A lot of people diss on Stormblood for not being as good as other expansions, and I gotta say, i agree. It's a dismal 9/10

The best part of the Aymeric dinner is that if you zoom in on his salad, you can see that it's a scaled-down asset for a grassy hill.

"Final Fantasy 14 tries to make you cry all the time." - Truer words have never been spoken

“Give me 20 kolbold ears” I had a legitimate visceral & horrified reaction at the thought of a quest doing that in 14 🤣🤣🤣

"The most important part: dinner with Baemeric". Ah. Well met, fellow men of culture.

Gosetsu's introduction being right after Papalymo's sacrifice, without the two month break at the time it came out, my reaction was, and I quote, "I haven't had such mood whiplash since Disk 2!"

To clarify the Minfilia moment at 23:35 Minfilia exploded in that previous HW moment because Hydaelyn could no longer support her physical form. That's why (and other reasons) Urianger conspired to get the Warriors of Darkness to come together with the WoL and bring all the Crystals of Light together. The Crystals were a "Bounty of Light" (in his words) to empower Hydaelyn and give her enough strenght to re-summon Minfilia's physical form and let her journey to the First. Without the Crystals you would have been unable to speak with Hydaelyn of Minfilia (Word of the Mother) ever again.

"FFXIV is trying to make you cry, all the time." Ishakawa accepts your tribute, but bids you cry more next time.

No Joke, Wednesday has rapidly become one of my favorite days of the week. And this Show right here, is the beginning of it. I sit at my desk at work, get out my breakfast, put on some GG and there is nothing better. If you guys ever step into Savage Raiding at the endgame and need another player let me know. If the cross data centers stuff doesn't exist by then I'll even move servers.

"narrative, chief's kiss" Hasn't even got to Shadowbringers yet, this journey is going to be epic. Whens the next stream I want more! Your Alexander raid stream was fun as hell to watch.

just clarifying: the significance of 'Yda's' neck tattoos fading is that Papalymo cast that glamour, so their existence was tied to his. The fading of the glamour signals, to us, that he is well and truly gone. As a player who started out in Gridania, this whole section was really hard. I'd spent most of Heavensward worrying about my Scion friends, and we'd gotten most of them back EXCEPT for my favorite pair. and then, just as we're reunited, everything is thrown into chaos and I lose them both, for good this time. and Lyse...I went into Stormblood swearing I would never lose her, that I would be there for her in Papalymo's stead, knowing that she will go through growing pains but to stand fast beside her. it really made Stormblood special to me.

"The grass is only greener when you can see the grass." It's been honestly fascinating watching so many people moving from WoW to FF and basically slowly realizing just how bad things were now that they have something that isn't dogshit.

Feels like I am back to early 2000's while watching my favorite weekly TV show/anime "Adventures of Kyle and Garrett " and I am loving it.

For the solo trial with the Warriors of Darkness, the information isn't just in the chat box. They actually have all the information pop up in text boxes in the middle of the screen first. But, it doesn't stay so it doesn't get in your way. It's just there in your chat box as well if you miss it.

Now that you have finished Heavensward, there is one questline you NEED to do. I am being dead serious. "The Paths We Walk" quest from the House Fortemps Manseevant inside the Fortemps Manor. It is such a narrative cherry on top of all that happened in Heavensward, and you get a very good emote out of it.

Every Wednesday at 8 I have an appointment with youtube now. It's so much fun to follow along as you experience this content and to be able to join the crowd welcoming you into the new expansion zone. I don't know if I am more excited to see you do the remaining raids and trials from Heavansward or to see if you react as I expect to the elements of the Stormblood story that I know are coming. Your predictions for what is to come always leave me with a 😀.

"Remember Haurchefant, here's a beautiful oil painting of him hanging above this desk, don't you want one?" Bold of you to assume I don't already have one, at the top of my stairwell in my real life house, next to an incense burner.

"Final Fantasy 14 is trying to make you cry all the time" You aint seen nothing yet. Lead writer Natsuko Ishikawa main job is Knife Twister

I'm glad you guys liked Gabu because their story continues in later expansions.

Jesus man I’m so excited to keep following you guys on this journey. I love how people adore HW and say there’s nothing like it, what could better? Then SB hits, and it’s beautiful. Then ShB hits and you’re emotionally massacred, then EW hits and you’re emotionally destroyed, but it’s all so beautiful. Huge hype for you guys. I’m jealous and truly wish I could experience this for the first time again.

