(Actually finished on July 25th, 2023 uh oh)

Definitely an improvement over the primary- agh shit hold up we gotta talk about POST-ARR.

POST-A REALM REBORN (v2.1-2.6)

I guess it's to be expected that they wouldn't just transition into Heavensward right after ARR, they do several major updates before each expansion. It's fairly alright but this is definitely where a lot of the...nuance(?) of Final Fantasy 14 start to show. Finally, CBU3 took off the weights of ARR and got to work in making the kind of MMO they wanted to! Sadly, this would still require quite a couple of hours of set up. POST-ARR quests have quite a few plotlines going on, on top of a side dungeon introducing 'Alliance Raids' and fan favorite catboy G'raha Tia. We got done with the Crystal Tower segment pretty quickly although it was definitely the start of FF14's dungeons getting fairly tricky, especially in these Alliance Raids. 24 players, 3 teams of 8 consisting of 4 dps, 2 tanks and 2 healers. Very hectic and very daunting at first, and I'll admit to getting lost and going into another squads' segment during the final level of the raid. Still primarily using Monk as my class during this segment, and I gotta give props to anybody that does not start out these kinds of games as DPS because man would being an early Tank or a Healer stress me to no end, but more on that later. Honestly despite how oddly these quests are set up, I did mentally block most of what happened prior as just some sort of 'trial' phase of 14, as if it were some proof of concept rather than the first part of an ongoing series, which might be weird to say given that was supposed to be the rebirth of 1.0 but hey here we are now. Post-ARR the cutscene density increases and the amount of voice acting becomes more prevalent which definitely helps. But overall the scenarios here made for a much better idea as to what's to come not just in Heavensward but as to what later expansions will pick up on, with a strong finale in Patch 2.5. Although watching that final cutscene did lend some strong "garry's mod animation" vibe, ngl. Not necessarily knocking it! Just stuck in my mind for cutscenes afterward.

Heavensward Proper

Finally, we get to the 'good' stuff. The expansion where FF14 is supposed to get real strong. Does that claim actually hold up? I'd say so- but having now put in several more hours (I will not talk about how i thought my actual playtime of 100 hours was supposed to be like, 40-50 hrs) I got a lot more invested in the cast, where quests were going, and certain dungeons/trials felt a lot more engaging- although there's still a lot of oddities that you have to tackle with this being a new section of the game. Most of the unlocks and progression from ARR aren't as prevalent here, as most of the expansion focuses on this new chunk of the plot. It's a bit unfortunate because one of the major new inclusions here is the 'Aether Current' system. For those unaware, post-ARR allows you to fly across the regions you had unlocked or whatever rideable companion you had on hand, be in Chocobo or flying whale you bought on the Square Enix store for 30 dollars (...wtf). The Aether Currents are this list of quests and on-field interactables that you need to gather in each area to be able to fly again in that area. I get it, it's so you don't just skip over all the level that was just made for the expansion but man is it kinda obnoxious using the compass and doing all the simple quests to get the aether currents. I didn't bother with collecting them until after finishing Heavensward proper. It doesn't actually take too much time to get cleared but I wanted to check out more of the MSQ instead.

Aside from that not too much new to talk about aside from the storyline and characters, although I did decide to take a big step- running Dark Knight. Tbh, I was really hesitant moving away from DPS and taking on a new role going through dungeons, but I'm glad that either my server or just the overall community for FF14 was as easy going and helpful as they were in telling me if I was doing anything wrong or missing anything as a tank, like not having my damn aggro spell up or using Unmend to grab long distance aggro. Lot of this information was really helpful in getting me to understand the 'tank' mindset and in some instances it is easier than DPS since all I'm expected to do is stand around and keep the target(s) locked on me, while my DPS figures out certain dungeon mechanics. My main issue is just how long it takes grinding out DRK to whatever level matches your current job, definitely decide from the start of Heavensward whether or not you want you want to go into a job and stick with it- I finished HW before getting my DRK up to where my MNK was so I had to grind out more as the former since MSQ is where all the good EXP is at, YFM?...

