In recent Final Fantasy XIV expansions, Square Enix has been strong in delivering not only challenging post-game content for players to work through, but also nostalgic experiences for long-time fans of their franchises to fanboy over. This can be as simple as featuring previous bosses or music tracks from past Final Fantasy games in raids, to full-on collaboration events. But no crossover has been quite as notable as the Alliance Raids. Starting with Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, the 24-player trio of alliance raids in each Final Fantasy XIV expansion has been an opportunity for the development team to collaborate with other directors, creatives and producers of other Square Enix franchises to deliver crossover experiences.
In 2017 this commenced with Return to Ivalice, a 3-part series based on Final Fantasy XII, which saw guest creators Yasumi Matsuno and Keita Amemiya come together, and bring the narrative, characters and concepts of the PS2-era RPG into Eorzea. The three raids – Royal City of Rabanastre, Ridorana Lighthouse and Orbonne Monastery, were all fantastic homages to the original game. With it came players frantically remembering what prime numbers were, experiencing epic water slides and mastering their split-second positional. Perhaps most exciting for some, it got the hype train rolling about the Viera player race, introduced in Shadowbringers.
With Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers‘ development cycle soon drawing to a close, last night we got access to the final of three collaboration raids in the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse trilogy. Adapting the world, characters and setting of NieR: Automata into “The First” through a unique storyline, the Warriors of Light/Darkness were taken on a journey through a mechanical environment against some daunting, robotic and technological threats. With both Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito as guest creators this time around, this had the potential to set a high bar for the future of alliance raids, or be incredibly underwhelming. After all, Nier: Automata featured many concepts different to that of Final Fantasy XIV, and they couldn’t just have players go through an ordinary set of bosses.
While they were never really on-par with their predecessors on difficulty, often being a smidgeon more forgiving, the first two raids – The Copied Factory and The Puppets’ Bunker – were astounding for multiple reasons. Both raid dungeons were inspired by sections of the original game, such as the ‘Abandoned Factory’ and the ‘YorHa Bunker’, with enemies taken directly from Nier: Automata that were adapted to fit the different gameplay style. They both also featured a mix of songs from the game and remixed alongside tracks from Final Fantasy XIV.
Perhaps most impressive, however, was that no boss battle ever felt the same. Each kept players on their toes with new battle mechanics, splitting alliances up into their respective parties and more than a few homages. In many ways, you can see Yoko Taro’s approach to game direction strewn throughout these raids. Fortunately, the third and final alliance raid in this arc – Tower at Paradigm’s Breach – continues much in the same vein.
Taking inspiration from the ‘Server’ and ‘Hacking’ gameplay from Nier: Automata and a few references to Drakengard, this chapter pulls narrative and world-building elements from ‘The Tower’. Players are tasked with climbing the tower to reach its peak – while 9S and 2B assist in removing the barriers standing in your way. It is not the prettiest dungeon, focusing more on minimalist design, but some familiar (and new) bosses posed an ample challenge.
Also introduced was a unique battle style which would come as a welcome surprise to anyone who played Nier: Automata, but with no explanation, I found was confusing to those who hadn’t. Sadly, Tower at Paradigm’s Breach used this a total of once, like it was tacked on at the last minute. I will avoid spoilers, but the music choices paired with boss battles was terrific, and the final fight served as a satisfactory conclusion to a two-year adventure.
My only complaint about this dungeon was that, unlike the first two, you are not able to visit them after completion for gpose pictures and to collect tomes with additional lore and information. Instead, that has been delegated to a series of weekly quests, where meeting them unlocks another message for you to read. This is a real shame, as there were so many places that I wanted to stop and snap a photo at. However, it is nice that the narrative is continuing for at least a few more weeks… and could very well provide more (unannounced) content in the next 5.5 patch.
Alliance Raids are designed to be some of the longer content to play through in Final Fantasy XIV, and especially in the first week, can take between an hour to an hour and a half to complete if not longer. Should you be playing alongside others over voice chat for the first time, there is a good chance playing through these raids will be met with lots of “ooohs!” and “aaaahs!” as nostalgic references are presented. Even if you were playing with randoms, there were many opportunities for collaborative planning as you worked through each battle.
To get the most out of Tower at Paradigm’s Breach, though, I would strongly recommend logging in now and doing your playthrough as soon as possible, while the mechanics are still fresh and unknown by the majority. While being a healer (like myself) may see you spamming that rez button a bit too much for comfort, the journey through a 24-player blind run is quite unlike anything else in Final Fantasy XIV… but not as bad as the learning curve associated with Savage content.
At this point, YorHA: Dark Apocalypse is expected to be the final collaboration Alliance Raid in Final Fantasy XIV at this time, with the upcoming expansion Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker to feature an original story much along the lines of A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. Of the two crossover alliance raids, I would argue that this was the strongest from a longevity standpoint. From memorable battles, fantastic music and glamour outfits that will likely outlive the expansion – bringing Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito into the Final Fantasy XIV chronology was at the end of the day, a great move.