I am so so glad you guys commented on the Titan fight in HW. I barely see people talk about it but man that hit me deep. Not just the lore implications of primals but also how they represent the desperate emotions from those summoning them. When Titan was calling out for the kobold child's parents during the fight, I had a very somber "I'm...I'm so sorry" feeling as I fought him. I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who thought it was significant.

Ilberd is one of the best written villains in this game to me. He was an impassioned young man who only ever wanted to liberate his homeland of Ala Mhigo, but all around him he watched his countrymen shrug their shoulders and do nothing. He comes to Eorzea and reunites with his old buddy Raubahn, hoping that maybe he'd be able to lend Ul'Dah's support to the Ala Mhigan cause. When that doesn't work, his behavior escalates with the Crystal Brave coup, and when still that isn't enough to reach his goal, he turns to even more drastic measures. But at the end of the day, he only ever wanted to go home.

6:34 That little "ᵒʰ ᵍᵒᵈ" after the mention of Ga Bu is a special kind of despair.

A tip about dialog that gets missed in those solo duties. Click on the EVENT tab under the chatbox when starting one. The default setting is just the NPC dialog and flyover text. Plus you can scale the font size individually for each of these tabs. And oh yeah, been loving your content and take on the game since you guys started this. Really looking forward to more.

I've had an absolute blast watching you guys get into 14. I stumbled on the channel as you guys were finishing up base ARR and knew I wanted to stick around to watch your journey. I cannot wait to see the rest of this adventure with the two of you. Stormblood was a great expansion imo, but it's a bit thick with the politics of war, so just be prepared. I think in the end you'll still love it because it's the same team who's made the game you've loved up to this point.

You gents have earned my sub, great content, been loving it. As for Stormblood I think the "hate" comes from it being between HW(award winning) and Shadowbringers, which most people had as their top expansion. When you're hitting Homeruns so often a triple base seems bad right? 😂 enjoy the ride guys

Loved the heart felt intro Garret… I believe we as a community can really tell u are falling hard for this game ❤️ When u talked about how the Ga Bu story will stick with u I’m in the same boat, it was beautiful storytelling of a horrible situation. All I can say is this game is going to break u…. Build u back up better then u were before and then break u all over again. This game truly changed my outlook on life, in so many ways… Thank u guys for sharing your journey with us… being able to relive so many great moments through the eyes of the two of u has been an absolutely treat!

the tattoos on yda’s neck was made by papalymo’s magic, so when it disappeared it means he’s dead. it’s subtle but super sad for me.

Grinding Gear has now reached "Upvote video even before watching it" status for me.

Honestly, watching people go through the story and seeing their reactions gives it new life, and I don't think I'm alone in saying that. There have been story beats that hit me much harder when I watch one of my friends or a content creator see them for the first time, and never more so they're coming from a game that, I'm sad to say is a lot more toxically unconcerned for the player's time or experience than it is with keeping them in a kind of hamster wheel, forever trying to reclaim the fun they used to have with it. Also, with all the stuff you said about Rival characters a couple weeks back, I think you're both gonna love where this story goes...

8 minutes in - I'm tearing up - for real. Gabu is such a tragic person - yes! Person! They made him *real* . I'm ok with Hauchefant now. But man, that was a bummer at the time (all of five months ago for me). Such a buildup! Anticipating him being a permanent character - maybe a companion for the Warrior of LIght. Then BAM, he dies, giving his life so the Warrior of Light may live. Edit: for a bit of backstory for the seed-seer: do the conjurer/white mage job quest line. Concludes at lvl 70. EW tank role quest also touch upon her backstory.

Papalymo was just like an exasperated older brother. I kind of feel like his first english VA gave him a bad impression. His Japanese VA doesn't sound as harsh. I also think it is important to remember when he stayed back with Yda after the banquet.

Papalymo's sacrifice is one of the very few off-screen deaths in XIV that I've trusted, since they showed the mark on Lyse's neck fading along with his magic dying out. Welcome to Stormblood! I'll admit I personally never really got on with Lyse since I really liked Yda, being a Gridanian starter and enjoying her dopey slapstick with Papalymo and she really turns into a completely different person now that she's dropped the act, and I'd argue not for the better. Stormblood is pretty heavy on the politics, but I feel like it gets away with it because it's a lot more "Frontline politics", a lot more rough and tumble and in-your-face and snap decisionmaking. You're standing at the bleeding tip of two completely separate revolutions, after all.

