---
Episode Ardyn – Start
-There are so many possibilities for what this DLC could be! My top guesses are a prequel or something that shows Ardyn behind the scenes at different points in the XV story, watching and manipulating.
-The title screen is AWESOME! A split screen of purple/corrupted Ardyn and pre-darkness Ardyn. Certainly hints at a “birth of Ardyn” prequel story.
-The title screen music features a beautiful operatic voice.
-We start when Ardyn sat before the game’s end. A voiceover introduces him. It’s a woman’s voice. The same voice we heard in Episode Ignis?
-Ardyn was to have served as the first king of Lucis.
-Team Noctis enters the throne room… then things rewind. EEE I’M SO EXCITED FOR THIS!
-ME 734. A soldier listens to a radio broadcast in a car about a missing officer named Mars Sapientia.
-Ah, this guy is the officer. And his reflection in the mirror reveals that he’s really Ardyn.
Currently assuming that Ardyn killed the guy and took his place.
-The car drops off Ardyn in Lucis. Founders’ Day is near.
“Home sweet home, at last.”
---
Return of the Savior
-The founder king is Somnus Lucis Caelum.
-Ardyn walks among the festivities, scoffing at the citizens’ ignorance to the misery outside the city. “Why venture out into the world when you feel so safe within?”
I wonder if this is jealousy at the city his brother created or disgust, or just trying to figure out their weak points.
-He dramatically raises his fist: “Now. Let the fireworks BEGIN!”
…nothing happens LOLOL
-Oh, never mind. There t goes. Ifrit starts marching through the street, roasting citizens in his path.
That moment HAS to have been influenced by that scene in The Dark Knight when the Joker tried blowing up the building, got mildly annoyed at nothing happening, only for the delayed explosion.
-Title screen! The Tale of the Fallen King, Prisoner of Fate.
-Chapter 1: Darkness Awakens.
---
-Flashback to a field of golden wheat. A woman named Aera is talking to him.
-Aera Mirus Fleuret. Luna’s ancestor. She and Ardyn are clearly lovers.
-Ardyn was blessed with the power… to cure? “I must see [the gods’] will be done.”
THIS IS SURREAL AF. It’s so over the top innocent in contrast, like seeing Angel as Liam in the Buffy/Angel shows.
-Flash forward to Angelgard, ME 721. Ardyn strung up in prison.
He must’ve been there a looooong time. ME 721.
-JESUS, HE’S GOT CHAINS RIPPING RIGHT THROUGH HIM
-Verstael Besithia is here, the scientist from Episode Prompto. The Empire takes him away. He can barely walk.
-The imperial guard walking him away is ambushed by royal guards, of Lucis, presumably.
“Adagium sighted!” Ardyn is an adagium?
-They attack, “killing” the already low HP Ardyn. This gives him Overkill mode.
---
Free At Last
-THIS BATTLE MUSIC IS AMAAAAAAZING
-He can summon royal arms. Makes sense, given that he’s (sort of) of the Lucian line.
-He’s also got a super phase ability that lets me teleport around the battlefield.
-I CAN’T GET OVER HOW BADASS THIS IS, HE HAS A FINISHER ABILITY THAT LETS HIM “DAEMONIFY” AN ENEMY
It harvests their life force. Shows Ardyn their memories as it rejuvenates him.
-Ardyn looks shocked by what he just did. Like, the outcome was unexpected. Is this a new power?
“I didn’t purge him of the scourge; I bestowed it upon him.”
-Verstael saw that from a distance and is overjoyed. I’m not sure what Ardyn thinks.
-Flashback again. Somnus approaches Aera with a sword drawn. “Forgive me, brother. But the throne seats only one!” Aera screams, and Somnus slices her down.
This has got to be some unreliable narrator shit. There’s NO WAY Somnus was this flagrantly evil!
-Ardyn cradles her, screams in pain, and wakes from this nightmare. ME 722 in the magitek facility.
-I wonder where he got the name Izunia.
---
Awakening
-I retake control of Ardyn.
-The art for his character menus is (like most things in this DLC so far) flipping amazing. It has this oil painting quality that I really dig.
-He’ll get a DESCENSION option! Currently grayed out, but still.
-Oh, and nbd but his weapons are listed as “Daemon Arts.”
-The coins show yen instead of gil. An imperial thing or just a translation thing for this DLC? [Non-rhetorical question: do the Japanese versions of FF have their own words for gil (like, giru or something katakana-ish) or do they just call it yen?]
-I’ll watch this datalog more closely than I did that in XV’s main game. It’s more limited and thus less daunting. Plus, this is likely my last XV experience for a while. I want to savor it.
-The other current datalog is for Ardyn’s sword, the Rakshasa Blade. I heard the term “Rakshasa” once before, when I played the game “The Secret World.” It was a demon enemy in hell.
-It’s half of a paired set, twins with Somnus’ Blade of the Mystic.
-There was a time when the plague died out, but a mutant strain of plasmodia resurfaced. Verstael hypothesizes that something about the rise of magiteknology reactivated it.
-Ooh, he also gives a name to the plague: Starscourge. I like that better than just “the darkness.”
-Verstael read in ancient texts that “Adagium,” an inhuman entity born of the darkness, has been trapped in Angelgard by Lucis. He wants to use Ardyn to enhance their military.
-Ardyn sits with Verstael for a meal… and does probably the most shocking thing ever.
He clasps his hands and says grace. “Gods above, we thank you for the bounty you have laid before us…”
I know from what we just saw that he was devout. I’m stunned that even now, after getting out of Angelgard, he STILL is devout.
-At this point, Ardyn has been in the Imperials’ company for seven months. He was locked in Angelgard for 2,000 years.
-Time to explore the research facility. This is the place we fought through in Episode Prompto.
-Verstael is trying hard to bait Ardyn into hating Lucis, joining the Empire to fight against the descendants of those who wronged him. And Ardyn’s… reluctant. Doesn’t want to take the bait.
-Ultraviolet rays harm Ardyn, just like they would other daemons. It’s just that his body regenerates almost as quickly as the damage is done.
LOL THIS MUST BE WHY HE WEARS A HAT
-Verstael went to the Rock of Ravatogh to retrieve the body of Ifrit. Disaster on the horizon.
-I get to learn a bit more about the Solheim civilization, that first place that got too haughty for Ifrit’s liking. Ifrit lost the War of the Astrals and was buried in the Rock of Ravatogh.
I wonder then how he was able to get up and walk again, as we saw in the intro. Maybe there are stages of death, like how Shiva died and could still act.
-Regis’ father was King Mors Lucis Caelum.
-It’s interesting that House Fleuret was so close to the line of Lucis, if indeed there was any truth in Ardyn’s nightmare and Somnus did kill Aera (which I’m VERY skeptical of).
-Interesting! House Aldercapt founded the Empire as a spiritual successor to Solheim. I wonder if that posed any problems in Ardyn’s seduction of Ifrit.
-The lab’s Cosmogony painting answers many questions. For instance, the woman at the top, the goddess of light, is meant to be the Oracle. The person in the middle is the Chosen King.
-Ifrit is absent from the painting because he was seen as a traitor.
---
Next time: Continuing with Verstael around the facility. But first, I’ll watch that anime prologue. Sounds like it fills in gaps the DLC expects me to know going in.
