Seen some folks asking in the comments; Mike doesn't use a reshade - I just happened to record all the cutscene footage when putting together the video. I personally am using the OMGEorzia preset for Stormshade. P.S. to the person who mentioned the fix for AO showing over the UI, much love.

Fun note: You can actually meet Estinien earlier than heavensward if you go through the Dragoon job quests, and he'll acknowledge that you've met before in heavensward when he's introduced into the story there.

fun fact about the edgelord appearance of dragoon armor, its made with as many sharp and pointy bits as possible with the intent that if you get eaten you will at least still lacerate the inside of the dragon's innards

And today he finished 3.0. WHAT A MADLAD

my favorite part about estinien was how he kinda became like a big brother figure to Alphinaud. for a kid who doesn't really have older male role models, Estinien filling that role during Heavensward was so great to see

I really loved the way Ysayle and Estinien's world and faith were shaken to the core and how they both took their hits. Estinien basically became edgier because he's ESTINIEEEEEN (he's the Azure Dragoon); and Ysayle just got dismissed by the dragon she wished to love when Hraeslvelgr basically told her: "You ain't shit", and she was just in shock because everything she fought for, everything she had hoped, just crumbled in front of her in an instant.

I love how you focus so strongly on Estinien and the scene (spoilers) when he realizes that his life was built on a lie, and even better how he basically follows that up with: “..and it doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”

22:53 my favorite part about this is that Ravana's already been summoned so this is all just how he enters the room. Absolute diva.

Hearing him talk about how “Power Rangers” Ravana is, I can’t wait till he faces Brute Justice xD

I really love how Mike ship Estinien and Ysayle the whole time. "they fucking" kill. Me every single time hahahha

The amount of care and love put into this game is just incredible. The writers are just phenomenal. Even just in basic flavor text. Look at the aetheryte location names in Ishgard, and the one with the noble houses, at the top of the Pillars: The Last Vigil Remember the dungeons? The Stone Vigil? The Dusk Vigil? There are also the Steel and Dawn Vigils (which we don't see). Vigil is the term for the watchtowers/fortifications against the Dravanian horde. And that plaza? At the very heart of Ishgard? That's the literal and metaphorical Last Vigil: the last place to fall back to. The game never talks about it. It's never part of the plot. No NPC mentions any of this. The writers put this much thought and care into the name of a subzone for a convenience-teleporter.

Please consider enabling Japanese subtitles, even if it's auto-generated. Yoshi P specifically asked youtubers to enable Japanese subs so they can understand what the players are saying. And since this is essentially a feedback video, I think it would benefit a lot from having Japanese subs.

Estinien's story resonate even more when you do ARR Dragoon questline because it revolves around him, why he is so hellbent on killing dragons and to what length he is ready to go to acomplish his goal, it's really interesting to see where he comes from and where he goes in HW. Edit: also I higly recommend (like pretty much everybody) to do at least the first part of the dark knight story line it is phenomenal and written by the same writter as Shadowbringer and Endwalker MSQ.

What have they done to my boy Urianger XD (the spoiler alert) Also welcome to the Estinien fanclub which consists of the entirety of the FF14 playerbase...

I can understand Raubahns voice change being jarring as its one of the more drastic ones. I do personally like that they give the Ala Mhigans a regional accent tho, its a nice world building addition imo.

In final fantasy you are getting to these points in the game where u learn about the " Bad guys " motives and u kinda understand their PoV aswell. I absolutely love the Writing. Shadowbringers just blew me away

Thanks for giving this game an honest go. I started a few months ago and just wrapped up the MSQ and I've never played a game with such a beautiful storyline. I'm now getting into the endgame fights and also having a lot of fun with that - the game has me hooked from multiple angles lol. Have fun,

Merlwyb voice is the one that's almost everyone think got worse after the studio change. If they sound british now is because they gave the boot to the US studio doing the VA and started using an UK studio (which haven't changed so far).

heavensward is such a good story. I am happy to see so many people appreciating it.

Watching someone who takes his time discovering all the little nuances of the games and finding things even veteran players were unaware of has been enjoyable! Love the pace and way you play games and your funny side commentary. Looking forward to more

Preach, this HAS to be among your best videos. Your analysis IS AMAZING. I had played Heavenward and foudn it good, but you showed me how AMAZING it was deep down... great work :)

U deserve more views!! Love u vids been watching u since Cata. I don't usually play videogames anymore but love watching u still. Thx preach & team

I was feeling less motivated to do more msq, but the sheer enjoyment Preach gets from this game is what I needed to get my ass moving. Great video!

Bruh that hoodie is badass. I'm going to order one for sure!

Bro this was awesome! I'm feelin all the love of the community from here.

Hearing how much Preach loves the questionable morality and bleaker aspects of the story, I bet he'd adore the Dark Knight questline.

