Vye-Brante

Spoilers ahead for the Job/Role Quests in Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers. I have a lot of thoughts on these that I just have to get out.

Final Fantasy XIV is apparently unique in the MMO world, (I don't have much exposure so I don't know this from experience,) in that it is very story based and has a strong main story to follow. Content like dungeons and trials are locked behind story and you have to progress through it to be able to access them. It should be no surprise that the strong story is one of the things that draws me and and keeps be playing FFXIV. I have been writing my own stories in one form or another for as long as I can remember. As I grew and developed my skills, I started to be able to analyze my work and even the work of others to pick out things that I liked, didn't like. Finding the reasons why I enjoyed some things and not others is a skill I am still trying to develop. Sometimes I can find good explanations and sometimes I can't. But this is why I continue doing these thought pieces whether or not anyone actually reads them. I want to sort my thoughts to better learn how to find the source of my feelings.

And now I can't turn my analysis brain off while going through stories, games, movies, comics, or otherwise. So there's that.

I mention this because oddly enough it's not the main story I find myself constantly analyzing but the side stories. There are things to pick at in the main story too, as I did with Lyse in Stormblood. In general though, the main story is fairly strong and while I have issues with it, a lot of times those issues are resolved or are so minor they can be ignored. The side quests though constantly bait me with things that could be very interesting but are then dropped. I know there is logic to this. They are only side stories so they likely don't get the same amount of attention that the main story does, allowing there to be less time and effort into ironing out any issues. The sides stories also have a limited scope as they can't do much if anything to impact the main plot as the developers can't count on every player to have done particular stories. So I get it. I shouldn't expect much from these stories.

And yet I still frequently find myself upset at how poorly some of these stories are handled. Even with the restrictions of them being side stories, they shouldn't be this bad.

I've already gave brief thoughts on the Beast Tribes. Overall I really liked the Beast Tribe quests and look forward to new ones in Shadowbringers. After those thoughts were out, I started work on a summary of my thoughts on the Job Quests. At that time, Shadowbringers wasn't out yet and I only had picked up four jobs. Giving my thoughts on those four wouldn't have been hard. But now that we're in Shadowbringers, I've picked up four more and plan on picking up another soon. This means writing about the main job quests would take longer and unless I am able to keep my thoughts simple, would be a really long read too. Seeing how even the preface of this piece is already as long as it is, I'm sure you can see that keeping things short is not my strong suit.

I still plan on doing it. Mostly because I want to rant about how terribly they destroyed the Summoner quest line. (I am legitimately insulted, you have no idea.) But it'll take some time and thought into how I want to do it. More than likely I'll be breaking the jobs up into groups or something.

In the meantime though, I decided to get my thoughts out on the Role Quests out of the way. In Shadowbringers, it wouldn't make sense for you to continue returning to your job's teacher every few levels and doing a completely disconnected story line back on the Source. I'm glad they came up with this alternative where you would follow a role specific story instead. It was a great solution and a nice change, even if I was initially disappointed I wouldn't have my normal job quest line. There are four stories and you have to complete one to complete Shadowbringers main story. One for tank, healer, physical DPS, and magical DPS. You only have to complete one, but if you complete all four there is a fifth quest line afterward. As usual, I wasn't able to stop myself from analyzing these stories while playing them and figuring out what worked for them and what didn't and why. And so after all this setup, that is what I am going to be talking about.

Like I said at the beginning, there are spoilers ahead. I honestly don't know how I could explain my thoughts on them without going into spoilers. I think the only ones who would understand what I'm talking about would have some sort of basic understanding of the story or structures anyway. My impulse is to also rank them somehow, but I don't think I really could as they all have strengths and weaknesses. They more or less come out even.

Except for one, but we'll get to that.

So instead I'll just go through them in the order I played them.

And this is a minor note and something I noticed but probably won't apply to most players or even matter, but when I did each one, I played through them with the same job as the Warrior of Darkness Sineater was. So I was like a perfect mirror and I loved that, haha.

Magical DPS: I'm a Black Mage main, so the first Role Quest I played through and completed for the main story was the Magical DPS. This introduced me to the Role Quest concept when I wasn't really sure what they were or the purpose of them. The story begins with Cerigg who is a hunter aiming to take out a sin eater called Phronesis. Phronesis was once the Warrior of Light/Darkness named Nyelbert who was a powerful mage. Phronesis is going around casting powerful magic and as Cerigg doesn't know anything about magic, he wants another mage to help him. That's where the main player comes in. Phronesis opens holes into the void that suck in everything around them. While studying them to see how to beat them, we stumble upon a new character trapped inside who we rescue. We find out the boy is named Taynor and as we help him remember his past, we learn that he's been trapped in the void for over one hundred years and was Nyelbert's friend. Nyelbert's driving goal was always to save his friend from the void but always failed. Taynor also wants to help stop Phronesis to help Nyelbert be put to rest so he joins up with Cerigg and the player to take Phronesis down.

This story line is in a lot of ways the hardest to talk about because there isn't any one thing that stands out about it. It actually tried to cram a lot into it and as such there wasn't much that got a lot of attention. You start out trying to study voids. Then helping Taynor get his memories. Then you find out what Phronesis is doing. Then help Taynor get stronger. All the while, Cerigg starts out trying to do all he can to get rid of Taynor only to end up basically adopting him. Given enough attention or focus, any one of these plot beats could have made for a good story in their own right, but instead just take up the same limited space. This could have been a weakness. They could have tried to do too much and ruined the story that way. Instead they gave a balance of time to everything so nothing seemed more important than the rest but at the same time means they didn't drop any of the threads they were following.

Granted, the story could have been more interesting if they had let the focus shift to just one thing instead of everything, but I am satisfied with how they introduced and wrapped up each point they introduced. Everything got closure and honestly that is more than I can say for most stories. The story started out just reminding me of how the Red Mage story started and I was worried about that but those overlaps quickly went away. Cerigg was boring at first but seeing how I have a soft spot for fatherly figures, he won me over with his relationship with Taynor. (I swear Square knows about this weakness and uses it against me.) If I let my bias take hold of me, Nyelbert is my favorite of the Warriors and Darkness. Black Mages for life, yo! His stoic nature means that he doesn't get a lot of lines to develop his character so I wasn't sure about him at first but after I saw what he did to try and save Taynor, I couldn't help but feel for him. If nothing else, they did a great job showing his pain and frustration and even his loyalty to his lost friend. This was the only story in which the hunter you start with didn't have a connection to the Warrior of Darkness you were after and instead it was another character introduced all the way. This means Cerigg was eclipsed somewhat with the drama around Taynor and Nyelbert, but he did enough to let me comfortably say he's a good character. Maybe just "good enough" but that's all he had to be.

"Decent overall" is probably the best summary I can give on my thoughts of the Magical DPS line. There wasn't anything that grabbed me but there was nothing to make me angry either. So I accept it and can say I liked it.

Physical DPS: This story line teams the main player up with a Mistel (or Miqo’te if you’d rather) named Lue-Reeq. Reeq’s quarry is Andreia, the sin eater that used to be Renda-Rae. Initially he seems after the reward, but it becomes clear that he is actually quite wealthy so it doesn’t seem he can be after money. We briefly meet another group he used to travel with but they teased him and would not take him seriously and so he left them to find Andreia himself. We also then meet his parents who care so little about what Reeq is doing that they barely take notice when he updates them on his quest. Even the workers of the mess hall he frequents seem to disregard him as being a serious hunter. He teams up with the main player for assistance but when he doesn’t get results as quickly as he wants, his frustration builds up more and more.

I’ll be honest, the start of the story line did not impress me. I figured Reeq was going to be your typical rich boy who doesn’t understand the world and would grow up by the end of the story. This even seemed confirmed when we met his previous partners and they bullied him. It seemed like it was going to follow a pretty predicable path. At some point though, I realized that Reeq had won me over and I was suddenly very invested in where he was going. This is very much all Reeq’s story. While he is immature and naive, he is also earnest and trying to prove himself. You see how no one really believes in Reeq and a lot of the time, he doesn’t even believe in himself. He does want to save people from Andreia, but what he really needs to do is prove himself to everyone, including to himself. This is his personal quest. He wants to show what he can do. 

Renda-Rae wasn’t grabbing me at first either. This story also seemed typical. Her story was that she lost friends due to being under prepared, and she never wanted that to happen again. She was willing to face dangers alone to avoid losing anyone. We’ve seen all this before. She would learn it was okay to depend on others, power of friendship, the end. This does sorta happen, but there were twists to it. So I was glad it didn’t follow the direct path. Then I thought how that didn’t relate to Reeq’s issues at all which made the two stories disjointed. But once again, I discounted this story too early. As we learn about Renda-Rae along the way, we find out that Reeq took up archery because of her. He was raised on stories of how she was the top hunter and he was inspired by this to follow in her footsteps. Now he is essentially having to hunt her down even though she is who got him interested in archery to begin with. This makes his mission even more personal to him than it was before. Like I said, this is all Reeq’s story and it all goes back to him. There’s even a bit of subtlety in that Renda-Rae had to learn to depend on others and Reeq learns its okay to rely on the player. Renda-Rae became the well known hunter she was because she had the support of her team and he learns from that.