And now, a year later, the story of Ga Bu has come full circle!

Garrett as someone who's been listening to TAC since... ages ago, I'm glad you've found FFXIV and the amazing craftmanship it has to offer

Day 1 angry chicken listener here. We met at nerdtacular 2015. I was the guy with the hearthstone phone case during the panel. You are still doing great work, I just rediscovered this channel. Cheers, keep up the fantastic output!

>"..the darkest, most metal things I've ever experienced in a game" Oh you sweet summer child

The post story from Heavensward it's a huge upgrade from what post ARR was. I remember reading somewhere that in the post ARR time, they were "trying things" and it shows that they've learned a lot from it. Also, I really can't wait until the time I can travel to your data center so you get another potato (and fellow former WoW player) tagging along.

I think its pretty crazy that the B plot for the Heavensward post patches ended up turning into arguably of the best MMO expantions to ever come out.

This was the first point where I became aware of the story branching. It is minor, BUT, a power outage let me see what happened when you are given the choice of staying with Papalymo, or fleeing. The cutscene changes depending on the player's choice.

Man, watching all the things they gush about as a FFXIV player makes me so happy because what comes later is certain to make them even more excited

As someone who has watched every single video you made on ffxiv. How am I not already subbed? Anyway. Now having fixed that, You 2 are in for a treat. SB is a bit of a slow burn at the start. But once you get to Doma everything starts to pick up and peaks in the patch content. But after that it just gets better and better and better.

That was a great intro guys!

Getting a notification from you guys is unironically one of my favorite moments in a week now. I'm literally not joking, it's in my top 5 of things I look forward to now on a weekly basis.

Congrats on finishing the tutorial

Very good video! You're going to personally one of my favorite expansions. Yeah it does have issues, but the dungeons/trials in Stormblood is just Phenomenal ! It may have a big part being my favorite because it was the Expansion I started playing

I love hearing your guy’s take on the adventure and the story.

I've been thoroughly enjoying your journey Garrett and Kyle, enjoy the journey ahead!

Y’all gained a new subscriber :D awesome talk! I love the Post Heavensward storyline. Especially the Warriors of Darkness and Popolymo’s sacrifice. So epic

I have thoroughly been enjoying watching your journey through the world of FF14, especially as I myself came from play WoW for 8 years to now only playing FF14 and finally not missing/playing WoW

Can't wait for your review of StB It's a mix of opinions by everyone

7 years later….falling in love with characters going through the gamut of emotions, I still have to take a moment when I hear Heavensward songs. ShB and EW broke my soul and patched it up again but HW was the catalyst and will be tied with the best expansion. Thank you for bringing back the memories

Last night I went on a binge of your old videos dating back to August, and it has been such a great journey watching your progression. The Monday streams and bonus streams are a pure delight. At the conclusion of each expansion your going to really appreciate how hard the chat has been biting it's tongue. Enjoy the ride fellas.

Been watching you guys since Day 1 of your journey, what a journey it has been.

I'm so qucik to click on these videos when I see them. I started in Gridania, so Yda and Papalymo were the only scions I cared about from the start. And when we finally got them back only to lose Papalymo about three quests later, I just needed a break; I was so bummed. But I guess that just made me more attached to Lyse by extensions. Like, "you're gonna take one from me, I'm keeping this one." Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who focuses on Senna's necklace whenever she's onscreen. That thing is distracting, and I need to know why it looks like that.

this channel is such a treat, keep it up guys!

The best part after finishing Heavensward? Realizing that your journey has just begun. Looking forward to seeing more content from you guys!

The dinner date with Aymeric definitely is the most important part!

So excited for you guys to experience EVEN MORE of what this game has to offer

Omg. .I am so stoked to hear how great you thought heavensward was.. because.. you will be SO .. blown away.. just blown away by Shadowbringer! I am so excited for you guys! And so happy you went on this journey!

Lol no one can avoid becoming a walking advertisement at this point. I'm so excited that you guys are in Stormblood right now! I love the combat in Stormblood, you would enjoy it too! 😊

"The seed seer is about to become the deepest most fleshed out character in the history of video game writing" is a hilarious statement.

