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Chapter I: A Realm Reborn
So it's been five years since a falling moon hatched and unleashed a doom dragon on the world. This is one of my favourite things from Final Fantasy XIV. Square-Enix went up and made reworking the original game part of the storyline, and it's a really neat thing. Going forward, a lot of A Realm Reborn will be about dealing with the fallout of that game.
Also, don't worry if you're unfamiliar with the original. It's absolutely unnecessary for playing the game and I'll comment when it's relevant. I barely touched the original game myself too. The version of the game I'm currently playing is 2.3: Defenders of Eorzea, which is before the Heavensward expansion was released and A Realm Reborn was only three content patches in. If this doesn't mean anything to you yet, then that's also fine. It'll make sense much later. I'll include game version number for posterity, since some things will likely be different. I'll try to add notes whenever something has changed.
New Music: Prelude - Rebirth
You get to customize your character when the game begins. I should probably say that this is a rewrite of the original LP, and I didn't really offer a thread vote on the character. I'll be just selecting the default option right now and uncreatively naming him Crash Screen, which was what I started with last time. This will change when we catch up with when the second thread started.
Right now, the protagonist is a male Hyur, of the Midlander clan. I'll be discussing race and clan options in the bonus area for the next few updates, whenever a new race shows up in the LP.
You get to pick a birthday as well, though this is just flavour. The Eorzean Calender dedicates two months for each element (Fire, Water, Wind, Ice, Earth, Lightning), and the individual elements are split into Astral and Umbral polarities. This is central to culture in Eorzea, and even the eras are named after these elements and their polarities. An Astral Era is one that begins on a positive note, while an Umbral era begins on a negative note. Right now, we're in the seventh Umbral era. It is said that the seventh Astral era will be the final one, and everyone would live in bliss for all eternity. Maybe it'll be our protagonist that will bring about that change?
We can also select a patron deity. The patron deity can influence your elemental resistances by around four points, but when you have almost or around 300 at cap they don't really matter much. They also fit the six elements with two polarity mold. I'll probably chat about them briefly in a bonus section at some stage too, but that'll come after what's selected after this.
Lastly is your class, which also impacts which of the three cities you start in. The new Rogue addition isn't available to start with and expansion jobs need to be unlocked much later, so we're left with the default choices. I'll discuss their group roles and playstyle as they come up, but for now I'll be rolling as Gladiator, which starts in the desert city of Ul'dah. Gladiators are simple enough mechanically to focus on the LP, while they also play up front-and-center to show off most of the content more easily. I'd like to have each class all shown off in the LP at some stage, including their storylines. There's some really good ones in there.
Not fitting in the above screenshot are the Conjurer, Thaumaturge, and Arcanist classes.
Next is choosing what world to play on. The goon world is Excalibur, but I'll be choosing Midgardsormr. It has a low enough population to not be too busy when I'm recording, but is also not quiet enough to have issues with running content. Omega, which is a new server on the EU data center. Ignore the fact that I've reached the character limit on this server. I like to make a lot of throwaway characters to mess around with.
I'll be distinguishing voice acted cutscenes from the non-voice acted ones.
As soon as I'm done with the character creation screen, we get a cutscene. Crash teleports into the middle of literally nowhere and starts flying around. It's weird and a little nonsensical.
It turns out that it actually has a floor! And there's a woman's voice echoing around our protagonist.
No. Nothing's wrong with your monitor or my screenshot. There's a lot of random flashing in this cutscene.
Crash then walks towards a ball of light as it explodes into what looks like a black hole. I guess we're in magic-space?
A man in a black cloak and a mask suddenly shows up where the black hole was. This doesn't really make sense yet, but it kind of will a lot later. Well, beyond "man in black cloak = evil", I guess.
The woman's voice can still be heard, and the orb of light is still flying around.
Soundtrack ends.
The orb then lights up Crash, giving him a cool new ensemble - complete with sword and shield of light. As an added bonus, there's nothing like belts and zippers on this outfit. The style of Eorzea is a little bit more traditional.
The masked dude gets pretty offended that Crash was the one given a makeover and lashes out at him.
Crash isn't going to take it without a fight, and prepares to strike. The cutscene then kind of just fades out and ends. What?
It turns out that the cutscene was our would-be adventurer simply having a sweet dream. Crash is just dozing off in a chocobo carriage traveling over the arid desert of Thanalan. Their destination is Ul'dah, which is where anyone rolling a Gladiator will start.
Crash simply ignores the other passenger. The protagonist in Final Fantasy XIV is mute and generally interacts with stoic nods throughout the game, so don't expect to see very much from them. It makes for a very awkward carriage ride though.
It really isn't long until the carriage runs into some trouble. Such is what it's like in the region of Thanalan.
Also, you can just barely see the Ul'dah city-state in the background. I can actually place where this is and for some reason this carriage is traveling away from Ul'dah. What gives? No wonder it looks suspicious.
The armored men belong to a private military force known as the Brass Blades. They basically serve as the police force in Thanalan. They're also typically all kind of a bunch of dicks. Oh, and not pictured is the caravan's idle animation in which it moves up and down as if it's breathing. Those are some chocobo.