This is also one of the few story lines where the player meets a character and they are later turned into a sin eater. It’s a terrible fate and even Reeq says how even though the guy wasn’t a good person, he didn’t deserve that. Casualties can be pretty rare, especially with named characters. The guy may have been a minor character, but he still got more than most character’s slated to die get. The stakes were already personal but then you add in how he has to face someone he knew in sin eater form. The fate of those minor characters just added to the stakes and tension. It would have been a little better if this had been brought up a little sooner than the last quest or so, but considering how much else there was to cover, this isn’t surprising.

I like character based stories and this one is completely about Lue-Reeq’s arc. It takes you through who he was and what happened to him to help him change. His change isn’t necessarily hugely drastic but that just made it more believable and endearing. If I absolutely had to chose one story as my favorite, it’d be this one if only because it was giving me such low expectations to start out only to grab my full attention and not letting it go.

Healer: The Dwarf Giott is in need of help. Sort of. He... She... Um, okay, that’s a very late game spoiler but apparently Giott is female, I guess? That’s what the wiki says, so we’ll go with it. Anyway, Giott is hunting Sophrosyne, the sin eater form of Lamitt who was also a dwarf. Giott is from the same village Lamitt was from. Giott says Lamitt disgraced the town by leaving and taking off her helmet, a huge no-no with dwarves. Sophrosyne is also going around healing and raising sin eaters and that can’t be allowed to continue either. Giott takes the player from place to place trying to figure out how Sophrosyne is able to heal sin eaters and how to stop it from healing itself so they can destroy it. After the player peers into the past of Lamitt, Giott begins to learn about the circumstances that surrounded Lamitt’s decision to leave the village permanently and this leads Giott to question the stories she was always told.

Lue-Reeq may have had the best character arc, but Giott definitely wins the award for being the most entertaining character. Giott is frequently finding ways to mock the player while simultaneously thinking of how to praise herself. Her dialogue is funny, that’s all there is to it. She constantly seeks alcohol and doesn’t seem to be too picky about whatever the locals are serving her. She says it makes her stronger, and if she ever is drunk, this never gets in the way so it’s just funny to see how often she finds a way to talk about it. Because she is constantly talking herself up, she could have easily come off as arrogant. Fortunately this is never to the point of being off putting. She actually proves herself again and again, not only in battle but with intellect. She is able to find useful information for your quest and sets up numerous tests to try out new theories. She may be drunk, and she may never stop talking about that beard she wears, but it’s plain to see that she has earned the right to be so full of herself. She knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t need to doubt herself and neither does the player.

In some ways, the Healer role quest is the most straight forward. The player teams up with Giott to hunt down Sophrosyne and they start up a process of trial and error to see how to fight Sophrosyne effectively. Meanwhile, Giott finds out that Lamitt only left the village after she disobeyed orders so she could save her sister and other dwarves from a mysterious illness. Giott turns from never having a good thing to say about Lamitt to respecting her and her decisions. It’s sweet even if it’s not overly complex.

I do have issues with it though. This may be more of a personal thing, but I found Giott to be more entertaining than relatable. The player has slightly more context to what kind of person Lamitt is and that makes it hard to get on Giott’s side when he constantly puts her down. Giott eventually comes around and that’s when I could root for her. This just happened very late in the story line so I just felt alienated by Giott until then. Because of Giott’s dialogue, I was able to be amused in the mean time even if I was more or less waiting for Giott to get caught up with me. If she hadn’t been so fun to be around, she would have been annoying so the choice to make her funny to endear her to the player was the right call.

My other issue is that that Giott’s turn comes very quickly. Like I said, it’s very late in the story that she learns the truth and accepts Lamitt wasn’t bad. It’s like for most of the story she hates Lamitt, has one quest where she becomes unsure, and then the next is admiring Lamitt’s conviction and wants to free her. You fight Sophrosyne and then the story’s over. It was just too fast. It comes down to the limited amount of quests and time the role quest is able to take. It would have been better if we were able to fully be on the same page sooner, but they did what they could. This didn’t stop me from being moved during the last scene with Lamitt and Giott’s reaction to her. That was just too dang cute and touching. Giott’s resolution is also a bit of a head scratcher. I get they are trying to make her have the same ending as Lamitt. She willingly gives up her home and her helmet. That was great and all, but I guess I don’t fully understand why she had to do that. Like, I get dwarf helmets are their whole identity and they don’t take them off. But like, no one saw? It was an emergency? Sure, it could be argued that Giott knew in her heart that she took off the helmet so she shouldn’t go back. But to me it just seemed like it should be an easy fix to just get a new helmet. I’m sure it’s once again me just not relating to Giott on this matter, but it seems like it could have been done differently to really get the seriousness of it across. Like have the village reject her like they rejected Lamitt instead of Giott just deciding she’ll be rejected. That would have brought it together better.

It’s a simple story, and I can pick at it, but that didn’t stop it from being enjoyable. Comedy is a great tool to use to make a story feel engaging, no matter how deep. It was used to great effect here.

Tank: A man named Granson is out to take out the sin eater Dikaiosyne. This sin eater used to be Branden who was a knight of a now lost kingdom. Granson is gloomy and takes his role seriously. Early on the player learns he lost the woman he loved after Dikaiosyne attacked their home town. Granson watched as she was turned into a sin eater and he was forced to kill her to put her out of her misery. He is now out for revenge on the monster that caused this. After some investigating, it seems Dikaiosyne is hunting for relics from the kingdom Branden used to protect. Granson comes to find out that a plague was turning some of the people of the kingdom into monsters, and Branden’s princess was affected after he failed to protect her. Much like Granson, he was forced to kill the monster she became. Granson’s mission changes from that of revenge to helping Branden find peace.

This quest line seemed different from the others in that a good chunk of the story that is being learned about is stuff that happened a century ago. While the others had short flashbacks here and there, this one frequently cut back and we’re trying to resolve the mystery of what happened those years ago just as much as what’s happening now. Branden’s kingdom was the one that inhabited the valley that is now Il Mheg and so it’s interesting to see a bit of the place from before it was abandoned and then taken over by the Fae. This was even a bit selfish to me because it was fun to see the juxtaposition between the warring tribes of the Xaela back in our home world and the proper and orderly Xaela royalty of the First. A completely biased note of me seeing as I play a Xaela, but that just made it more personal to me. This quest line even plays into the main story with patch 5.1 and if it’s been completed, there are additional dialogue options that add more detail into both the main story and the role quest. The additional world building from this story was cool enough to me on its own. 

The moment that totally won me over though was when Granson realizes that he and Branden were forced to do the same thing. It was somewhat implied that Branden’s relationship with the princess was a bit more than a friendship, but just like Granson, Branden failed and had to end her life before she truly became a monster. Branden and Granson’s stories mirrored each other so well. I constantly made fun of Granson for being an edge lord. Then Granson reacts to Branden’s pain and realizes they shared the same experience. This shook him to his core and he had to figure out what he was going to do with this information and his quest. This changed his whole motivation. It was still personal but not about revenge. It was about finding peace for Branden and himself.

The only problem I had was a small one. The last quest introduces some sort of conflict with Branden being dissatisfied with himself for hesitating to kill his princess and promising he would never hesitate again. This made Granson and another character worry that Branden ended up giving in to hate or anger or something. It was a relief when they learned that’s not what happened. I don’t know if I had missed something or there was some sort of concept that wasn’t well translated. They had just made a big deal out of it only for it to really not go anywhere. It was brought up and dropped within the same quest which was just odd. This isn’t a huge note but was just something that didn’t sit as well with me.

The story contributed more information to the world of the First and while it somewhat followed the “revenge isn’t the answer” plot, it gave it a different spin that made it refreshing and its own thing. I liked so much about it that it’s hard to find much fault!

Final: Whomp, whomp, whooooooomp!

This quest line frustrated me. Plain and simple. Worst one by far. It takes advantage of all the good faith it won from me with the other story lines only to trip at the finish line and become a blemish on the other stories since it is part of them all.

I was on the fence about writing this thing, but this story line convinced me because I wanted to complain about it!

The story has the player follow a character named Cyella. She takes the player zone to zone and recaps all the above stories. Then she reveals at the end that she was a character seen in each story named Cylva and that she had come to the First from the Void so that she could take all the light building up to try and save the Void. This is huge. Huge. And then what happens?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She wants the player to kill her because she doesn’t want to keep living knowing what she had done, and the player refuses. She decides to spend her life spreading the truth of what happened with the Warriors of Darkness and the story ends. That’s it.