I'm really surprised you didnt care for the sea of clouds area. I felt they were exactly like what blizzard used to do with flying. Make you walk around for a little bit just to appreciate the scale being able to fly in the zone that much more, and then give you flying reasonably quickly. Going back to do the beast tribe quests for me is like "yes, THIS is how I was meant to fully explore this area", which is true, considering many gathering nodes and other bits of content are on otherwise inaccessible islands. In short, they made flying part of the zone design, rather than an afterthought. That said, thats just my personal opinion!

Glad you're enjoying the game. It's always nice to see other people enjoying the game you love

I love Heavensward and I glad you liked it so far.

I was in that welcome party despite not knowing who you were! I'd been working on the Ishgardian Restoration side quests and noticed a bit of a queue forming outside the Ishgard gate. I couldn't resist the chance to join a welcome party and jumped in the line with my reaper. Good to see a big streamer on Spriggan!

Can't wait to see more of your ff content in the future!

DRG was my initial class when ARR was released, and the one I played as through HW. For me, it was interesting having Estinien as a comrade because he was traveling with someone whom he considered to be an equal, but doesn't have the same feeling towards the dragons that he does.

My only problem with the Ravana fight: I cant hear his theme without my brain jumping to "The Great Mighty Poo" song from Conker's Bad Fur Day.

I'm glad you're enjoying Heavensward, I absolutely loved Heavensward for it's story.

looking forward to your perspective on the job design of the black mage as it is a more complex/high skill ceiling job in the game. I still haven't been able to commit much time into FFXIV but I love that you are having such a great time with it so far.

We love you Preach!

I have, almost from the beginning, had my audio set to Japanese. I like hearing the original voice actors for the characters as well as it seems to give a slight boost to how quickly you can get through Praetorium, when doing the MSQ duty roulette.

HOLY...! That spoiler warning Urianger is disturbing

Ravana exreme, min iLVL. "oh thats a cool looking attack, Oh i'm dead"

HW is so good - glad youre enjoying it

The vault is infamous for tripping up sprouts. Its alot of fun.

You are now seeing why people mention the HW story being so dam good. It's not that ARR story sux but that it just spikes massively once HW starts and they are no longer panicking rebuilding a whole game from scratch while keeping another version alive.

Oh man you are going to love the storytelling in Shadowbringers.

"Good Shield" will forever be a legendary moment

dusk vigil is also my favourite one because of the atmossphere and because it feels so fleshed out for basically a sidedungeon. but ye its mainly the atmossphere and that slow kinda sad kinda relaxing music in the background that adds to it

Best breakdown of heavensward I’ve seen

hair looks great preach !

Could be counted as a small side spoiler but take it as you will I love looking back at Ishgard when you start Heavensward (dark, poor people in brume, isolation) and then after concluding the story and being able to visit The Firmament and just doing the side story of it , walking around seeing people in their new homes living their new lives and even recognize you as the savior of the city + the music - it just makes me tear up every time for some reason.

REJOICE! IN THE GLORY OF COMBAT! Ravana was the first time in the game I *really* felt drawn in, I enjoyed ARR (more than most I think), the ending of ARR had me speechless, but Ravana had me so, so psyched to complete the game (this was during Stormblood, so a few years ago now!). From the music, to the voice-lines, the structure of the fight and just how fun it was, I was 100% hooked at that point, beyond wanting to see it out just to see the story I just knew I was going to stick around and become a no-lifer if that was the sort of experience they could throw at me. I've taken breaks since, at times I've disliked parts of the direction the game has taken, but overall I absolutely adore FFXIV and it's great fun watching you experience it too! Weirdly, despite never playing WoW, I watched a lot of WoW content creators for quite a long time, so this whole summer/autumn has been a wild ride as a fan of so many of the recent turncoats ;) Keep on keeping on, Preach Gaming team! Can't wait to see more!

We got him.

Hope you're having fun. That's all I want to see.

Sitting under the shadow of the structures built by man and dragon, the truth cannot be denied. Such a sweet line by Estinien.

that spoiler alert is awesome 😄

the thing about the voice acting is that its not just that they changed the VAs, but also that they drastically improved how the recording is done. the old voice acting had this problem where the actors would record random lines with no context at all about what they were voicing. but after HW it becomes actually professional.

Oh man Max will love the hair progress on this one

Lord Haurchefant: The only man who can get away with telling a woman she looks better when she smiles :(

"The Haurchefant twist" yes... what a twist!

I feel like Cid’s VA is a weird one, cos he’s literally the only character for whom I remember his ARR VA much much better than the new one. Obviously I have Prae to thank for that.

the cutest fight on extreme is the most fun i had :D especially those songs :D

You can fix the "see the ambient occlusion on the UI" thing by using the save UI features of reshade, if that is what you are using. Think it was something along the lines of "FFKeepUI" on top, then "FFRestoreUI" or whatnot on the bottom, then you sandwich the effects you want on the game between those two.

