2443: Soul Surrender

Final Fantasy XIV patch day has come and gone, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts. I’m going to mostly talk about the Main Scenario quests in this post, so I’ll put in a Read More link for those browsing the front page who don’t want to accidentally see spoilers.

MAIN STORY SPOILERS AHEAD!

In numerous ways, I think Soul Surrender is the best content patch Final Fantasy XIV has had to date. Not only does it add numerous new gameplay systems — Wondrous Tails and Adventurer Squadrons mix up the action a bit, even if the latter is fairly bare-bones at the moment — but it has, I think, one of the best sets of Main Scenario quests the game has seen for a long time.

Soul Surrender unfolds after the events of Heavensward and its first three content patches came to an end, which is to say that the Dragonsong War is over, and the former Holy See of Ishgard has undergone a revolution and become a republic, with longtime Warrior of Light buddy Ser Aymeric in charge of keeping order. All has seemed peaceful for a while now that the Ishgardians and the dragons have successfully laid down their arms and starting the long healing process from their centuries-long conflict.

Right on cue, then, unrest stirs elsewhere in Eorzea, as rumours once again surface of the Warrior of Darkness and his companions. Their motivations aren’t immediately apparent, but the end result of the chaos that they sow is that the realm’s various beast tribes have been thrown into despair, leading them to once again, out of desperation, attempt to summon their Primal gods.

The Warrior of Light initially thwarts their scheme in the Ixali homeland of Xelphatol, just as the Ixal head honcho is in the process of finalising the process of re-summoning windy madam Garuda for the fifth(?) time since Final Fantasy XIV version 1.0. The battle at the end of Xelphatol is pretty spectacular and chaotic, with the boss actually using Summon Garuda as a move several times throughout the fight, forcing you to deal with some of Garuda’s distinctive mechanics and area of effect attacks while simultaneously pummeling another boss altogether.

Following this, rumours abound that something similarly suspicious is going on with the kobolds near O’Ghomoro in Upper La Noscea on the isle of Vylbrand. The Warrior of Light and the Scions go to investigate only to discover a Maelstrom camp mildly inflicted with chaos by the apparent presence of a kobold intruder. The Warrior of Light eventually chases this interloper down, and it turns out to be a child kobold that recognises his elders are preparing to summon Titan once again, and that this is a very bad idea indeed, particularly as numerous adult kobolds — including his parents — have been taken away, never to be seen again. The Warrior of Light and the Scions conjecture that these missing kobolds may have been killed and their remains used for ritualistic purposes in summoning Titan, but resolve to investigate rather than jumping to any conclusions.

The Warrior of Light arrives, with the young kobold in tow, at The Navel, deep within O’Ghomoro. The ritual for summoning Titan is reaching its final stages, but has not yet been completed, but things are thrown into chaos when the young kobold spies the bodies of his parents lying motionless next to the head of his tribe and his henchmen, apparently having been used as the latest sacrifices to appease the Lord of Crags. The young kobold, completely grief-stricken and filled with absolute despair at the loss of his only family, screams out in pain, and the sound of his anguish awakens Titan once more.

In gameplay terms, this then provided an opportunity for the game to reuse the Titan Hard Mode level 50 fight, but a severe emotional gutpunch is delivered during the battle when you see that Titan’s lines — usually of the “Bow down, overdweller!” variety — have all been changed to the young kobold’s various screams of anguish, with Titan’s ultimate ability coinciding with the kobold screeching “WAKE UP!!!”, at a complete loss as to how he can possibly handle the devastation his life has just suffered.

The young kobold is left in the care of the Maelstrom soldiers, who promise to take care of him rather than put him to the sword, as is usually the approach taken to those “lost” to the Primals’ influence. At the last moment, the young kobold regains his voice, still full of pain and grief, but starting to show that his tribe’s god doesn’t quite have a hold of him just yet.

In the meantime, the Warrior of Light and the Scions are called away to Little Ala Mhigo in South Thanalan, where they hear rumours of further unrest — specifically, a suspiciously large shipment of crystals which makes the group think that another Primal summoning is imminent. Indeed, when they encounter a mysterious figure known as “The Griffin”, who appears to have become a prominent individual among the Ala Mhigan refugees, and who promises that his countrymen have a “great power” hidden within them, it seems all but certain that something is amiss.

However, the Warrior of Light and the Scions uncover the truth in short order: the shipment of crystals was not for the Ala Mhigans to attempt to summon a Primal in an ill-advised attempt to retake their homeland from the Garlean Empire. Instead, it was used as a trade with the local Amal’jaa, who apparently wanted to use it to summon their Primal Ifrit once again.

Upon arriving at the Bowl of Embers, hoping to stop the summoning ritual, The Warrior of Light and her companions discover that the Amal’jaa have, in fact, been decimated ahead of their arrival, and waiting for them in the Bowl of Embers is not the fiery Primal Ifrit, but the Warrior of Darkness and his party of companions.

A grand battle ensues, with both sides competing to channel their aether into one of their number who can best handle it, and eventually strike the other down. The Warrior of Darkness and his companions fight for their very lives, for they believe they are fighting to save their world — a parallel world to Hydaelyn, and one which runs the risk of being consumed not by Darkness, but by a surfeit of Light. They seek to redress the balance between the worlds, all of which are shards of what was once a greater reality, and they even gave up their corporeal lives and very souls in order to be able to travel between the worlds by means of crystals, much as the Ascians do.

Utterly defeated by the Warrior of Light, however, both sides of the conflict are drawn into the mysterious space between worlds where Hydaelyn has previously addressed the Warrior of Light alone through the Echo. Minfilia, revealed a while back to have transcended her mortal existence and become the Voice of the Mother, speaking for Hydaelyn herself, agrees to journey back to the Warrior of Darkness’ ruined world and take into herself the excess of light in an attempt to stave off the cataclysm that threatens to turn it into the antithesis of the Void, itself another of these parallel worlds that was previously consumed by Darkness.

We’re left with a number of questions. Chief among them is the matter of what The Griffin is really up to. It transpires that The Griffin the Warrior of Light and her companions met was merely a figurehead; the real Griffin is much more hesitant to show his face, but clearly has plans to retake Ala Mhigo, perhaps with the assistance of the Ascians, who never do anything for free.

And then in the final scene we see Nero tol Scaeva, last seen after our adventures in the Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness, stumbling across some ominous-looking Allagan ruins. He claims to have finally found something. But what? The smart money is on Omega Weapon, which could well spell disaster for all of Eorzea and beyond if true. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next in the final content patch for Heavensward in three months’ time, at which point we should have some information about what we can expect from the new expansion.

Exciting times for the Realm, indeed. And this is just the main story! I’m pretty certain that for me, this has been one of the best “episodes” of the game to date, and I can’t wait to see how it continues.

I haven’t even touched the grand finale of Alexander, yet, and I still have plenty of other adventures to catch up on, too. There’ll be plenty of time for those tomorrow, though… for now, probably time for bed for this particular Warrior of Light!