I hate it.

The problem is they somewhat built it up for me. When I first saw Cylva in the cutscenes, I was confused. Who was this other tank in the party when we already had Branden and Ardbert? They kept not-so-subtly cutting to Cylva smiling slyly so it was clear something was up with her. I kept waiting for this to be explained. All these hints had to be building up to something. They did, but just nothing satisfying.

It seems Cylva’s story only exists as a way to explain how the flood of light even happened. That is all it functionally is. It’s not a story on its own. It’s exposition to why other things happened. She was helping to push it along but didn’t want it to happen all the way. To complete her plan, she wanted Ardbert to kill her and that would stop the flood but leave all the light to be used for her purposes. But don’t you know it, the power of friendship got in the way and Ardbert wouldn’t do it. Like, Cylva. Seriously, Cylva. You spent all that time with the group and seeing what they went through for each other. You really expected them to turn around and kill you so easily? You thought telling them you betrayed them was enough without actually doing anything? You could have at least attacked an innocent town to provoke them. Do something to prove your evil other than just tell them you are and hope that’s enough? Did you ever stop to think of maybe telling them your plan to see if they would help you? No?

Her plan was dumb. Sure, she was being manipulated by the Ascians. Their goal was going to succeed all along and they were using her. She just ended up being easy to use. Fine. Her story acts as a way to explain how the world got to this state and how the Warriors of Darkness were “responsible.”  Cylva herself had such a minor role that she was easy to ignore. There wasn’t much to her throughout all the story lines other than she was just a mystery woman that was there. So after she tells the whole story, it’s not like I was gunning to take her out or anything. I had no feeling towards her at all. We don’t fight her. Would have been cool if we did, but it’s... okay that we didn’t. Fighting her wasn’t the problem.

The lack of weight or resolution is the problem. We learn all this information. After the quest is over, Cylva just hangs out in the Crystarium so she’s still around. Just there. Doing nothing. We find out the circumstances of the Flood of Light and then nothing changes. Nothing. We basically already knew the Ascians had manipulated the Warriors of Darkness into causing the flood. When Cylva takes the player zone to zone, she recaps all the stories they've already played through so they learn nothing new there. So at the end of the quest, the only thing we know that we didn’t know before is that the Ascians inserted an agent into the group of Warriors of Light to help them do courageous things to earn crystals of light and this caused the flood. Big whoop! We knew they were good people that ended up accidentally dooming their world. We knew they were heroes on their world who had done great things! Knowing how all happened is great and all, but something should have come from that. It could have been something that gave us closure to the stories of the other Warriors. Like, you killed their sin eaters and helped Ardbert. They are all at rest now together. That’s what it should have been if they didn’t want to add more to it. But no. We just find out a character who was introduced in this game and we had no knowledge of before was the cause of everything and now she just hangs around because it would be wrong for her to die now apparently. It’s somehow implied that we don’t want to fight her either because of some friendship we share with her, but when the heck was the player supposed to bond with her?

So we don’t learn a lot from all this. We don’t even get an enjoyable quest with an interesting fight to keep us engaged. We have no real connection to Cylva but we’re supposed to understand and forgive her. Fine. Okay. I could just about forgive this if it wasn’t for another problem: The likelihood of any of these being expanded on or continued is slim to none. In order to get to this story, you have to complete all four Role Quests which means you have to have a job that fills each role. Not all players will have that meaning not all players can play this quest. This means that no major story line can come from it. Can they add to it in the future where something else happens? In theory, yes, they could. Will they? Doubtful because they know not everyone will have played it so they won’t focus on going back to it. As far as I know, Cylva’s just going to be standing around in the Crystarium for the rest of time and will continue not adding to the story. The only way I can see everything we learn in this story coming back into play is if they go over it again in the main story as this would make it essential. But seeing as this would be repetitive to the players that already did it, I don’t see them doing that either.

So basically I’m left with the conclusion that the only reward for completing all the story lines is exposition that isn’t seen as important enough to include in main story.

The real frustrating thing about that is that it really could be interesting. We had already met another character from the Void. Are there potentially others? Are they still trying to save their world too? Since the Light from the First has been used up, is there any other way to save the Void and are we going to attempt it? It’s great and all seeing how the Warriors of Darkness tried to save their world and ended up dooming it and that is the same fate that befell Cylva. Now if only we knew or cared about Cylva, that might have mattered. We still barely know her so it’s hard to even feel the tragedy of her story on a personal level. She just dumps information on us that could have been cool if expanded on but because it’s side story, it went no where and will probably never go anywhere.

There’s another, somewhat more minor, problem this quest brings up. Cylva explains how and why each member of the Warriors of Darkness earned their crystals of light. She acts as though this is more or less common. You become a Warrior of Light when you test yourself and do something grand enough to impress Hydaelyn and get a crystal. Well, I think we’re forced to assume this was only a qualifier on the First? I mean, in A Realm Reborn, I got my crystal after fighting off a gargoyle thing. That was it. That wasn’t a personal matter that tried me in body and soul. Thancred told me to fight to protect Nanamo, so I did. Then boom, crystal. Sure, we gather more crystals when fighting Primals. Are our crystals different because we have a few of them? Are we just so awesome at the beginning of ARR that Hydaelyn is instantly impressed even though other Warriors of Light had to do a lot more? I only am able to question this because Cylva gave so much emphasis about how each Warrior of Darkness earned their crystal and why. She’s the one that drew attention to it so now it draws what the main player did into question.

Because I had come to enjoy and invest myself into the Role quests, it was disappointing to see the final result end on such a flat note. It just kind of stops instead of ending. If they actually came back to this and continued it, I’d probably be thrilled, but I am not going to hold my breath. It’s side content meant to add to the story. It’s just too bad that it didn’t, and couldn’t, add anything of substance.

I’d still say the four quests are worth playing through for players that have a job that qualifies. If you can’t do all four, you really aren’t missing out on a lot. They are all individually pretty good and worth playing even if you can’t do them all. If you do complete them all... well, maybe you’ll be more forgiving than I was. Or you can just skip the last one if you’d rather, haha!

As a whole, Shadowbringers upped the quality of side quests and I hope to see that continue. The Role quests were an interesting change and pretty good as a whole. I look forward to the return of Job Quests though so we’ll just have to wait and see what the future brings. I’m sure to be there no matter what it is and I’ll probably ramble about my thoughts again when the time comes.

Lyse is basically the worst character of FFXIV.

I said it. I believe it.

This is an opinion, naturally, so if there are any Lyse fans who happen to come across this, feel free to write up your own think piece on how Lyse is actually a good character to try and convince me.

I suppose I could clarify too that she's the worst character in terms of how she's handled and out of the ones that get that much attention. There are good things about her. I like her color scheme and her hair style. I'd use that hair if given the choice. Granted I would probably wait a while to let myself mentally distance myself from Lyse, but the point still stands. Design wise, she is appealing. The worst I can say about her appearance is there's something about her eyes that makes her stand out from the other characters. Like they have more detail so she doesn't blend in with them. That may just be my mind playing tricks on me though. I have to say that her voice actor, (in English,) does a serviceable job. Her dialogue is often terrible but the sound of her voice on its own didn't grate one me.

With those things aside, everything that is wrong with her is in the writing and plot line. Some of the things I weigh most heavily.

Lyse is not the only "hate-able" character in FFXIV. Minfilia is going to have to work over time in the next expansion to win over not only me but a large portion of the fan base. I have a very "love to hate" relationship with Zenos. I do not enjoy the character or interacting with him, but I can't help but be impressed that they have a villain who gets such a rise out of me without having to kill people I care about. (Now naturally he does kill a lot of people, I just didn't care about them personally.) I will probably never forgive Ilberd for what he did to my character and Rhaubahn, but it was still a good story line that I had fun with.

I think that's one of the problems with Lyse. Minfilia is hardly around enough to make an impact, Zenos provided purpose and tension to the story, Ilberd made things personal with everyone. Lyse, on the other hand, sucks the fun out of nearly everything.

To really get into why, I want to examine Lyse via the lens of another character, Alphinaud. Had I written a piece like this before the end of a Realm Reborn, the focus of my anger would be directed an Alphinaud instead. When the main character, (who I will call WoL for Warrior of Light to keep things somewhat simplified,) meets Alphinaud, he is smarmy, headstrong, and a know-it-all. He has been studying for years at this point and knows all the history of everything ever and he wants everyone to know it. No matter what the situation, he knows how to best solve it. No body may have asked for his input but he's going to give it anyway. Even when something goes wrong with his plans, he only acknowledges this but it does nothing to deter him from making other decisions.

