Tags
ffxiv, final fantasy, final fantasy xiv, main scenario quest, MMO, msq, patch 3.5, patch 4.0, quest, stormblood squee week, story, storyline
SPOILER WARNING: This post will absolutely be talking about plot points from questlines that are recent as of this writing, February 23rd. Ye be warned!
For this entry, I decided to gush over, cross my fingers for, and otherwise wiggle excitedly about the upcoming story for the Main Scenario Quest of the Stormblood expansion. While MMO narratives are pretty throwaway on many occasions, Final Fantasy XIV is one of the few games that has a fun story. Not a particularly deep one, and sometimes a disappointing one, but a fun story nonetheless.
Excluding Minfilia. She’s a mistake.
So at the end of patch 3.5, we take on “Sloppy” Ilberd and his fellows as they raid Baelsar’s Wall in Grand Company garb to incite an Imperial response and begin their cause to free Ala Mhigo. This is, in my opinion, one of the best recent story steps in the MSQ only because it’s brought my beloved Garleans back to the fore, and I desperately hope the theme will continue with Stormblood.
Considering the fact that we’re going to be dealing with Ala Mhigo AND Othard at the same time, I suspect this expansion is going to be chock-full of Garlean goodness. The Garleans interest me as a bad force because, as I’ve mentioned before, they have more interesting motivations and have a pretty solid point regarding eikons and aether. The only problem is how they apply that opinion, which I wished wasn’t quite so heavy-handed.
Still, in spite of that, there’s a sense of honor and absolutely a commitment to duty among the Garleans. Lucia demonstrated as much during the close of Heavensward, and Regula van Hydrus did during the recent Warring Triad quest as well. They’re not stale, two-dimensional villains.
Even though he was only around for a few sidequests, this guy had more depth than every Ascian in the entire game.
So once again, I’m making happy noises about the Garleans, but why should I be? Aren’t the Ascians still a thing? Sure, but the more pressing matters at the end of the last MSQ were solely focused on Baelsar’s Wall. One of the Empire’s major staging points at the fringe of the Black Shroud was attacked. There will be a reckoning, and I can’t wait to see it.
Consider, too, that whatever happens between now and Stormblood has us possibly so incensed that we are taking the fight to not one, but two Imperially-controlled regions! I’m not sure what the hell happened, but it’s got to be big if it means we’re trying to snatch back Ala Mhigo and Othard at once.
Another thing that I’m excited for is to find out what’s inside Ilberd’s Kinder Surprise, AKA Baby Dalamud. Whatever he was summoning operated on pure death, and manifested from the last breaths of several angry corpses. The potential for what we have to deal with there is very exciting.
Nothing good comes from a grin like that.
So just what the hell was Ilberd trying to summon? I think it’s Rhalgr.
Here’s the thing; every dying Ala Mhigan was doing so because they were devout to Ilberd’s cause, but they are also very closely tied to Rhalgr, so likely he was in their last thoughts as well as part of their motivation. Also bear in mind that, at the end of the MSQ, Ilberd said that he was going to summon something worse than Bahamut. As destructive as Bahamut was, I don’t think he’s worse than a literal God of Destruction.
Now whatever the hell it was that Ilberd was summoning, it didn’t fully manifest so I could be way off base here. But I also have to believe that it won’t be long until we find out. After all, Louisoix wasn’t strong enough to completely keep down Bahamut, what makes anyone think that Papalymo is strong enough to stop Rhalgr?
Sorry Papalymo, but I don’t think that seal’s gonna hold…
I don’t think this is all that’s going to be the Stormblood MSQ is. After all, everything that has happened up to this point is because an Ascian gave Ilberd the eyes, so it’s going to come right back around to the It’s an Ascian Plot thing once more. I just desperately hope that we have until at the least MSQ patch 4.1 before we have to put up with that trash again.
So that’s it! That’s my sellf-appointed off-the-cuff miniature self-celebration that was Stormblood Squee Week. I apologize if the topic of these past few blogs was a bit too specialized. I’ll go back to writing about more general things next time.
Thanks for indulging me all the same. ❤
Through Wolfy's Eyes 