Props to Dark Knight though for having an incredibly good job storyline though, apparently they bring on the writer for this storyline into the main questline in later expansions which im glad is the case. It's just fun to have a class where the whole bit is "man what the fuck are we (as jrpg-hero-person) doing even, these menial tasks- you're an idiot, <WoL>" its a super interesting take on the usual spiel, especially coming off Monk's story.

Also this is partially true of pre-HW but if all the discourse around Game of Thrones and FF16 was tiring than I apologize, but there’s definitely more of a GRRM vibe once you get into Dravania and start dealing with assassination, political drama, dragons, wintry locales, class disparity, etc. Banri Oda, main scenario writer for pretty much the rest of the game, actually did mention this a few years back in an interview, although looking at the transcript he described it more as “the methodology of how these works were created helped me write Heavensward”, and I’d have to say it rings true. As much as I like Ul’dah or Limsa I can’t exactly say I know much or did too much in those towns outside of side quests or spending time in the Steps of Thal, whereas Ishgard and the surrounding areas of Heavensward make for a much more interesting environment, visually and geopolitically.

On top of that most of your cast throughout the expansion is just pretty great, seeing a lot more big names and spending time with some of the harder hitters from the previous segments like Haurchefant (Haurchie…), Alphinaud and Ysayle. Also Tataru -giving a thumbs up to one of the like, 4 good Lalafell out there. Also very interested in seeing where Estinien goes from here since that’s definitely a name I heard a lot prior to starting FF14.

Overall, a BIG step up from FF14 although I do think there’s quite a bit that’s still cooking. Definitely glad this was included in the free expansion since it’s a more interesting package as to what kept FF14 rallying for years and years. Note that this review -were I less lazy- would have been finished before the most recent fanfest in which they announced the free trial would be including Stormblood, days after having finished HW. Fairly interested in Stormblood though, unironically.

Yeah the story kind of sucks and it's weird that GV is relegated to being both this game's Devil Trigger and mascot character, but the good parts of the game make up for that. Kirin's playstyle is super fun and the Image Pulse system (a kind of randomized/gacha mechanic where you collect and equip memories of past Gunvolt characters for passive effects or to use as special skills) allows for a lot of customizations and the ability to kind of control the difficulty of the game outside of the actual difficulty options.

It is absolutely crazy to me that a game that looks this ugly came out from a major publisher in 2000. You fire this thing up and the animation and character models and backgrounds just slap you full across the face with no warning. PC games weren't exacly known for their photorealistic beauty at this point in history, but we're not talking the dawn of 3D gaming here. This company - on this engine - made GRIM FANDANGO two years earlier, and that was great. This game looks like EARTHWORM JIM 3D. It looks like BUBSY 3D.

I probably wouldn't be so hard on it if the rest of the game didn't suck huge also, but it does. Charmless, zero-laughs writing just drafting off bits from the previous games, a nothing plot and totally unrecognizable returning characters, absolute garbage puzzles from start to finish, one legendarily stupid minigame, and an abysmal control scheme (a.k.a. the worst part of GRIM, but that game was, you know, really good, so it didn't matter). After the last game was such an unlikely success, it sucks that they went and dicked the dog this hard right afterwards. It's even more disheartening to see the unbelievable pass this thing got with reviewers in its day. Were they just trying to prop up the genre? Afraid that if they gave the biggest-name point-and-click of the year its deserved D+ for effort that they'd kill them all for good? Didn't make a difference either way, I guess. But good lord, if this was the best they could do, the genre deserved a break.

....

(sorry, one more thing about the graphics. So like ... this game has pre-rendered backgrounds. So ... shouldn't the character models be good? Couldn't they use a COUPLE more polygons?? They look SO BAD. The backrounds are jpegs! This is the PC for Christ's sake, not the N64! FEAR EFFECT came out nine months before this!! Wtf was going on here?!?)

As someone who adores action games, music, and vibrant colourful graphics, Hi-Fi Rush feels like a game that was made for me. It feels like something straight out of the early PS3 era and I do mean that in the best way possible.

