Okay I don't know anymore what's going on. Just as I finished reporting on the three new Final Fantasy VII games that aren't Remake part 2, we get two new Pokemon games announced, and a new trailer for New Pokemon Snap, a decidedly more peaceful pokemon game. Although if I were a wild animal I wouldn't appreciate being pelted with fluorescent dyes and woken up by music. I guess I need a Switch as well. How much do they cost again?
It seems it is Sinnoh year because both games are set in the Sinnoh region. I still think Kanto is the region with the most appearances though. Let me see. Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, Gold, Crystal, Fire Red, Leaf Green, HeartGold, Soul Silver. That is ten. Sinnoh has had three so far and now we get well three more, because one announced game is a pair. So that is six. Kanto is way ahead, but Sinnoh is now second place. Oh I'm done I forgot the original Green version plus Let's go Eeveee and Pikachu, So three more to Kanto I guess?
The paired game I mentioned is of course the Diamon and Pearl remake. As usual the third version didn't get one. Confession time: It always bothered me that Gold and Silver got a Crystal version while Diamond and Pearl got a Platinum version. Wouldn't the opposite made more sense thematically? Anyroad say hello to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. There aren't many details yet. It won't look like recent 3D titles. It is closer to a remaster. If we get any new gameplay modes or Mons or region forms, we don't know yet.
And now for the more interesting, but potentially more problematic entry.
Pokemon Legends Arceus on paper sounds like a game I would make. It's Sinnoh, but it is set in the past, where everything looked like Feudal Japan and you used steampunk poke balls. And the player characters totally look like ninjas. Sounds like high quality Pokemon fan fiction, minus the bondage that is included in pretty much every Pokemon fan fiction (take a note Gamefreak). Also the title kinda suggests, that if this go well we might get other Pokemon Legends games. Again, gameplay info is sparce. We do know that we can capture mons without battle if we want and if we are good enough. We also know that the starters are old mons we are familiar with, but not ones we had in Sinnoh. Rowlet, Cyndaquil and Oshawott are starters from Alola, Johto and Unova. But now they are here. Oddly enough Piplup is a wild Mon now. Outside of Go the only starter Mons you can encounter in the Wild are Pikachu and Eevee. Maybe we captured all the wild ones by the time Diamon and Pearl comes? That doesn't sound familiy friendly. But what concernes me is that a Pokemon Professor will send us on a journey to fill the first ever Pokedex. I'm sorry, what? Professor as a title doesn't sound era appropriate to me. More importantly, Professor Oak invented the Pokedex much much later. Maybe this is just some marketing nonsense and you will complete the PokeScroll or whatever, but I did wince when I read anachronistic stuff like Pokedex, Professor and research. I like how the game looks, the base concept and the promise of more RPG elements. I have concerns nonetheless, but this looks good. I will keep an eye on this project.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. February is a gift that just keeps giving. We began with Endwalker and now we have a whole bunch of other Final Fantasy news. And it also proves that SE considers the Final Fantasy VII compillation its most valuable IP, because all three new games are related.
The first one is called The First Soldier. And odd one out in the series that is not something C. This will be a mobile battle royal where you play, well one of the first SOLDIERs. So according to this game the SOLDIER project was in full swing even before the JENOVA project was launched and lead to Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth. You have regular dudes with no alien DNA but a truckload of Mako infusion who fight it out around Midgar in whatever training Shinra deems necessary. It's less plot than what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but this is what it is. An excuse to fight others in Midgar. Also if you are wondering, this is still the old continuity before the remake. We know this because....
We are going to get another mobile game. That one if Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. This is a weird one. It will go over the entire story of the compillation from TFS (not team four star) and Before Crisis (formerly a Japanese only mobile game) all the way to Dirge of Cerberus (poorly received shooter featuring totally not vampire Vincent Valentine). Supposedly it will be chapter based and you can decide which chapter you want to do regardless of completing the others or not. Even with that it will be hard to follow the chronology as events often overlap. There are two pivotal points in the story. The Nibelheim incident (Sephiroth going crazy) and Meteorfall (the endgame of the original Final Fantasy VII). Before Crisis is like a B-plot where the Turks do their own thing behind the scenes. It begins before even Crisis Core, but has the Nibelheim incident about halfway in and the endgame is during Meteorfall. Crisis Core is pretty straightforward. It ends a little bit before Final Fantasy VII, although it always bothered me that it suggested that only a few hours pass between the two, but Tifa already arranged from Cloud to have a job with AVALANCHE. Anyway things go on smoothly untill the end of Advent Children. Apparently we will be able to play the events of AC which is amazing. Then you have the arleady mentioned Dirge of Cerberus which begins during Meteorfall. Or at least shows it during the opening, but mostly it is after AC. Ever Crisis will cover it all, and supposedly will even include extra stuff. Like the early years of Sephiroth. Now I must stress that we never got the chance to play as him. In fighting games, yes, but never in single player games. I don't think I want to see him struggle with sahagin and cactuars as a fresh recruit, but this mighth be a good chance to give us a taste of true power and provide extra content.
