This review contains spoilers
AAAAA IT'S SOOOOOOOOO GOOOD!!!!!!
Ok so Shadowbringers was amazing, the first 2 patches were pretty good but nothing too crazy and then they hit you with this masterpiece
By FAR the best piece of XIV I've played so far it's miles away ahead of everything else.
It hits all the right notes perfectly, every single person working on this game was going insane working on this because everything is so good.
The writing is at the top of it's game here, there were at least 3 scenes where I actually cried and there's so many amazing lines that'll just fly by and hit you, like there's so much amazing stuff in this patch I honest to god cannot believe this is the same game that had ARR, went from the writing to being borable but just about passable to some of the best writing I've seen in a game. What the fuck happened, I don't know but I love it.
The voice actors all go crazy as always so many amazing performances all the main Scions deliver stellar performances and are able to hit every emotional beat they need to. Defintely one of my favourite voice casts in recent memory.
The music goes insane as always, but that's to be expected, Soken & his team continue to make banger after banger and it always fits the mood which enhances pretty much every scene they're in, like when the game wants to get you hyped by god they will get you hyped it's amazing. (though the 15min wait to start a duty? not so much)
Something of note I wanted to highlight was how insane the animations were, I didn't fully appreciate the jump in quality until the ending cutscenes but by god they have massivley improved. So many small things, especially with Alisaie on the final cutscenes when we're reunited with Graha Tia, go back and watch all the animations on that cutscene there's so much life and talent put into them. Once again compare this to the previous cutscenes from ARR or HW and see how stiff they feel in comparsion.
Though I don't know how much of this is due to how low my expectations have gotten, since Alisaie slouching down her chair because she's bored got me to pay full attention to the animiatons because XIV has never dared to do that before. But regardless it's nice to see all these small thing have such detail.
Elidibus is a amazing character and continues on the recent trend of making the Ascians actually amazing characters with depth and sympathetic goals. I adored Eldibus and his final line hit me like a truck, and then right after that I got hit with another truck when The Exarch was crystalized. Tears were shed on both occasions...
Tears were also shed with Seto, that scene with Ardbert was really lovely and I did not expect it to get me as it did but Truly was a amazing scene.
The Duty where you go back through the WoL adventure was again beatufiul and while a partial trip down memory lane it was just so well executed and continues to show that while I don't care for Haurchefaunt as a character I think how his character was handeled post death was surpisngly great considering I thought he was a ok character before and I didn't care at all when he died I acctually feel sad when reminded of him.
Also I adore musical callbacks and getting to hear Answers (reprise? whatever version idk) and Heavensward is lovely (even though I listen to both on the regular on my own)
The actual Trial with Elidbus as well as the Dungeon were both great and some of my favourite in each catergry. Amazing bossfights for each especially the final for the dungeon that was cool as hell & really fun.
The Warrior of Light fight was both amazing visually for apparent reasons but also because the fight just kinda rocked, really well designed fight, hype moments preceded, hype moments during (Emet-Selch, or I'm 99% certain it was him but like it was, it was so sick) just everyhing about it and the muisc that song banged.
Overall as you can very much tell I really really really enjoyed this Patch, one of my favourite FF things in general Shadowbringers as a whole is Peak fiction. I actually get the unending praise XIV gets fully now, like it's deserved, it may have taken 330 hours to get here... but honestly I'd say it was fully worth it.
Amazing patch I love all these characters and just XIV in general at this point.
It's Peak....
(Ok bonus thing, shameful conffesion I did have this video open the whole time I played this... I just.. accidently left it open and I never turned it off. Who am I to not have random Erika Furude laughing every 10 min or so... it was kinda funny when I was activley crying and Erika just giggles. Anyhow I felt this was a importnat addition to my review, so go read hit Visual Novel Umineko (Read Higurashi first) it's peak
Ok so Shadowbringers was amazing, the first 2 patches were pretty good but nothing too crazy and then they hit you with this masterpiece
By FAR the best piece of XIV I've played so far it's miles away ahead of everything else.
It hits all the right notes perfectly, every single person working on this game was going insane working on this because everything is so good.
The writing is at the top of it's game here, there were at least 3 scenes where I actually cried and there's so many amazing lines that'll just fly by and hit you, like there's so much amazing stuff in this patch I honest to god cannot believe this is the same game that had ARR, went from the writing to being borable but just about passable to some of the best writing I've seen in a game. What the fuck happened, I don't know but I love it.
The voice actors all go crazy as always so many amazing performances all the main Scions deliver stellar performances and are able to hit every emotional beat they need to. Defintely one of my favourite voice casts in recent memory.
The music goes insane as always, but that's to be expected, Soken & his team continue to make banger after banger and it always fits the mood which enhances pretty much every scene they're in, like when the game wants to get you hyped by god they will get you hyped it's amazing. (though the 15min wait to start a duty? not so much)
Something of note I wanted to highlight was how insane the animations were, I didn't fully appreciate the jump in quality until the ending cutscenes but by god they have massivley improved. So many small things, especially with Alisaie on the final cutscenes when we're reunited with Graha Tia, go back and watch all the animations on that cutscene there's so much life and talent put into them. Once again compare this to the previous cutscenes from ARR or HW and see how stiff they feel in comparsion.
Though I don't know how much of this is due to how low my expectations have gotten, since Alisaie slouching down her chair because she's bored got me to pay full attention to the animiatons because XIV has never dared to do that before. But regardless it's nice to see all these small thing have such detail.
Elidibus is a amazing character and continues on the recent trend of making the Ascians actually amazing characters with depth and sympathetic goals. I adored Eldibus and his final line hit me like a truck, and then right after that I got hit with another truck when The Exarch was crystalized. Tears were shed on both occasions...
Tears were also shed with Seto, that scene with Ardbert was really lovely and I did not expect it to get me as it did but Truly was a amazing scene.
The Duty where you go back through the WoL adventure was again beatufiul and while a partial trip down memory lane it was just so well executed and continues to show that while I don't care for Haurchefaunt as a character I think how his character was handeled post death was surpisngly great considering I thought he was a ok character before and I didn't care at all when he died I acctually feel sad when reminded of him.
Also I adore musical callbacks and getting to hear Answers (reprise? whatever version idk) and Heavensward is lovely (even though I listen to both on the regular on my own)
The actual Trial with Elidbus as well as the Dungeon were both great and some of my favourite in each catergry. Amazing bossfights for each especially the final for the dungeon that was cool as hell & really fun.
The Warrior of Light fight was both amazing visually for apparent reasons but also because the fight just kinda rocked, really well designed fight, hype moments preceded, hype moments during (Emet-Selch, or I'm 99% certain it was him but like it was, it was so sick) just everyhing about it and the muisc that song banged.
Overall as you can very much tell I really really really enjoyed this Patch, one of my favourite FF things in general Shadowbringers as a whole is Peak fiction. I actually get the unending praise XIV gets fully now, like it's deserved, it may have taken 330 hours to get here... but honestly I'd say it was fully worth it.
Amazing patch I love all these characters and just XIV in general at this point.
It's Peak....
(Ok bonus thing, shameful conffesion I did have this video open the whole time I played this... I just.. accidently left it open and I never turned it off. Who am I to not have random Erika Furude laughing every 10 min or so... it was kinda funny when I was activley crying and Erika just giggles. Anyhow I felt this was a importnat addition to my review, so go read hit Visual Novel Umineko (Read Higurashi first) it's peak