Together, we would travel the lands and cross the seas and take to the skies upon the eternal wind... My heart swells simply to imagine it.
Beaten: October 2019, three replays since
While I decided to start playing FFXIV about a month before Shadowbringers came out, I didn't start until after its release because I'd been told that the battle system was undergoing significant changes, and that it would be easier to learn it after the expansion came out. (Sorry, TP: I'll never know you.)
It took me about four months to catch up to max level and finish the story, and along the way, I found one of my very favorite Final Fantasy games of all time.
It's hard to talk about Shadowbringers without spoiling its premise, so I'll be vague: you're transported to a realm called Norvrandt, where the Warrior of Light must once again save the day. Yet before where the player character had been a means to an end, with most of the characterization going to their allies, here we finally started to dig into who you are. Of course much of it is still left unsaid to allow for players to fill in the blanks, but Shadowbringers is unquestionably where the Warrior of Light comes into their own and becomes a character in their own right.
A lot of this is achieved through a good narrative foil — you meet another Warrior of Light who had a very different journey to your own. It's also helped by the fact that your primary allies, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, finally begin to feel like your party members.
Because here, for the first time, you could play the dungeons in the story with the NPCs, not other players. This feature has since been added to all other dungeons in the game, but in Shadowbringers it was first used, and it helps the game itself feel more cohesive. Instead of sending you out to do all the dirty work by yourself, the Scions come along and help you.
And you need a lot of help, because Shadowbringers has a villain unlike any other. Emet-Selch watches you try to save the world, and decides on a different course of action from his fellows: he's going to come along for the ride. Why he does this, and what drives him, makes for the most compelling villain in the entire Final Fantasy series.
I cannot even begin to give Shadowbringers half the praise it deserves. It is a Final Fantasy game on par with any other in the series. It is unquestionably my favorite expansion. It builds on plot threads introduced back in A Realm Reborn and takes them to their logical conclusion. It is a masterpiece that I will never stop singing the praises of. It is worth playing FFXIV just to experience it.
The Crystal Exarch is by far my favorite character, for reasons that are drenched in spoilers. I'll simply say that he falls into some of my very favorite tropes in fiction and makes for a wonderfully mysterious figure.
Emet-Selch is unquestionably the best villain in the series. This is coming from someone who already had a favorite villain.
And, of course, the Scions all develop very well in this expansion. Plus Ardbert makes for a very interesting foil who I've never grown tired of.
As with all the other expansions, Shadowbringers has an incredible OST. It also happens to have my actual #1 favorite song in the game, "Unchanging, Everchanging." Other favorites:
That was more than I expected, but seriously, Shadowbringers had amazing music.
Lakeland, no contest. It's my top favorite zone in the entire game. It's beyond beautiful. Every time I come back there it's like I'm starting Shadowbringers all over again. Absolute favorite.
The Crystarium is likewise my favorite city-state in the game.
Since I started playing during 5.0, I have the most to talk about for this one!
I caught up with the story the same week 5.1 came out, so I got to experience the rest of the Shadowbringers patches as they came out. I finally got my first taste of endgame raiding. I got to do everything with the big rush of endgame players, which was very different to coming to it late! There's absolutely nothing like playing a 24-player alliance raid the day it comes out, when no one knows what the boss mechanics are.
And man, the Shadowbringers 24-player raids are amazing. They're a crossover with Nier, a franchise I don't enjoy at all but which made for very ripe grounds for a fun MMO raid — and they made three of them! They've long been some of my favorite raids in the game, no matter how much of a mess they can end up being.
The 8-player raids were likewise a blast, with this set's theme being FFVIII, a game I have long loved. You start out fighting Eden, and it only gets wilder from there. Here was my first experience with raiding, though I didn't start until near the end of the expansion.
Shadowbringers also had the Ishgardian Restoration, a special event where non-combat jobs like crafters and gatherers could help rebuild a destroyed section of Ishgard. I participated in all three rounds of the restoration, ranking in each, and I really will never stop singing its praises. Each time, for a little over a week, the entire server was hopping with people crafting and gathering nonstop to try and score as many points as possible for a special title. This isn't really a competitive game in general, so it was a rare experience that made for a phenomenal time.
There was also Bozja, a set of optional content for max-level players with its own raids, exploratory zones, and battle content. Bozja had its detractors, but I really enjoyed seeing a different side of the game, and I had a lot of fun with the raids. I completed four of my Bozja relic weapons when it was current, and later finished the rest of them late in Endwalker.