And now for the largest and most controversial of the reveals: The PS5 version. Now obviously a PS5 version is no surprise. It looks even better on the PS4Pro and runs faster. Okay, it takes advantage of the new hardware. Nothing wrong with that. BUT, because there's always a but. It includes something that made many people upset and rightfully so. A PS5 exclusive DLC. Yes, you can't even by it on the PS4. You have to upgrade to an out of stock console to play the new story confent. Now adding payed DLC is bad enogh when you cut down what used to be a full game into god nows how many parts that each cost as much as a full game yet don't give the same whole story or the open world feel. But making that story DLC platform exclusive is just wrong. Admittedly it is an ever greater incentive than the graphic updates, but I sincerely hope that Square Enix reconsiders this idea and makes the DLC available for PS4 players as well.
But enough about this, I'm not the Money Hungry Corporations Vampire. I am the Lore Vampire. Let us look at the DLC itself. Episode Yuffie.
In the original timeline and game Yuffie was an optional party member that you didn't have to recruit, but if you didn't you missed out on some very cool stuff. Like the cutest and funniest Gold Saucer date, or the whole Wutai questline. In my first playthrough I was worried that she won't be strong enough if her stats are too low, so I only gave her materia that boost stats. This ended up turning her into an unstoppable monster. Good times. She isn't very popular in the west due to her age appropriate behaviour and her initial mistrust of the party that includes several members of the company that turned her homeland into a theme park. But she appears in every installment of the compillation so she probably has a strong fanbase in Japan. Now I already mentioned in a previous blog entry how much I like how her foreignness is portrayed. It is an important plot point and crucial to her character development. Which, in my oppinion, the only way to portray exotic characters. I mention all this because most of what I like about Yuffie seemed to have disappeared in the timeline of the Remake. More on that later. First the good part:
So one thing is for sure. Yuffie looks amazing. And I don't mean it in a pedophilic weeb way. Look at pictures and videos of episode Yuffie and compare her looks to Advent Childen. The hair quality alone improved a lot. She also seemed to have aged up a bit. Not surprisingly her combat style also changed. In the Original she was strictly ranged, but one giant shuriken that works like a boomerang doesn't translate well to fun action combat. So now instead she plays a bit like the TERA online ninja. She jumps, she cuts and mows down everything. The animations look great. Interestingly enough one of her attack aninmations include mapple leaves. A much more original choice than the cliché sakura petals.
Storywise we are looking at a B-plot much like Before Crisis, Yuffie comes to Midgar to steal some kind of special Materia from Shinra with the help of AVALANCHE. But not the AVALANCHE we know. This is a different cell. We do see the main gang from afar, but we don't join them. This by the way is set during Cloud's time in the slums with Aerith. We get to see what went on the plates. Frankly this is a great idea. It expands the world, but it is no big deal if you miss it. We don't know how long the DLC will be, how many chapters it will cover, but I would hazard that at least two. For one, Yuffie starts the game wearing a moogle costume as a disguise, but in several scenes she is seen without it. Plus while the story begins near 7th Heaven there are many scenes inside what is most likely a Shinra base. And what is inside that base is even more interesting. Yuffie will have a run in with Deepground, the main enemy force in Dirge of Cerberus. In the original timeline they were deep underground, hence the name, and only managed to climb out after Midgar was devastated by Meteor. Apparently things will be slightly different here. Then again in DoC it was Vincent and Yuffie who did most of the fight against Deepground, so it makes sense for her to encounter them.
Now on to the bad part. Oh dear. So in the trailer Yuffie introduces herself to us and AVALANCHE as an agent of the Wutai government. This might be a lie, but considering Heidegger mentioned that he needs an excuse to attack Wutai, we can at least infer that they are not a theme park in this continuity. Which is kinda problematic. While there are many different places in Final Fantasy VII it still has a more or less western aesthetic, and Wutai stands out. Of course Don Corneo's mansion also has asian elements, but it was always assumed to be from Wutai as well. Now in the original Wutai wasn't far eastern just to be cool. It was a plot point. Because it was different, Shinra decided to turn it into a tourist attraction which of course angered the population who used various methods to restore them to their former glory. This was the motivation of Yuffie as well. She didn't just steal materia because she was a kleptomaniac. She wanted to use those to arm her homeland. So now Wutai is a completely free state with an active government. Okay. All the heroes of the Wutai war didn't accomplish anything at all, Wutai's difference is no longer a plot point and both Yuffie and her father Godo lost their motivation. So far so good. Speaking of Godo. In the original she was acting on her own and her relationship with her father was strained to say the least. Godo was the Suzaku to Yuffie's Lelouch. But even though he does not openly fight against Shinra he still cares deeply for his home and for his daughter, But Yuffie only learns this when she finds the courage to stand up to his father and the strength to beat him in battle. This shows how much she has grown both as a person and as a warrior. Growth is very important. If you start with a cool character and don't go anywhere, you end up with Rey. And I fear that the new direction Nomura and his team are taking Yuffie and Wutai will deprive her of just that. What made either of them great in the original is changing. Obviously Wutai will look amazing on screen when we get there. But looks without substance won't make another classic. Nomura should understand this as he worked on the original. I'm worried, but I will keep an open mind as we learn more.