After playing for years I've found the best time to play is the "off season." There are still plenty of players so the game doesn't feel empty and there are no hour long queue times like there was with Endwalker launch. You also tend to run into the more laid back player that I find more fun to be around.

Shinryu and Omega always be a nemesis in the previous FF.

"Throw-away character"-- that's what FF14 does *so well*! "Oh, you thought this was over? NO! THEY ARE BACK!"

"Oh the sights we shall see... The sights we shall see..." It is a blast watching your journey :D and yet there is so much more ahead! Can't wait for you to reach my favourite moments some day in the future :) ( Also there is a lot of free trial still to conquer with Trial series, alliance raid and side quest chains, so take your time and explore the world how you like :D )

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means! New GG video!!

I love that Tuna shows up to Aymeric's invitation baring his whole-ass chest in that Uraeus coat. Just went, 'Oh, dinner with Aymeric? I'll wear my sluttiest coat'

Worth noting that the "using dead bodies to empower a primal summoning" had been around since 2.1, during the ARR EX primal storyline. It didn't go very far at the time, but it was a useful piece of the story buffalo they were able to bring back later.

I feel like one of the biggest oddities about Stormblood is that a lot of the stuff it brought to the game is now baked into it from the beginning. They did a fairly sweeping overhaul of gameplay at the time of its release - and it was something that really felt like it moved the game forward. But for players who started after Stormblood, that's basically just how it's always been, so it doesn't really stand out as a positive of Stormblood to them. Levels 60-70 are where a lot of job kits really start taking shape and you get a stronger sense of what they're like to play in current content. That, combined with the more deliberate raid, dungeon and encounter design really start elevating the gameplay of XIV. I think that a lot of people are very focused on the story, and I totally understand that, XIV's story is one of my all time favorites. But even where there may be some weaknesses in that area in Stormblood in comparison to Heavensward and the later expansions, I think that Stormblood's contribution to the game's quality probably lies more in the combat side of things. And this isn't to say that things in Stormblood's story aren't important - they are, many of them extremely so. But I personally tend to view Stormblood on balance as the more gameplay focused expansion.

I honestly like SB more than HW, I like it since it builds the world more than HW and it essentially helps the overall lore, and I like my ingame politics.

Ah shit Missingno lmao, destroyed my saved on my pokemon gold xD I miss my Feraligator. "Darkest so far" :D

Oh honey, just you wait, you'll see what's really dark.

Amazing work as usual can’t wait for SB

Like a lot of people in the comments here, I too, enjoy your experience of FFXIV. Its quite fun to experience the game under the visions, life and experiences of other players; every streamers has different reaction to certain point of the game and what hit home more for them. But one thing is the same for everyone: the story slaps hard and gets to you emotionally eventually. And like a good lil chat person, I will continue to smile while it is quite hard to not soil anything :) Hello from Aether for now, hoping the join you in a stream soon-ish!

Stormblood is a huge world building expansion. If you're the type of person that likes that kind of storytelling, you will love it.

Glad to see you guys enjoying every bits of it. I will wait in patience for the next 3 expansion journey from both of you. To see thins unraveled and make sense. The only spoiler i can give is prepare alot of tissue.. I mean ALOT

It's been awesome watching your journey! Do you all plan to do a raid ranking video like you do with trials and dungeons?

Stormblood gets a bad rap because of pacing, and that it is between two of the best stories to ever exist. But it is by no means bad, many would say the patch content for stormblood is some of the best there is, and the trials / dungeons are also considered some of the best in the game. The pacing in the start can be a bit slow, but once it picks up you aren't going to want to stop. Looking forward to watching you guys go through it all, been very enjoyable so far.

It's stated that Minfilia is the Word of the Mother (I think its after Antitower), she agreed to join with Hydaelyn to give her a way to speak to us directly. And I think in the big scene with the Warriors of Darkness she mentions that she heard but couldn't act due to her limitations, Urianger had to arrange that meeting with the power of all our crystals combined, only then did she have enough power to act. At least thats how I've remembered it.

For me, Stormblood was much more emotionally resonant than Heavensward was. Nothing against it, but i felt much more attached to basically everything that goes on in Stormblood. It also helps that it introduces one of my favorite villains of all time.

