Stormblood is a little long for my liking but the setup it makes for the future is incredible. Some might not like how long it is but the payoff in the later expansions it sets up is worth it ten times over.
An expansion with a strong focus on war and its consequences. The story here becomes significantly darker, which is absolutely fine.
However, Stormblood has a similar issue as ARR; it drags on at times and has many, many lengthy conversations about politics in Eorzea, which I found somewhat boring.
Zenos, although we learn absolutely nothing about him, which I find quite odd in FF14, still leaves an impressive impression. For the first time as a player, you encounter an enemy/friend, who is not only your equal but much stronger at the beginning. And this is despite him being a Garlean, who, unlike us, can't actually use magic. However, he finds other ways to continually increase his strength.
As epic as Zenos may be, I find his story lacking. It's almost as if they only wanted to have a character who could match the Warrior of Light. Which is completely fine. But there's no explanation for why he is the way he is.
For such an important character, that's completely unacceptable, especially if one has certain expectations for the quality of the story.
7/10
Der Anfang war sehr langweilig und hat sich ewig gezogen, das Schleichen durch die große japanische Stadt war so schrecklich, das ganze rumgerenne wieder und wieder für eine weitere Szene mit der Frau mit den schwarzen Haaren, grauenvoll!
Aber unter Wasser und vor allem der Unterwassertempel Dungeon und später das große Gefecht gegen den blonden in der vier Mal so großen Rüstung war schon echt ganz gut, genrell alles was man mit anderen zusammen spielen kann, vor allem die 24-Mann Dinger!
This is a second review with the Expansions "Heavensward" and "Stormblood" taken into consideration, The game is overall "good enough", it definitely does not feel like a 100% premium product in most regards simply because the developer does not seem to take into consideration the western audience's wishes as much as one would have hoped, mainly the community is instead revolved around the appeal of the game, However I failed to see the appeal on the release content of stormblood while could see some appeal on heavensward release content and of course the patches, it felt like the budget fell drastically for some reason on stormblood quality-wise both in the narrative and the story itself, it felt like they could have done much more with it but didnt.
I still believe one can enjoy the game, the maps though I find very uninteresting to be at, they are look-alike in many ways, I would even say they reused a lot of assets and it is very obvious, even the music pieces are essentially 1-3 per expansion excluding the boss fights of course and *some* dungeons. If someone is not into text-based story telling, simply do not play this game, the voiced narrative is very limited and seemingly random, this game relies heavily on its story and it is 96% text-based at the very least, I would not recommend therefore this game simply for the reason that globally 1 out of 10 people has trouble reading and basically they do cannot enjoy reading because of effects like the different types of dyslexia, the developer does not seem to contemplate the importance of this fact, the game is developed in Japan and then localized by another group of people in the company, the producer's native language however is mainly pictorial which makes it very easy to read once mastered to a degree, therefore the text-based story becomes a breeze to read however once localized, the western system of reading is much more difficult for the brain to decode and therefore the text-based story becomes unpleasant for most people and certainly unbearable for those 1/10 people world wide, which is still a huge number of people. Consider this before you invest into the game, if you can read fast and you like this type of narrative then you will be very satisfied, otherwise do not commit unless you want to train your reading skills, which is something I did, to put it into perspective the 90% of the game time you will spend on your first 1-2 months will be reading the story, it depends on your speed, it is advised to only skip anything that is not in a cut-scene to save some time if you so choose.
The story and its quests are only unbearable for some due to the above, if you want to do a second playthrough you can simply skip through every narrative content by rapidly clicking on your screen, it can still be a bother of course, the game's store has ways for people to either skip or transfer, the game as of right now has limited cross-server capabilities and the server data-centers feel very fragmented, therefore it is very possible that if you do not communicate with your friends on which servers to settle in, you might not play together and for the most part the game is indeed single-player for the first 1-2 months, consider all the above before you commit. Best of Luck and have fun!
As far as expansions go... Shadowbringers>Heavensward>Stormblood>A Realm Reborn
Main quest are long, boring and tedious. Average characters, story, music, poor quality in some parts. Boss and dungeon design uninspiring. The game showed no improvement in terms of design and systems from the original release of ffxiv a realm reborn. Its just a big unenjoyable time-waster.
The tasks are so lame and simple that automated bots make up half the player base, they do the same main story quests as you do and even farm dungeons in duty finder. If you are playing the same game they do, you are doing it wrong.
This is a ridiculous time waster that makes you dumb. Stay away.
SummaryDive into the next chapter of the Final Fantasy XIV Online with its next expansion pack - Stormblood. Explore vast, new lands, including Ala Mhigo, and challenge new Primal threats across Eorzea as you embark on hundreds of new quests as the Warrior of Light.
FEATURES
* Level cap increased from 60 -> 70
* New jobs, including red ...