BlizzConline was underwhelming to say the least. For those who are satisfied, I'm happy for you, truly. But I personally was disappointed by everything that wasn't the Diablo IV class reveal.
The Rogue returns from Diablo I, but as a combination of the D2 Assassin and the D3 Demon Hunter. It has the unique ability to pick a specialization, which is why it can pick shadowmagic or traps or combos. The name of the game is versatility. You can create the Rogue you want. I will probably go with shadow magic as it looks and sounds cool, but who knows? Maybe I will do several.
But this leaves us with an interesting question. What will be the fifth class? There has to be a fifth. Both II and III had five classes at release and two more with expansions. Let's look at it from a few angles:
Diablo very much uses class archetypes. The Barbarian is pretty self explanatory. You also have a spell caster with sorcerer, sorceress, wizard and now sorcerer/ess again. D1 also had an archer archetype with the rogue, that evolved into a bow and spear using Amazon in D2. In Diablo III the archer was the Demon Hunter, a mix of the Assassin from D2 and an archer. This became Rogue again. As this show, new archetypes emerged and got mixed with each other, especially since D1 only had 3 classes, while the later games had 7. Assassin was the first martial artist, that became Monk in D3. The Druid was the shape shifter that didn't appear in D3 but returned in D4. The Necromancer was the dark spellcaster that split into two for D3. Witch Doctor and Necromancer. Last but not least we have the Knight archetype. Sure in D1 it was a rather vanilla Warrior, but already it was carrying a sword and shield. Paladin was obvious. A holy knight. The same was true for Crusader, but sword was replaced with flail. It is that line I hope to follow up.
Another way to look at classes is with weapon types. Barbarian dual wields weapons or swinging two handed ones. Sorcerers obviously use staves and wands primarily and so does the druid. One of the reasons I was sure we would get some kind of archer is that no class used bows as a primary weapon. And how can you not have bows? Now let's look at the remaining weapon types. Despite them being a very basic part of any fantasy arsenal, we don't have a shield user. And as you remember, the Amazon in D2 used polearms. Well neither before nor after we had a dedicated polearm user. Even Final Fantasy only has one of those. So a shield and polearm user woul be nice. Did we ever have one of those? Tirck question. This was the Diablo 3 Templar.
And this brings us to another way to look at it. No Diablo game was released without a new class. Diablo Immortal is a different animal as it is kinda a mobile spinoff of D3 and because it is planned to be an MMO with probably way more expansions and content updates than a regular Diablo game. And no I will never stop asking for Xiansai. But back on topic: Diablo 4 revealed four classes so far, with two taken directly from D2, one from D1 and one that is the mix of D1 and D2. You know, Sorcerer and Sorceress are the same, but previously they were gender locked. So not only did we not get a class that references D3 but we only have classes that were playable before. Templar fits both with it being an NPC class from III.
And if it weren't obvious enough that we need a templar, a holy knight that is still dark and cynical enough for DIV that is new enough and fills the weapon void, we also need to consider armor. Barbarian and druid are both more primal characters that wear skin, fur or nothing. Sorcerers will obviously wear robes and rogues rely on speed and mobility so anything more than leather would be a hindrance. Maybe very light metal before Shad jumps at my throat. But all of these classes would look riddiculous in full plate armor. But for the Templar it is the obvious choice.
So get ready for the Templar reveal. Or rather me being completely wrong. You will have fun either way.
Helllllloooo and welcome everyone to a little BlizzCon discussion. This year Blizzard revealed all the stuff that was leaked before, and not much else. There was lots of padding and recap and repeat, but we did get some juicy stuff.
First, we got some new info about the Jailer. Or rather promis about new info about him. In case you are not playing WoW or not at level 50, we are talking about this guy:
Yep, he looks scary and has a deep voice. But that is pretty much the full extent of his villany. He was originally somebody else, but he betrayed his fellow death pantheon members by doing something so he now has to guard the Maw as the Jailer. Every soul entering the Maw makes him more powerful, which is a pretty major oversight. His end goal is unknown, but we assume he is bad, cause he looks like a bad guy, He wants to prove that death was not ment to be chained, whatever that might mean, and for that he needs four keys, one from each covenant leader, who are reluctant to give up their keys.
