let's get some stuff i didn't like about Heavensward out of the way - i don't get to spend enough time with the moogles. i actually didn't know there were daily moogle tribe quests i could do so once i'm ready to start playing again that will of course be a priority. maybe i'll actually read the quest dialogue instead of skipping it everytime since it's all repeatable anyway. anyway i'm disappointed that their involvement in the story doesn't amount to much more than a joke about mindless fetch quests, as this game loves to make, all the while continuing to have said fetch quests

the final few updates before an expansion generally act as a prologue to that expansion's storyline. although the way A Realm Reborn ends definitely makes it seem like the Uh Oh in Ul'dah will take narrative precedence, and then it doesn't. and aside from having to rescue Raubahn, things seem to resolve themselves pretty quickly, as if to get them out of the way so we can just focus on Ishgard. we even all but put finding the missing Scions aside for the most part while we're here, save for Tataru occasionally mentioning "and while you're off doing that i'll continue making enquiries about the Scions"

i enjoy the Warrior of Light getting to show some semblance of a personality. there were a couple moments throughout Heavensward that could be seen as cardinal sins of maintaining a silent protagonist, one involving Haurchefant most people probably wouldn't disagree with, but one involving Emmanellain i imagine some might. regardless i wish there were more opportunities for dialogue choices instead of having to believe i'm just a very strong but very dumb hunk of meat who's just here to watch events unfold. at one point Thancred pointed out my affinity for the "stoic nod" and i've felt self-conscious about it ever since

gotta wonder why they don't always do this. won't lie the Ascians aren't very interesting up until Shadowbringers. maybe because what they're capable of is usually pretty inconsistent so whenever they show up i sigh a little, knowing i'm about to be left wondering why they didn't just do X or Y while they had the chance. i say that but if i recall correctly Shadowbringers is an entire expansion of wondering why an Ascian doesn't do X or Y and it makes for one of the best storylines

having just finished replaying FF1 going to Matoya's Cave made me giddy, although the music does give me flashbacks to the more painful parts of Stranger of Paradise, since the arrangement sounds more like it did in that game. i love the sassy old witch though she's a great character. not sure her wrinkly old hat is a worthwhile in-game reward for buying the second encyclopedia, but it's tough to beat the cute little guy with the book who follows me around that came with the first volume

i always remembered the end of 3.0 bothering me. i'm meant to believe the WoL alone was able to kill Super Pope God Super Pope Thordan and his twelve knight primals. look at this

in reading the encyclopedia while playing, it straight up says during this part, "How the Warrior of Light managed to overcome such impossible odds that day, none can say." i'm pretty sure not long after this Stormblood starts off with me getting beaten by some guy. it's all just kinda goofy. afterwards Thordan looks at me and questions "who...WHAT are you" before dying. i'm curious too, what am i

i don't know what happens later on so maybe i'm wrong. maybe a closer read-up on the finer points of how things work in this universe would make it clear i'm wrong. and this is getting a little heady for how i've been writing about this game up to this point but it's my website i'll write what i want so here goes: just kidding i wrote a whole section of headcanon and theorizing to attempt to explain how this stupid pink-haired cat managed to take him out and now i've deleted it. you have been spared

i'll let the other cat sum it up

i think the update quests were better than the base quests. they just felt more focused on advancing the plot, which they probably had to be, and cooler cutscenes too. if you're just delivering a few new quests after several months it's a lot harder to forgive stretches of monotony or lulls in the story. when you're dropping a 50-hour expansion with a hundred quests all at once then it's whatever

during ARR i usually unsynced story dungeons to get them over with quicker. i had the option to play alongside NPCs but they were no-name Lesser Scions i didn't care about. now i'm more often being given the option to play them with Good Scions and i've been taking the extra time to experience them with my fake video game pals as opposed to any real video game pals. they don't have a lot of unique dialogue in dungeons so i could easily just look up what they say online instead, but unfortunately i am just that into this game and its characters currently

i forgot how much Alisaie wasn't in the main story like at all until Stormblood. Krile also gets introduced around this point and she likes to pick on Alphinaud, so i'm gonna be getting treated to a healthy amount of that which i so desired toward the end of ARR. i'm hard on him, he's a good kid. he's grown a lot. lord knows i couldn't go through what he does. but also lmao

on some level i think it's cool that this game seems to be almost constantly struggling to decide what plot thread to focus on. i have no idea what Endwalker is about but when i hear about it "concluding story arcs that have persisted since 2010" i kind of can't even comprehend that. this scene in particular goes into so much that i didn't even realize was being built up so early on, or at least spelled it out in a way that establishes that this is now a thing we should be worrying about, as opposed to the occasional mentions of a "one true god"

3.2 had one of my favorite cutscenes in the game. when Nidhoggstinien attacks Vidofnir during the peace conference, then after he flies off the crowd starts chanting "Death to Nidhogg!!" and it's all shaky cam and Alphinaud is looking around all scared and then the freakening Heavensward title screen music starts playing godd. couldn'ta pulled that off during a base quest i feel. hadn't given people enough time to get acquainted with that title theme yet. it apparently took me over three years after the end of 2.55 to get there so i had ample time

when i said i wanted more dialogue choices i did not mean ones that could potentially hurt a moogle's feelings. obviously whenever this happens i look up their reactions to each option beforehand. and he CRIES if you get it wrong

the Nidhogg fight i think was the first story fight i couldn't do alone, for reasons other than solo-unfriendly mechanics. it also had some more of my favorite cutscenes in the game. throwing the eyes off the bridge was obviously a bad idea, especially considering it's soon followed by a cutscene of a Menacing Man looking down menacingly towards where they were thrown. i remember thinking it was a stupid before, hoping that replaying it with fresh eyes haha eyes would clue me in on why it's not. but no it's still very obviously stupid

i was expecting to be itching to continue immediately after 3.3 but i am ever so slightly spent emotionally. Heavensward is so good man i'm all the way back into this game. unfortunately i do not remember enjoying Stormblood much but that might just be because it came after Heavensward. also maybe i played through it too fast because i'd heard Shadowbringers was real good and i wanted to get there quicker. but now i'm looking forward to once again experiencing Gosetsu and whatever else happened in that expansion. fish people

oh wait i gotta do raids and trials and stuff first!! i remember not enjoying Alexander that much either, probably due to cryptic raid mechanics and a generally confusing time travel plot only made worse by tiring goblin dialogue. but maybe the raids have since become more solo-able and maybe the goblins have developed better diction. music needs no improvement however. so nic BOOM [unintelligible scatting]