One thing that probably should be brought up: Double Shield Boss (can't spell his name) was one of the most popular NPCs in the game before a large quest rework. Cape Westwind was the first 8-man trial in the game, vs. Double Shield Boss, and it became a community thing where if someone was new to act like it was going to be the most difficult fight ever, when due to item level scaling it was over in a minute. So even though the character is so forgettable, he was one of the most enduring NPCs from ARR because of the meme.

This is going to blow up eventually. Great work on the video! There's a lack of this sort of recap for XIV in this style.

The algorithm has blessed me this day. I think this is the first time I've been suggested a channel under 1000, let alone 100. Here's hoping you have much success!

I’ve watched several summaries of ARR and this is easily the most engaging one, capturing the important events in a way that is informative and engaging. Really looking forward to the follow ups.

44:14 I remember when they announced they were trimming Post ARR questlines and I was devastated that they removed the chocobo sniffing.

Fun fact, if you were a 1.0 player, the intro sequence skips the dream and just as you teleport into the world, at the city you started at, like at the end of the previous cutscene and you just waltz on into town with Cid being the only weirdo who remembers the WoL for whatever reason.

Tempering is absolute nightmare fuel, and I respect the game for going 'yeah this is a terrible thing and we're forced to kill the people who are tempered because if we didn't they'd sacrifice people to the primal'. Not many games would have the sheer cahones to put something that outright traumatising into their story and make it front and centre of a fair amount of the plot. Legit the first time I was going through the aftermath of Titan I had to stop playing for the night because I needed time to process it. Those soldiers who were with us, who were pretty cool for the short time we knew them, they were *dead* because they didn't have the same lucky break as us. God I love this game.

i am honestly incredibly fond of the genuine work arr puts into presenting a lot of nightmare fuel concepts in msq. there's unmatched potential in character building and exploration, and it is so easily missed. i remember really thinking about the horrors of tempering, and then the immediate follow up of "are WE tempered" as ifrit says we belong to someone else. as much as hydaelyn is unambiguously the force of good in arr, there's an inherent horror in how little choice we actually have in the story. there's also one of my favourite bits of arr that i never see dicussed and its how filled with anger minfilia is. she takes the thancred reveal incredibly hard, and she more or less meets elidibus for 5 minutes after he breaks into her organisation and she decides to figure out how to megakill him and his friends. the various plotpoints of the post-patches are so interesting because they are a genuine tangle of politics and plotlines that makes the banquet's resolution inevitable. the refugee crisis cannot end in any other way, and ofc it is used as a chip in bigger politics. i would know, i live in europe. then there's the way minfilia's quest to murder ascians intertwine with alphinaud's doomed private army because she allows it!! and it is clear she allows it because it lets her focus on the important bits aka ascian murder. it's all such a neat tapestry of character motivations that hides in plain sight. we're missing the forest for all the trees until we get fucked over. the only bit i find tedious in the arr proper is the pure crystal bit. the brayflox and lead up to titan is meant to make you feel pissed and i appreciate it. i loathe the crystal gathering tho, the narrative purpose of that bit still eludes me.

The last hour of the ARR msq was incredible and NOTHING in the game has made me more excited for the future of the game since. Nothing has even come remotely close.

seeing the quality of this video i expected someone with several thousand subscribers. Keep up the good work

24:05 To be fair, most people with amnesia don't have complete memory loss. More recent or more used memories tend to be lost while deeper, lesser-used memories are retained. It's very common for people with amnesia to not remember the names of friends they spend every day with, but things they didn't think about for years are easily remembered for them. It's not unreasonable to assume Cid knew about the corrupt crystals due to him being a renowned engineer, but because it isn't knowledge he actively uses it was retained.

Just watched your Heavensward video, now time for this one!! I love the way you approach explaining the story and also including your opinion on gameplay aspects like the trials and dungeon, I feel like a lot of other FFXIV story recaps don’t comment on those as much. Great stuff!

Okay, the trousers bit during your recap on the assault on Castrum Centri got a laugh out of me. Especially since...yeah, why did we *not* grab pants off the soldiers we dispatched? Seems like a curious omission...

Bruh... better than most YT creators with 1000x the subs. Thanks for this! It could not have been better timing for me! You rock!

Can really see this exploding at some point. This is the kind of review and story summation that's been missing imo! Gives people who want to join in Dawntrail a way to catch up on important lore if they would like to etc! Great little series :)

I really appreciate you for making this! As a new sprout 🌱 this has explained the game so much better than the actual game for me.

Found this video by chance through recommendations. As someone who beat ARR years ago in 2019 and replaying them again with my girlfriend this video did a great job of doing a quick and easy overview of the main and post msq content for ARR. can't wait to watch/listen the rest of the expansions as they come out.

Are you doing this for every expansion? As a returning player, I love these because they give such a great summary of the plot!

Great recap. Thankyou for putting the work in for this! U get my sub!

