it 10 more times and spend 27 more hours doing it just to get the dyeable judge gear, though.

The current free login campaign made me remember why I stopped subbing this game. It's just same shit all over again, and again, and again. The developers don't have the balls to try anything new. So boring.

I'm stupid enough to think that the new open zone won't be just a spam of FATEs (again) and that the Beastmaster limited job will actually be very cool (and have more than 3 hours of content).

My hope for the new field operation zone is that it is going to be themed around hunting Notorious Monsters in Eureka where you have to physically run out to them, rather than like Bozja where the path of least resistance is to AFK in camp and to open a menu to teleport into the Critical Engagement. I like the Critical Engagement boss fights and the walls that prevent zerging, but not the teleport system.

I hope Beastmaster is not kept from queuing for dungeons or trusts or alliance raids or doing field operations and so on. Would be nice if people could play the game normally alongside a pet. Could you imagine if a hunter in WoW was banned from normal gameplay?

 

[Sergio]

I hope Beastmaster is not kept from queuing for dungeons or trusts or alliance raids or doing field operations and so on. Would be nice if people could play the game normally alongside a pet. Could you imagine if a hunter in WoW was banned from normal gameplay?

They already confirmed that Beastmaster will be a limited job, so expect the same limitations as Blue Mage. They can't make it like a "normal" job, because then it would have to be homogenized to conform with their idiotic balance philosophies. At this point I feel like this game's design hamstrings the creativity of the dev team.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thoughts on the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Blu-Ray Soundtrack

Spoiler

This is the first OST I have received that comes with an alternate cover. One side features art by Yusuke Mogi depicting a kinda cool female Hrothgar Viper (new playable race and class for Dawntrail) and a cute human Pictomancer (the other new class).




On the back side is art of the Scions and Wuk Lamat (whose name translates into "Seventh Dawn"... will she be added as a permanent member of the crew in a patch like G'raha Tia was in 5.3?), by an artist I cannot identify.




The item code for this blu-ray includes a minion of Zero, a heroine from the previous Endwalker patch storyline. The face of the model ingame does look a little uncanny. Porcelain baby doll like.

I can't tell if Footfalls or Dawntrail is the worst expansion cinematic theme. Two bads back to back. I guess I prefer Dawntrail but I would never willingly listen to it. Not fond of this overly pop sounding stuff as of late.

The login screen visual looks great, and the music (Prelude - A Westward Journey) makes you more excited to play.




Not even three songs into this album and they are once again talking about how stressful it is to make music for FFXIV... maybe they should use their $50 box expansion + $15 monthly sub + cash shop + merch money to hire more composers? I have never heard this much complaining about composing music before. Or is it actually that stressful? From the comments on the previous albums and from interviews, it sounds like Soken doesn't impose any hardline deadlines on people, and they are able to cut songs. They always get more requests for songs than they actually fulfill.

The big band music (Morrow's Might) for the new city of Tulliyollal is great. Definitely the best city music theme to listen to over and over. The other city themes in FF14 tend to overtly blare the main expansion theme with simple chord progressions, which is disinteresting and gets tiring to listen to very quickly. This theme has two distinctive parts which helps spruce it up. It also helps that Tuliyollal is colorful. Kugane looked colorful, but I didn't like the repetitive theme. This is the first expansion where I've set my home point/hearthstone to the current expansion city rather than the Gold Saucer or Limsa.

The Urqopacha day theme, Windswept Echoes, sounds great. Reminds me a lot of Atelier Ayesha's music which sounded similar. I grinded fates in this zone to get the orchestrion for my house.

The normal battle theme, Blade's Exaltation, is also pretty good. Definitely my favorite of the expansion battle themes. It is varied and has two different parts to keep it interesting. It is not monotonous like Melt, nor does it blare simple and repetitive melodies like Stormblood's and Endwalker's battle theme, nor sound like a cacophonous noise like Shadowbringer's. Sadly it is still too short for my liking, being just a 67 second song before looping, so it still became tedious to listen to when I was fate farming.

Windswept Whispers: *sigh* sadly it is once again yet another lazy night theme that is just a grand piano remix. Almost all of the FF14 expansion night themes feel so samey when they are all grand piano remixes, and don't sound as interesting or as varied as the day themes.

I like the "boing" sound in Kozama'uka's theme "Of Glittering Wings".

Now that I am simply listening to it rather than watching a cutscene, Wuk Evu's theme "Fun and Games" is underrated. Pretty varied use of sounds and manages to go on for 90 seconds without feeling tired.

The dungeon midboss theme "Roads Forsaken" still does the usual "blare the basic expansion theme" thing, though the tone does feel sufficiently threatening.




A new composer, Shoya Sunakawa.

I like the flute at the end of "Etched in Memory".

I like the second part at 1:30 of Emerald under Sapphire.

Skybound Emerald, yet another grand piano night theme, but at least there is a high pitched tinkling/glass or spacey synth sound sprinkled in there.