That's all we know. Oh and he was behind the Lich King and the Burning Legion because he needs a lot of dead souls to grow in power. Now this whole mystery villain with vague goals act can work in some cases. If you have a central villain and another one just chilling in the background pulling strings. Like Solus in Stormblood. Or if you want Lovecraftian horror, like with the Reapers in Mass Effect that only worked untill they took the center stage and the game revealed their origin and purpose. Lastly if you want to deconstruct the fantasy genre or certain tropes, like the wise mentor (looking at you Jade Empire and Kotor II). But WoW isn't trying to be clever. It never did. It has always been generic high fantasy operating on Rule of Cool. And in stories like that, a bad guy like the Jailer does not work. We haven't even heard of the guy till 9.0. So for me it is fantastic news that we will learn about the Jailer's goals in 9.1. Maybe I will finally care.
Speaking of people I have a hard time caring about, Anduin will be undergoing some change. Good for him. So far he has been blandly idealistic, nice and strong in the Light. Doesn't sound like a compelling character all in all. And every drame he might have had was mostly explored in tie-in novels. But now he is undead (looking) and evil. Ooooh. Guess Hearthstone was right.
Considering all the bad he did so far was punch Wrathion once, this wasn't really a logical next step for his character. This was forced on him by Sylvanas and/or the Jailer for shock value. And it might not be more than that, considering he is not actually evil. In the patch cinematic it was the Jailer speaking through him. It was like Harbinger in Mass Effect 2. When the Jailer's control wasn't that strong, Anduin looked horrified at what he has done. He is obviously still struggling to be his old self. He will at the very least get back to normal when the Jailer dies. Of cours he will likely stay undead looking unless they pull out some very lame fairy tale bullshit. But what can we do with Zombie Anduin?
1. Be the new Jailer in a repéat of Illidan's fate at the end of Legion. 2. Be the new Lich King in a repeat of Bolva's fate at the end of Wrath. 3. Just carry on as if nothing happened. 4. Co lead the Forsaken with Calia as a colossal fuck you to Horde players.
Each has its own flaws and merrits. I would have left Anduin alone personally, but we'll see. Perhaps his character will benefit from this little episode. Much like the Jailer, he needed some reason to make us care. We'll see if this is it.
Hello everyone and here is another blog entry about not BlizzCon. Have to throw these out as BC is less than four days away and after that gaming media will focus on them till the Fan Fest in mid May.
Anyroad our current topic is the story of Endwalker. Of course with Endwalker wrapping up a story about eight years in the making it is hard to talk about it without spoling everything before. So I won't even try to avoid that. Seriously, don't read after this point if you haven't reached patch 5.4 and maybe want to play the game. Gonna put in the logo just so you don't accidentally read spoilery stuff.
Sooo where was I? Ahh yes, the story. So one of the strengths of the FFXIV story is that not only are the expansion stories connected, but those connections usually make sense and neatly connect with what you did previously. If you are a fan of the Matrix series you are likely familiar with the scene where the Merovingian ruins the pacing of the Matrix Reloaded by talking about causality way too long. Well causality is important here. So what happened since Yoshida took over?
In 1.X the Empire attacked Eorzea for enlightenment, or cultural genocide, depending on your view of the Empire. Good old fashioned warfare didn't work, so Legatus Mulan van Darnus decided to grab the effin Moon and yeet it into Eorzea, Pretty straightforward. But, to the delight of Star Wars fans, Dalamud wasn't a moon. It was a space station. With a very pissed dragon inside. Things went tits up and it took a five year timeskip to make thing normal again.
In 2.X it turned out that all that moon grabbing and dragon release unearthed some interesting things. Like way too advanced ancient superweapons. Midget version of Gordon Gecko really want those for political reasons, so monarchs are assassinated, allies are betrayed and the Hero is forced to flee to the only place not affiliated with the Empire or greedy midgets. That place being Ishgard, a theocracy at war with dragons.
In 3.X in exchange for refuge you help Ishgardians end the war with the dragons, which includes peaceful talks with those who listen, and murdering those who don't. Very democratic. Anyway the very evil and very strong leader of the bad dragons is killed. Things is, dragons store their power in their eyes. Instead of squishing them we just throw them into a bottomless chasm. Turns out the chasm had a bottom where the badguys found the eyes and gave them to a revolutionary who used them to attack a border with the Empire in hopes of starting a war. The war does get started and since you can't stop it you go there and make sure the war is won.
In 4.X you do a very good job fighting against the Empire. Too good in fact. So to solve this problem, the founder of the Empire decides to kill you with a chemical weapon. Genius. What he couldn't forsee is that in the future the few survivors open up the raid from 2.0 and release a friend who was chilling there ever since. Said friend, who is now very long lived, helps the descendants of the survivors gather data from raids we did in 3.0 and 4.0 to figure out how to travel in time and between paralel dimensions. This not only helps wrap up a different subplot from 3.0 (Arbert and his friends) but saves our sorry arses as the First is being flodded with Light. If it is consumed the light will overflow into the Source (our dimension) and the chemical weapon hits stronger the more light a world has.
