So all three fan festivals are done and we’ve got quite a preview of what’s coming with the new expansion Shadowbringers.
I was initially quite excited about Shadowbringers when it was first announced back in Las Vegas last year. The prospect of playing as a Gunblade wielding character was extremely promising as FF VIII was my first FF game and being able to live through that nostalgic feeling was, priceless. Also the prospect of having Viera, one of my favourite races in FF XII and Tactics Advance was exciting and I was genuinely looking forward to the first peek of the urban myth in the form of the male Viera. Then came the Japan fan fest. Dancer was announced as a DPS job and then boom, no male Viera but the male gender locked Hrothgar. While Hrothgar might be playing homage to Kimari in FF X, it was a disappointment for me (I don’t need my FF XIV to play like Champions of Norrath or Baldur’s Gate). In fact the most disappointing announcement for FF XIV for me.
I was very happy when in the reboot they introduced male Miqo’te because I like cat people but I cannot relate myself playing as a female character. So was very glad that they introduced the male cat people when A Realm Reborn (ARR) was announced. For me that was one of the reason I got back into FF XIV after they rebooted the disastrous original game (I couldn’t even get myself interested after trying my friend’s game during the trial). As such expectations for me being able to play the masculine yet agile male Viera as in the Advance Tactics lore were high and I was looking forward to see how they would look like in super high definition. Then the bombshell dropped, Viera is female locked and instead they have the male locked Hrothgar. In my opinion this is a huge step backward. Taking away the choice of gender for new races took a huge chunk of customisation freedom from the player, and for me it is a re-surfacing of arrogance on Square Enix’s part.
Over the last few months, Square Enix should have sensed the temperature and expectations from players on having male Viera in the game as, similar to myself, a lot of people were looking forward to see and play as this mysterious beings that they were never able to encounter in FF XII and Tactics Advance, despite reading about them at different occasions. Even in the FF XIV lore male Viera were mentioned by the dramaturg in Prima Vista. I am not disappointed with them introducing an additional race but the decision to gender locked both races means taking away choices from players. And choices for me was such an important part to enjoy FF XIV as a game. It is not a complete deal breaker but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth, and my trust level for Square Enix to listen to their players who finance their games had significantly dropped.
Some people were disappointed that Dancer is not a healing job. For me that was not a disappointment although Dancer was a healing job in FF XI. Having said that Blue Mage was not even a full fledge job that you can play in most contents anyway and people seemed to be ok with that now (though I suspect the initial interest had dropped of quite significantly as you don’t see that many people around the Blue Mage arena anymore). Also Dancer was never a hard core healing job in Tactics and Tactics Advance. They are mostly buffing DPS jobs similar to Bard. And also if we look at FF XIII, Vanille, whom performed partly as a Dancer role is a DPS not a healing job, as her healing is nothing compared to the likes of Hope. So I personally was expecting Dancer to be a DPS job right from the beginning. If there is another healing job announced, most probably if so would be in May during the last Live Letter event, I would expect it to be Geomancer, in which the Astrologian questline in Stormblood had repeatedly mentioned.
As for not going into the heartlands of the Empire but going to The First, some kind of parallel dimension that believes in the Warrior of Darkness, I personally think that it adds an interesting plot point for the FF XIV story arc without exhausting materials too early (seriously what else can they do if they finished of the Empire in the next expansion?). However, seeing Minfilia again for me was a damper although this could be a parallel dimension Minfilia. But for me it really is a ‘come on her again?’ moment. I am not sentencing her already as FF XIV had again and again proved that they can shock us with their narrative. I was just looking for more new interesting characters and for me Minfilia is extremely bland as a character. I would prefer they bring back Ysayle, Papalymo or Moenbryda any day. The other thing that I have questions over was how is the player as the Warrior of Darkness different from the Warriors of Darkness in Soul Surrender during the Heavensward period? Because apparently their worlds were flushed by light and destroyed so how does The First of the Dark Dimension come into play and then round up that part of the narrative?
So far for me the gender locked new races was one of the biggest disappointments for me. It is not a deal breaker but just affirms that I will be saving my fantasia potions yet again. I do hope there will be a new healer in the form of Geomancer, but to be honest how can they make another healer distinguished from the current trio is the question. Even Dancer looks like a different aesthetic version of Bard to me at this point. As for Gunbreaker I will certainly try my hands on it despite I am not a tank by heart at all.
There are only a few more months before Shadowbringers drops. So in the mean time I still have a huge chunk of Eureka I need to finish so my glamours for the expansion are ready :D
