With the defeat of Calyx, Alexandria and the rest of Tural is finally safe. Never one to sit on their laurels, however, the Warrior of Light and her companions set their sights on the Ninth Reflection. Alexandria had neighbors on its home shard, and it's about time to check if any of them survived the lightning calamity. By way of Living Memory, the Warrior of Light, Krile, G'Raha Tia, Y'Shtola, and Sphene venture below the clouds towards the city of Treno.
Patch 7.4 begins the story's transition from Dawntrail into a new expansion, wrapping up a few loose threads while setting up wherever the plot is going next. The biggest thread to wrap up is one I've been a bit of a stickler about since Dawntrail first launched: Krile. The expansion gave her a bit more spotlight than the smallest scion usually gets, but still largely shoved her to the side, apart from the stuff with her parents near the end. It makes me very happy that Into the Mist is certifiable Krile Kontent™ with the majority of the patch focused solely on her. It's all pretty great too, and I enjoyed the lower key, more intimate and personal story this time around. It's all resolved quickly, but still feels satisfying, leaving the door open just a tad for further exploration.
While the story was great, this patch does break Dawntrail's streak of amazing dungeons and trials. They're not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just average. Mistwake is pretty standard for an FFXIV dungeon, and while Hell on Rails is notable because trains are cool, it doesn't do anything we haven't seen before in some form. Both are enjoyable, just not noteworthy compared to Dawntrail's other dungeons and trials. I do love all the Final Fantasy IX references and music at least.
Between the last patch and now, the Monster Hunter Wilds crossover was added. As a huge fan of Monster Hunter, I of course played both halves and I enjoyed the Final Fantasy XIV half a lot more than the Wilds half. Fighting Omega in Wilds is pretty cool conceptually, but in practice it's way too difficult for its own good. It took me about 15 attempts to finally clear it, and that was after having to give up on playing in co-op because other players would die too often. I'm no stranger to a difficult hunt that takes a few tries, but even base Omega is a tad much. The rewards are just OK as well, with the biggest highlight being a Chocobo replacement for the Seikret, something I had basically already done with the color customization.
The other half of the exchange gives FFXIV players the chance to face off against Guardian Arkveld in a great fight that recreates the pace and style of a Monster Hunter encounter, albiet without needing to chase your mark across the map a few times. I farmed The Windward Wilds quite a few times to get the Hope gear set (both male and female varients, which you can still mix and match no matter your character's gender), and I had a blast. It's an enjoyable trial to perfect, learning Arkveld's attacks so you can avoid them while using Mega Potions if you ever screw up. It's a lot easier than Rathalos from the crossover with World, mainly because non-potion healing is never restricted, but it's still a lot of fun and has plenty of cool rewards.
7.4 also added the final tier of the Arcadion raid series, and I've been saving everything after the first tier for this too so we can go over the majority of it here. The first tier was already great, but the second steps it up a notch with some stellar fights. I wasn't a big fan of Dancing Green though, as I can't seem to parse his attack telegraphs, but the next three fights are all some of my favorites. Sugar Riot has some great mechanics with the arena, the Brute Bomber rematch is pure spectacle (though I wish we stuck around on the rooftops a bit longer, as that was super interesting), and Howling Blade has another fantastic track to go along with his non-stop barrage of moves.
The music for the Arcadion has all been stellar, and that continues into the third and final tier, starting with Vamp Fatale. Hers isn't a song I would listen to outside of the game, but it accentuates the fight nicely. Speaking of, her match is all about keeping track of and avoiding her various AoEs, as well as a short phase of contending with her various deathtraps. It starts out manageable, but quickly grows chaotic in a really fun way. Next up is the Xtremes, a tag team of surfer dudes backed by the most 2000's song you've ever heard. Here, you have to thoughtfully place down persistently perilous pools of fire while also avoiding drowning.
The championship match is against The Tyrant, who has yet another banger tune and a stunning arena in his corner. His fight is all about knowing when to get some distance between the boss and/or your party and when to get in close. He's channeling a Behemoth, so it's also a bit like fighting a souped up version of one of Final Fantasy's most iconic foes. If you've been following the story even slightly you'll know who the final bout is against, though I won't spoil it here just in case. The fight features a song called Everything Burns made in collaboration with Tyler Smyth, Tom Morello — the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and Prophets of Rage — and Caleb Shomo, lead vocalist for Beartooth. Needless to say, it's a banger and one of the highlights of the raid series, which is saying something given how much praise I've already heaped upon the music. I wasn't quite able to hear the leitmotif in this song, but if I had to guess it's probably in there somewhere given every other track in the Arcadian has had it in some form or another.