It didn't help that he was such an annoying character and you are basically stuck with him for so long. After everything that follows the defeat of Titan, Alphinaud basically becomes the WoL's handler. He claims that Minfilia is the leader but she more or less takes a back seat to Alphinaud in most, if not all, aspects of whatever's going on. No matter where the WoL went, Alphinaud was there to give out orders. It was rare he wasn't involved in quests in some manner. He's there to give order and talk down to everyone along the way for the majority of the game.

Then comes the end of a Realm Reborn. Alphinaud's hasty decision making and lack of leadership experience leads to serious oversights and consequences. He is crushed. Back then, I enjoyed seeing him taken down a peg. He had no choice but to face what he did wrong and he knows he has a lot to do to make up for it. The need for story and game progression doesn't allow him to wallow in misery long, but even so, it takes him a lot of time to work up real confidence again. He is truly humble throughout Heavensward. He gives input while making plans but he isn't talking down to anyone. He is constantly acknowledging the work everyone is doing around him to make everything possible. He doesn't even like to take credit for things he does contribute to. The WoL still travels with Alphinaud quite a bit and so Alphinaud still has that handler position, but this time the quest giving is mainly in function only. He is traveling with the WoL as a companion, not as a supervisor. He contributes in ways of giving guidance and brainstorming and his knowledge comes in handy. He has a positive impact and works for it. It feels earned. He also won't let anyone forget that he is fallible and that you're the one doing all the heavy lifting.

And most importantly, every major scene and event features him as a side character. Much like how Minfilia took a backseat to Alphinaud, Alphinaud is more than happy to take a backseat to you. He does not involve himself where he can't be useful.

By having Alphinaud go through his fall and work to rebuild himself and his confidence, he won me over. I would hesitate to say he's my favorite character but he's well up there. He earned my respect.

And then we have Lyse who had a similar rise and fall... but in the reverse.

I'm not sure it's even worth talking about Lyse for the events before Stormblood. My own experience in FFXIV began in Ul'dah so I didn't meet or work with Lyse really until the Sylph storyline and there she's such a minor character. She disappears for Heavensward and is gone so long that I basically forgot she existed. Then Shinryu happens and I'm supposed to care about Lyse's plot twist. "Oh, a character I barely talked to has a different name now." is how it went over for me.

But hey, all the other characters were making a big deal out of it. This was supposed to Lyse's failure. Her fall from grace. Now she has to work herself back up.

Except she never does. She gets over what happens and is then 100% committed to freeing Ala Mhigo and that's her only motivation. She has basically two speeds throughout the game, "It's time to fight!" and "I'm angry about this." Even when they try to give her a quiet moment, she's whining about how angry she is about one thing or another.

Before I get to much further though, let me complain about her relationship to Ala Mhigo. I get that she was born there. I get that her family died trying to free it. But let me get this straight, Lyse has zero connection to Ala Mhigo. She has no family there. She barely remembers living there, if at all. Her only friends are friends because she has very recently helped the resistance. No one would know who she was if she didn't look like her sister and/or knew who her father was. She is motivated purely based on the fact that she knows that is where she came from and that her family had fought for it in the past. That is the only reason she should care and probably is the only reason she does. This would be just fine as a motivation. She could be fighting for the honor of her family and completing the work they couldn't finish. But that's not what they went with. No, she just fights to save her home, never mind the fact that she hasn't actually lived there for like two decades so how can it be home? If you really want to push it, you could say that she's just angry at the injustice the people are facing since she gets just as angry about how the people of Doma are treated by the empire. But I go the impression more that she's was angry at the people of Doma because they weren't ready to fight right away so freeing Ala Mhigo would take longer. Since anger and frustration seem to be her default expression, it's hard to tell exactly what she's angry at. Had they pushed the "fighting for her family" thing a bit more, it could have worked... better. Perhaps they could have pushed it more like she was fighting for Ala Mhigo because she lost everything else and this was all she had. That would have been difficult to sell seeing how the WoL and other Scions were still around, but again it's a better option than what we got. Maybe wouldn't have fixed it, but would have been something.

In a strange way though, I know why they did this. I think I know what they were going for and the problem they had. It comes down to the nature of a main character like the WoL. This all happened because of the lead being a silent protagonist.

Lyse is supposed to be the voice of the player. "Look, player, see all these evil things happening? Doesn't that make you angry? Wouldn't you like a character to express your anger in game?" That's essentially what was going on. They were using Lyse as a way to guide what you were supposed to be feeling. We are supposed to see these injustices and want to stop them but then be angry in our powerlessness to do it. We're supposed to want to take action, any action, as long as it frees these people. Just like Lyse, these people are not my family, and this is not the homeland I grew up in. But the Empire is treating them unfairly and it's the most terrible thing ever. "See, player? Lyse is there! She agrees with you! She's just like you! This is exactly what you're feeling, right?" The WoL can only "speak" via dialogue options and these rarely, if ever, impact a scene. In order to make sure the audience understands the mood the writers were going for, Lyse is there to drive it home.

In my own experience, this was never, ever going to work. Oddly enough, this is in thanks to Ilberd.

Like I said, I enjoyed the Ilberd story line. It as interesting and got me worked up. I took it all personally and in some sense I think it was supposed to. Unfortunately for Lyse, Ilberd is also motivated solely on wanting to free Ala Mhigo. (Ironically he had more of a reason and attachment to the place.) Once Ilberd betrayed me for the sake of Ala Mhigo, Ala Mhigo was forever stained in my mind. Ilberd wanted me to save Ala Mhigo and to spite him, I didn't want to. Then the game dragged me there with Lyse in tow. I wasn't happy about this. I was freeing Ala Mhigo against my own will.

This meant the scenes where I was supposed to agree with Lyse had the opposite effect. Lyse is excited and eager to be sent to make contact with the resistance while I'm grumbling about how Ilberd is getting his wish. Lyse is outraged at the Empire's treatment of her people while I'm angry they won't let me go back to Eorzea. Lyse treats every mission and interaction she's a part of as if its the most important thing going on anywhere while I honestly could not care less.

The writers inserted Lyse to tell me how I was supposed to feel but they were way off base with me.

That's my personal experience with her there, but she has way more issues with her execution than that. She was fighting a losing battle with me but she had nothing to redeem herself with.

Alphinaud had to learn how to work hard and when he could best put his skill set to use. He learned when to interject himself into conversations and situations. He could fight but he knew he was better at planning and deliberating. He knows that analysis and starting dialogues is where he is needed. As we are the silent WoL, he fills a role that we cannot, and as video gamers probably do not want anyway. Lyse, on the other hand, is a warrior. She fights. What she contributes to problems is her fists. Something’s going on? What does she have to punch to solve it? Her other important qualities are... uh... she’s stubborn? She won’t change her mind about things and won’t give up? So it’s important that she’s in the story to do that because... uh...

Alphinaud took up a job that we can’t do. Lyse can only do our job, but can’t do it near as well. So is she really needed?

That’s the next big problem with Lyse. She is built to take up the role of the main protagonist, and unfortunately there is probably a good argument to be made that she is the real main protagonist of Stormblood. The issue with that is that she is not the playable character and not the character we’ve been following and working with from the beginning. The WoL is.

Alphinaud took a backseat to the WoL. Lyse does everything she can to put the WoL in the backseat.

She really steals the focus of scenes. She is shoehorned into all sorts of conversations and cut scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with her but because she’s there, she feels she has to make herself known and a part of whatever is going on around her. She and other characters will mention how the WoL is the big hero and the one doing most of the fighting. But for some reason, in every accomplishment, she is treated with equal importance as the WoL. Lyse accomplishes nothing on her own merits. She makes no plans. She only goes along with whatever the WoL is doing. She fights in battles but we all know the WoL does more of the fighting. They make a point of addressing and acknowledging Lyse’s hard work in each victory when others do far more. From what is shown, we are supposed to just be so glad that Lyse was there with us. 

It’s not even so much of an issue of her stealing credit from the player. When she inserts herself into things that don’t involve her, she takes over the spot light. The worst offender of this, and the best way to explain the issue, is the scene after the last fight with Zenos. He is delighted to find an equal, a challenge, in the WoL. He knows he has lost the fight but is glad he did. Then Lyse run into the scene and literally highjacks the conversation. Zenos, at this point, only cares about the WoL to the point of possible obsession. Yet here comes Lyse trying to make everything she did personal to her. We are supposed to believe that freakin’ Zenos would talk to Lyse on equal terms as the WoL? Her only interaction with him was when he tossed her aside in a fight. He has no reason to even know she exists let alone speak to her like he has to answer to her. As soon as Lyse enters that scene, it is no longer a meeting of rivals who have a history and whose power gives them a lot in common. It’s a scene with the two rivals trying to get closure and the third wheel is taking the chance to air her grievances.

