Ultima Thule showed you a memory of civilizations long gone. Facsimiles of people in spirit, and just let you see what their cultures were like. You could even do your part to restore them in some sense (Omicron quests and allied tribe quest) Here, there is a civilization. It's alive in some sense. And it is up to you to end that, because its existence is untenable. You don't arrive in Living Memory with everyone already being long dead and just vestiges. There are people there that actually experience things in the present. And now they're gone. It's almost an inversion. Ultima Thule was long dead before we arrived, while Living Memory dies because of us.

​@@Zakjuh I was telling my friends last night that it felt like the reverse of ultima thule.

Ultima Thule was all about building hope even in the worst of times, always pushing forwards. Why the music was building up with each race you encountered and each sacrifice of the Sions Living Memory is the opposite. Every zone you go through you take away those last memories of the dead. People who lived, and died, and maybe were unfulfilled until this shiny city of gold; but the cost was too much. The living of the Source and shards powered the dead. Each zone grows quiet and still with each tower you turn off until there is no music left

@@Zakjuh Not forgetting about Shadowbrings the Amaurot part of The Tempest was a Facsimiles of people Emet-Selch recreated from his memories. The theming of Loss is still present from ShadowBringers to Dawntrail.

@@Zakjuh that was exactly what I was thinking while going through the Golden City. But as crushing as it is to end this paradise, it's important to remember that it is a relic of a past its queen refuses to allow to die... even at the cost of the living in the present and the living in the future. But honestly... the only time I felt true sadness was when it was time to shut down the Aero Terminal... Erenville had come along to reunite with his mother Cahciua, only for it to end like this. The poor guy deserves some happiness and it was cut so tragically short. But it is what Cahciua wants... and her description of the Golden City as a 'twisted mausoleum' is definitely accurate.

Tha same with sierra madre and look what we got, in the end it was a lie, a pretty lie but a lie nontheless

All the best to you mate, he surely is at a better place now, waiting for you to join him again one day.

Ikr dude. I lost my dad when I was 12 and this zone’s story just keep on crushing my heart again and again 😢

Yup. Lost my mum to cancer as a kid. This place had me ugly crying the whole time. I'm a huge fan of 9 too so the sad nostalgia was just a kick in the face when you're down. Just finished the Alexandria dungeon n my face is sore and I'm emotionally drained. Wtf ff14...

My mother has cancer. She is still with us and all signs point to her recovering, but I would be lying if that experience didnt paint my reaction to this zone regardless. Wishing you all the best.

I lost my grandad to pancreatic cancer only a few months before Endwalker... So even after all this time I feel this comment so much. I cried and had so much heartbreak in this zone.

This place got me with the double whammy on Namikka; as it really paralleled my own struggle to come to terms with my grandmother’s death. Both for the watching a loved one waste away when we meet up with Namikka as she’s dying in Heritage Found, and then meeting her here as an Endless, getting her proper goodbye really was cathartic, even if I was reduced to a crying heap for a few minutes afterward…

@@zanaduz2018 I feel you

Sooooo many ugly tears and worse, it didn't end. Everytime I visit the zone, my heart breaks again.... You know what's even worse? The golden glow is no more. It's just a fucking dead city. Amarout was just a dream I know but I can pretend it's alive but this? It's just on my face.... :(

Same here! Im watching my friend go through it now and its re breaking me lol

I literally thought the same thing! I even shouted it and several people agreed with me

Same! I kept being reminded of the whole scene of Sora and the gang leaving Twilight Town with Sora saying "I'm sad" and how that felt the first time it

I had the immediate same reaction hearing it!

I was sobbing hard with every cutscene, it was horrid, i wanted to find a way to help them.

yup, I felt pretty empty after.

It's more depressing after MSQ, with the changes in the map

@@Skizzumexcept for the monsters there

Roxas?

The lodestone doesnt say but everyone can imagine you get it through pristine gems / FATE map lvl 3

@@TheImaggine yup thats where it's from :)

There's a song in this expansion that plays during the emotional part of the story, and I have no idea what it's called. Would you have any idea what the song is called?