Taking a lot of cues from character action and hack-and-slash titles, Hi-Fi Rush has a familiar feeling. Light and heavy attacks that can be strung together and spaced out for different combos, a dodge, a parry, a grapple, and a whole host of special meter moves. The twist here is that EVERYTHING in the game is in-time to the music. Your attacks and the enemy's attacks all line up to land on each beat of the song and you are encouraged to time your moves just right to master each encounter. It feels incredible if you can get into the groove of it, and almost everything makes a noise which indicates if you landed on or off beat to sync up to it. The only thing that doesn't, and perhaps my only major criticism of the game is the parry. You certainly hear and feel when you land a parry perfectly, but you don't get any feedback if your timing was too early or too late (outside of getting hit), so it took me quite a way through the game until I really felt comfortable with it.

That being said, multiple playthroughs are encouraged. There are no small number of secrets hidden in the gorgeous and thoughtfully designed levels, quite a few of which demand you come back later with all your upgrades/post-playthrough. Add in the scoring system for each encounter and level, and it's easy to see why you would want to play it over and over again.

As far as the story goes, it's serviceable for what it is. The strength is in the fun characters and writing, and I was really impressed with how much I loved the main character after my initial apprehension. The game also has a killer original soundtrack and even some well chosen licensed songs for a couple of the boss fights.

Hi-Fi Rush wraps up in a perfect length of around 10 hours, but as mentioned previously there are plenty of extras to look for after completing it. I highly recommend this game, and I am shocked that one of my favourite games of the year thus far just came out of nowhere. Well done to Tango Gameworks.

What makes a video game sequel unnecessary to exist? Video games are no strangers when it comes to sequels, and the sole reason these follow-ups exist is to capitalize on a popular game, but it can also be a way to expand on these previously-told stories or create new ones in this expanded universe they want to envision. Sequels can range in quality, but they garner attention and that's why they're so common in different mediums, but sometimes, stories come to an end with the intent of the producer moving on from a project to another. But with a major franchise such as Mega Man in the hands of a big corporation such as Capcom, they can greenlight more sequels on a particular franchise going against the creator's intentions, and this was the case with Mega Man X6. Releasing a year after X5 and a year after the release of the PlayStation 2, X6 was solely made just to continue with the series and obviously money; and after experiencing X6 myself, yeah, this does feel like it was made in a year. This was where the X series started to dip in quality as the game was criticized for its sloppy level design and its newly implemented system, and while I agree with these opinions, I didn't have an awful experience compared to most, and I'll touch upon why that is.

The gameplay is more of the same as previously, are you surprised? Added to X's arsenal is Zero's Z-Saber; it has its own designated button and can be used to slice down enemies and blocks that are in your way. It took some getting used to when having both the X-Buster and Z-Saber in X's hands, but once I did, the more I started to love the hybrid as there are some instances where the saber can be more effective to slash down than just primarily shooting, and that was genuinely the most fun I had with the game. Let's move on to the Armor Upgrades as we got two new sets in X's collection. The Blade Armor is nothing special except for its noteworthy mechanic the Mach Dash; when holding the jump button for like five seconds, X will perform a quick air dash that covers a lot of distance. The last new armor set is the Shadow Armor. When equipped, X can walk and wall climbs on spikes, his normal shot fires shurikens randomly at three different angles, and his charge shot produces a powerful Z-Saber slash, but he cannot air dash and is unable to use special weapons. This is a better version of the Gaea Armor in X5 and is easily the best armor set in the game, but similar to X5, you cannot equip them unless you got the whole set, which again, is kind of dumb. The Falcon Armor returns from X5 but the rocket move has been nerfed to a one-second invincible air dash, which is kind of a bummer, but it's understandable why they did this. Now if you're playing this game for the first time, stick to the Falcon Armor until you obtain the armor sets, because armorless X sucks dick in this game, and it feels as though the levels were designed around the armor sets more than just simply tweak them for all playable version of X. It is possible to beat the game without them, but you'll be suffering through hoards of enemies and death spikes that you cannot see on the bottom of your feet. Zero plays the same as before, meaning he's still fun to play, so I don't need to explain his move set again.

