~~Yes this is a dumb meme post~~
Spoilers up to patch quests of Stormblood! If you just freed Ala Migho and killed Zenos at the menagerie, BE GONE! You will be spoiled. Also please no spoiling anything beyond Stormblood and the Shadowbringers trailer!!!!
Okay so like I’ve done for ARR and HW, I just want to put my thoughts together here before I learn more and start ShB. Normally I would finish the raids, alliance raids, and story trials, but the latter patch quests were just so engaging I ended up only doing the story trials aka Four Lords. Also with the Shadowbringers trailer being full of “what the fuck is going on?” I decided to just go on to shadowbringers here.
As for the story… I really do think overall I really enjoyed this expansion more than Heavensward. While HW was consistently amazing, especially with the Dragonsong War, Stormblood just had much higher highs for me. So many call backs and so much build off paying off. I teared up at the Ala Migho dungeon when I saw Lord Hien and Yugiri showing up out of the blue like big damn heroes. Seeing all the allies we recruited along the way like the leaders of the city states, Ishgard, Doma, like it all just *worked*. Add on the scions and character development for Lyse and ESPECIALLY Alisae… I just felt more satisfied here. It really felt like we were making a huge difference. While there are weak parts here where things felt slower, and not very memorable side characters from Ala Migho compared to Doma, I really did enjoy the journey of it all. Also I really grew to hate the empire so much more. Like holy hell was learning of their occupation, their crimes, the sa, the conscription, like I was happy to keep going and liberating the places I could because I wanted these folks to have a good life. That right there? I really liked that. Also Zenos was a fun if standard villain. While his blood lust personality is something I’ve seen before, he was such a god damn menace who humbled us that I can’t help but love how he was implemented here. I WANTED to beat his ass. Unlike ARR and HW where the villain was introduced later to our WoL (kinda) Zenos knew damn well who we were and was already fighting day 1. It only pained me his normal self got off too easy. He deserved worse.
Then we get to patch quests. It started off pretty god dang intriguing but somewhat predictable for its first half or so. Like I was very interested in the Sultana and Rauhban’s arc and how he finally found his true calling and the Sultana wised up to how her nation works, I found the initial Doma stuff to be kind of cool but like, of *course* the empire would betray us. The only real thing keeping me interested was seeing what would end up happening to Yotsuyu and if she would somehow get a path to redemption like Fordola will. Even though she didn’t, I still felt a little heavy for her death. If only because it broke Goesetsu. After that arc, I really think things heated up with the second invasion of the empire. Recruiting allies in the east was AMAZING. Oh and while I didn’t mention it earlier, I LOVE the new system of playing as other characters! We get a good idea of just how powerful we are in comparison to our allies and it’s just AMAZING for storytelling. Also little sun during the Steppe made me howl with laughter 😂
What got me super engaged though was just all the mysteries being solved but opening more mysteries. Like holy hell Gaius survived? Oh shit the ascians created the empire? Oh god what is happening to the scions now??? Like the voice and knocking us out one by one (I’m calling him John Shadowbringer) was such a very intense moment in the story and the only relief I have from it is knowing the scions are still alive from the trailer. Like I am very interested in knowing what is going on, what the ascians are plotting, where our scions really are, why the heck other scions like Krile were not affected, Fordola just holy HELL there is so much going on I cannot wait to see what happens!!!
Oh and four lords questline? Fucking amazing comedic and well written story. More Tataru is always good but I also enjoyed the whole story and vibes of the characters there.
Overall I cannot wait for Shadowbringers and to see what the FUCK is going on here. I need answers, I need to know WHY??? I will finish omega raids and alliance raids sometime during Shadowbringers once I get an understanding of what is happening, but for now? I had a break and I am ready to start plowing through some MSQ 😤
Edit
I will do Omega raids before I do shadowbringers. I have been convinced by people here and given strategies on getting faster queues. I also will eventually do the Alliance raids and other content I missed! I’m just in a really good story rn so I wanna wait until I get answers and feel more satisfied :)