Apt And Timely Metaphors In Final Fantasy 14’s Endwalker

I’ve been slowly progressing the Main Scenario Questline once again in Final Fantasy 14. A little bit at a time. A few quests here or there, a dungeon, a trial, a little bit of support work, and so on. Slowly but surely, I’ve been getting closer and closer to the final parts of Endwalker–little threads that need wrapping up as whatever is next gets slowly referenced and eventually (I’m assuming) revealed. It’s been nice to move at a moderate pace, to make steady progress as I continue splitting my attention between a few different activities or goals, and it has given me plenty of time to chew on what’s been happening. I’m going to avoid details because I’m getting pretty deep into spoiler territory for the events that have been unfolding for the past four major updates to the Endwalkers expansion, but I’ve been having a lot of conversations with one of my Final Fantasy 14 friends about the story that have also given me plenty to think about. For instance, while I instantly agreed and had thought about it much the same way, I didn’t think of the conclusion of Endwalker as “fighting depression itself” until she put it that way. This particular vein of thought prompted me to take a step back from my “what does it mean to be a hero” line of thinking and consider other elements of the story that I hadn’t focused on up to that point. All of which feels a bit silly to admit considering that one of my favorite jokes about the Final Fantasy franchise is that the conclusion to most of the games can be boiled down to some form of “attack and dethrone god.” Which is kind of what happened in Endwalker, if you get just a tiny bit more metaphorical with it.

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Planning For My Future In Final Fantasy 14

Now that is has been six days since I finished the base portion of the Endwalker expansion of Final Fantasy 14, I’ve finally hit the point where I can really start to think about what I’m going to doing next (as opposed to just sorta thinking about it). I’ve had a lot of this stuff on my mental to-do lists for a while, but I’ve been putting a lot of it off in favor of progressing the main story or doing the work required to continue progressing the main story. Now that I’m hitting a slow-down point and won’t be racing to get as much done as I possibly can, it’s time to turn my attention back to that stuff. Most of it is stuff I’ve been working on slowly, as a part of daily and weekly activities, but it hasn’t really gotten any focused attention from me in a couple months and now it’s time to shift my attention and reasses priorities. All of which is to say that my equipment inventory has way too much stuff in it and I need to get that thing cleared out by leveling up a bunch of classes. Also, I really need to put a bit more focus and effort into my gathering and carfting skills since I’ve hit the point where I can’t repair my own gear anymore and that’s no good. Gotta be mostly self-sufficient so I don’t need to rely on barely-fixed gear or finding a random person whose crafting skills are high enough to fix my stuff (it was a whole thing in my latest raid night with the FC). Lots of stuff that I meant to maintain as I played has fallen by the wayside as the demands of my life and the main story of FF14 have fluctuated and it is time to get everything humming along again.

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I Cleared Endwalker In Final Fantasy 14

I took me 173 days and approximately 1100 hours of gaming, but I did it. I cleared the initial expansion that brought an end to nearly a decade of Final Fantasy 14’s storytelling. I fought a lot of big bosses, dealt with a lot of poeple who seemed unreasonable at first, and cried my eyes out, all but literally. I cried on and off (mostly on) for about four hours as I wrapped up the expansion. I’m still occasionally getting misty about it as I reflect on how it all wrapped up and I finished it five days ago (as of writing this, nine as of it getting posted). I do not think I’ve ever experience ANY kind of story that has gripped me like this one has. I have never been so moved, either. Even five days later, I am still struggling with the “story hangover” feeling of wrapping up the story that has spanned so many hours of my life and expansions of FF14 and normally that feeling fades after a decent night’s sleep! I’ve never had one that lasted more than twenty-four hours and I’ve already passed one hundred on this one, with no sign of it abating any time soon. Truly, the cathartic experience of this has left me hollowed out and in a new state of mind from which I might never recover/be shifted. Which isn’t a bad thing. I don’t have a problem being changed by a story about hope and perseverence and friendship and heroism. All those are in incredibly short supply these days, in my life in particular (save perseverence), and most media depictions even approaching anything like them is filed down for mass market appeal in the form of modern superhero and action flicks.

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