And we finally got to 5.X where we currently are. We saved two worlds and killed the leadership of the Ascians (people with scary red masks, dark hooded cloaks and spikes everwhere for decoration. Yep, they are the villains for this story arc). What can go wrong? Well we killed the leadership so the whole faction dissolved into Anarchy. And just as The Beach got ruined the moment the Hatter died and Aguni took the helm, with no Emet-Selch or Elidibus to control all the nasty little buggers murder began. Fandaniel is now free to pursue his life goal, which is to reenact the end times that the old Amaurotians could only solve by sacreficing half their population to summon the god of darkness. Even worse, he manages to do it.
Sooo what do we know of the story? Not much really. It is all hush hush and Sqare Enix would be stupid to spoil it. Somehow Fandaniel's towers help recreate the end times, and we will at one point for some reason go to the Moon. The real one that is still there, not the one Mulan yeeted in 1.X.
What has me most curious is how does Fandango know how to cause the apocalypse? Supposedly he isn't even as strong as the original Fandaniel. Plus the end was a mysterious sound from beneath the earth that messed with the rules of reality. the Amaurotians couldn't figure out what it really was. And we are talking about people that can conjur up totally inhabited cities just to prove a point. There is something really fishy about that guy.
Another key point to consider is that the Ascians pretty much won. Onlyfans of course wants everyone to die, while the ascians as a whole want to resurrect Zodiark, and ask him to bring back the convocation. The convocation being the 14 Ascians leading them back in Amaurot. So what can happen with the end days? There are four possible scenarios ranging from grimdark to teddy bear tripe.
1. They can't figure out shit and everyone dies. 2. They attempt to summon Zodiark to solve the problem again, but since they are not as strong as the Amaurotians, all their life force is drained and fule the summoning, so everyone dies. 3. Zodiark is summoned succesfully which was the end game of the Ascians since the Yoshida era began. 4. Some convenient plot device allows the good guys to avert the end times without summoning big Z and with very little loss of life. One or two major characters, tops.
Only number four would be a defeat for the villains, but that sugar coated nonsense would make me cancel my sub, uninstall and go play Yoko Taro games instead. Seriously we solve too many problems with major deaths. Shadowbringers sort of gets a pass as the whole expansion was the undoing of mass murder. So who will die? Likely not Thancred as he is the muggle. The average character we need to help us in a group of weird magic using nonhumans. Obviously we won't die, because Yoshida is already planning 7.0. However Zodiark coming back isn't that unlikely. Not only did Fandaniel suggest to Zenos that he should hunt Zodiark, but the new 8-man raid for 6.0 will feature Lahabrea. A character who has been riddiculously dead since 3.0 Like not even Rasputin would have survived that, dead. His soul was absorbed into a dragon eye that had its power drained like two times before it was squished. Yet he is back to have a proper bossfight with the Warrior of Light and maybe get his own theme song.
In short it seems highly likely that the Zodiark VS Hydaelin arc will end with a fight against Zodiark himself. And I bet whatever Fandaniel is hiding will shock us all.
Due to the nature of the story, this blog entry was more about what we already know than some new stuff, but hopefully you enjoyed this recap of why we are where we are in the story. Or you spoiled youself but got interested in the game in the process. Anyway, see you after BlizzCon.
The job nobody predicted. Well, sort of. Everyone predicted a healer, but definitely not Sage. And definitely not floating daggers. Frankly I'm certain noulith is a completly made up word. Anyroad it looks fabulous. Suits a teenage elf perfectly. Yes, I know they are called Elezen, but they are the versions of elves here. Now where things get truly interesting is the discussion regarding healer roles. Now I'm not an Ultimate raider or even a Savage raider. I don't dictate the meta and I barely follow it. So what I'm saying now migth be utter horseshit. Still I think all the proposed changes are great news. First they are going to divide healers into pure healers and barrier healers. Two of each type. This ensures that regardless of how homogenized job design will end up, there will be at the very least two different player experiences as healers. Plus they can design encounters around having one barrier and one pure healer. Of course it will likely possible to pull it off with any healer composition outside of Savage, but this suggests that there won't be a single healer that can domniate the meta. There needs to be a pair. So now you will only have a 50% chance of being excluded from content by elitist wankers just because of your job, up from 25%. The downside of all this seems to be the retooling of Astrologian yet again. Summoners and Machinists are no stranger to this phenomenon, the latter looking nothing like the job we've had in HW or SB for that matter. But Astro keeps loosing what made it Astro. First all the various cards you can pull were replaced by slight variations of balance and now the two playstyles Astro can switch between will be replaced by one. Now I must stress that not everyone is unhappy with these changes. MrHappy for example, appropriately enough welcomes the retool as it will likely lead to a more focused design than the current one that is all over the place. Also, people kept demanding Balance so all the other cards were changes. The dev team doesn't just make unpopular design choices for the hell of it. It's all in service of the meta, the bane of creative ideas. If this were a single player RPG we would still be playing Heavensward Astro and Ninja would have the most utility skills out of all the jobs.
