Summary: Ramza and Alma search for their missing father in imperial-held Dalmasca. My first 24-player raid.
Taking a break from the main story as I gear up to explore some of the side raids and dungeons.
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Dramatis Personae
-A reporter, Lina, and someone named Alma want to see me. Alma needs help finding her father.
LINA: “We will await you before the Prima Vista.
DID SOMEONE SPILL FFIX IN MY FFXIV, CAUSE I SURE AF HOPE SO
-The Prima Vista is a theater ship home to the Majestic Imperial Theater Company.
-Emperor Solus was a huge patron of the arts, hence the ship’s name. His grandson… less so. A board of censors stifles artistic creativity.
-The troupe expresses disapproval for the emperor “obliquely, in ostensibly unpolitical works.”
-The woman with the missing father is Alma bas Lexentale. Her father is Jenomis cen Lexentale. Her father wrote the Zodiac Brave Story, a popular Garlean folk tale.
Jenomis snuck subversive messages in that the censor board noticed only after the play was a rousing success. The empire punished the troupe by cutting their funding.
-Cid’s aboard! He’s an old friend of Jenomis.
-Jenomis is an idealist. He wants to change the world through his plays. He “disappeared” shortly after starting a sequel to The Zodiac Brave Story.
-We take an elevator up to a higher level of the ship, a theater.
-OH MY SWEET FUCKING GOD
“…through adventure and hardship, young Delita, a boy of common blood, becomes a hero, culminating in the birth of the mythical kingdom of Ivalice.”
FHDJKLSNKLANVINWIVN
-That’s all he wrote. Alma believes he found evidence of a “second, more unnoticed hero. One whose efforts went largely unnoticed, but without whom Delita would never have risen to the throne.”
RAMZA RAMZA IT’S RAMZA
Alma thinks that person would be the focus of the sequel, “the true Zodiac Brave Story.”
-This is fucking WILD. They’re retelling FFT.
-Apparently, there’s a long story behind how Jenomis came to learn this story.
CID: “One which begins and ends with Jenomis becoming lost in the very legend he sought to lay bare.”
-He believed that the ruins of ancient, mythical Ivalice lay beneath the sands of the Dalmascan Desert.
-Dalmasca prospered in relative isolation for generations, until the Empire came. AND HELLO FFXII.
-Jenomis searched the deserts and found a crystal called auracite, that he believed confirmed his theories. Crystals bequeathed by gods on those who would be kings. Delita rose to prominence through gathering auracite.
Taking a break from the main story as I gear up to explore some of the side raids and dungeons.
---
Dramatis Personae
-A reporter, Lina, and someone named Alma want to see me. Alma needs help finding her father.
LINA: “We will await you before the Prima Vista.
DID SOMEONE SPILL FFIX IN MY FFXIV, CAUSE I SURE AF HOPE SO
-The Prima Vista is a theater ship home to the Majestic Imperial Theater Company.
-Emperor Solus was a huge patron of the arts, hence the ship’s name. His grandson… less so. A board of censors stifles artistic creativity.
-The troupe expresses disapproval for the emperor “obliquely, in ostensibly unpolitical works.”
-The woman with the missing father is Alma bas Lexentale. Her father is Jenomis cen Lexentale. Her father wrote the Zodiac Brave Story, a popular Garlean folk tale.
Jenomis snuck subversive messages in that the censor board noticed only after the play was a rousing success. The empire punished the troupe by cutting their funding.
-Cid’s aboard! He’s an old friend of Jenomis.
-Jenomis is an idealist. He wants to change the world through his plays. He “disappeared” shortly after starting a sequel to The Zodiac Brave Story.
-We take an elevator up to a higher level of the ship, a theater.
-OH MY SWEET FUCKING GOD
“…through adventure and hardship, young Delita, a boy of common blood, becomes a hero, culminating in the birth of the mythical kingdom of Ivalice.”
FHDJKLSNKLANVINWIVN
-That’s all he wrote. Alma believes he found evidence of a “second, more unnoticed hero. One whose efforts went largely unnoticed, but without whom Delita would never have risen to the throne.”
RAMZA RAMZA IT’S RAMZA
Alma thinks that person would be the focus of the sequel, “the true Zodiac Brave Story.”
-This is fucking WILD. They’re retelling FFT.
-Apparently, there’s a long story behind how Jenomis came to learn this story.
CID: “One which begins and ends with Jenomis becoming lost in the very legend he sought to lay bare.”
-He believed that the ruins of ancient, mythical Ivalice lay beneath the sands of the Dalmascan Desert.
-Dalmasca prospered in relative isolation for generations, until the Empire came. AND HELLO FFXII.