Let's move on to the sole reason why people hate Mega Man X6 so much, the stages. Now outside of a few areas such as the insta-kill ice blocks in Blizzard Wolfang's stage or the circular mini-bosses in Blaze Heatnix's stage, I didn't find the Maverick stages to be that bad. I think they're kind of fun if you're someone like me who plays Mega Man X games carelessly, progressively moving forward while taking damage. The second reason why people hate some of these stages is the aggressively annoying task of saving the Reploid hostages. X6 expands upon the Reploid system by containing every Maverick stage with injured Reploids with a total of 128 to collect. Some of these Reploids give you nothing, but some carry parts, so it's more of a requirement to rescue them in order to obtain them. Here's the catch however; there is a common enemy in the game called Nightmare Viruses, and you have to destroy them because if you don't destroy them in time when they're near a Reploid, they'll brainwash them into a Maverick and you have no choice but to destroy them, and when that happens, that hostage you failed to save is permanently gone, and so does the specific parts some of them carry. Your only choice into rescuing them all without failure is by resetting the game and reloading your save. Now I've failed to save like 10 hostages, and I think most of the spots weren't too bad, but locking you out of an important piece that is useful for upgrading your abilities is terrible game design and should never be allowed in a video game.

The problem I have with the stages themselves is that they're not consistent when it comes to difficulty. Mega Man X6 is cited as the hardest game in the series but not for good reasons as I've touched upon earlier. While the stages have their moments, the Mavericks themselves are piss easy, and some can be easily shot down in less than ten seconds (well except for Infinity Mijinion). The first half I was competent in persevering without much issue outside cheap deaths here and there, but the second half takes everything about good level design and chucks it out of the window. Gate's stages have got to be one of the worst final levels in all of Mega Man, and I only played most of the mainline classic series and about half of its subsequent sub-series. It feels like a test of requirements than a test of skill. Let me explain what I mean by this. Gate Stage 1 has you plummet down to the laboratory and the first thing you see when you hit the ground is a wall of spikes. You cannot wall jump or else instant death, so the two options available are using Ice Burst and using the Blade Armor to air dash or utilizing the Shadow Armor to climb up the wall of spikes, and this depends if you have these armor sets. And this was with X because Zero can get through this efficiently with his double jump as X6 was never designed well with those two Maverick Hunters in mind. Gate Stage 2 is the worst level in the game, bar none, as it culminates into one big shitshow. There are totem poles you have to defeat to progress with moving vertical platforms and blue orb-like enemies that are a bitch to kill, and the nicknamed "impossible jump" if you're using the Shaow Armor as X. There is a trick to get across by sliding down the wall as close to the bottom as possible and dash off the wall and release the charge shot and then use the Giga Attack while you're charging up, and after the animation is over, release your second charge shot to reach the platform. I for the life of me cannot pull this off without bumping X's head into the ceiling, so I gave up on it; not to mention, this stage is split into two parts, meaning if you decide to quit and equip another armor set like the Blade Armor as I did, you have to defeat High Max again and then make your way to Gate. This section of the level for X is abysmal as this is a stark contrast to playing as Zero as he has a much easier section compared to what pisspoor design X received. Gate himself is a jerkish boss to this already jerkish stage. He'll follow you around and then eventually send out moderate-sized orbs that vary in color and abilities that you have to shoot or swing with your sword by getting one of the six shots to hit Gate himself. This fight was hell as you have bottomless pits to worry about, and the battle drags on forever and can release his orbs and destroys the platforms whenever he feels like it. After finally defeating him, my response to all of the suffering was, "fuck this dude, and fuck this stage." The final stage shouldn't be stressful to take care of as it consists of the traditional boss rush we all know at this point, and then defeat Sigma, who was honestly a pushover this time around. The second half felt like whiplash, and I was happy to be done with the game. If you want to learn the "Leap of Faith," check out this YouTube Short here.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xC3V_WnhWAs?feature=share

Before I wrap things up, here are my favorite songs to come out of X6's soundtrack. Blizzard Wolfang's Stage exemplifies the theme of an icicle cavern extremely well as this is my favorite when it comes to Mega Man ice themes. Metal Shark Player's Stage nails the theme of an industrial factory the game was trying to go for. I love the futuristic but sort of creepy vibe in Ground Scaravich's stage as I teleport through randomly-generated sections and destroy the totem poles that are blocking my path. As much as I loathe this fight, Gate's theme is my favorite song to come out of Mega Man X6, and it's a good thing that it's great because you'll be hearing it through dozens of loops. Naoto Tanaka was the sole composer of the game's soundtrack and he previously worked on X5's soundtrack as well, and I think X6 was his best work when it comes to composing Mega Man music, and this soundtrack alone was the best thing to come out of this game.