The tradition lives on.

Preach notice the kids throw snowballs at you now and keep track of them after see how they chance

Dusk Vigil is a double slap to the gut, the initial reason for going in is to secure a family gemstone that was wrongfully taken. the mother was accused of heresy and interrogated until her mind broke, the son I believe died in the war, leaving the father broken and alone, so he asks you to reclaim the family treasure that a jealous noble had taken. essentially destroying a family for a shiny rock. then you go in and see the horrors of the vigil soldiers.

I completely agree on the voice actors.

What a Welcome

Thats awesome

I hope you will do the Alexander raid, all the trials (even the optional ones), and the alliance raid. All of them have really good stories.

I am pretty sure that Yoshi P is watching Preachs Videos and taking Notes :D

I guess you could say preach rejoiced in the glory of combat with ravana :)

I didn't much notice the voice changes as a couple of years pass before you get each expansion, binging the seasons like new players can do now I think then you would notice.

Alright Preach, I've hit the Cypher of the First Ones time gate.....I'll bite, jumping back onto my 52 Paladin soon to be Dark Knight maybe early midway into HS now.

HW is so fucking good i loved it just wait for 3.3

4:25 I hate to correct you Preach but yes some of the damage around the city was due to Calamity but a large portion of it was also damage from constant dragon attacks. They started to wane mind you eventually later on, especially upon completion of the Heavensward expansion, but most the structural damage was because of dragons. Hence the need for dragoons, they were Ishgards defensive measure against dragonkin.

Ravana was the point I knew I would finish the whole game. Pure kino

Damn, been some time since i watched Mike. Hair seems to be gaining alot of lushness.

The Dragoon job's quest line is also a great tie in, giving more context to who Estenien is, and why he is so driven and single minded at first.

I like how this was posted right as he finishes 3.0 lol

"They were saved by Bismarck" That did not age well... xD

Lol he was so excited to fight Bismark only to be disappointed xD

I thought there were a lot of GOT parallels in Heavensward - I'm so glad you pointed that out! There are some *really* close parallels as it get going, too. I'm sure it was an influence when they were writing this, and it's also clear they wrote it long before Season 8. So when I went through Heavensward, I found myself thinking, "Oh, this is where I THOUGHT (and hoped) GoT was going. This is maybe where it should have gone." I'm only sorry Aymeric doesn't have a pet wolf. Oh, and I LOVE Dusk Vigil! The way those notes progress is so well done. "Oh, that's dark. Sounds bad. Oh, dear God, VERY dark!"

Yep he gets it

I wonder if preach is going to try out the other classes/jobs and check out there stories

I fell off the arena the first time I fought Ravana lol. Also his music was the best, especially his phrases he yells out "Furious as a blaze!". Ahh good times man.

Glad you are enjoying your time in Heavensward! I can draw 2 conclusions about this video: 1-. Preach is an Edgelord 2-. He wont like base stormblood XD (I liked it)

Man look how many people are there, and the server isn't imploding

Preach you should check the story of Dusk Vigil and the boss story it take us back to 1.0 where we talked to him You will love it

Love me some Preach, love me some Team CRAWL too

Can't wait for preach to be blown away by shadowbringers >:)

That urianger on screen was definitely uncanny valley

When you have some more time, maybe a few months into Endwalker, you should definetly do what is known as "Ishgardian Restoration". It has some very nice payoffs and roundups for the Heavensward story.

The only characters that didn't get their VA switch was Lord Aymeric. I also think the VA Admiral Merlwyb switch was a weak tinker, but an arc *way* down the line gives her some justice. Only some. Get used to the VA switch, it'll be (near) permanent from Heavensward onwards...

ARR Minfilia will always has special place in my heart.

And now can't stop hearing the admiral asking if want spam, egg and beans

I don’t know why you find the accents so jarring, Preach. You’re more of a new age Brit, whereby you’ve spent so much of your time watching American shows, games, and culture that your accent is downright American-esque at times. I rather love the accents as it’s almost like mine own, just slightly more posh.

I'd love to see more videos like this going into more detail. I feel like you skip over some of your thoughts a bit to keep the video a manageable length

Would love to see more gameplay of you playing FFXIV and your take on the game. Similar to your WoW videos which I have been a fan off since I found your channel during Cataclysm.

I FUCKING MISS when Preach used to talk about WoW this way UGH I only have time for one game and it's wow and I wish I could enjoy these new vids more because I love Preach :'(

H A I R

“They fookin” … I got news for you chief

"Heavensward is like morally gray done right!" -Preach 2021 Like damn dude it hurts because its true