Yoshi-P: "So, I hear you all were disappointed that Zodiark wasn't the Big Bad at the end of the expansion! So we took Zodiark's Aether, the 13th's shard of Azem (OG Golbez), and the soul of a Great Wyrm, fused them all together to make a Final Boss!"

So this was the live patch when we were at Fanfest. Someone there cosplayed Wuk Lamat's legs by wearing a green body suit and putting JUST the legs that we'd seen so far on from the knees down.

"Runar, what product do you use to condition?" "Riverwater" "Riverwater?" "And aetheric darkness, so my hair never dies."

6:03:35 Wait a second. I just realised something. I bet that Gaia's book will be the DawnTrail Ultimate, instead of a story from the wandering minstrel.

Vodsquad here again! The last time I did 6.5, it was super foggy so when zero looked up at the tower, you couldn’t even SEE IT AT ALL. She’s talking about the beautiful sky and I’m like ?????????? What sky?? What tower??? I am begging them to weather/time lock some cutscenes please lol

Damn it Garrett. That stratholme joke almost made me choke 😂

Ryne really out here collecting friendships with edgy ladies aplenty.

Rewatching through these is making me notice a lot of little things I missed the first time through. Remember when we killed Zodiark at lv83 and thought "oh, no, I think we just screwed up!?" Well, yeah, turns out we managed to knock TWO birds with that stone 😅 Also: Golbez being redeemed thematically works really well, beyond our usual "power of friendship" stuff. The fact that not just a half-corrupted person like Zero, but a _full blood voidsent_ can hope for a better tomorrow and seek to heal the 13th instead of giving up on it proves that it's not a lost cause. In other words, if he can change, then the rest of the world can too. One of my favorite things about this patch is that Zero asks us to run around and thank everyone and we actually get to do it! I love me a good denouement.

Zero being a Paladin makes perfect sense because she used a regular sword originally.

ok, garrett has worn like a dozen t-shirts with my favourite bands, and here he is, finally, wearing a Rancid t-shirt - my favourite band of all time! love it :D

As a FF4 stan, I found 6.1-6.5 to be incredible food. It was precisely the sort of delightful reference-laden content that you can just tell is setting up some exciting story developments deeper into the new story. With Ishikawa in a supervisory position on narrative work, I have the utmost faith that it'll be just as important as the Warriors of Darkness turned out to be. As for Zero... so many people were so afraid she was going to die. That she didn't made the entire experience so much better. No weird baggage to drag along. edit - Also, I hope you get to try the extreme sometime and have as much of a blast (lol) as I did.

Man the Phase 2 Zeromus theme always fills me with pure nostalgic happiness

The tether that blew up kyle the first time is a standard type. when you see that tether, ALWAYS stretch it till it changes

kind of ironic that we never actually fought Golbez but Durante 2 times. And one time we even were Golbez.

So to add cherry on top of "Shadowbringers 2" cake. In the end battle Goldbez brings shadow, Zero brings light to defeat Zeromus.

My theory for where the overarching story will go for its next major climax, in 4 or 5 expansions, is to pay this off. bringing light back to the void

4:31:08 "Sounds like a max-difficulty DDR track." Oddly specific, but yes, pretty accurate edit: Man, now I really want to see a chart for the Zeromus track. I'd accept Beat Saber too. edit2: 5:40:08 - one bit of attention to detail that's always shocked me in this game is how conscientious they are about updating old NPC dialogue based on story progression. It's a little thing, but I was amazed when I went back to the Azim Steppe after Shadowbringers and the Mol matriarch said something like "hey you went to another world huh? sick bro" edit3: nvm you talked about this RIGHT after that timestamp

ayyy more love for Gideon the Ninth and The Locked Tomb series!!!!

For info: Gelmoria is the kingdom that once stood where the Great Wood is now, it's ruins litter the surface and underground, and the thousand maws goes in there still. It is to this day inhabited from what we know, but they never went into it in any sort of detail, unlike the closure we finally got for Sil'dah in the variant dungeons.

1:05:05 "The hammer of Darkness must needs be brought to bear upon the shield of Light." Lahabrea 2013. "A lance of Light with which to pierce the shield of Darkness." Y'shtola 2023. 1:26:05 When two people from two completely different commerce-centric cultures clash. ^.^ 2:30:00 This part echoes when Minfilia asked Ryne what her hopes were, what she dreamed of. They're even playing the same music. 3:07:20 Garrett gets his revenge and breaks Kyle. 3:39:30 That's the same move Scarmiglione used. I'm convinced Durantebez taught it to him. 3:55:20 We done goofed up... again. 4:29:40 Agreed. My first thought was "what the xel'naga am I looking at?" 4:46:00 Tuna got killed by Nostalgia. =-) 5:13:10 Isn't that what Y'shtola said in 5.2 when giving Zero has name? That it is yet to be seen what she would become to us? 5:46:15 How things have changed since we first set foot in Garlemald. 6:13:25 The paralells between Estinien and Batman grow. He pulled a stealth hi/bye.

