Warning: Some 4.0 spoilers in this blog entry
The Ala Mhigan Gown is pretty great!Wrathful And Resolute #3: A Returner RebornThat's the title I'm going with at least for now for this blog, "Wrathful And Resolute." The crazy grammar person in me is going crazy with capitalizing "And" but it works to make the acronym WAR. And I've had the acronym "A Returner Reborn" in mind for a a while now to describe my current topic on this blog WAR, talking about my history with the game and getting back into the game.
Now, where were we?
So after about 3 years (from around late June 2017) I finally got back into FFXIV in August 2020 or so. Few days before 3.3, actually. Though I didn't end up having much time playing anything new in 3.3 - I was catching up in the MSQ! I remember being clearly lost in the Azim Steppes, having no clue what the hell I was doing.
I do remember being sure I wanted to play a new job. I first started leveling PLD:
I figured I played a bit of PLD in FFXI and already had some experience of it in HW (parsed purple on A9S!). Still didn't seem to fit, so started leveling NIN:
It was great but DPS queues suck of course and I kinda missed tanking. So back to WAR for me once again lol:
I started making my way through the MSQ. I had such a strong drive at the start that even though SB's story wasn't especially... thrilling, I was able to drive right through it. Even including sidequests and side content, I'm a bit of a completionist. I guess highlights of SB's 4.0 MSQ would include:
Hien (surprisingly cool character, wasn't expecting that)
Fordola (wish they did more with her)
Kugane, Azim Steppes, Yangxia (or however they spell that lol) and parts of other zones
Most of the MSQ in the Azim Steppes
FINALLY getting out of Othard and back into the main story proper
Seeing Raubahn's old home
That kinda corny anthem at the end of 4.0 with the flag, Lyse and everyone. I probably have a screenshot of this, but in the almost 2k currently unsort screenshots I have lol
Some of the music, I particularly like "Heroes of Stormblood" that herioc instrumental version of the anthem
Estinien's moment when he shows up with the classic HW theme, brought me back to my glory days
Things I don't like about 4.0:
Disjointed story (hello Gyr Abania and Othard parts)
Lots of brown zones (Fringes, Ruby Sea, that other not-Fringes zone, the Lochs)
Job quests being sorta meh
Too many boring sidequests (this one's kinda on me, for being a completionist)
Everything Zenos
Holy crap, I still am not a fan of Zenos, but then again aren't we all? Of course, that moment when he kicks your ass for me was years ago so I can barely remember it at this point and mostly just remember him as the guy who lost to us 1v1 then cut his throat to fuse with Shinryu (didn't know the meaning of him committing suicide at the time lol). Was kinda cool to fight Shinryu, never got to him in FFXI.
By the end of 4.0, I was annoyed by my needing to complete every sidequest, but that's mostly my fault. I was having a good time though, and that's when my wife saw me playing and actually got interested in trying it out. She's played a decent number of games before so wasn't that hard to get her into it. For me, someone who tries to be "the best" (then fails miserably), gets kinda hardcore then burns out, who loves the story and the music, her approach surprised me. But we'll save that for next time on the WAR blog!
