7th Astral Era Thoughts

Alright, done with the 7th Astral Era. Same deal, still playing the Lalafel White mage, figured I'd give updated impressions as I go through each... and also deciding if I should stream Heavensward given that people tend to think pretty highly of the story starting from this point onward.

As I understand it, it took about 2 years from the release of ARR to Heavensward, if not more and it's not unlikely that burnout was a factor given the quick turnaround on ARR while also trying to maintain the disaster of 1.0. So it's an interesting scenario to revisit, with or without context many years later. Let's dive in.

The start is admittedly... somewhat weak. You can feel the burnout a bit, as well as them really looking to bring ARR to feature parity with the original game. Apparently King Mog was originally thrown together in the base game to replace Titan's original release when Titan was supposed to come out during an earthquake but that still means that this feels like a filler episode. Still, it sets the idea of moving (which as I understand it was also partly to fix one of the game's more annoying faults, needing to run to the Waking Sands every time). Likewise, Leviathan and Ramuh feel like them trying to flesh out the number of bosses to be a more fully featured Final Fantasy game. Yuguri is *fine* as a character but definitely is there as a teaser to a race that "isn't playable yet". Similarly, Ninja was released on these patches so many of the quests were a nod nod wink wink go try this out.

I'd say the game starts to pick up again in the same way the base game got good - the first dungeon. There's just something about most of these that makes them much more enjoyable than they should be, even some of the ones that didn't age well. Snowcloak itself was unremarkable but it almost doesn't matter because it's just a fun concept to play. I can't say too much about any of the trials - given how far behind they are, usually my FC or a friend would just kinda obliterate them for me but I haven't generally enjoyed trials nearly as much as dungeons anyway... maybe that's not a good sign when big bosses seem to be a majority of the end game content, I just don't think 8 players adds much to the game, nor do most trials feel great to play to me. Hopefully I change my mind there eventually.

I'll talk about Crystal Tower after talking story - I feel it's kinda its own section given it only recently became required content. Story in general is getting better - the voice direction especially is the most improved facet in the game. It's still slightly stilted I feel, although I think part of that is the old English feeling somewhat inconsistent from characters at times and never really feeling all that natural. Still, I'm guessing this is part of the game that benefitted the most from extra time. On further story notes - the Scions still have pretty decent flaws that keep you from getting too attached, with the notable exception imo of Alphinaud still being a really compelling character, Thancred being cool and Tataru's adorableness. Honestly the face reveal for Yda needed to come sooner, the weird mask honestly hurts her characterization, even if the broken mask is an awesome moment.

Minfillia I'm starting to have a problem with. The girl gets kidnapped more often than freaking Daphne and has shown no combat literally whatsoever. Like she's got a great, classic FF design but I wish she'd do *something*. This is now 3 times she's been kidnapped or captured and she hasn't done anything. Heck, I can't even tell you if she's supposed to fight. It's a pretty worrying trend all things considered.

I think it's interesting that they chose Ul'dah as the main city for the plot. Between the uprising/merchant storylines, it seemed like the area most used and also... the one they needed to do the least with to be interesting. The dual leaders thing was a cool addition although I knew Nanamo was dead as soon as she said she was leaving the crown. I *kinda* wish she'd just been in exile or something but that's probably Lalafel bias speaking. It's a great way to involve Raubahn in the story and I'm curious how his son is going to play in future stories. It seems like the story was reset, especially with the Midgardsomr storyline. I'm not sure how to feel on that one. Not that I put a lot of effort into getting the initial crystals but ripping them away is an interesting early choice. That said, the plot is moving in a potentially good direction here.

Crystal Tower's concept is great. I think FF3 is a FF that can use a lot of love and fleshing out through other mediums - it has incredibly generic characters AND final boss meaning that it really doesn't do well in spinoffs. The dungeon itself... I'm much more mixed on. I don't think 24 player raids really work - multiple times it was like just telling people to not do the noob trap stuff or to stand on a box which they didn't do and the full party wiped. Also weirdly, I think it has the opposite problem you'd expect. Every healer goes for Raise or the big revive even when suboptimal and there's no ping or communication that it's already in progress... I'm not really a fan of them in practice.

All in all, ARR is probably a B for FF, 7th Astral Era is probably a B+. It does enough well but feels like it's just enough filler and expansions that were made so that they could make up for lost time on 2.0.