Speaking of which, we have a second job ahead of us. A melee DPS job. Details were scarce, but Yoshie-P did reveal in a later interview that the job will be using heavy maiming gear. Sooo what happened? Shouldn't we not have a melee DPS job? We have lots of those and nearly everyone hoped for a caster or another physical ranged DPS. Where is the balance? Welll about that..... I really disliked the mogtalk episode after the Showcase as it was riddled with points I couldn't agree with, to the point that I was unable to even finish it. But an excellent point was raised regarding this issue. Encounter design doesn't give a rats arse if you are physical or magic damage. You are either melee, or ranged. The only fight in the game where damage type has any sort of meaning is Leviathan. Now Heavensward gave us a physical ranged job. Stormblood gave us a melee and a magic ranged job (two magic ranged if you count Blue Mage) and Shadowbringers gave us yet again a physical ranged job. Since 2.4 gave us ninja, we were given only one melee DPS job. This gives us a grand total of four melee jobs and six ranged DPS. When looked at from this angle, it appears blatantly obvious that we need another melee DPS. Also the heavy maiming gear I mentioned above? Currently only the Dragoon uses those. It is very underused.
Okay so we know damage range, damage type and armor type. Also we know the why. Now it is time for the what. You would not expect this from a heavy armor wearing melee job, but Necromancer is still in the race. Then again the Diablo 3 and Immortal Necromancer does wear heavy armor and carries a scythe that it often uses to slice and dice. I did mention the scythe that was glimpsed in the teaser, but there is another reason Necro is still suspected. For those who are new to fan fests might not know, but Yoshida likes to provide clues with his t-shirts. This is why his no comment shirt during the first part of the Showcase was so funny for old fans. During Heavensward's reveal no job was revealed on the first Fan Fest, but Yoshida pulled off his sweater saying that it is too hot, revealing a Batman t-shirt. He claimed he simply likes Batman. Well as luck would have it, the next Fan Fest saw the introduction of the Dark Knight. After that he revealed a James Bond t-shirt and said that his favorite in the franchise is The Man with the Golden Gun. This lead to the reveal of the gun wielding machinist. Red Mage was pretty self explanatory with the Scarlet Witch t-shirt. Samurai was a bit more abstract. He wore a Spiderman. Well, remember the Sam Raimi trilogy. The japanese way of pronouncing his name would be Samu Raimi. And there you have it. So what does this have to do with Necromancer? Well this time the freakin Grim Reaper was on his shirt. Well an album cover with the GR on it, but that's beside the point. This is a pretty major hint. The only problem I have is that they name dropped the Necromancer job several times, and they tend to be more sneaky about it. Another tip is that we will get a scythe wielding Beast Master, cause some people really want Beast Master. I honestly can't see this at all. If I had Beasts to help me I would pick up a ranged weapon and shoot everyone from a safe distance. With Zenos constantly referring to the world as his hunting ground, I could maybe see him job changing into a BM, but it wouldn't be a melee DPS. Another popular candidate is Templar. You see, the album also includes the title: The Filth and the Fury. That happens to be title of a movie about Sex Pistols directed by Julien Temple. This is the same weird ass logic used for the Samurai, so it just might be true. Having both Paladin and Templar might seem too much, but they are fulfilling different roles. Plus a showdown between a Paladin WoL and a Templar Zenos just sounds poetic.
So long story short, we have a new healer, three candidates for the next DPS job, and lots of development that will serve to longterm health of the game. More on those in a later plot.
Let's take a short break from the Endwalker hype and look at the other important gaming event. BlizzConline. Arguably it will be the larger event. As big as the Showcase was, it was a few hours long whereas BC will be two days. In scope it will be more like the Fan Fest All Around the World which Yoshie will host in May.
Of course it is needed, considering BlizzCon is not just for one game. And in fact this time we will likely hear from all the major IPs. Just think about the situation.
World of Warcraft In retail we are after the launch of Shadowlands which was proclaimed the best expansion since Legion. A faint praise if there ever was one, since BfA was worse than a shotgun blast to the dick, although it also got much worse and more disappointing as time went by. Shadowlands on the other hand only had release so it can go either way. And here's the thing. SL was released in November 23. It will be a few days short of three months old when BlizzConline arrives and all we know about the future of the game is a 9.0.5 patch that is expected to release in March and comes with system changes. Now I'm no stranger to content delays especially during the pandemic and everyone would rather wait several more months instead of a repeat of Cyberbug 2077. However a subscription based MMO still needs content regularly. Or at the very least promise content regularly. They don't even need much. Just have a panel where they say Kel'Thuzad will free the soul of Arthas in 9.1. That's it. That's fucking it. All the fans still bemoaning the game progressing from WotLK will be in hype mode for the next year. A promise of the return of the good old days will feed them even if the wait will be painfully long. Some response has to be given to the Endwalker reveal. And there is Classic. They already reached the last patch of Vanilla so it is time to move forward. We could be wondering what will happen now, but let's be honest. Classic will move into TBC. Everyone treats it as confirmed already, but an official confirmation wouldn't hurt.