This is actually a similar problem I had with Pokemon Sun and Moon. Here I am, doing all the battling and hard work to save the day, but this in game character is given the spotlight solely because they are able to have character and dialogue. Granted, I wouldn’t want the writers to force a personality on a character I put together. But I just don’t want anyone else to share my spotlight. It’s hard to have a character driven story when your main character is silent. But I also know it’s not impossible. I never felt like anyone was taking the moment away from me in FFXIV until Lyse in Stormblood. Not every scene has to be about me, but also sure dont’ all have to be about Lyse. And so when a moment comes where the mood demands that no one else take the stage, say like when the main antagonist is giving his final words to the only one he respects, throwing in someone who doesn’t belong just ruins the scene. It doesn’t add anything.

Perhaps this is just another personal thing I experienced with it. I just couldn’t help but notice how Lyse constantly shifted the focus and changed the mood of whatever scene she was in.

This could have worked had Lyse earned the feel of importance the game was trying to give her. Alphinaud had to earn respect from the player, but it didn’t feel like that was why he was doing it. It was more like he was trying to redeem and forgive himself to himself and the rest worked itself out. Lyse did nothing to earn anything so she is not deserving of the spotlight. Like if she had been the one leading the charge and we were only the support, this would have been justified. Instead they act as if that’s the case when it really isn’t.

This factors into what was wrong with what I assume was her intended character arc. We were supposed to see her as impulsive and aimless. She was supposed to experience hardships and fight for her home and her place in the world. That would turn her into a more rounded person that could handle herself without having to rely on the ones around her. They might have succeeded in this if they hadn’t pushed it even further and wanted us to believe she was ready and deserving of a leadership role. She spends years away from Ala Mhigo, helps the resistance for a little while, meets a faction she’s never worked with before, goes to Doma to help the battlefront there, and comes back to have her be put in charge of the resistance. I’m sorry, what? When did she do anything to show she was meant for a leadership role? What plans did she make? How did she guide or teach anyone? Even if we ignore her lack of leadership experience, how is she supposed to lead a group of fighters she’s barely worked with? How will she know where their strengths lie? How to best use them? How to motivate them? How will they trust her judgement when they don’t know who she is? Does any of this come into play? No, because Lyse is a leader in name only as Rhaubahn is the real leader of the Ala Mhigan side. He comes up with the plans, and tells Lyse what her part is, she follows it. Good thing they put Lyse in charge so she can follow orders!

The writers attempt to justify her having this position by her interacting with leaders throughout the game and so I guess we’re supposed to assume she learned something from them. But since she doesn’t contribute or accomplish anything that she wasn’t told to do by someone else, this promotion to leadership feels hollow. She’s constantly angry and reckless throughout the game, then we have one mission where she manages to keep a cool head and we’re supposed to then be on board with her taking over. Being able to remain calm is not the only quality a leader has to have a good leader.

There is somewhat an attempt to solve this problem in the story following the main part of Stormblood. She is shown in action as a leader while gathering other important figures around Ala Mhigo so they can organize. She gives a speech, and she stubbornly enforces what she believes to be right even when others oppose her. This is a step in the right direction, at least, but should have happened way sooner. Again, having a moral compass is not the only quality a leader should have. And seeing how these things happened long after she was given the position, it is still hard to see her as having earned her spot.

Maybe if we were to stay in Ala Mhigo longer and see her develop more, she would have time to actually complete a character arc and become the leader the game insists she already is. But now we have Shadowbringers coming out and I cannot wait to be on another planet to get away from both Lyse and her homeland.

Alphinaud had a complete character arc and did not force himself into the WoL’s story where he didn’t belong. Lyse is a bad character because she failed all those same points.

With as much time as she had, it seems like she could have easily been a much more interesting and developed character. I can’t fault the writers for not doing what I would have wanted them to do. This was the story they wanted to tell and they used Lyse to do it. I found myself just becoming irrationally angry every time Lyse was on screen and it was time to analyze what went wrong. I can’t expect to love every character. I can’t expect that every character will get the attention and opportunity to grow. There are a lot characters after all. They can’t all be great. Lyse had her chance to have a story and it was just unfortunate that it wasn’t a good one. They’ve proven they can make characters that I can and do care about. They can even redeem them for me. Lyse just isn’t one of those characters and seeing as we’re leaving her behind, I doubt my feelings towards her will change.

I guess in a strange way, I just hope that Shadowbringers won’t bring in anyone I hate more than I hate her. I know they can do better. They are getting another chance to do so and they better not waste it.

Yep! I'm still at it!

The hunts took the backseat while I got into FFXIV, but I'm getting back into them again. I realized how old my last shiny listing was so I decided to make a new one. I don't think anyone actually cares about them, but I like making this list just for myself, mainly. When I finish a hunt and I'm not sure what to do next, I'll sometimes come to this list to get ideas.

I'm also playing through Omega Ruby right now with a shiny team. I just started really, but I'm posting updates to Twitter with the #VyeShinyORRun if you wanna check it out.

Shiny Hunt Status 1, Shiny Hunt Status 2, Shiny Hunt Status 3, Shiny Hunt Status 4, and Shiny Hunt Status 5 in case you want to see the previous entries.

Shiny Requests:Currently Closed! Sorry!

Key: This shows what method I'm using for the current targets and status of each. I will sometimes count encounters or specific hours when doing horde or safari hunts and just count days. Some days allow me to hunt longer than others, however.
MM = Masuda Method
HF = Horde Farming
FS = Friend Safari
CF = Chain Fishing
SR = Soft Resetting
SOS = SOS/Call Chaining
(reclaim) = A Pokemon I've had before but either want again, had a cheated version and I want a legitimate one, or failed to catch the first time.

Shiny Targets:
Pineco MM in Pokemon X
Mewtwo SR in Pokemon Yellow still
Buzzwole SR in Pokemon Ultra Sun

Maybe Up Next:
Anorith in Pokemon X
Cacnea in Pokemon X
Pidove in Pokemon X

Medium Priority List:
Helioptile (reclaim)
Venonat (reclaim)
Eevee x2 (reclaim (although I really just want other evolutions))
Munchlax
Aerodactyl
Poliwag (reclaim)
Lunatone
Kabuto
Diglett
Gligar (reclaim)
Charmander (reclaim)
Sentret (reclaim)
Tepig
Kyogre
Articuno (reclaim)
Zapdos
Rotom
Poipole
Kartana
Pheromosa
Togepi
Larvitar
Chimchar
Starly (reclaim)
Purrloin

Considering/Low Priority:
Guzzlord
Celesteela
Stakataka
Lapras (reclaim)
Rattata (reclaim)
Meowth (reclaim)
Geodude
Rhyhorn
Shuckle (reclaim)
Tyrogue (x2)
Tropius
Drilbur
Piplup

Completed
Rowlet
Tyrunt
Cranidos
Popplio
Elgyem
Nidoran (f)

I realize most of you following me are only doing so because of Pokemon related things, so a post about something in Final Fantasy 14 may not interest you. But I'm putting this up anyway because I want to.

For those of you sticking around, I will supply all the context I can without getting too into it. It is an MMO and a Final Fantasy game at that, so there are a lot of details I could go into. I'll try to keep it as concise as I can. (Then again this is me we're talking about and if there is anything I can do, it's get way into what I'm writing and go on forever.)

In FFXIV, you play a character arriving in the world of Eorzea which is split into the city-states of Ul-dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa. Each region has its problems, and each also have what they call Beast Tribes. You have your civilized folk who live in the main cities or smaller villages, and out in the wilds you have the Beast Tribes who are initially introduced as enemies to fight. The Beasts have sentience but for their own reasons are basically in conflict with the people of Eorzea. With all the attacks and fighting between the Beasts and the cities, they are looked down on as being dangerous and need to be taken out. Also a good portion of the people you meet in game are racist anyway so the Beast Tribes are presented as villainous when you start out.

Later in game though, you start finding sects of the Beast Tribes that are non-confrontational and even want to be helpful. They realize because of their species they are viewed poorly and mostly are content to live in secrecy. (In general, of course.) You are given the chance to do quests for them and by doing so improve your relationship with them and follow them on a little story line. Expansions of FFXIV introduce new areas and new cities and new Beast Tribes along with them, making 11 in total to work with. Because you follow a set of characters through a quest line, I ended up getting more invested in them than many of the other story lines. I have completed all but one of them but even that one is almost complete and so I wanted to share my thoughts on each. I'd like to review other story aspects of FFXIV in the future so I guess this is where I wanted to start.

At the same as describing my feelings on each, I'll also be ranking them. Mostly just because I want to. We're going to start with the worst and end with which one I think is the best. Now obviously the ranking is going to be completely subjective to my experience. Any players of the game that might see this are entitled to have differing opinions. These are just mine.

Also for players or potential players of the game, there are spoilers ahead.

So let's get into it.

