Thus Endeth the Year

The work year, anyway. As of a couple hours ago I'm off for the rest of the year.

sashagee is still off as well, so it'll be us both on vacation for two weeks. What a lovely way to wind down this mostly-terrible year.

Game Review: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

Even more so than for A Realm Reborn I'm not entirely sure how to review this. My previous experience of an MMO, I started at the beginning--or nearly so, at patch 1.8 of World of Warcraft--and stayed on the train for years until I finally left in patch 4.2 during Cataclysm. I could have reviewed each expansion as it came and talked about how Balance Druid startd out terrible, became good but not great during Burning Crusade, truly blossomed in Wrath of the Lich King, and then slid down a bit in Cataclysm while also talking about how the story was nonsense the entire time. I can't do that for Heavensward. There was one major patch while I was playing, patch 5.4, that reworked the monk and added more raids to Shadowbringers, but I'm not in Shadowbringers and I still don't have monk unlocked. I can't talk about tactical points, the original Ishgardian Restoration, mana management, astrologian card priority, or anything else that was a major point of Heavensward because by the time I joined they were all gone.

As such, a lot of this review will be about the storytelling, which is the part that everyone really praises Heavensward for. I heard so often while I was playing ARR that Heavensward was where the story really picks up, just wait for Heavensward, if you have any feels for the game now you don't even know what awaits you in Heavensward, over and over again from everyone. I tried to avoid letting cynicism or hipster dislike take hold and I'm glad I did, because I'm here to report that Heavensward is one of the best Final Fantasy stories ever committed to ones and zeroes. That does mean that from here on, there will be massive spoilers, because I can't really talk about what makes it amazing without discussing the story's twists and turns. You have been warned.

"And so they came, at a friend's behest. Heroes once celebrated as saviors of Eorzea, brought low through treachery, their names blackened with royal blood..."

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