Hearthstone The other WarCraft game. Let's just say that 2020 was not kind to Hearthstone. Even if we don't go political, the inclusion of the Demon Hunter was met with a lot of disdain, the new reward system is almost universally despised and neither of the two game modes feel finished. Band aids like the introduction of the Classic set (seeing a pattern here, guys) will not help with the core problems like the game being pay to win, keywords being relevant for one expansion before being phased out or the same archetypes seeing play since forever. We need huge things for Hearthstone this year if the game is to remain popular. Its main selling points where being easy to understand and using WoW characters. But that can only take you so far.
Diablo The dark and gritty franchise. Or rather used to be dark and gritty. Now don't get me wrong I'm not one of those fans who get constipation from seeing a rainbow in a Diablo game, but back in the games companions didn't crack jokes and we had less pop culture references. The Diablo franchise was the serious cousin of the WarCraft franchise. But I digress. We are here to talk about Diablo at BlizzCon and if even half of the rumors are true, this will be the year of Diablo. The award for worst kept secret in the industry goes to the Diablo 2 remaster. Now I personally don't know if we really need remasters as I was always willing to forgive outdated graphics if the rest was amazing (cough Final Fantasy VII cough), but many are super excited to play D2 with actually recognizable faces. Next is Diablo IV. From all the dev updates it truly seems that the team is putting a lot of love and care into onstructing a great game. I don't always get the impression that they know what makes a Diablo game good, but that is a discussion for another time. It has been a year since tha game was announced so it is time for another big info dump. The devs said that they will show "a new version of the campfire scene". This is of course a cheeky way of saying: New class reveal. I can't guarantee I won't slit my wrists if it is another Diablo 2 class, but so far each revealed class had a very different playstyle, I'm interested to see what the new one will be. Plus if there is any live gameplay footage it will be nice to see how things progressed. And there is Diablo Immortal. Now I'll say something very weird here, but out of these three games I'm most excited about Immortal. Sure the reveal was super tone deaf but just looking at the alpha footage gave the impression of this being a much better Diablo 2 sequel than Diablo 3 was. D3 was a sequel to Diablo with very little ties to connect it to the second game. And it promptly began to kill off characters to make sure the next game will have zero ties to anything. In Immortal we have not only half the Rogue Encampment back, but also the D2 Necromancer and the Countess. It's a much needed dosage of nostalgia with small polishes to the D3 gameplay, like a much better paragon system. Also the game had a very limited alpha release so far, so it might be time to broaden the test a bit. And perhaps add you know what as a playable area.
That was six titles already and we haven't talked about Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm or StarCraft. Granted they will have a more limited presence. HotS will have no panels dedicated to it and StarCraft will have a single streamer battle with the lenght of three Diablo panels. I guess they needed time for the one hour lenght panel about Thrall and the cooking workshop.
Anyrate while the panel list concerns me a bit, I still firmly believe, for the above mentioned reasons, that we will be seeing plenty of interesting news from all the large IPs this year. You have the ball, Blizzard, Show us something amazing!
Sooooo here we are after the reveal of Not-Forspoken. I've spent the past few days binge watching reactions and breakdowns. I even attempted to make vlogs about it to branch out into more popular mediums, but alas it wasn't to be (or 2B rather). My recording software is pretty bad to say the least. Two videos ended up being useless garbage. But we are not here to lament half an hour of lost footage. We are here for Endwalker. There are several videos about the symbolism, the film making techniques and even the music. It's not even the final version, but we already have half a dozen remixes.
Anyroad let's jump into the video.
The very first thing we notice is the Moon. It is literally the first shot of the trailer. So apparently I was wrong and there is enough content on the Moon. In this case I am more than happy to be wrong. Now I want you to think back to the trailer of ARR. What was the first thing we saw in that video once the clouds parted?
Yep, the Moon. This was the red moon, Dalamud of course, but still the Moon. It is a nice bookend and supports the 24 hour cycle metaphor of the dev team. Began with the Moon, ends with the Moon. Also look at THIS shot of the Warrior of Light:
If this doesn't evoke the ascians, I don't know what does. And it does make sense to be honest. The last time we have seen somebody on the moon, it was Elidibus. And during Shadowbringers we learned so much about them an even started to sympathise with them. Not to mention that with Ardbert joining his soul with ours we are closer to Azem than before. And finally we are in the shoes of the ascians now. Our world is threatened by the final days. The same conflict and we are facing the same choices. See how much we have going on half a minute into the trailer?
By the by, while you are looking at these picture there is a song I would recommend. As others pointed it out the teaser BGM bears semblence to a french song titled I asked the moon.
