The Coeurl and the Colossus
-Back in camp, Mide caught sight of… the cat, Shanoa?
-The cat has some part to play here, and I have no idea what that will be. Maybe it’s a symbol of random shit, or maybe it’s Alexander’s spirit, or something else entirely.
-Next part of the raid is “Eyes of the Creator.” Cid deactivates the barrier surrounding Aleaxnder, freeing our way to get to its head.
-The boss, Refurbisher, is a demonic looking thing.
-The fight is coordination-heavy. It keeps spawning robot adds, and if we don’t kill the adds with the right timing and in the right part of the boss room, it will use them for scrap to power itself up.
-Once we take it out, we retrap the colossus, leaving only its head exposed from the barrier.
-Mide relates something from her younger days. A stranger once appeared before her, offering him anything she wished for if she heeded his words.
“Reunite the scattered shards of the Enigma Codex, and perform the sacred rite before the ruins that stand strong against the river’s flow. Then, and only then, shall your hopes and dreams become reality.”
-He gave her a horn as catalyst for the summoning. “A gift from your friend Travanchet.”
It feels like the game is expecting me to go, “HOLY SHIT, TRAVANCHET??” But I don’t recognize him.
-Y’shtola knows him from before the Calamity. He was an Ascian. Ah, before the Calamity – he must’ve been a character from FFXIV before “A Realm Reborn.”
-Now, Alexander’s third core is using the horn to draw aether. We’ll have to get in and dismantle the core primarily.
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Biggs and Wedge’s Excellent Adventure
-The next wing is “Breath of the Creator,” perhaps because we’re in Alexander’s lungs. Idk. The naming conventions of this boss confuse me. Gordias, Midas, and now Creator. I get that they’re all related to ancient Greek things, but still.
-I really love the atmosphere of these fights, that steampunk feel. This boss makes us navigate a conveyor belt of buzzsaws and death.
-Roundrox is trapped beyond, with the active Enigma Codex.
-This is the final engine core that allows the Illuminati to repair Alexander through time travel.
-Awww! Roundrox wants to use her access to the Engima Codex to try to bring Mide’s love back to her. No way this will backfire.
-It sends us back to the past, when Mide and her love/cult leader first summoned Alexander.
-Future!Mide is the person who helps it go well this time and saves him. Frigging time loops.
-Now someone has taken control of this Past!Aelxander. The Illuminati are here with us. The summoning starts to go awry, and Dayan gets sucked into Alexander, just like really happened.
QUICKTHINX: “Time is a flat roundshape.” All of Mide’s efforts to change the past have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her efforts to save Dayan are the exact thing that led to Dayan being trapped.
Again: frigging time loops.
-Back into Alexander, where we reached the last core. The next boss is another cool construct, Cruise Chaser. It basically turns into a jet halfway through the fight.
We have to hope aboard its jet form to avoid death when it blasts the platform to smithereens.
-lol wtf is up with this cat. It knocked a book out of Quickthinx’s hands. The “watcherbook of Backrix.” Our goblin ally’s journal that fell from his hands when we slipped back in time.
“So that’s how he was able to anticipate our every move! He’s no prophet – just a gobbie with delusions of grandeur and a diary from the future.” QUICKTHINX IS BIFF FROM “BACK TO THE FUTURE 2!”
-Why is the cat turning against Quickthinx and for us?
-Time for us to stop Quickthinx. Now that he lost the journal, we have an opening.
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Judgment Day
-Final raid wing, “Soul of the Creator.”
-Time freezes inside Alexander, and an avatar of the primal itself appears. It can stop time for those other than itself. Alexander looks SO COOL!
-He uses that time-stop mechanic during the fight itself, turning everything sepia when he does so.
-Visually, the fight is as glorious as you’d want. He sprouts those bright Alexander angel wings in the second half, and even summons a titanic version of himself to blast us.
WHAT A GREAT FIGHT!
-Woohoo, Mide jumps in to help against Quickthinx! She literally sneaks up behind him and has him at point blank range. She’s pretty great. I’ve said it before, but her design is just glorious.
AND SHE FUCKING PULLS THE TRIGGER, EXECUTION STYLE, JESUS. At least this gives us the space to take back control of the Enigma Codex.
-…Quickthinx isn’t dead. He gets up, moving in a stilted, robotic fashion, despite the headshot. He channels into the Engima Codex.
-He’s basically a cyborg at this point. Starts to hijack the enigma codex, reverse time again to repair things.
”O, Alexander! Lord of steel and whirlycogs! Outspread wings of time, let ignorant and unworthy feel divine judgment!”
“ACCESS DENIED.” ALEXANDER’S REFUSING HIS COMMAND! Is this the cult leader boyfriend’s will asserting itself to protect aura girl?
-Yes. Dayan’s spirit. The ghost in the machine.
-The machine is going out of control.
MIDE: “Finally, I see. This is why you summoned me to this place – isn’t it, my love?”
DAGNABIT , she’s doing a self-sacrifice thing to stop the machine before it rips out of stasis and sucks the world’s aether dry. She jumps into its core.
-Her disembodied voice: “Friends leave this place. Alexander will trouble you no more.”
-She’s together with Dayan now, in the heart of Alexander’s spirit/dream/mind.
-And what a dream it is! From in here, Dayan has seen a multitude of possibilities and worlds. One where Alexander saved Eorzea from the Calamity. One where the Illuminati rule with an iron fist.
“Alexander dreamed all the realities imaginable – all the realities mathematically computable – and in the end, reached a single, logical conclusion. It would change nothing, and erase itself from existence.”
-The aether it would take to bring about whatever counts as paradise would ultimately destroy more than it helped. So it concluded it must erase itself.
[Later edit: Maybe that’s what us defeating Alexander Prime did. Showed it that we can care for our world. Or something. Idk.]
-OH MY GOD THAT’S WHAT THE CAT WAS! To preserve time in as unintrusive a way as possible, Alexander sent forth the cat as a small piece of itself to tip things in the right direction.
-They’ll watch over the horn that started all this, sealing its power away in a looping time pocket forever.
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Of Endings and Beginnings
-Roundrox, still just a child, has grown from this. The innocence belief that allowed her to access the Enigma Codex is gone. It’s closed off to her, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just growth.
-We see Backrix reading an old fairy tale, a legend about two ancients, Mide and Dayan. This means they may be reborn in the past, freed from their fate one day.
Good. I wouldn’t wish eternity on anyone, even in the best of circumstances.
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So that’s the Alexander raid! The story was not my favorite. It was fine, but time travel stuff confuses me. I found myself mostly trying to work out the mechanics even as the show was explicitly telling me what was happening rather than being able to enjoy it immersively.
Nothing wrong with it! Just not quite my cup of tea.
On the other hand, the mechanics and the raid environments were TOP NOTCH. The whole thing had a steampunk atmosphere, and the music fit it perfectly.
My only mechanical complaint is that I could’ve done with more boss diversity. Pretty much either goblins or similarly-styled mechs.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-Notable names:
Scary Spider
Snapcaster Mage (a phenomenal MTG card)
Seitzer Gabiani
Skwishiskwishi Inkman
Moose Mayhem (this is one of my favorites)
Cucumber Zucchini
Saint Catface (another personal favorite)
Cheese Cake
Bard Bro
Anime Thighs
-A car from an FFXV event that players won as a mount.
I accidentally deleted my screenshot. Found this on the XIV website.
They could also get the “Kingsglaive” title. I didn’t participate in the questline to stay unspoiled, so I don’t know beyond those rewards.
The brilliant “Abroader Otter” mount:
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Next time: starting the Shadowbringers expansion.