Mega Man X6 was a mess from start to finish. While I enjoyed the soundtrack and its consistent gameplay, its difficulty was inconsistent with pisspoor level design and fundamentally flawed ideas that aggravate the player like the Nightmare system and the perma-death for the Reploid hostages. It felt like it was made fast and cheap, and it was made fast and cheap. While I think it's a bit overhated, it's my least favorite game in the PS1 trilogy and I wouldn't call this a guilty pleasure game as much as I wanted to. This is a sequel that shouldn't have been made.

An entry that will truly divide its Fanbase

There is no denying that this entry into the Final Fantasy world has been highly controversial due to its tone shift. Truly changing the typical FF formula with a more mature rated story fans have been divided about this game since its demo. It is really interesting seeing both sides because I have yet to see a middle with this game. People have either truly loved the game or truly despise the game raving how this isn't an FF game at all. In the end however, this game worked for me VERY well as I absolutely adore this game even with its flaws.

Story

Our first stop takes us to the story of FF16 which of course I won't be getting to deep into for spoiler sakes. The lore is DEEP and rich in FF16 and will give fans a lot to talk and speculate about as time goes on. Furthermore given the controversy surrounding the game it is no surprise that yes this is a very dark and grim story. For example I can't really remember laughing much throughout the game besides a few chuckles every now and then when specific characters interacted. This can be an issue for some people as an overly serious story could be draining but by the end I found it to be amazing even given its constant serious tone. In the end I was absolutely floored by the story from the start all the way to its amazing ending even with the few hiccups along the way. Watching Clive grow more with the story was just beautiful to watch, his character was amazing to follow. One aspect I was taken away by was how deep the side stories get to the point where I almost say its a must to do side quests. You learn so much about the characters and very important details about the game through these side quests breathing new life into every main character you come across. Lastly the active time lore should NOT be overlooked and quite honestly is amazing and should be a standard for RPG stories moving forward. If you ever feel lost or don't remember what happened at anytime you can pull up a screen that will give you details on what is currently going on and the important characters during that part. I can't stress how amazing this feature is as it can get you up to speed on story in the matter of a few buttons.

Characters

Well it only makes sense to get into the characters now.... right?. Simply put, the cast in the game is phenomenal and insanely loveable from main characters to even side ones like goetz. You will really grow attached to everyone by the end of the story and even more so if you play the side quests for everyone. However, this brings me into my first issue with this game which is how certain characters are handled. It is no surprise that with a game as deep and rich lore wise there are bound to be some characters who were handled poorly and luckily I only found 2 cases. That being said there are an insane amount of standout characters such as Dion, Gav, Mid and of course Clive.

Gameplay

Oh boy are you in for a damn good time with the combat of FF16. To begin with, Yeah this is very much not a typical FF turn based game this is an action game. Furthermore the game has a deep level of combat if you want to take it to that level but can be played very casual if you choose to do so. In the beginning of the game the combat is pretty limited skill wise but as you progress the gameplay opens up to insane levels. Being able to swap between 3 elemental skill sets during battle, the amount of mixing and comboing you can do is insanely high and will keep you engaged all the way through. A truly amazing combat was cooked up with FF16 SE really outdid themselves with this entry. If you like DMC you will love this game.

Difficulty

This can be a tricky one as I believe difficulty to really be a by the person thing. You might consider this game hard , you might consider this game easy it really depends on the player itself. As for me I found the game to be way to easy making me wish the hardest difficulty was unlocked from the start. Some bosses can give you a challenge but for the vast majority of the game issues were never an occurring thing for me.

RPG elements

Given the fact this is an action game I was still bummed that the RPG elements were pretty bland. To start there are NO elemental buffs, debuff, Special skills. As an example this game has tiered weapons in the form of colors starting from green and going all the way up to Yellow. This is quite simply a useless system and weapons do not feel any different from one another apart from looking different and having higher attack. It makes for a unexciting process of acquiring new weapons , armor as you will never feel the difference, its all numbers. I really wish they implemented higher tier armor , weapons to get special stat bonuses or maybe make you resistance to specific elements. Finally there are Accessories as well ranging from typical "potions heal more" to ones that will give you attack bonuses on specific skills that you may like to use. Overall I wasn't to pleased with this aspect of the game it really left a lot to be desired BUT it doesn't ruin the game in anyway for me. One last thing, GIL felt insanely useless in this game as I only ever used GIL to buy music or potions to heal.