Coincidence? I think not. So with all of this said and done are you ready to jump into the second minute of this teasert? Well get ready because things will be more talk as we go along.
First comes the map with good old Emet's narration. And it IS him. You might think it is a different character with the same voice actor, for some reason, but his line is almost word to word what he said during the final dungeon of 5.0, so it IS him. I'm not saying he returns, but it was a nice touch. Also the only trailer with a map before, was Stormblood. The expansion where we met Asahi, whose body Fandaniel is in, and had our official first meeting with Zenos. Players saw him before, but the characters didn't. More on that later. Oh and forgot to mention but the Square Enix logo is part of the environment in both trailers. Carving on the rock for Stormblood, footprint in Endwalker. Moving on:
See which cities have an icon for them? The ones we already have access to, Garlemald, wich will be a field zone and Sharlayan. Makes you think, doesn't it? After that we cut, quite literally to Alisaie fighting a dragon. Or at least something draconic. 1.0 had Midgarsormr, 2.0 had Bahamut, 3.0 had Hraesvelgr and 5.0 had flashbacks to the latter two. Dragons are and important recurring theme in trailers. The fight also includes parts that wouldn't make it into the Mass Effect Legendary edition.
But to be fair this is how a Red Mage fights. Fanservice aside casters are very much underrepresented in the cinematics. Also this is the first time Alisaie appears in the trailer. Each of the core Scions showed up, and aside from Papalymo and Urianger they did twice. Lyse in ARR and Stormblood, Thancred and Y'shtola in ARR and Shadowbringers. This is the first time for the twins however. Plus Alisaie fights with proper combat animations and the video about the film making techniques I have alluded to talks a lot about how amazing the compositions and the color scheme are. She also has a new outfit as the now deleted video of mine predicted, and she didn't job change as the now deleted video predicted. Of course I have no way of proving that, but the same is true for the things I got wrong. And there are many I got wrong. At any rate since Alphie says they both have a chance to get new outfits later I figured he would be the much needed healer and since I am fairly certain necromancer is the other class I theorized that Zenos will get that. We'll see how that went. But first, WoL time.
And we have a new poster job. To the lament of all healers, it is not a healer it is a Paladin. Now why is that mega awesome? Well first because he used to be a Gladiator.
Yes we know him as an archer in 1.0 and that is what Shadowbringers called back to. But as the picture above proves, he began is adventure gladiating. And what is the job that Gladiator becomes? That's right, Paladin. Also he was a Dark Knight in Shadowbringers now he is a Paladin who travels to the Moon with the new Trust companion Estinien a Dragoon and beats Zenos. Well in Final Fantasy IV Cecil begins as a Dark Knight before switching to Paladin and traveling to the Moon with his dragoon friend Kain and beats Zemus. Who wants to bet this is all a weird coincidence?
And now comes the part that literally nobody got right. I mean who could have predicted that the new healer with wield laser shooting floating knives? Apparently Alphie got pissed his sister has the most stylish job in the game, so he invented a Sharlayan hint job for himself. Incidentally Sage only shows up in one mainline Final Fantasy game. Three guesses which, and the first two don't count.
Hey, Zenos my boy. Nice throne you have there. Like what you and Fandango have done with the place. Very ni....wait a sec. Is that a scythe I see there? Like the one Edda had when she started romancing necks?
Sure seems like it. Imagine poor Blizzard if FFXIV gets Tinker and Necromancer before WoW. Anyway back to Zenos. This is the first time we see him. Technically his body was in the Shadowbringers cinematics but that was Elidibus piloting it so this is his first legit show. And his great-grandfather talks about what's past the far edge of fate. Hmm, sounds familiar. Wasn't that a patch title? Yes it was. Good times. Ilberd betrayed us, Papalymo died, Yda turned out to be long dead with her sister Lyse in her place all along, the Calamity was recreated with huge dragon, summoning spell and a Dalamud replica. A fitting allusion for an expansion that tries to recreate the Final Days of Amaurot, Also the end of Far Edge of Fate gave us our first look at Zenos. He sat on his throne silently just like now.
And finally the title, A donut and a slice of pie. No I'm not hungry, why do you ask? Joking aside Endwalker is a fantastic title. Truly superb. Nice, short, rolls off the tongue neatly, and is very evocative. You can just picture this being the title given to the hero after Warrior of Light and Warrior of Darkness. Same as how SWTOR introduced the name Outlander for the player character in Knights of the Fallen Empire. The world is completely devastated, It is the end of the world. Who walks these ruined lands? The Endwalker. Or maybe it is a sign that we don't give up. We walk this road till the end. There are quitters and there are endwalkers. Also nobody predicted this title. There were several leaked trademarks, but this was not among them.
So this was my teaser and title breakdown blog. Enjoy it, spread it, check out the links and follow the channels they are on. They were all wonderful and this blog entry wouldn't have been possible without them inspiring me.