11. Ixal (Realm Reborn)
These guys can just go die in a fire!! I'm a Black Mage so I can help them with that!

Okay. Taking a step back, I am glad the Ixal quests exist. Unlike the other Realm Reborn tribes, when you start the Ixal quests, you do them as a crafter instead of a battle class. They are meant to help you level your crafting by giving you something to craft for them. Originally I had no interest in doing anything with the Ixal, but in order to finish out the Realm Reborn tribes to the Bloodsworn rank, I had to. I picked up Goldsmith for this purpose. To be honest, probably the reason I hate them so much is because I had only just started crafting and didn't really know what I was doing. That made the Ixal quests harder than they really were so I got really frustrated from time to time. Then the Ixals have a longer story line than the other Realm Reborn beast tribes so that didn't help either. After a while I just started doing their provisioning quest since that gave the biggest boost and most experience and barely touched their other quests.

As to the actual story... it was okay. Nothing bad, nothing great. In the past, the Ixal species had wings and so the current Ixal have this obsession with flight. The Echtal tribe you work with want to build an airship to go higher than any other airship. The purpose for that though is... I don't know. Do they want to travel? Live on it? Just prove they can? Sure, the completed airship comes back into the story later with a dungeon and stuff, but even that doesn't really go anywhere. I guess we're supposed to just be satisfied with the goal of completing the ship but that wasn't enough to get invested for me. It's entirely possible they addressed this fact but didn't hold my attention long enough for me to take note of it. The annoyance of their quests aside, there wasn't any characters that I could latch onto. The head Ixal forms a bond with the Lalafell you get to help with their airship. I think they tried to imply you were one of those friends too, but this either didn't succeed or just didn't come off as genuine. Because of that, I just felt like a third wheel when it came to their story. I was just there to witness what was happening and craft a piece now and then. I was not involved.

With no attachment to any characters, species, final goal, quests, or even the region itself, the Ixals just did not do it for me. I have friends that will return to the Ixal a lot to level their low level crafters. I do not plan on doing the same.

10. Kobold (Realm Reborn)
The Kobolds gave me access to one of my favorite mounts, but that didn't help them be interesting. Of course I started them specifically to get that mount so... mission accomplished?

The Kobolds as a species are miners. They mine for materials and crystals. Instead of using these resources for trade, they horde everything to themselves and even attack people in the region to steal their supplies which they can also horde. After a series of attacks, you are brought in to bring the suspects to justice only to find the suspects are innocent. The Kobolds are split into groups they call orders and those orders are numbered from the best to the worst. You are working with the 789th Order who are the very bottom of the Kobold hierarchy. Another order, the 13th, is the one behind the attacks and they are even threatening to take out the 789th order due to their uselessness. Through the course of your quests for them, you work to help the 789th improve their standing to improve the quality of their lives and prove their innocence along with stopping the 13th order.

Now that could have been interesting. The 789th are the bottom due to their lack of motivation and by the end of it their leader becomes more motivated. But that is the problem. The leader becomes motivated, his underlings don't. The work you do for them is stealing supplies from the other orders so the 789th can take credit. From an outside perspective, sure, okay, we're essentially sabotaging more dangerous groups so that the friendly one can be helped. But nothing really comes from it. The order is never ranked up. They start at the bottom and stay at the bottom. There's no indication that if they did get higher ranked that it would help make the Kobolds a better race over all. If they did get better than the other orders, what would stop them from then becoming a threat to the people of Limsa? And literally all you do is get the leader motivated. When you return to do the final rank up beast quest, he hasn't done anything and is still acting like a lazy coward. You accomplish nothing with them. You blow up a machine the 13th order was working on, but there's no reason you shouldn't have been able to do that without the 789th.

The quests themselves were easy. I didn't get attached to anyone really but probably the thing that let them down the most is what I see as wasted potential. There's some side character from the Maelstrom but all she does is complain at the leader instead of doing anything to contribute so she isn't even worth looking up her name. I'll just use my mount, thanks.

9. Sylph (Realm Reborn)
Transport quests are annoying. That is the biggest problem with this tribe.

The Sylphs are actually the first friendly Beast Tribe you are introduced to in the story. It isn't until much later that it turns out there are good and evil sides of each species. The Sylphs were also the first one I sought out on my own when I found out I could do so. I thought they were really cute and loved the way they talked and acted so I wanted do more with them. Their quest line involves an egg of a Chosen One that is going to soon hatch. It will be more powerful than any current Sylph and is destined to be a leader and thus you have to make sure the evil Sylphs don't take it and corrupt it. There actually isn't much to it besides that. Most of the major story quests involve keeping the egg safe or retrieving it if and when it's stolen. It's simple, but that was okay.

Probably the most notable thing about the story is a character named Voyce. He originally was there to study Sylphs but ended up deciding to stay. Voyce is... something. He is essentially the main cause of any problems that come up. This isn't intentional as he is trying to be helpful but just fails at everything. He isn't dumb. On the contrary, he is well read. He is all book smarts and no street smarts. He will very often misunderstand a situation or come to his own conclusion without taking all the facts. When he has a misunderstanding, he doesn't let go of it. I could easily see people finding him annoying and in fact the Sylphs do. They really dislike him. I guess that's why I found it endearing. He doesn't even know he's a burden most of the time and is oblivious to the Sylphs dislike of him. The Sylphs are pranksters and jokers to where most NPCs find them annoying. Seeing this turned on them with a character they didn't want around was entertaining.

But then you have to actually do their quests and that is where it gets more frustrating. Several of them include a "transport" function where you have to carry an item from one place to another. You can't fight or mount or anything, you just have to run and hope your stamina doesn't run out. The areas you had to go through were crawling with enemies so if you were lower leveled, you would run into trouble. The area is very maze like so getting around is a pain. I still get lost in there. These missions weren't impossible but like I said they were the biggest gripe I had with the Sylphs.

8. Anata (Stormblood)
Honestly surprised to see the Anata as high as they are seeing how little I cared about them. I guess since they only had one transport quest instead of several, that helped give them the edge over the Sylphs.

The Anata are interesting though. The ones you mostly deal with are probably one of the most, if not the most, incorporated into civilization. When their home region was conquered by the Garleans, they joined up with the resistance to help drive them out. Unfortunately you don't really deal with the tribe as a whole so you don't get to learn or deal with them much. You mainly help a younger Anata named Alpa who is training to become a leader within the army and is given an old Garlean base to make functional for the resistance. She has to do so in time for her mother to come inspect it and if she's not satisfied, she has to leave the army and return to their home village to train there instead. Alpa is innocent and naive as she doesn't know much about species outside her race. This leads to misunderstandings and mix-ups. She was also very determined to get better and these things made her engaging. By the end, people respect her as a leader and such. Unfortunately, apart from her being so determined to do the right thing, most of her growth is purely from what they tell you rather than seeing it happen yourself. (FFXIV as a whole has a huge "show don't tell" problem.) I get what they were going for with her and it's not like I don't buy her story arc. It just would have been nice to see her do a bit more. Granted, she is the only reason the Anata are this high as without her endearing nature, they would have ranked much lower. I don't really care to help rebuild Ala Mhigo.

I seriously don't care about that place at all. We can never go back as far as I'm concerned.

The quests themselves were fine enough. Functional. They weren't hard but I did do them when I was already well leveled so I might not be the best judge there. Unlike the Kobolds, you can actually see progress being made and what is accomplished by helping the group out so if nothing else, I felt like I had made an impact. This made them a perfectly passable Beast Tribe, but there wasn't anything to get excited about either.

7. Amalj’aa (Realm Reborn)
Ugh, this hurts putting them this low! It honestly does!

Why is that? I started my journey in FFXIV in Thanalan and Ul’dah is my city-state. I got super attached to the city and joined the Immortal Flames to be even more involved. The Amalj’aa were my first Beast Tribe, both in the sense that they were the first enemies I encountered and in that they were the first Beast Tribe quest line I unlocked. This happened on accident, actually. I was just in the Immortal Flames headquarters and saw a quest and so I did it only to find out it unlocked the Beast Tribe quests. I continued on from there.

Most of the Amalj’aa worship and serve their primal Ifrit. Everything they do against the people of Thanalan is in service to Ifrit in some way. They steal supplies, kidnap people, whatever they have to. Some Amalj’aa were spared the fate of becoming tempered (controlled) by Ifrit and formed the Ash Tribe. They actively fight against their Amalj’aa brethren to try and prevent summonings and restore honor to their kind. This is good! Fight bad Amalj’aa, save my beloved Thanalan, stop Ifrit. This is everything we work towards in main quests too!

...And then you meet the main character of the actual story who is a Miqo’te chick who I also don’t care enough about to look up her name.