OST and bosses

Decided to combine both of these since they go hand to hand. What I mean by this is yes the OST is amazing but my lord the boss OSTs are AMAZING. Never once did a song disappoint me I was always jamming or getting insanely hype during boss fights. On the subject of boss fights they are all amazingly well done and fun to fight not much else to talk about bosses.

Graphics

Final Fantasy 16 looks beautiful and will consistently keep your eyes glued looking at the world. It's amazing how the game can transfer from gameplay to cutscene and still manage to look the same. In addition the characters look great apart from some random NPCs which I was not a fan of design wise.

Welp time to ramble about other parts of the game

In addition to everything stated above I will use this part to talk about the smaller details that don't really need a whole section. To begin, the performance honestly wasn't the greatest sometimes seeing dips into the mid 50s. It's crazy to think about how the PS5 software is already being pushed to this degree. In this case I didn't mind it to much it didn't plague the experience that much but it will for sure be noticeable when FPS drops happen. Furthermore on the more nitpicky side I didn't like how the main stages had no mini map. This isn't the biggest issue but my OCD grew not being able to pull up a mini map even if the stages are a linear path LOL. Of course for the big open exploring maps you will have a map to look at. In addition why does QTEs exist in the game? yes they are only for big bosses but why? its pointless and takes away from moments. I would rather sit and watch the epic part happens versus spamming square or pressing R1 I just don't like it.


For now I think I am going to leave it at this and maybe add more as I do my 2nd playthrough on the hardest difficulty. In the end FF16 is a fantastic game despite its few flaws which really don't ruin the game a whole lot. From the gameplay to its story , characters , world and graphics this game has it all and will keep you busy for awhile if you 100% games.

Highly recommend it !

It was ugly, creepy, gross. It was about child abuse. It was blasphemous. The protagonist was a naked child crying at literal shit. The characters and enemies were all doodles and floating round heads that pissed themselves. It was full of dead memes and shitty video game references.
And yet... There goes the greatest roguelite ever designed.

Nothing else in the genre truly compares. There's a reason most of them copied the Zelda 1 dungeon-crawling format of this game, but they don't get the other nuances. There's nothing with this balance of simplicity and complex builds/stats. With this immediacy from beginning to end. With items that change how you play so radically. With this many item synergies. With THIS much content and things to do.
Oh, you don't like getting broken builds and think the game isn't challenging? You're overwhelmed with all the items? Stop playing the expansions and just start with the base game, idiot. What did you think was gonna happen?

IT'S NOT MY FAVORITE GAME NO THIS ISN'T HAPPENING IT ISN'T A STUPID ASS RPG THAT'S LIKE 100 HOURS LONG THE STORY IS SIMPLE IT RUNS ON STUPID BUT THE PROBLEM IS I LIKE STUPID WHAT DID THIS GAME DO TO ME AFTER I BEAT IT I TRIED TO PLAY A JRPG MY FAVORITE PASTTIME BUT I PLAYED BRAVELY DEFAULT FOR A COUPLE HOURS AND THOUGHT "GOD DAMN THIS SUCKS ASS WHY AM I DOING THIS" THIS SHIT IS BRAINWASHING SOFTWARE DESIGNED AS A GAME IT FUCKING DERADICALIZED ME OFF OF JRPGS HELP
(I initially said that I would write a more coherent review of this later but no review I could ever write can capture my feelings better than this one)

“In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words ‘Here begins a new life.’”
-Starship Voyager Emergency Medical Hologram, 2375 (paraphrased from Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, 1294)

Is Devil May Cry the only game to combine innovative, balls-to-the-wall character action with laborious underwater first-person-shooting and a weak StarFox 3D shmup section? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. I appreciate them cooking, but they took almost every ingredient off the shelf.

