Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward was one of the games that was on my New Year’s Resolutions list for the year. While I haven’t quite hit the start of the next expansion, Stormblood, yet – I have rolled credits on the main expansion, and am partway through the patch content between expansions (including having done one of the new Raid series – Alexander). So, I’m at a pretty good spot to give my thoughts on the expansion itself.

Heavensward generally has a good story, but it runs into some real issues with trying to play two main themes that don’t quite line up. The one that’s the strongest is the core storyline of the new expansion you’re spending this expansion in – Ishgard. Here the Warrior of Light, Alphinaud, and Tataru (more on that group of characters in a bit), have traveled to the kingdom of Isgard, where they find themselves caught up in two major issues.

The first is a three-way conflict between three factions within the kingdom. The first is the kingdom’s isolationist theocratic government and the nobles who support it. The second is the reformist faction who wants to open the kingdom up to the rest of Eorzia and ally against the still menacing Garlean Empire. Last, but not least (neither in number or in the merits of their complaints) is the common population, who are tired of being exploited by the first two (though exploited slightly less by the second group).

The second conflict is that the kingdom has been, ever since its founding, at war with the various dragons who live around the kingdom. This conflict is also connected to a fundamental lie about the nation of Ishgard’s founding that the Theocratic faction has been using to prop up their government and keep them in a state of endless war. Additionally, this lie is related to a legitimate grievance that the dragons have against the Ishgardians (who came as colonizers), but which one faction of the dragons has allowed to fester and grow toxic, while the other has managed to resist. However, due to a lack of knowledge of the political divisions within Ishgardian society, they’ve been willing to allow the first faction to drive what actions the Dragons take against Ishgard, because, near as they can tell, Ishgardians are a monolithic block.

So, it’s up to the Warrior of Light, Alphinaud, and Tataru to uncover the lie, forge an alliance between the second and third factions in Ishgard, break the first faction’s control of power, and begin the process of reconciliation between the new Ishgardian government and the Moderate faction of Dragons. Oh, and break the political power that the genocidal reactionary factions of both the Dragons and the Ishgardians have over either side.

This plot is fine. It’s executed well, the new characters are interesting, the inevitable deaths of (some) of those characters are appropriately tragic, the motivations are generally well executed. It’s a good, classic, mostly self-contained fantasy story. No notes here.

The place where the story runs into problems is where it runs into why the Warrior of Light, Alphinaud, and Tataru are in Ishgard, and why (for most of the expansion), Y’shtola, Minfilia, Thancred, Alisaie, Yda/Lyse Hext, Urianger, and Papalymo aren’t. And that’s because at the end of the patch content for A Realm Reborn, the Scions are framed for regicide by one of the leaders of the mercantile faction in the desert nation of Ul’Dah, aided by the commander of the paramilitary organization that Alphinaud started (in an effort to have someone other than the Scions who can fight the various geopolitical fires that come up on Eoriza). This leaves the Scions, at the start of the expansion, having had to flee to Ishgard (the Warrior of Light, Alphinaud, Tataru), missing and presumed deceased (Y’shtola, Minfilia, Thancred, Lyse, Papalymo), or just missing (Urianger and Alisae).

You would think finding the fates of our friends and clearing our names would have a degree of narrative urgency. An urgency that would be born out by the dialogue in the quest cutscenes, along with side-quests leading to additional dungeons and instances, and maybe a few additional story side-quests. You’d be wrong. It takes until about three-quarters through the expansion, until a point where we need that character’s magical knowledge, for us to bother trying to find out what happened to Y’shtola, with the party happening to run into Urianger and a new-ish Scion, Krile, along the way. It then takes until after the main story quest is resolved for us to go looking for Thancred and Minfilia, with Lyse and Papalymo being up to their own goals that we see glimmers of – but at no point has the party actually attempted to find them yet. It is tonally baffling.

That said, the main story is great. The story for the new dungeon – Alexander – is very well done, without some of the more obnoxious elements of the Bahamut questline dungeons. There are some particularly good puzzle mechanics for several of the dungeons, which require everyone to be much more on their toes than the ARR dungeons, without the process of getting to those puzzles being tedious or onerous. Once you’ve learned them, it’s easy to remember how to beat them, if it takes a while for them to come up again in a Roulette.

In all, this was a lot of fun, but if you want to spend more time with the Scions in this storyline, you’re going to be a little disappointed.

Heavensward is included in the Starter Edition of Final Fantasy XIV, which is available from the Humble Store (Affiliate Link).

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