She was saved by the Ash Tribe during a raid when her mother was taken by the Amalj’aa. She decided to fight alongside the Ash Tribe against the other Amalj’aa. All the problems I have with the Amalj’aa story line are related to her. None of the daily quests you do for them have anything to do with her, and yet the actual story parts are centered around her entirely. Her story doesn’t even make sense. Like she acts as though she has become basically feral and is utterly confused by civilized society, but the Ash Tribe don’t act like her. She came from the village at the Forgotten Springs whose people are mostly hunters so was she always like this anyway? How much could she really have changed? How long as she been gone? She says something about how all this happened years ago, and yet the people of the Forgotten Springs recognize her. The evil Amalj’aa chief you fight against knows who she is and specifically leaves her mother for her to find to mess with her. Did he really remember her after all that time? He remembered this one specific Miqo’te girl out of all the raids they’ve done? How is the mother even still alive after all this time? Why did they wuss out and not kill the mother at the end and instead let her return to the Forgotten Springs? She’s still tempered. She’s not exactly safe to be around other people! If you don’t want to kill her, at least keep her at the Ash Tribe so she doesn’t hurt anyone.

Add in all the times she generically complained how she “needs to get stronger” without ever actually doing anything and you might get an idea of why I just could not care about her. I could probably nitpick the story even more if I wanted. Like if they wanted her to have a story arc, she didn’t. She’s the same at the beginning as she is at the end. The only difference is she knows where her mother is... I guess. Kind of like the Kobolds, you don’t really accomplish or change much but at least the Ash Tribe has a clear goal and motives and give the impression they are actually going to keep working towards them. The quests themselves were basic but that was just fine seeing how this was my first Beast Tribe. I didn’t have a problem completing any of them. The only problem was the worst character got the most focus for the story.

If I didn’t have the attachment to the Amalj’aa themselves or Thanalan, they could have easily been lower on the list. But here we are. 

6. Moogles (Heavensward)
It kind of feels like Moogles are only a Beast Tribe in that they don’t primarily live in a city and aren’t humanoid. The good ones even vastly outnumber the bad ones as you only really fight Moogles in one trial. But whatever.

Also it somehow feels wrong to rate anything Moogle related so low seeing how it’s Final Fantasy.

But this is just because they are un-impactful. Some Moogles of the Churning Mist want to restore some ruins from when man and dragon lived together. You team up with the Moogle Mogzin and the Ishgardian Tarresson to make this happen. Like the Ixal, the Moogles give you quests for your crafter class. You craft whatever they request or do whatever you can to keep the Moogles entertained and motivated, seeing as most of them would rather do anything but work. The only conflict of note in these quests come from a powerful dragon who doesn’t want to see the ruins restored as he doesn’t believe our work will live up to his memory of the originals.

The Moogles are cute and their antics amusing, but this didn’t really carry the story. I only cared as much about the story line as much as I do because of the story of Heavensward as a whole. You spend the game trying to bring peace to dragon and man, and now you get to be a part of them actually working together again. I liked that a lot. You don’t make huge changes to the Churning Mists, but you do something and that was nice.

Now I will admit, after my experience with the Ixal, I did not want to do the Moogles at all and so I put it off for a really long time. This meant I was very over leveled for their quests and as such their quests were super, super easy. It’s entirely possible if someone was level appropriate that they would have a harder time than I did. I found the quests simple and so I enjoyed them enough that they weren’t a hassle to do. Also helps that there were fewer high quality requirements and they made a lot of improvements in function over the Ixals. (You don’t have to wear any stupid gloves for these, thank you!) I just can’t really rank them higher because while I had no major gripes, there wasn’t anything super exciting either.

5. Kojin (Stormblood)
This has nothing to do with anything, but it was amusing to me to have to hear "Kojin" said so often in this game. My spelling and pronunciation are slightly different, but I just couldn't help being reminded of Sheer Power.

The Kojin are somewhat like the Anata in that they aren't completely excluded from civilization but I'm not as sure to what extent. I liked the Kojin when they were first introduced and liked the original one you meet by the name of Soroban. He's trying to set up trade with other cities and countries but wasn't having much success due to his appearance. I was under the impression this was the first time they had reached out like that but can't 100% remember if that's true. The "bad" Kojin, or the Reds, are mercenaries that work for the empire. The Blue split off from them when they didn't agree with what they were doing and it's sometime after that you encounter Soroban. So it is entirely possible they were always used to working with the more humanoid races just like the Anata, but I'm not sure how closely.

Anyway, sadly you don't work with Soroban during the Beast Tribe quests and instead work with another Kojin named Kabuto. Like Alpa, he needs to learn how to be a leader but what he needs to learn is how he doesn't need to do everything himself. He is worried about putting others in danger or troubling them but eventually learns how his friends want to help him and sometimes he needs them. This is taught to him by a kami named Tsumoko who takes over a Kojin puppet.

It's a fine story arc. Really the only thing that holds it back is the only time we see Kabuto actually utilize his lessons in any sense is the last duty with him. The rest of the story is taken up by setting up trades with other merchants and cities which is fine but don’t actually contribute to the lesson Kabuto is supposed to learn. Any time a fight comes up, he goes and loses so you have to save him. I guess he’s supposed to see how he fails so often alone and so then at the end when you fight together, he can see how much better it works? Best I can do.

Like the Kobolds, I had wanted to do the Kojin purely for the mount. Even so, for some reason I dragged my feet unlocking them and didn’t for quite a long time. But after it started, the appearance of Tsumoko peeked my curiosity and I was always interested to see where each turn of the story was leading. I was surprised at the ending. I was glad they went through with what they did with Tsumoko. The quests were really easy so I never felt like i was only doing them out of obligation (apart from maybe the stretch to Bloodsworn which takes so long.) Since there was nothing about them to annoy me, I just got to enjoy a simple yet intriguing story line that I unexpectedly grew quite fond of. I don’t know really how to explain it better than that.

4. Vanu Vanu (Heavensward)
How the heck did these guys get so high on this list?!

No really, I’m surprised too. I am not sure when I got so attached to these guys.

When the Vanu showed up in the story of Heavensward, I didn’t think much of them. They played their part in the story and I liked their demeanor and designs. They were another tribe I put off because I didn’t think I’d be interested in them. I was somewhat nearing completion on the Moogles and knew if I wanted to do the final rank up for Heavensward, I was going to need to finish the Vanu. So I started the quests and was pleasantly surprised.

Originally I thought the quest would be working the the Zundu tribe that you work with during the main story. The Zundu are subservient to the Vanu who come from Ok’Ghundu and basically pay the Vanu off so they don’t attack them. When you start the Beast Quests, you run into some Vanu trying to escape Ok’Ghundu. Over the course of the storyline, you help them build a small village of refugees that finds ways to sustain themselves, and eventually help the Vanu of the Zundu tribe. All of the Beast Tribes use colors to help differentiate the bad ones from the good ones, but the Vanu you follow through the story maintain the color scheme of the bad Vanu from Ok’Gundu. This was an interesting change.

You can really see the village grow over time and see them organize themselves. They really sell the idea that they’ll be able to survive on their own. Then when the Ghundu demand the refugees return, you see the new tribe team up with the Zundu to fight them off. They needed your help along the way, but at least they contributed to their victory in the end instead of just being carried by you. When you return for the final rank up for Heavensward, it’s shown that they continued to thrive without you, and they are even still seen as a threat by the Ghundu and that’s without you there protecting them!

These big birds had big hearts and I guess this just really won me over. I also enjoyed all their metaphors and similes in their dialogue. They’re so humble and friendly, I just couldn’t find anything to not like. Even though the Sea of Clouds is such a huge area and their quests send you all over the map, their quests were never much of an issue. Any problem I had was just from the repetitiveness of their quests but all the Beast Tribes have this problem in some regard. Can’t say anything bad about them in particular so I’m just left thinking of all the good!

3. Namazu (Stormblood)
Most of the FFXIV players I know will burn me alive for not placing them first...

At this moment the Namazu are the only tribe I haven’t completed all the way. I’m just one story quest away though so unless that one quest just completely blows my mind, I can’t imagine they could rank higher than this.

To be honest yet again, I only unlocked the Namazu out of a sense of obligation. I was basically already completing everything else. (That won’t be the last time we see this fact.) I waited until I was done with the Moogles and so I moved on to the next crafting Beast Tribe, the Namazu. I wasn’t even all that interested in the mount, as comical as it may be. Still, I was curious about them seeing how my friends spoke of them and their quests so fondly.

Three Namazu are warned that in 7 years their kind will go extinct. The only way to prevent this is if they get 777 Namazu together for a 7 year festival. Therefore, they start putting together said festival so their kind can be forced to celebrate. (Yes, it is more or less presented like that.) You help by crafting and gathering the supplies they need and by helping them organize whatever half baked ideas they might have to help the festival grow. The Namazu don’t seem to have any real organization and so they have no rituals or guidelines to follow. Therefore they spend their time taking ideas from the cultures surrounding them to form their own traditions.