Despite my aforementioned gripes and repeated bosses (Nightmare is not fun to fight,) this is a soulful game if ever there was one: It opens on the hardest cutscene ever and never lets up. The menus are on crack, the combat is intensely satisfying, and the atmosphere is off the charts. The levels are short enough that they don’t overstay their welcome, and the challenge more than makes up for the overall length. It’s even worth a go for the Neil Breen style dialogue.

Where have you been all my life? I’m so in.

Gonna put this on the backburner, there's too much to do in this game- and so much I need to get back on. Shelving this right before the final boss/segment but there's a lot of quests and completionist things I wanna look through at a later date. Might wait for the first wave of DLC to finish in case they announce that happens before the end of the year. Might pop in every now and then before the end of the year, who knows!

Very good game and a pretty good follow up to the monumental BOTW- although part of me does wonder if there were ways to trim certain sections/areas/missions. This is just one of those forever games.

Without going too in-depth before actually finishing the game, everything feels like its in its right place- I'm just waiting for the moment either later in the year when I'm thinking about the game or when I'm getting back to clearing corners that something clicks and it succeeds in becoming a favorite rather than shoveling so much content so as to 'buy' (for lack of a better word atm) its way into that title.

I have no complaints, yet I am still pensive on where to put my feelings. Work for a later date, at least.