Unsurprisingly enough, the Brass Blades are also very corrupt. They don't actually serve under the Ul'dah sultanate, so planting drugs to extort traveling merchants is very par for the course with them. We may or may not have a brief storyline about their corruptness which will lead on to grander things in the future. Maybe.
It's a very fine welcome to Ul'dah, and Crash isn't amused. Let's just hope they don't also treat people as guilty by association here.
New Music: One Blood
Fortunately, we don't have to find out as a random arrow interrupts the scene. You see, there's an actual reason that the Brass Blades are out here.
Each region has their own one or two beast tribes, and the Amalj'aa are the troublesome tribe that now makes Thanalan their home. They're a warrior race and don't get along with the people of Ul'dah. Unlike the other city-states, Ul'dah doesn't welcome beast tribes. They've also been kicking up a little bit of a fuss since Final Fantasy XIV 1.0.
The carriage escapes as the Brass Blades and the Amalj'aa begin fighting and holy shit, that Amalj'aa just sent that guy flying!
Soundtrack ends.
We just saw something crazy, but this guy is just casually warning Crash about the guys getting their ass kicked. Thanalan is crazy.
New Music: Twilight Over Thanalan
Also, enjoy this track while it's here. We'll rarely ever hear it, but it's great. It's the original Thanalan field theme from the FFXIV 1.0.
Meanwhile, the other two passengers are unamused and don't really care either. They continue to sit there and ignore the merchant too.
Brendt introduces himself, and hazards a guess that Crash is an adventurer based on his attire. The race default gear is apparently more like race adventuring gear. Brendt then asks a question, which prompts a multiple choice.
This basically serves to establish your character's motivation. Why is Crash an adventurer, and for what reason does he journey to Ul'dah? I went with glory. The choice you select doesn't actually impact anything very much, but it determines the reward you get at the end of this cutscene, and the glory reward is the most relevant to Crash now worthless. I'll get to that when we get there.
Crash isn't actually mute, but we still won't see him speak. Feel free to project whatever you want on our protagonist.
"Don't die" is always good advice, even for non-adventurers. Brendt then asks if Crash has ever been to Ul'dah before. This is a rewrite, so I guess the answer would be yes this time. Regardless, the outcome is roughly the same. Brendt will give a little bit of background on Ul'dah to fill in time on the carriage ride.
Them and their Monetarist cronies would happily get rid of Her Majesty altogether, but that won't happen while she still commands the loyalty of the Royalists. These factions have long fought over power, throwin' the weight of their wealth against each other, an' they show no sign of stoppin'.
Basically, Ul'dah runs on money and a group of rich assholes want charge of the city.
That line of thought is interrupted though. We've finally reached the city we were just apparently leaving.
This prompts a cutscene revealing Ul'dah in all of its glory. This is and the surrounding area of Thanalan will be our home will be for the next few updates, so I hope you like desert.
New Music: To The Sun
A solitary rose amidst the dust and rock. A symbol of defiance. Her name: Ul'dah.
What's nice is that the A Realm Reborn maps can be rather dense, so there's going to be at least some variety in our desert environment that should help. At the end of the video, Crash and Brendt step off the carriage.
The item he hands Crash is determined by your character motivation from earlier. They're all rings, but the stat bonus is what changes depending on your choice. Glory gives Crash an extra point in Vitality, which is pretty important for a Gladiator. Unfortunately, new characters now get a full set of accessories that provide more than just one attribute point, so it makes it fairly useless. I'll talk about this again in the next update.
The twins from the carriage also pass by Brendt, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them again if the amount of screen time they had on that carriage was any indication.
Soundtrack ends.
But you literally just said it was gratitude for listening to you! Make up your mind!
Music: Prelude - Discoveries
Welcome to Final Fantasy XIV. For the next while, we'll be experiencing a slightly lengthy tutorial. Since the genre isn't a very popular one in Japan, FFXIV aims to target inexperienced players. It'll very carefully cover a lot of MMO conventions, which makes the tutorial a bit slow and long.
Each of the three city-states also have their own main storyline, which serves to carry players through the tutorial. We'll be spending a little time getting acquainted with the city of Ul'dah, since that's most important throughout the story.
Brendt suggested that Crash should register to the Adventurers' Guild, so that will probably make for a good first destination.
All Cutscenes and Dialogue
I'll be sharing information on each of the races whenever the opportunity arises. Today I'll be discussing the Hyur.
Hyurs aren't local to Eorzea, and are actually one of the most recent races to have immigrated there. They're also particularly good at adapting to other cultures, leaving them without one of their own. Hyurs also the largest population in Eorzea due to three large migration waves. They're essentially Trump's worst nightmare in a world where he'd probably be a Lalafell (which we'll see next week).
There are two Hyur clans. The Midlander, and the Highlander. The former is the most common, and the latter almost lives up to there being only one. Midlanders are often more educated, as they're trained to read and write from an early age. Don't ask me where this education is happening though. Meanwhile, the Highlanders were actually the first group of Hyurs to emigrate. They're a lot larger, and more burly than their Midlander cousins. Most of them hail from the now Garlean occupied city-state of Ala Mhigo. Playable Highlanders were male-only in 1.0.
In terms of stat bonus, Midlanders are fairly balanced but are weakest in healing. Highlanders are all about their strength. Not that it matters, since the extra one or two attribute points you get are worth incredibly little after the first ten levels or so. It's really just flavour.