The dungeon final boss theme, "Pathmaker", at the two minute mark sounds a little too much like "Two Steps From Hell"'s choir for bad Western movie trailers for my liking. Reminds me of FF15's soundtrack which I was not too keen on.

The Tulliyolal night theme "Morrow's Magic" is also very good. I like the baseball organ sound at 1:14, and the 1950s brass sounds at 1:35. And the instrument at 2:05 that I forgot off the top of my head.

The Shaaloni town theme "Desertwalkers" is neat. Reminds me of some Trails town themes. It is also 3 minutes long, as opposed to Pastoral Pleasures which loops after a minute.

"Ceruleum Embers by Dusk". Finally, an interesting night theme with the upright piano, the clacking sounds, the glass bell sound, and the guitar. Reminds me of those moody 1990s detective movies or shows. Too bad that the orchestrion roll for this song is currently unavailable ingame. I would like to hear it play in my house.

"Cast Stones in Shadow" is a good, dramatic theme. Sounds like family selling each other out.

I am 31 tracks into this OST - not even half way - and the main theme has become very repetitive in how often it is used with little to no real changes, same issue with a lot of prior expansion OSTs.

Also, once again most of the musician's comments do not impart any real interesting information.




Hrm a second interesting night theme with "Crash in the Dark".

The Solution Nine theme, "Starless Skyline", is pretty nice. I have it playing in my house. I have somewhat warmed up to the FF14 Alexandria (I still think their clothes look dumb). But it was hard to not have a knee jerk reaction to a modern day looking society being inserted into the game, along with the same issues of weakening bonds between people, when I play fantasy games to escape from that to a world of meaning.

"Anatomy of Existence" goodness, it's that bad choir from FF16 again.






Ah, I remember when this cacophonous noise began playing and I turned down my volume. Pretty sad that happened on the climatic second phase of the final boss of a box JRPG (Paved with Resolve). Blaring the simplistic expansion theme on horns.




When Smile played ingame, I had to mute the game. Listening to it now... I still want to mute my computer.





I unexpectedly enjoyed Bee My Honey. I don't typically like modern pop music sounding stuff.



At the end, there is a funny music video of the Primals jamming out in a sleeping kid's bedroom.




Looking back, at least 10 of the tracks on this OST were copypastes from FF9 or Endwalker, so you only actually get around 55 new tracks this time.

I did not like most of the story battle themes (dungeon final boss, trial themes, etc). The post-game raid songs were overall better. Most of the tracks I liked were from the zones, a few cutscene themes, and a couple of the dungeon themes.

With patch 7.1 already out, I am worried about the rest of the patch cycle's music. We got hardly any new music in 7.1, just one new dungeon theme. The alliance raid songs are all copypasted from FF11. The Chaotic raid just loops a 2 minute long ARR song over and over for the many, many hours you will spend wiping on it in party finder. The sound team for some reason did not produce more than one zone song for the Field Expeditions in prior content, so it is likely that the upcoming Shade's Triangle will only get one song for all of its zones too. Since the patch main storyline is still about Alexandria, I wonder if we will get more songs lifted straight from FF9 too.


My favorite tracks:

Soundtrack album	Track name	Original composer	Arranger	Notes
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Prelude - A Westward Journey	Masayoshi Soken, Nobuo Uematsu	Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Morrow's Might	Masayoshi Soken	Saya Yasaki, Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Windswept Echoes	Saya Yasaki
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Blade's Exaltation	Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Pastoral Pleasures	Justin Frieden, Masayoshi Soken	Justin Frieden
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Of Glittering Wings	Saya Yasaki
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Fun and Games	Takafumi Imamura
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Roads Forsaken	Masayoshi Soken	Justin Frieden, Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Emerald under Sapphire	Daiki Ishikawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Coffee Break	Masayoshi Soken	Daiki Ishikawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Skybound Emerald	Daiki Ishikawa	Keiko, Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Lost in the Deep	Daiki Ishikawa	Saya Yasaki
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Morrow's Magic	Masayoshi Soken	Daiki Ishikawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Desertwalkers	Shoya Sunakawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Ceruleum Embers by Dusk	Takafumi Imamura	Keiko, Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Cast Stones in Shadow	Masayoshi Soken	Daiki Ishikawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	In Fulgur and Fire	Shoya Sunakawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Starless Skyline	Masayoshi Soken	Takafumi Imamura
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Bygone Serenity	Masayoshi Soken
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	A Trail Unending	Masayoshi Soken	Shoya Sunakawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	The Ring's Reprieve	Masayoshi Soken	Takafumi Imamura, Shoya Sunakawa
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Bee My Honey	Masayoshi Soken		Vocalist is Paula Kaye Gerhold
FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack 7.0 DAWNTRAIL	Give it All	Masayoshi Soken		Vocalist is Chrissy Costanza