With Stormblood now released to the public and with many have now finished early access I figured its time for me to post about my opinion with Stormblood. This post will have quite a few spoilers so if you read further below so do not blame me if something gets ruined.
Unexpectedly, Stormblood has been a massive improvement over the failure called Heavensward. For those that read Life in Eorzea may remember I had a dislike of Heavensward when it was released and one of the major reasons was how boring the story was. Well Stormblood’s story can be summed up like this – I felt like I played one of the older Final Fantasy games and should the game have ended with just A Realm Reborn and Stormblood I would play Final Fantasy XIV quite high up in my favorite Final Fantasy games.
I am not going to comment that much on the story as it is something you do want to experience but it involves Empires, giant robots, Primals, abusing Primals in a different way and so much more – it’s actually far better than how I wrote it. Just standing in the final dungeon and running within history to the point you stand in front of the final boss … and it really is a sight to believe and it is a fight that sadly once people gear up will be stupidly overlooked but it’s certainly a sight to behold and I can not wait to witness the extreme version of this fight!
Before I go on that I am not going to comment about the music. The music is as you would expect from a Final Fantasy game.
Dungeons
Hm, I’m dead I think?
Although it is very early days and that given time every dungeon will be over geared to the point they are a boring grind – I have had a lot of fun with the new dungeons and am pleased to see more of a focus on everyone having to do stuff rather than a simple tank and spank and hope for the best.
Visually the dungeons were as impressive as they normally are and the length of them was pretty much as you would expect. The expert dungeons did however start to show the dungeons we have come to loathe during Heavensward.
That said one thing I did like seeing was the fact you always got loot for your job while you was in a levelling dungeon although this does stop as you hit level 70.
Trials & Instances
Well, fuck me.
The trials in Stormblood so far has been very impressive. The first Primal was a bit different but was your standard dodge everything and try not to die. The second trial however involved being more interactive and the usage of items that you both had to use and resupply.
The crown however is won by the final trial. I am not going to say a lot about it but it has replaced the Turn 13 as my favourite fight in the whole game. The visuals, the music and the actual fight itself made me want to not even log out until I finished it and Ryu and myself did exactly that.
The instances was alright and was nice to see to break up the duties and the fetch quests although the first instance did a lo to annoy the whole community.
Job Balance & Quests
We all knew this screenshot was coming.
Now I can only speak for White Mages with the job quest but it sucked big time although it was nice to have a throw back to the Conjurer guild and to be involved in their running yet again.
Balance wise however is two-fold. If you are a tank or a DPS I am sure you are enjoying the changes already but if you are a healer that is a White Mage or Scholar you are likely worried about your effectiveness in the raids to come and I don’t disagree.
White Mages have three major problems that I will get into after I wrote the articles about each dungeon and trials. Scholars got their own problems but something I can not go into right now and will go into further details in the future articles.
Conclusion
Stormblood is the first time in a very long while I have felt I am playing an actual Final Fantasy game and not just a game with the Final Fantasy brand. Hopefully they keep the story as good as they are and that the dungeons carry on needing all the roles involvement and importantly that the raids are very fun to do and not so easy to work out.
But overall if you are on the fence due to Heavensward – don’t be – Stormblood is a million times better.
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