Can't wait to see this entire series finished. AMAZING work

Well I'm hooked. Been playing since the tail end of Stormblood and I always enjoy a trip down memory lane. Excited for the next videos!

This is the exact sort of video I've been wanting for months. Subscribe well earned

these were the first videos you ever made??? jeez! incredible work!

Excellent video, going to watch your heavenwards video now.

Great work. ❤ Playing since 1.0 and looking back like this is really nice :) Since ff14 was my first mmo I never had much hate for 1.0 since I didn't know what to expect from a mmo. But going into the beta and then into arr, it was a fantastic journey. I didn't feel the slack much since 1.0 was worse paced and other older rpgs as well, so it was pretty refreshing in comparison. The combat was more exiting back then since you did had more skills and more skill options from the crossclass skill system, sch alone had 5 dots. So it was a bit busier and I see how ppl feel underwhelmed til 50 or even 60 nowadays. But happy you enjoyed it and many more even today.

man, the graphics upgrade really did this game well

enjoyed your video. nicely done. cant wait to see what else you do.

This summay is amazing and relive once again this wonderful story is something i totally needed after disgrascefully finished DT. In regard of the Crysalis, there are many tips and tricks to know to make it a bit easier but it is still annoying when you get it in the Trial roulette. HINT: The debuff you get before being dragged to the second arena multiplies there in time by 10 but if you keep running while beeing dragged in the first arena you have the debuff expire before you are teleported and so there is nothing to multiply anymore ;)

This is exactly the video i was looking for, im currently playing through heavensward and needed a video to listen to. You have an incredible voice and did a great job on this video. ❤

Awesome work, this was a great watch

Great video man! Keep it up!

Great video! You deserve more views!

wait... I never knew Dalamud was basically a giant solar energy plant. Is this the lore behind Solar Bahamut in Dawntrail!?

Hi i just discovered your videos recently have been very much enjoying listening to them. Their is a very interesting hypothesis about the end of the crystal tower questline when Nero walks off. Some ominous beeping like sounds can be heard. These beeps can be translated using morse code that spells out a certain infamous quote from a certain birdy.

I really enjoyed this. I've tried to watch other summaries of the FF14 story, but people always try to sound so dramatic and over the top I have to turn it off. I like this style. Straight forward, informative. A+

I recommend doing Coils synced at least once! It's an unforgettable experience and *will* make you a better raider.

I´m not a Final Fantasy Fan at all but your Video was really good explained and i liked the funny comments here and there! Keep up the good work this is good, really good!

1:03:11 I think this could be a reference to the elemental horns you collect in FF3 to unlock the way to the crystal tower

We need more high quality ffxiv videos like this. Ty keep it up

Personally, I actually liked the early dialogue it really helped me get into the Game.

I had to run it again through with an alt because my first time through I skipped everything and plus it was 10 years ago LOL. Getting through 2.0 wasn't NEARLY as bad as everyone cried about. Doing the post patches is where it felt like it never ended. Anywho, great job on the video!!! 🙂🙂🙂

1:14:30 I had to double check because could swear this was a trial. I keep forgetting it was removed in 6.2

You're lucky to have not had to run the Crysallis very often. I get it for the trials roulette once or twice a week minimum and about 50% of the time the party wipes because someone will either use the limit break before being sucked into the place where you have to destroy the aethereal tear or most of the DPS will try to soak the meteors and die. Sometimes wipes even happen before that when not enough people destroy the balls with alternating debuffs before the boss eats enough to wipe the party. 😅

I loved the heavensward video so much I had to come back for the ARR one! 😊

Well done video sir!

Look forward to the rest of the videos!

1:17:26 Your comment here asking about when Monks will get that move that Yda does inspired me to double check. Sure enough, Monks get it at Ultima Weapon: it's their LB3.

Hey ! Fantastic video that was a pleasure to watch ! If I can add a fun fact about the poor voice acting in ARR, It's not just a problem in English, but in French too. And like for english voice cast, a big improvment was made during Heavensward !

Rhitatyn at one point was a streamer meme fight. Used to be stupid easy before they redid ARR.

I think there's a lot about arr that I still really enjoy, especially in comparison to a lot of fans. however the one thing that really annoys me is how many cutscenes there would be during the dungeon. it always gave me a lot of anxiety doing them, trying to read the cutscenes as fast as possible and sometimes having to skip them because someone accidentally pulled the boss before I got there. of course, everyone was lovely and didn't mind waiting, but I'm very glad that's no longer an issue, with any cutscenes after the initial one being very short, and big story moments waiting until after you leave the dungeon

Thanks for an awesome video!