-Jenomis searched the deserts and found a crystal called auracite, that he believed confirmed his theories. Crystals bequeathed by gods on those who would be kings. Delita rose to prominence through gathering auracite.
-Jenomis began to act strangely after gathering auracite. Uh oh. I hope her dad doesn’t become FFXII-Cid 2..
ALMA: “It was as if he was talking to my mother – my mother who passed several winters gone.” Yup. He was going full FFXII Cid.
-Someone new joins our discussion. I don’t know exactly who it is… but he sure af looks like Ramza. He’s young, got the blond ponytail, everything.
CID: “So good of you to join us, Ramza.” FDHJKLFDHSJKLFDSL I CAN’T HELP KEYBOARD SMASHING THIS IS SO COOOOOL
-FFXIV!Ramza is Alma’s brother. A prideful fellow, disgusted that Alma is bringing non-Garleans to help.
Ramza and Alma.
RAMZA: “After what happened in Rabanastre, it may be time to admit we’re out of our depth.”
-Of COURSE there’s a Rabanastre in this. Of course. The ruined capital city of Dalmasca. Ramza thinks his father is in Rabanastre.
---
A City Fallen
-The Prima Vista departs for Rabanastre.
-lolol they’re recreating some of the dynamics from FFT right here. Ramza’s ready to charge into the city, and thinks it’s too dangerous for Alma to join.
-We arrive in the desert at “The Royal City of Rabanastre.” It’s gorgeous.
LINA: “Your father believed that Rabanastre sits atop the Royal City of Lesalia, capital of Ivalice.”
I CAN’T STOP SQUEEEEEEEING
-The camera shifts to someone crossing his clawlike arms.
???: “You see? It is as I said, Brother. Let them come to us.” There are maybe 3-5 of these guys, it’s hard to say. Lizard-types.
If this were an FFIX reference, I’d have assumed they were the Benero/Genero brothers, but not sure who in Ivalice they could be.
---
The Royal City of Rabanastre
-The raid bosses won’t be unspoiled for me. I’ll be one of 24 players in the group, all of whom are expected to know the mechanics going in, so I do research first.
Boss #1: Mateus the Corrupt: The coolest (hee, sorry) mechanic here is how they utilize the ice goddess that Mateus captured.
He throws out a spiral of ice. The skates from the center of the spiral around to the outside, interacting with stuff along the way. Like, if she hits a water spout or orb
-There are two awesome bits of mid-fight trash I want to bring up because they’re such neat Ivalice callbacks:
1) Mimics. A bunch of chests spawn that get bitey.
2) Red Chocobos. FUCK THESE GUYS.
They were brutal in Tactics, and their XIV incarnations drop meteors on the raid.
ALMA: “It was as if he was talking to my mother – my mother who passed several winters gone.” Yup. He was going full FFXII Cid.
-Someone new joins our discussion. I don’t know exactly who it is… but he sure af looks like Ramza. He’s young, got the blond ponytail, everything.
CID: “So good of you to join us, Ramza.” FDHJKLFDHSJKLFDSL I CAN’T HELP KEYBOARD SMASHING THIS IS SO COOOOOL
-FFXIV!Ramza is Alma’s brother. A prideful fellow, disgusted that Alma is bringing non-Garleans to help.
Ramza and Alma.
RAMZA: “After what happened in Rabanastre, it may be time to admit we’re out of our depth.”
-Of COURSE there’s a Rabanastre in this. Of course. The ruined capital city of Dalmasca. Ramza thinks his father is in Rabanastre.
---
A City Fallen
-The Prima Vista departs for Rabanastre.
-lolol they’re recreating some of the dynamics from FFT right here. Ramza’s ready to charge into the city, and thinks it’s too dangerous for Alma to join.
-We arrive in the desert at “The Royal City of Rabanastre.” It’s gorgeous.
LINA: “Your father believed that Rabanastre sits atop the Royal City of Lesalia, capital of Ivalice.”
I CAN’T STOP SQUEEEEEEEING
-The camera shifts to someone crossing his clawlike arms.
???: “You see? It is as I said, Brother. Let them come to us.” There are maybe 3-5 of these guys, it’s hard to say. Lizard-types.
If this were an FFIX reference, I’d have assumed they were the Benero/Genero brothers, but not sure who in Ivalice they could be.
---
The Royal City of Rabanastre
-The raid bosses won’t be unspoiled for me. I’ll be one of 24 players in the group, all of whom are expected to know the mechanics going in, so I do research first.
Boss #1: Mateus the Corrupt: The coolest (hee, sorry) mechanic here is how they utilize the ice goddess that Mateus captured.