@@AshRabbit001 is it this one? i’m not sure whether there’s an orchestrion yet but it’s called ‘still hope’. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iNSdic-Y05qRf30.htmlsi=iISXYVld2Uq29aJZ

⁠​⁠@@AshRabbit001’still hope’ might be the song you’re looking for ^^

yeah tbh i cried the most from this song because it reminded me of those i've lost

I too couldn’t help tearing up at this zone, especially on that boat ride with Graha. What a masterpiece the whole Alexandra part of the expansion was.

giving us a but thou must to kill a bunch of reunited lovers and kids who never got to live was legitimately pretty crushing and i'm kind of shocked the other characters aren't more visibly traumatized by all this... we get a whole lot of "it's sad, but..." and meanwhile i'm sobbing my eyes out. erenville and krile are kind of unreasonably stoic...

@@AmnesiacDoei think it’s a bit of a cultural issue translating from japan. If you played X, then they’re unsent. You have to send them on to the afterlife or bad things happen if they stick around too long. They sort of go over this with the post game dungeon. Without souls to eat to stabilize them, endless as memory entities can get corrupted. The aethercurrent quests are about us helping the last few souls that are stuck to move on properly. But the pain in the music is real, and the silence after the shutdown hurts so bad.

​@@AmnesiacDoe Erenvilles stoicism was a front for how badly it was affecting him

Honestly this was the part of the story that got a few tears out of me as well, just super good themes and music

What's even worse is that it could have been people who lived well past childhood, but their happiest moment was during childhood.

@@upierczi5991 Exactly. The aether current quest showed that was the case for at least one of those children.

The Twilight Town vibes are undeniable as well.

Weren't they both actually used in game as well during MSQ??

​@Soooooooooooonicable that was my thought as well. I was like this is twilight town while I was frantically looking for the ff9 connection.

This whenever I hear the empty echos of this song. It makes me incredibly sad

I had to mute the BGM and put on different music for this for shared fates. I cannot properly kill monsters if they’re all blurry while I’m choke-sniffling over my keyboard.

Yes, and the rest were snoozefest

Nah but sorry you felt that way

I know right? It might be a stretch but it makes me feel like I lost you know... A dear family member, although they are *currently* still alive, it pains me to think that the inevitable will arrive someday and I will never see them or hear them again. And what terrifies me more is that I could actually forget their voices. That's when you know they are really gone, no matter what.

I wonder how I s possible to put onions in songs... Well, seems I will be asking Soken.

@@TheImaggine

That’s the best part of the song

Glad im not the only one that have some strong Twilight Town Vibes.. my first reaction was literally "What in the Kingdom Hearts is that?!" (the fact that it was just a computer simulation dont help)

😂

thank you! didnt think of that

it’s so much work to get back to 😅I’ll definitely try

Omg Ty!

It will kill the purpose of the story line if there was a revival of them. Let it where as it is because it was already good enough

​@@coffeelink943I'm sure Otis was happy to finally rest.

I mean.... It's Alexandria from Final Fantasy IX 😅 (I just played thru FFIX for the first time myself a few weeks ago in preparation of Dawntrail... Definitely helped to appreciate the second half more)

I hear it too. My guess is that when FF9 was made, they looked back to FF6 for some of that Medieval feel theme-wise.

Just like Stormblood, we got the patches that can fix the story.

Personally felt the conclusions to Erenville and Krile's arcs were emotional homeruns for me. But on the grander scheme I can get what you mean.

You need to complete shared fate in Living Memory then you can buy it with 350 bicolour gemstones.

🤐🤐 7.4

​@@realthetical7.4?

I think if you go into NG+ of any previous expansion it should be there? I know it works that way for the Everlasting Light in Shadowbringers....

More likely 7.1 then, IIRC 6.0 got added to NG+ when 6.1 dropped. Though then you'll have to go through the entire later storyline to get to that section. But worth it for some I think. 🙂

@@Sllandre Can confirm going into NG+ at any part will restore Living Memory to what it was before until you leave NG+ mode.

This was my exact sentiment...

It’s executed far better. From the moment Estonian “dies”, it’s clear the loss will be undone. The loss here, while less personal, is far weightier from its permanence.

@@MHMega I think emmdee means in terms of how it's presented with the civilizations. Ultima Thule's civilizations are long gone. Living Memory's are... alive, in a sense. They're not shades of the past, they're, well, living memories. Real people in their own way, and this time, you have the "pleasure" of ending that yourself. It'd be like if all the civilizations in Ultima Thule were actually still alive and you personally had to end them all to get to Meteion.

That’s the point this time, though

The last map in endwalker (I will not say the name incase someone didn’t finished MQS) you still get to rebuild that zone, but this Golden City, you likely can’t