Stumbled upon this video by chance. Interesting to hear a WOW veteran's opinions. Glad to hear you enjoyed the game so far! Stormblood starts slow admittedly but gets really fun once it picks up! Hope you enjoy the rest of what the game has to offer \o/

You guys missed/forgot this: -Minfilia exploded dramatically because she said that she used the last of her/Hydaelyn's strength to send you back. -The reason why she can manifest as Minfilia again is because Urianger tricked both you and the Warriors of darkness to come together with all your crystals if light. -The reason why Hydaelyn can help the Warriors of darkness now is because you both went around killing primals and stopped summonings. She finally managed to gather enough strength to help them.

Don't have much to say, except it's been great watching your videos (and the stream videos! I have it play as my commute background stuff, frankly). :) Looking forward to you guys finish off the rest of the major content (Warring Triad, Sky Pirates, and Optional Dungeons) of HW/Free Trial, before leaping into Stormblood!

Damn you guys for bringing up Gabu!!! I thought I was over that part!!!! Lol

i started my free trial journey as an ex-wow player, when 5.2 was current, never could i have known that watching other people going through the msq would be so entertaining. can't wait for you guys to keep trucking through the MSQ. to give some nonspoiler "cool facts": both shinryu and omega are recurring "superbosses" in previous final fantasy titles, and the attacks they used(especially the giant wave attack from shinryu) are the actual attacks they use during their superbossfights, so in short (free fanservice for those who know, spectacle for those who dont!, there is tons and tons and tons of this throughout the whole game btw!) during the 3.4 part at 25:00, if you look closely you'll notice, that the "vegetables" on the plate, is really just a "downscaled hills/plains model" that they repurposed for this

Love the video as always, but damn do you guys make me feel old! XD The big console for my childhood was the Atari 2600, although the first one I owned was the Colecovision. Then mostly on the Commodore 64 and currently mostly PC as I haven't gotten a console since the original PS, N64, Sega Saturn, and the Atari Jaguar. We used to beg for change from our parents so we could hang out at Aladdin's castle and play those classic arcade games! It's great seeing others enjoy this game, it took me awhile to adjust as my main MMOs were CoH, EQ, EQ2, and SWtoR, with some WoW, but tried a ton of the others, and after giving FF14 the time it needed, I really like the game, and it's become my favorite. Really cool to see you guys advance, and here for the ride! Edit: Stomblood gets a bad rap, and it is my least favorite expansion, but it's still good and has some great parts. It's worth playing for sure.

papalymos smile, just like his mentor louisoix, always kills me again

The greatness of stormblood is at its setup and its pay off, its just the pesky journey inbetween that is a little muddy but still badass! thanks for another video!!

Man, those "dark moments" and tearjerker moments only get more impactful as you hit the latest expansions. It's breathtaking and hauntingly beautiful at moments.

So happy for you both that you're having such a good time! I hope you enjoy Stormblood, it may be called "weaker" than the other expansions, but I believe it is still of very high quality regardless.

papalymo did do the same thing as louisoix, but he did the FIRST thing that grandpa actually failed at, containing bahamut. the whole "turning into a primal" thing came after that containing failed, he actually used the SAME aether that was still in the air from the failed containment tho. had louisoix succeeded in containing him, his aether would have been fully consumed just like papalymo

It is mentioned somewhere in the game but the tattoo that most Scions have is a mark of a Sharlayan Doctorate in a field of study. So in a way the fact that Yda was a lot less knowledgeable than the others was a hint that something was going on with her. Which I find pretty neat in retrospect.

I played Coils of Bahamut for the first time recently (for reference, I'm caught up on MSQ). It really greatly informs Alisaie's motivations later on especially regarding Ga Bu. You know, what with her having to let her Grandpa die because he had been tempered and all.

It's great to see you two stepping into Stormblood! I really enjoyed Stormblood and it's patch content, although I did feel that maybe the pacing was wonky. The story, dungeons, etc are fantastic so enjoy your journey through it, it'll be a trip, that's for sure ! :D

A nice thing about Stormblood is the reintroduction of Yugiri into the fore. Tragically, her original English VA lost her life. I was very happy when they returned Yugiri to relevance.

"Gabu ended my soul" LOL, my sweet summer child. I REALLY can't wait until you guys get to Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

GaBu made me ugly cry the first time in FF XIV. That story destroyed me too. Like i cried earlier, but GaBu was something else.

Ah, "person in a chair." ❤️

Congratz Guys well done! :) its such a good game if you just pass a point.