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Chapter Zero: Prologue
There won't be much commentary in this little prologue update. It'll just be the opening cutscene that occurs whenever you start a new game, recapping what's happened since the original 1.0 went offline. A Realm Reborn is a soft reboot in that it also plays as a sequel to the original Final Fantasy XIV that bombed in 2010.
I'll be wrapping all the screenshots from cutscenes in between two banners ("Click to Play Video" and "Video End") throughout the LP. If you watch the video then you can go ahead and skip anything between the two banners without missing anything. Anyway, without wasting any more time, let's create a new game and get introduced to our setting.
New Music: Prelude - Discovery
a vibrant planet blessed by the light of the Crystal. Amid azure seas, encompassing the westernmost of the Three Great Continents -
each one enjoying an age of peace - the Astral Eras. To date, all have proven ephemeral.
New Music: Answers
On that ominous note, we get a change of soundtrack. This is maybe one of the most iconic pieces associated with Final Fantasy XIV, especially between 1.0 and A Realm Reborn. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu himself, and the last half is sung by Susan Calloway who often shows up to the live Final Fantasy orchestra performances. The song has some narrative details buried inside it, and that's been made all that more apparent in retrospect thanks to the the third expansion for A Realm Reborn—Shadowbringers.
If you haven't listened to this yet, then I honestly recommend you do. It's really good.
In the year 1572 of the Sixth and most recent Astral Era,
A piece of Dalamud falls onto the battlefield, throwing up a ton of dust. The moon is beginning to look less like a natural satellite and more like a machination. It pulses and begins to swell.
Bahamut awakens from inside Dalamud, making it explode and shatter. Fragments scatter across the sky and falls as debris on the various city-states of Eorzea. Pictured above is one such city state—Ul'dah—where this LP will begin.
The city-state Limsa Lominsa isn't directly hit, but the ocean swells in retaliation towards Bahamut's attack, swalloing the pirate city.
Bahamut is extremely angry and vengeful, attacking all that he sees. His flight covers an extremely large landmass, but still returns in next to no time to the battlefield we began this opening in. Everyone is powerless to stop him and can do nothing more than watch the devastation unfold. Beams of light follow Bahamut through the sky, wiping out whatever they touch.
It's at this point that an old Elezen man takes up his staff and begins a counterattack of sorts. His name is Louisoix. Spires of light form and begin to surround Bahamut. They begin to create a shell to seal him.
Unfortunately, this attempt to stop the dragon fails. The Elezen's staff snaps, and the seal remains no more.
The audience of characters representing the those from the original Final Fantasy XIV can only continue to look on. They know they are well and truly fucked, and all they can do is accept it. After Louisoix's failure, Bahamut is even more enraged. He's done with them.
It's at this point the opening kind of just skips the part when Louisoix sends those warriors to the future, but I think the point in their omission in this version of the sequence is that they don't matter any more. This is A Realm Reborn, and it's all about starting again from nothing.
Whatever the case, it's made clear that Louisoix perishes in Bahamut's attack. The world is forever changed.
Soundtrack ends.
New Music: Dawn of a New Era
Odin rides Sleipnir through the woods of the Black Shroud, the trunks of the trees surrounding them receding to create a path.
Absolutely everything in this shot is also brand new—weather included.
...or "she", narrator. Our thread designed protagonist is not a man.
And that's the introduction once you begin the game. It used to be mandatory until recently, but I thought it was important to include. Honestly, it only really covers the basics of what happened, but I'll be explaining 1.0's story in more detail as our new protagonist makes enough revelations to catch us up to where 1.0 left off.
Tune in next time for the game actually beginning.
For anyone interested, each Final Fantasy XIV expansion comes with its own unique opening sequence before the title screen. While this update wasn't that, you can view End of an Era here. It's actually the movie that played when the original Final Fantasy XIV "ended", but with an additional scene introducing A Realm Reborn. This is actually where most of the opening cutscene from this update gets its footage from.