He throws out a spiral of ice. The skates from the center of the spiral around to the outside, interacting with stuff along the way. Like, if she hits a water spout or orb
-There are two awesome bits of mid-fight trash I want to bring up because they’re such neat Ivalice callbacks:
1) Mimics. A bunch of chests spawn that get bitey.
2) Red Chocobos. FUCK THESE GUYS.
They were brutal in Tactics, and their XIV incarnations drop meteors on the raid.
-Oh, and seeq and bangaa adds appear too as trash enemies.
Boss #2: Hashmal, Bringer of Order: He hits hard. I died a couple of times to his frontal cleave before catching on.
He also had a fun pillar mechanic going on. He’d summon a couple, shake the ground to damage them, and make them fall. You had to watch which way they were falling lest you get crushed.
-The raid is called “Rabanastre,” but much as Ivalice is a place with history and timelines, Rabanastre was built on top of Lesalia. We drop down a waterfall into a huge cavern with beautiful ruins.
The second half of this raid takes place there, in the Royal City of Lesalia.
Boss #3: Rofocale: This is the only boss whose reference I didn’t understand. I looked it up and apparently he’s tied to some a Saggitarius Lucavi.
Which, as my friend Almaeron mentioned, makes sense. He’s a chariot/archer boss. Two big things to watch out for are a figure-8 charge around the room, and an attack where he summons clones to dash across the room.
Boss #4: Argath Of COURSE this asshole is the final boss. He grasps an auracite crystal which transforms him into a Lucavi, a giant, sinewy demon.
He implies that those intruding on his domain are “descendants of House Beoulve.” Ramza and Alma go by Garlean names, but presumably they at least descended from Beoulves.
This has one of my favorite raid mechanics yet. An angel or demon face flashes across the screen, and then a voice tells me to do something. Run around or look at the boss or something like that. If the angel face flashed, I have to obey the voice. If the demon voice flashed, I have to do the opposite.
Dodge ALL the things!
-Another nice touch from FFT is how one of his more powerful abilities is Judgment Blade, a nice callback to a SUPER OP ability from Tactics.
-After the fight, we fight Jenomis.
-Lolol some bangaa swoop in and take the dad hostage. HI TEAM BA’GAMNAN!
-We have to trade our auracite to Ba’gamnan in exchange for Ramza’s auracite. Ba’gamnan also steals a book from Jenomis’ person. That must be the play sequel.
-They fly off. See ya, bangaa friends.
-Back aboard the Prima Vista, Jenomis is weary but okay.
---
Next time: continuing to explore the legend of Ivalice.
Boss #2: Hashmal, Bringer of Order: He hits hard. I died a couple of times to his frontal cleave before catching on.
He also had a fun pillar mechanic going on. He’d summon a couple, shake the ground to damage them, and make them fall. You had to watch which way they were falling lest you get crushed.
-The raid is called “Rabanastre,” but much as Ivalice is a place with history and timelines, Rabanastre was built on top of Lesalia. We drop down a waterfall into a huge cavern with beautiful ruins.
The second half of this raid takes place there, in the Royal City of Lesalia.
Boss #3: Rofocale: This is the only boss whose reference I didn’t understand. I looked it up and apparently he’s tied to some a Saggitarius Lucavi.
Which, as my friend Almaeron mentioned, makes sense. He’s a chariot/archer boss. Two big things to watch out for are a figure-8 charge around the room, and an attack where he summons clones to dash across the room.
Boss #4: Argath Of COURSE this asshole is the final boss. He grasps an auracite crystal which transforms him into a Lucavi, a giant, sinewy demon.
He implies that those intruding on his domain are “descendants of House Beoulve.” Ramza and Alma go by Garlean names, but presumably they at least descended from Beoulves.
This has one of my favorite raid mechanics yet. An angel or demon face flashes across the screen, and then a voice tells me to do something. Run around or look at the boss or something like that. If the angel face flashed, I have to obey the voice. If the demon voice flashed, I have to do the opposite.
Dodge ALL the things!
-Another nice touch from FFT is how one of his more powerful abilities is Judgment Blade, a nice callback to a SUPER OP ability from Tactics.
-After the fight, we fight Jenomis.
-Lolol some bangaa swoop in and take the dad hostage. HI TEAM BA’GAMNAN!
-We have to trade our auracite to Ba’gamnan in exchange for Ramza’s auracite. Ba’gamnan also steals a book from Jenomis’ person. That must be the play sequel.
-They fly off. See ya, bangaa friends.
-Back aboard the Prima Vista, Jenomis is weary but okay.
---
Next time: continuing to explore the legend of Ivalice.