Comedy can go a long way in winning people over. There is basically no aspect of these creatures and their quests that are not funny in same way. From their actions to their goals to their dialogue, there is usually something to be found to be chuckled over. Some quests will even have events or dialogue that happen differently depending on the day so even if you have done one before, they can still be fun to do again. Oddly enough for me, that wasn’t really what ended up making me like them as much as I do. I was actually more interested in seeing a culture who had lost their own traditions start copying other cultures to attempt to find themselves. This was also helped by the flash forwards you get showing the potential dark future of the Namazu that is shown to be changed by the actions of the festival in different ways. By building up these new traditions, they are creating stability for themselves that will save them in ways they don’t even understand.

These scenes are probably meant to just be another joke but I found them intriguing and heartfelt nonetheless.

That all aside, I must admit my fondness for the quests also comes from the fact that I was able to do them as a gatherer instead of a crafter. I really like mining for some reason so it was so refreshing to do quests as a miner instead of my goldsmith. The quests also give a ton of experience so they got both jobs to 70 very quickly. I picked up Botany and will probably do another crafting class in the future, so once I get these jobs to 60, I can see me happily returning to the Namazu for experience.

2. Vath (Heavensward)
I FREAKIN’ LOVE MY LITTLE BUG FRIENDS.

Deftarm, you’re always going to be my number one student!

Just as a character I didn’t like killed my enjoyment of other tribes, a character I fell in love with sold me on the whole experience.

The Vath were originally part of a hive mind species called the Gnath. They managed to (for unexplained reasons) break free and become individuals with their own thoughts. While some couldn’t return to the hive’s control, others just didn’t want to and so they created their own home. They are struggling to survive when you first meet them, but then little Deftarm comes in to save the day! He’s new to this offshoot “hive” and doesn’t even have a name when you start up the quest line. He wants to be helpful to his new friends and comes to the conclusion that he needs to become a strong adventurer like you. He chooses the name Deftarm, creates an adventurers guild, and then sets out to win over customers to his new guild. He helps his clients with different tasks such as defeating dangerous enemies or gathering goods to be traded in exchange for whatever supplies his home is in need of. He does the exact same things you do through the game and it’s adorable! (And naturally you join in doing all the same things because of course you have to.)

The story could have just been him winning the respect of the clients he seeks out. He is usually disregarded by them but he doesn't give up. Even if he can’t do the exact thing they think they want from him, he usually find something within his means that meets their needs in another way that leaves them satisfied. He’s so dejected when he fails but he doesn’t quit and I love that! But the story goes further than that. Deftarm is still highly sensitive to the calling of the main hive and it tries to reabsorb him. You have to help him fight through it and because he’s learned so much about himself through his adventures, he has something to hold onto. They didn’t have to go through all this, but I’m glad they did. Just gave the story more conflict and I was glad the hive mind aspect of the Gnath was explored more here than it had been in the main story.

Although I have such a soft spot for the master/student relationship that he won me over the second he called me Master. Honestly the rest of the story could have involved burning down the Chocobo Forest and I would have helped him do it gladly.

The Vath were the first Heavensward group I unlocked. It’s entirely possible I only thought to unlock it because I knew that’s where I got Chocobo food. I honestly can’t remember. All I know is Deftarm melted my heart and that was all I needed to be motivated to keep going. I am iffy on whether I like the mount or not but I don’t care! Even the more annoying quests I still did without worrying about them.

But as a side note, I didn’t really like what they did with Deftarm through most of the final rank up story for Heavensward. I know what they were going for. He’s found such an identity for himself that he became a little headstrong and he wasn’t sure how to interact with non-combative tribes. Still, it bothered me how angry they made him. They made up for it with how quickly he realized his mistakes at the end of it, and I was still glad to go through the whole quest line with him back at my side. I just think they could have dialed it back a bit and nothing would have been lost.

But anyway, on to the best Beast Tribe.

1. Sahagin (Realm Reborn) 
So I’m pretty sure Square found out about my affection towards story lines involving a father figure and then wrote this story line just for me.

I may change my title in game from time to time, but it will often return to “Novv Clutchmate” and will be forever that way in my heart. 

The Sahagin were another big surprise to me. At the point I unlocked them, I was stubbornly keeping the Amalj’aa as my favorite Beast Tribe due to their connection to Thanalan. When I was working on the other Realm Reborn Beast Tribes, there was a part of me that was only doing them so I could finish my ranking with the Amalj’aa. I had gone through the Amalj’aa, then Sylphs, and the Kobolds and the Ixal I was mostly working on during the same time. (Although because the stupid Ixals have a longer story line than everyone else, I think the Kobolds were done long before the Ixals were.) Another part of me had at least some connection to an Amalj'aa, Kobold, and Ixal because they played a part of the Black Mage story quest so if nothing else, those tribes had that going for them. I didn’t anticipate caring about the “fish guys,” and so I didn’t bother unlocking them until everyone else was done. I even was only doing the Ixal to get them out of the way and yet at the time  I could still only see the Sahagin as a hassle. I didn’t find them interesting in the main story, I had no connection with Limsa, and even the mount was pretty boring. But I needed to do it so eventually I did. With all the other tribes complete, I begrudgingly went to unlock the Sahagin.

If I had known how much I’d come to love them, I would have done their quests sooner! But then again, maybe it was nice that I did them last.

The Sahagin have a female “queen,” (which is even said to not be the best term for it, but it’s the best they can do in our language,) who lays eggs. When she deems a male worthy, she will give him a clutch of eggs to fertilize. When the Sahagin are born, they do not have gills and as such can’t live in the deep waters where the Sahagin normally live. They have to be raised on land until their gills develop. It is the responsibility of their “clutchfather” to protect and teach them until they are old enough to go out into the open ocean alone. These clutchfathers raise their young in spawning grounds that they protect fiercely. During the last calamity in Eorzea, the normal spawning grounds were destroyed which drove the Sahagin to the shores of Limsa Lominsa to raise their young there. The people of Limsa see this as an invasion and so they are constantly trying to drive them out. The Sahagin fight to stay as they see this as the only way their species can survive.

Enter Novv who was a Sahagin warrior who was granted a clutch of eggs to raise. Due to prior happenings I really don’t know how deeply I should go into, Novv wishes only peace and safety for his children. He is wary of your presence in his home at first, but soon sees you as an opportunity. He hopes to go into peace talks with the people of Limsa but needs you to act as a “bridge” to help him do that. His intentions are undermined by a group of Sahagin who think the best way to settle their conflict is to fight even harder. They are attacking Limsa ships and keeping them to create their own armada and kidnap or kill anyone they come across. They even get their hands on a Limsa dignitary at one point and Novv knows these actions are only going to make things harder for his kind, not better. You team up with Novv to stop the group from making their situation worse and help him keep his children safe while they grow.

Novv talking about how he wants to raise his sons in peace and the lessons he teaches them along the way is just so perfect. It really sells the idea how peace isn’t won by more fighting. The game overall likes to push this so it was nice seeing one scenario that proves it. He not only talks the talk but walks the walk too. If he or his children are threatened, he will fight but he does everything he can to avoid that from happening. You get to see pieces of him teaching his children all he can from battle to survival to how to interact with other species. Basically Novv could do no wrong in my eyes and I was constantly switching back and forth between cheering for him and being moved by him.

Then he stole my heart by telling me I was basically one of his children and he was proud to call me daughter. He was basically securing himself the top spot on this list with that line!

As easy as some of the other quests might have been for me, the Sahagin ones were probably the easiest. This was before it synced enemy level to your own and because I started the Sahagin so late, I was like mid sixties or so doing these quests. I would basically attack the whole room of enemies  with one move and go on my way. With a story line suited to my interests and quests I would breeze through in a couple minutes at most, the Sahagin just gave me no negative experiences to speak of. I loved every minute.

And that is my list and my thoughts on each tribe. About as simple as I could have made it, I think. Perhaps rankings will be changed in the future. Beast Tribes became some of my favorite things in FFXIV but maybe that’s just because I spent so much time with each of them. (Apart from the Ixal, of course. They can still burn.) But now if you’ll excuse me, I think I am going to go hop into the game and rewatch some Beast Tribe cutscenes.

For those who don't follow me on twitter or didn't see the book cover updated, Sheer Power Book 3: Misfire is available for purchase!

Physical copies are $9.99 and can be found here: www.amazon.com/dp/1717749976/r…
Digital copies are $2.99 and can be found here: www.amazon.com/dp/B07G12D1LK/r…

Eventually Amazon will combine the pages and they can be found together, but that takes some time.

I posted on twitter with a little drawing. If it gets retweeted, I'll pick a winner to get a free copy of any of the three books they'd like and ship it to them. If you are on Twitter, you are free to go retweet it to be entered in that drawing of course. If people are interested, I might do some sort of give away from here too. Not sure how I'd work it though.