The fight itself is a blast, with some unique and new mechanics mixed with old ones we've seen throughout the raids and beyond. I did find the battle's final "twist", so to speak, to be a bit weird in a gameplay context, but it does set up a necessary part of the plot which is paid off immediately afterward. Once again, though, I find the twist at the end here to be totally out of left field and unearned. If I may go into slight spoilers for critique, it's OK to have villains who are just evil. We don't need all of them to have a tragic backstory or be secret, self sacrificing heroes all along. It totally ruins any sort of commentary on the dangers some sports place athletes in every day, with no regard for their future wellbeing.
Before we move on, I want to pay special attention to one of the Arcadion's best features: Metem's color commentary. As the announcer, he'll react to whatever's going on in the fight, saying something if someone dies, everyone perfectly dodges an attack, if you use a limit break, etc. It's a great addition to these kinds of fights. Overall, the Arcadion is one of if not the best raid series Final Fantasy XIV has to offer. It's a ton of fun from start to finish, even if it stumbles right at the finish line.
What might be the best part of this patch is the removal of glamor restrictions, meaning White Mages can wear a Paladin's gear visually, for example. I'm still testing this feature out, but it lets me make some great outfits. Hrothgar and Viera still can't wear every hat in the game, but there are a lot more now between the two as well as new hairstyles, which look great. Before I used my last free Fantasia to swap back to Viera for further testing, I was delighted to find that Early to Rise looked great on my Hrothgal. After swapping though, I discovered that my Viera's hair clips through the back of the Monster Hunter collab hood, so you win some, you lose some.
My favorite outfit so far has been a mix of tank, Astrologian, and Bard gear on my Viper to create a wandering adventurer fit that works in any situation. I find that the freedom makes it a lot harder to come up with a cohesive outfit, but I love this change and am excited to make even more outfits. Fashion is really what we're all here for, at the end of the day.
FFXIV has been experiencing almost constant DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, which in essence causes you to suddenly and randomly disconnect from the game. It's also why this impressions article took so long as I was unable to actually play the game for a significant length of time without being disconnected, either because of the attacks or my bad internet connection (thanks, Comcast). I don't know anything about cybersecurity or the like, so I have no idea what, if anything, Square Enix can do about this, but it's certainly been very frustrating.
Something Square Enix can do something about is not using AI. Recently, the company announced plans to promote AI utilization in Japan and even have artificial intelligence perform 70% of all Quality Assurance work. I'm here to tell them that this is a horrible idea, and will make their game universally worse, particularly when it comes to localization QA. I've worked in QA before, and they essentially serve as your game's last line of defense before it hits players. Every game will have bugs and glitches, and a good QA team will catch and note everything from game crashes to geometry that's slightly out of pace. They still rely on the rest of the team to fix (or ignore) those bugs, but QA is a crucial piece of game development.
This goes double for localization in Final Fantasy. FF is a series that relies heavily on its history, with naming conventions, tropes, and recurring themes that have been around for decades. It's a big part of the franchise's identity. From what I've heard, Square Enix's LQA department are very, very good at their jobs, catching the smallest details in a game's script and knowing when a line is supposed to be referencing something.
While AI could be a great tool in the far, far future — and probably never in creative pursuits — right now it's like using a knife made of poison to prepare a meal. Sure, it'll cut things, but it won't do it well and no one will want to eat whatever you made with it. AI constantly hallucinates, makes the dumbest mistakes, and cannot be trusted to make any decisions. And that's all on top of being trained on stolen work. Imagine going back to the quality of PlayStation 1 localizations, which were usually done by a single, overworked person in a very short period of time, but with dialogue that doesn't make any sense, ability descriptions that are straight up wrong, and Cid has somehow become Syd. This guy are sick, indeed. If Square Enix chooses to move forward with AI, it could genuinely spell ruin for not just Final Fantasy, but for the company as a whole. As it is right now, AI is just another tech fad that'll die in a few years, and anyone who stays away from it will be all the better for it. So I implore anyone at Square Enix with any power over this situation to draw a line in the sand, protect your employees and your art, and promote genuine, human work. Players worldwide rallied around a bugged enemy this patch, an antelope simply known as Lv 1 or "The Nothing." People would make pilgrimages to its location, take photos, and generally hang out with it. That's something human, even if it's a mistake and has since been removed, and you won't get anything genuine like that with AI.
