When I made my last post about Final Fantasy XIV I had just finished up the Heavensward expansion and barely started the Stormblood expansion. I've been hard at work trying to make my goal of finishing all of the story content before the release of the final expansion in this story arc titled Endwalker.
Having finished up Stormblood and started working on the post-story content of this expansion I've reached yet another milestone towards this goal. This expansion had its ups and downs in my opinion but it was overall a good experience. The feeling I had after finishign was better than the one I had while playing it for some reason. I guess it took a while for all of it to make sense in a way.
I'll be taking a mostly spoiler free look at the expansion in this post.
The Story
The story in Stormblood is quite different from that in Heavensward. In Heavensward we were fighting for peace between the nation of Ishgard and the everlasting Dragons. In Stormblood we fight for the liberation of the oppressed. We mainly interact with the nations of Ala Mhigo and Doma, both nations we've heard of in the past.
These are two quite different nations. One is mostly a tribal desert nation while one lies in the far east, heavily inspired by eastern culture as we see it in our world. What they have in common is that they are both oppressed and ruled by the Empire of Garlemald who I've also mentioned several times over in earlier posts. Naturally the Empire ends up being our main enemy throughout the expansion.
I won't go into much more detail as to not spoil anything. This is just the general outline.
Characters
This expansion focuses a lot on character building. While the story isn't as epic as it was in Heavensward we get to see some epic character development instead.
Gosetsu
One of the first characters we meet who is central to the story is Gosetsu. He's this big wide boi samurai who fights for the liberation of his nation, Doma. He starts out as this witty stubborn old man that I don't care all that much for but during his character development it's impossible to not like him by the end.
Hien
Another person central to the Doma storyline is Hien. He's probably the most important person in the Doma storyline and one that it's hard not to like. He has a lot of wisdom, both factual and philosophical and he has one of my favorite voice actors so far in the game. He's a chill, kind and no bullshit kind of guy. Also he looks really cool.
Lyse
Moving across the world to Ala Mhigo we meet Lyse who is central to this part of the storyline. Talking about Lyse in general is big spoiler territory so I won't be going into detail here. Lyse loves her nation and will do anything in her might to save it from the rule of the Empire. I didn't like her much in the beginning but she's grown on me for sure.
Alisaie
Alisaie in Alphinauds twin sister. We met her way back in A Realm Reborn quite early in the main story. She then left to do some stuff and only returned by the very end of Heavensward. We go through a lot of character building with her in Stormblood so I'm sure she will be central in Shadowbringers, which is the next expansion I'm jumping into. I also love her magical aether sword.
Zenos yae Galvus
Zenos is the main antagonist during this expansion. He's the acting Viceroy of the Ala Mhigo region that we're fighting to liberate. He's this mega buff, ultra strong Garlean that carries around a golf bag where he keeps his swords. He's the son of the Emperor himself so this is not some random soldier small time soldier at all. This is the mightiest Garlean we've met so far.
General Thoughts
This expansion was quite different from the earlier one in that it takes a step away from the big overarching story involving the Ascians. It focuses a lot on character building as well as helping us understand the politics of the world and get to know the various factions that I'm sure will become central in the expansions to come.
All of this felt kind of off to me as I was playing through it but when the expansion concluded I really appreciated that they've taken a whole expansion to do this. We have more loving characters than we had before and we have more allies. We've also made enemies along the way so it's not all flowers for sure.
In other news, Endwalker has been delayed for two weeks which means I have some extra time to finish up the Shadowbringer expansion. I still think I'm gonna come up a little short but I'm gonna be a little closer than I would have been without a delay. I hope to finish up the post-story content of Stormblood this weekend which will also feature the build-up to the Shadowbringers expansion. I just know that expansion is gonna be something big with a name like that. I can't wait!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.