I dunno about the holy trinity my man, all I'm seeing is blue dps, red dps, and green dps :D Also man the lore of Sastasha was dark once you payed attention...

also, it might be worth trying to run the final dungeons with min ilevel sync and no echo, it makes it much more close to the intended experience

It’s such a shame that the voice direction in ARR wasn’t very good because it featured two of my favorite voice actors (Sam Reigel and Taliesin Jaffe) who ARE very good actors. I think it simply suffered from poor direction. 😢

4:30 --- She doesnt say "six" specifically, just that you have to find the crystals :P The more interesting part is, "by thy deeds will the crystals reveal themselves to thee". Also, not everyone is a FF veteran ;) 7:50 --- Its true, it wasnt the VAs "fault" that some of their lines feel flat... but you forgot to mention that SE back in the same was close to bankrupt from the failed 1.0. Thats (probably - we dont know) the reason the VAs got no direction and each only one take with minor or no time for preparations.

I would like to point out (if it has not been pointed out) we are basically on an elevator fighting the ultima weapon. it's a fun little joke me and my friends like to make ever time we get the trial in MQS roulette.

Yes

32:00 if anything having only you on the magitek reaper makes most sense doesn't it? It's not like there's multiple Maggy's. But it would be very difficult to design the dungeon to only allow one person to use it..

This is an excellent recap. Just the main msq and the raid stories. I started this game when endwalker came out so it's all still relatively fresh to me. But I'm happy to have watched this all. It will be a great thing to see as we approach dawntrail and refresh my memory on everything. Count me along for the ride! Also I'm really glad you basically skipped over the boring filler stuff before titan and garuda. Cause even slimmed down like it is now it's still a boring slog and cuts the pace of the story so badly.

"Poor voice directing"? I'm pretty sure there wasn't any.

A good video. And a good recap, but I'm worried this is going to be... a long project. A long, long, loooooong project, considering how many hours you get out of just the MSQ. Well, godspeed.

Why would they keep ramuh alive aren’t primals dangerous to the lands because of the constant need of aether which effects other living things?

ydas voice in ARR is the same as tiki from fire emblem and i can atleast say that tiki usually is voiced well enough but i think thats because tiki is a child and it just fits better

I haven't finished heavensward yet. But when i do ill watch beyond this video.

I dont understand when people call post ARR a slog its SOOOO much more interesting than the base game

Hell even i understand this. Veru beginner friendly explanation!

We here

1:17:27 this is basically the monk lb3

You used to be able to mix and match abilities from classes but I'd imagine it was a nightmare to balance when they started developing Heavensward so they abandoned it along with the ability to increase your base stats with accumulated points per level.

FAST FACT! @DynaChris The whole "Sister playing as brother" thing that you complained about with Nael with the Coils Raid series was ENTIRELY due to a general communication breakdown and translation error ALL THE WAY BACK TO 1.0! Nael was always intended to be a girl, and Japan's lack of gendered pronouns made it easy to disguise it, but it was never communicated to the English team, so they did everything assuming Nael was a guy. By the time that Raid series went out, then they realized just how big a hole they had dug, and had to desperately throw something together to make it all make sense.

Didn’t xande make the vorrannte with the cloud for the sole purpose of destroying the world!??

Nice recap. I started playing and been speed running skipping all the boring dialog

ARR is a slog. But honestly it does much needed work setting up things for the later expansions.

Heck yeah!!!

MORE

as someone who just started the story starts incredibly slow

Ah yes, a jrpg mmo with cat girls, mainly an anime kind of race, has a anime like cgi in coils. Lol Jab aside, enjoyed the video lol

Gaius in ARR is popular?

Gaius logic: Wants to rule over all of Eorzia, and will do so by force if he has to. Having a massive army, willing to go over bodies to reach his goal. Lahabrea: Puts a little hole in the ground, to show off some of Ultima's power. Gaius: Oh no this goes too far for me! This was not my intention!

Yes. IT ACTUALLY HAD DUNGEONS.

@ 52:23 A great feedback method for far fewer controlled-waves & much bigger wall-to-wall pulls would be if sweaty players used Party Finder / Discord to PRE-FORM, rather than using blind matchmaking and then complaining about casuals 🙃 It's really simple cause-and-effect. Pulling ahead of the tank or being disagreeable to smaller pulls; getting upset that others aren't playing the way YOU want them to play - it's an indication you're doing Olympic backstrokes in the shallow end of the YMCA pool (which is obnoxious behavior, in case whoever is reading this doesn't pick up on social cues) - this issue is super easy to avoid ever having to deal with & that's by using Party Finder / Discord for their intended purpose: PRE-FORM. Please, please STOP blind-matchmaking queueing if you're just gonna backseat & whine about it on Reddit later: it objectively makes the game worse for both of us, just because you couldn't click a few buttons (and give us both faster queues, btw ✨) The more you know 🌠

Sorry no aphlinaud is young and very Nieves but arrogant not so much it shown during heavenward it shown he very smart why he little arrogant cause this most his actions in rrb and 1st part heavenward comes from be to Idealistic and Nieve to world and how it really works