(Actually beat on 6/20/23)
Finally getting around to this. It only took me several years, a new pc setup and matching with someone over Hinge to convince me to get back into this mess.
Playing as a femroe monk as that was the character I had made 4(? I really dont wanna think that I started and made this character that long ago...) years ago, I decided to swallow the pill that is FF14.
Generally just bee-lining the main quests is fine, although it was always hard to gauge EXACTLY when things would start to pick up story or gameplay wise so let me try to boil when exactly certain gameplay mechanics or ideas popped up that fired at least a few neurons because it does take a long while before you get to the meat of the story (arguably even in this expansion you don't really get but so much).
Before that lemme sum up my previous experience of just: Start main quest -> look around for main quest -> find other quest -> just do whatever basic quests were around -> loop -> 2 years pass -> try to play some stuff with friends -> walk across the entirety of a continent and a server to reach my friends in Gridania. I didn't really beeline like I had thought I was gonna do and just got mired in what I 'thought' I would have needed to do to understand FF14.
Firstly, all of this is from the experience of a Pugilist starting out in Thanalan/Ul'Dah so the experience will differ if you start in Gridania or Limsa Lominsa, my first dungeon was around level 15. This doesn't sound too bad but you have to do quite a bit in the surrounding area, some local politics-type beats, and you have to jump continent to La Noscea. Doing the main quest and job stuff this isnt too hard- however it will be a lot of back and forth from one place to another and trying to remember the map layouts surrounding the city. Admittedly, trying to remember the layout of Western and Northern Thanalan took much longer than I would like to admit. Doing mainline stuff primarily, the first and second dungeons are nearly back to back so its not as sparse feeling as the beginning grind might lead you to believe- you dont start out being able to do dungeons but once you get to your first the duty finder, they become a bit more prevalent. Story wise a bit more starts to progress as soon after you complete your first few dungeons, and you're able to meet the Scion of the Seven Stars- a group of people relevant to the end of the origin FF14 and that old guy I keep seeing disintegrated. I can say with certainty I've heard of at least half of these characters prior and have seen the spread cheeks of at least three, so I started to pay a bit more attention to what was happening around this time.
Around level 20 I finally realized there were symbols above the 'hunting log' creatures. DO THE HUNTING LOGS. There was so much exp nabbing these I couldn't believe. Also, more games need creature logs! Look forward to when I finish XB3: Future Redeemed (in a few weeks, hopefully). Finally it was around this time that I kinda got used to the cycle of things- those long trips between places didn't feel too bad. Maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome. However, it also dawned on me I really didn't need gil for too much at the moment, so I felt fine just teleporting or taking the chocoboporter whenever I needed to. Previously I was pretty conscious on sparing as much Gil as possible until I knew I needed something good but it really doesn't matter. By the way! Check all the Chocoboporters and Crystals you can!
Around level 25 was when things seemed to have slowed down mission wise but my moveset seemed a little more robust, and a few levels later, I was given the chance (as part of the MSQ) to join a free company. I haven't done too much regarding this and I don't entirely understand the point but once joining I was given a quest to redeem my chocobo! Finally a free mode of transportation! But more importantly, I found the achievement trading guy in Gridania and was able to get my first companion- A tiny Gilgamesh.
...i didn't know this existed but I really needed it.
Finally once I hit level 30 things started to click in a bit better- my actual job as a Monk unlocked and I could use a few more moves as I leveled up. The overall idea of how quests were structured started to kick in, and I had a much easier time getting around thanks to my new chocobo, a much greater mass of wealth and just a better understanding as to where to go.
Unfortunate for me, starting to understand what the quest structure meant realizing the next 10 levels or so were just clearing out a backlog of Minfillia's chore list across the three starting regions of the game. At the very least this cut down on the cross-regional travel but goddamn are a lot of these back and forth. There are some intriguing stories and lines interspersed throughout these mini arc such as the Ala Mhigo, but as part of the main quest it just feels very bloated. At least there's a dungeon or a primal fight every few levels to spice things up, and I do have to commend the community- I've yet to had a bad experience thus far. Granted these are just main story dungeons I'm going through for one time but its been pleasant seeing others enthusiastic to just get through a dungeon, they're super pleasant to go through. Hell, we even had a bungle midway through Stone Vigil but the game's generous in its respawn mechanic so it was just a matter of retrying a mob or boss that went awry.
Around level 40 a fourth region unlocks, the Coerthas! Around this time the quests start to get a bit more interesting, despite some back and forth still. I'd heard the name Haurchefant quite a few times but don't have much context for what he does so his presence/dialogue here juxtaposed against some of these other hoity-toity Elezen which made him stand out- talking with my guide about him made me interested in seeing whatever he ends up doing.
From here it was basically a snowball through the rest of the msq, chugging through to the final major region of Version 2.0, Mor Dhona. Shoutouts to both FF14 and Xenoblade 2 for having a mountainous, industrial region wrought with imperial forces using Mor in its name.
Unfortunately around level 48 despite all best efforts we hit it. The plateau. Only a handful of quests until the end, but sadly I'm just too low leveled! Despite there being quite a lot of exp to go around I did think it was a bit bullshit the exp yield didn't just mainline you to the end of MSQ- I was thinking the endgame stuff for main story stuff would require you to be about level 45 rather than 50.
After a bit of grinding I was able to reach level 49 and do some of the last few quests only to get to- another quest with a level requirement. This time regarding the 'item' level of your character. I'm hoping this makes way more sense later in game but for right now it really doesn't sound like it makes any sense. I guess it's to make sure your armor is up to date? I've got no idea how to quickly get these up to a reasonable level, especially in the free trial that keeps me locked out of trading and accessing the market? It's a weird system and I do have a lot of hang ups with what you can and can't access with the free trial. I get its free but like would it kill Square to allow you to create a party? Or to at least have limited access to the market board?
FINALLY, we reach level 50 AND get a strong enough item level to begin the last chunk, after some last minute hunting log shenanigans. These last few bits are pretty cool- although I feel like they have functions and requirements that are introduced way too late and just impede progress. Usually whenever you want to introduce new requirements for big set pieces you'd want to introduce them early or midway through a campaign and ease players into getting used to them but stuff like the exp curve slowing down and the item levels just feels really bad when I was really gunning to get the last few missions done. Maybe adding in all the job class quests helped with leveling early on and definitely the hunting log helps fill in exp but I was really confused as to why these last quests just jumped up in requirements so fast. At the very least these last few bits were pretty fun, running through the corridors of The Praetorium and the outside rim on Magitek is pretty neat and the two last bosses are neat enough.
I think the most I can say about ARR is that its neat enough that I can understand why people latched onto it when it dropped and why it kept those users attracted enough to continue into expansions to the extent that the FF14 team could actually make the game they wanted to in Heavensward onward. Even in these later chunks it felt like the team was getting more ambitious and comfortable with where they were taking the cast and world. It's just a long opener muddled with walking back and forth to quest markers. Still, I thought it was fun to see how my character was progressing and seeing all the characters that I only heard offhand altogether here was cool. Looking forward to (well, firstly the preshow quests of) Heavensward!