Great Montichaigne line read there Kyle!

Garrett and his quick glances at the camera either going, “what..?” Or “hmm/sigh…” 😂

My comment about Zero's beehind line was Zero likens the pole dancers to lancers sticking their weapon into the ground to attack.

1:11:11 regarding gacha games and ground rules: the mindset i follow is that if the game is actually putting out meaningful content updates every couple months, and you’re enjoying yourself, putting down the equivalent of a monthly mmo sub and not a cent more is a fair exchange though you’d be surprised how many games struggle to deliver on the meaningful content front

It just occurred to me that the FF16 event has come and gone, I thought for sure Garrett would be all over that Clive outfit, I know it'll be my glam for Dawntrail.

Amazing thumbnail!

I actually disagree that shadowbringers was too much in the launch trailer. For those not in the know, the final line of the shadowbringers launch trailer is the thancred -> emet selch exchange "It sounds as if you are saying that hydalyn and zodiark are not gods" "Not gods as such, no. They are the eldest and most powerful of primals" This sounds like a huge spoiler. But it really isnt. That cutscene has two important revelations. One of them, that Hydalyn is a primal, is the boring one. If you are at all paying attention to the lore, that theory is one you have had already. It was one of those theories so widespread that it almost could be considered "delayed common knowledge" rather then some big spoilery revelation. The other thing from that scene, that Zodiark was the original will of the star and was dethroned by hydalyn in the fight that shattered the world, was the real meat and potatoes of that conversation, and that part wasnt in the launch trailer at all Now, heavensward on the other hand... The final line was "The Time has come for you and yours to join the fray, warrior of darkness" Like, it didnt even really spoil somthing because that is literally the last part of the post msq teaser cliffhangers... but why would they do that? Edited to say: "A theory you have had already" was a bad way to phrase it, as I'm sure not everyone had the same theory. More that it questioning her nature as the one true god in a world full of false summoned gods makes a lot of sense

We defeated a Zodiark, that was made out of half of it's total power, infused with a Fandaniel and you think this thing made out of a nearly depleted dragon and 1/14th of Zodiark is a threat to us? How quaint. Okay, gameplay-wise it is, but lore-wise I think someone should have dropped a line like that anyway, probably Y'Stola, or the WoL outselfs. If you think about it, while Golbez engages in story time, the two of you are fighting and dying in the background, and they just stand there and casually chat for a long time. "Erm... shouldn't we go and help out?" "Nah, they beat the real Zodiark, Hydaelyn, the Endsinger... they'll be fine." ^^ I wonder if a dragon can regrow a destroyed eye over time. We've seen Hraesvelgr and Niddhog not regrow their missing eyes over 1000 years, but those eyes still existed, while here, Vitra's eye seems to have fully merged into Azdaja. Or does the eye still exist and Azdaja will be able to return it, once she's grown enough and taken in enough aether to sustain herself? What happened with Azdaja's eye, the water archfiend took to the source again? I didn't notice before, but Lyna's VA really did her homework. Her accent sounds spot on like how Fran talked in FF12, which as far as I know was the first instance of the Viera species. The really evil lookout spot isn't at the top of Kugane Tower, but on top of a lantern, on which you can only land from that top. Imagine needing forever to get on top of the tower, only to miss that final hail mary jump onto the lantern... Oh, they did make a sequel to Pacific Rim, two seasons of it even, if you count animated series. But if you only consider live-action movies, then you are of course right. :P

They really made us wait through damn near the whole patch to see Gaia again didn't they. I went into 6.5 super excited at the possibility of seeing her again since the devs recommended finishing Eden before playing 6.5 but had basically given up on the idea by the time we went back to the First. Ryne's gotta be so proud of her goth GF for finally escaping side story hell. Honestly, I'm generally pretty positive about the 6.1 - 6.5 story. It was a little filler-y in places for sure but served as a decent Endwalker epilogue and set up some interesting Void stuff for the future. My biggest disappointment is Zero's new look. They had one of the coolest, most unique character designs in the game and they switched it out for what basically looks like generic level 50 paladin gear. Also, as a reaper main myself I'm offended by the implication that she was only a reaper because she was miserable and hopeless. How very dare they.

Honkai Star Rail is really fun. It's legit a JRPG. Plenty of free characters and the only gacha mechanics are leveling up characters and 'pulling' for a banner character which changes every 20 days (usually for story reasons). It's single player and turnbased (with great autobattle ai if you want to do that). I pay for the battle pass but that's because I've played really bad gacha games and Honkai Star Rail is above the rest. (RIP DFFOO)

Not only am I avoiding the launch trailer, more importantly, I'm avoiding watching a room full of smart people with deep story experience across multiple genres cook about where this story is going. I want to cook on my own and I want to be surprised. It's not the trailer, it's people like Jesse Cox with 20 years of story knowledge and Kyle who predicted the end of EW with his sailor moon shenanigans. You all are much too dangerous to watch cook until I'm done with the story. But I'll come back and watch, people said it was great.

This is definitely a Kyle thumbnail

Haven't had a boss throw me back to my past as hard as Dark Elf did, if you played the DS version of FF4 you know.

I remember one of the popular thoughts on XIV's rendition of Zeromus's first phase battle theme was that it was very Pokémon-like.

Okay I'm here to talk about shards. First of all I and a lot of people are very positive that Nero's shard on the First HAS been found. You'll need to do the Dwarf Tribe quest for that though. Zero! Who's she a shard of? We don't know. Originally the suspicion, before original!Golbez came into the picture, was that Zero was OUR shard, hence why Zenos nabbed her as his voidsent avatar because of his obsession with us. I also 100% believe original!Golbez is our shard, so that leaves Zero as a ??? why was she important, why was it specifically her that Zenos/Fandaniel nabbed? No idea. Honestly seeing some parallels with Ryne on rewatching the patch through your perspective, she MIGHT be from the same soul as Ryne? But that's a hard call to make. Maybe it'll become more clear when the time for Zero to return to the story comes. I still wish for the Void Quest (Cylva + Unukalhai) questline to be united with Eden, and also for Eden to be required, and hopefully one day that all pays out. Let's talk Durante. It's a commonly accepted theory that Durante is the 13th's Zenos. It tracks for a lot of reasons. But I like to be contrarian so please sit with me for a moment on this. Durante took action for the sake of Golbez, who he called his friend and hero. His inspiration. In order to bring salvation to the 13th, Durante forsook his own name and became a mage of incredible power, even if magic wasn't his thing before. There IS a source character who maps directly to those actions, but it's not Zenos. It's G'raha Tia.

4:35:05 Zeromus is for sure a Godzilla villain to me 😂

I don't subscribe to the idea that Durante or Golbez have to be the shard of any of the main cast, but regardless of that: the reason they don't show Golbez's face is because in FF4, his canonical appearance under the armor is pretty identical to Durante. I can promise you, that's not a spoiler (and the name Durante is also not a spoiler; that's just reference to Dante' Divine Comedy).

"Are you proud of me?" Yes.

the tribes quests are excellent for leveling alt jobs (nods nods winks winks)

1:06:00 you missed out on the best option by not getting 3 fish Kyle.

I was beating games when 6-7 but the ones I did made me ANGRY... because it was Mega Man. Mega Man was a cruelly hard game (and no saves, you had to record codes to input to reload).

The Chuunibyo was strong with Kyle in this one...

5:45:00 It's ok Jullus, Runar knows your pain.

From the Patch trailer and the LL I was so hoping Ryne would see Zero and say “oh, I know how to talk to edgy goth girls watch this” She’d walk up to Zero and be annoyingly cute, expecting some kind of snarky response, but Zero just looks at her like :| Ryne would not know what to do. We were robbed I say

"Episode #937: The One Where The Guys Plunge Into The Shadowy Butthole"

6:14:24 seems every streamer I have watched do this scene has talked over the other dragon's responses to Ajdaya hello.

So Zeromus' model and theme are 1 for 1 with the original final fight in FFIV.

You would fix it?! Our broken world?!

Gaia was there for me, did you not fully complete the Eden quests?

@GrindingGear GODDAMMIT KYLE HOW COULD YOU MISS THE CONDITIONER LINE CHANCE?!?!?! lol. Pert!!! PERT is ALWAYS the answer as a 80/90's baby!!!. lol

When I did it she was commenting on the sky but it was raining so you couldnt really see it.

Have they talked about dipping into other FF games?

Anyone got a time stamp for gia i dont have time to see the whole stream but i wanna see the reaction

Ryne sounds a lot like Meteion on this patch, for some reason.

I FINALLY REALIZED WHAT"S BEEN BOTHERING ME WITH GARRET HOUSE STREAMS. KYLE IN IN THE LEFT SIDE AND GARRETT IN ON THE RIGHT. after 2 years+ of watching, this feels like gore of my comfort character

I don't get why "voidsent" call themselves that within the void, especially if they haven't actually been 'sent' to other shards or the Source. Shouldn't they call themselves and one another something else? The Darkened, the Stained, Daemons, etc.; plenty of names would make more sense for the void-warped beings that haven't been 'sent' anywhere. That name only makes sense from the perspective of Source/ other shard beings when void denizens travel to other worlds, at least if you ask me.

I do want to say that a big reason why a lot of people didn't like the patches of how closely they followed ff4 with 6.2 people able to predict how 6.5 was going to end some even made the joke you don’t even need to play ff4 now because already kinda did now that’s a bit extreme but this is closest the team has come to full just copying a different Final Fantasy story with the number of references to 4

I can heal worse than Garrett

Will Grinding Gear play Honkai Star Rail??? Is this the fate of all FF14 players lmao

Ah, but you’re missing a chunk of story. Might I suggest E12S to hear the full story about Gaia. I honestly wish they didn’t hide it behind savage. Maybe even watch an E12S fight simply for the complete story.

These guys are the most brain dead FFXIV players I've seen.

SEA VOD Squad reporting in! 🫡 I'll be consuming this VOD at work as usual.