A few months behind schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic throwing the game’s development schedule out of whack, developer Square Enix last week rolled out Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal onto North American, European and Japanese servers. While some content will be rolled out in the coming weeks and months, included were many of the staple odd-numbered patch staples, along with some new initiatives and system improvements.
What was my first impression of this newly updates Eorzea? Keep scrolling down for my initial observations!
The Puppet’s Bunker – Part 2 of Nier: Automata Collaboration impresses even more than before!
Continuing the narrative introduced with ‘The Copied Factory’ back in Patch 5.1, ‘The Puppet’s Bunker’ 24-player alliance raid continued to take significant elements of NieR: Automata and adopt them into the very different setting and gameplay systems of Final Fantasy XIV. The challenge has been upped a notch from the previous raid, relying less on bullet hell systems, and instead encouraging players to adopt a think-on-your-feet mentality as you face a variety of different machines and other entities with individual attack styles and patterns. Especially with a blind party, there is an incredible amount of fun to be had in this raid. Get 23 members of your Free Company together, dive into the raid, and expect at least some active strategising in voice chat.
As with other collaboration-based alliance raids, it is clear a lot of effort went into replicating the mood and setting of the original game into the Final Fantasy XIV engine. Not only is there a fantastic arrangement of songs, including a medley which merges NieR’s The Dark Colossus Destroys All and Torn from the Heavens, but also includes some more direct references to NieR: Automata visually. The fanboy in me did “Squee!” at one section of the raid due to this.
All that said, while there is much to love about this raid, it has the same issue as ‘The Copied Factory’ did. Alliance Raids aren’t designed to be the most challenging content in Final Fantasy XIV. Players looking for such a thing should pivot themselves towards Extreme – Ultimate content. But unlike the ‘Return to Ivalice’ arc which was incredibly challenging the first few weeks and remained challenging for a long time afterwards, my party which did not follow standard raiding conventions only ended up dying once. Therefore, I see this raid becoming a slog to run through a month or two from now as its novelty wears off. I would encourage the developers to up the difficulty considerably for the third and final chapter, or heck, with the way the story is going, throw us a separate Extreme raid tied to it.
The Main Scenario, its dungeon and trial are all fitting conclusions to the main Shadowbringers Saga
Serving as the conclusion of the Shadowbringers story arc players have been following for the past year, the ‘Reflections in Crystal’ update to the main scenario is a fitting and satisfying conclusion. Leading to the obvious ending where the scions return to the source, there is a long-satisfying farewell to this tale. This encompasses the new dungeon ‘The Heroes’ Gauntlet’, fittingly named as it see’s the whole of Norvrandt become a battlefield. The new trial also offers much challenge for both first-time and repeat players.
The trial of this scenario, which will have its name redacted due to spoilers, is in my opinion equivalent to the complexity found with Hades EX. Once you have a grasp of the mechanics and can maintain focus for a good ten minutes, you should find yourself breezing through the content consistently. But fail to keep your focus or have one of your seven other party members fail to… and you are in for a world of hurt. If you enrage easily, perhaps stick to doing this battle with friends.
The Sorrow of Werlyt takes a turn…
Patch 5.2 saw the commencement of Chronicles of the New Era: The Sorrow of Werlyt‘ questline, which sought to incorporate the stone weapon biomechanical enemies popularised as super bosses in Final Fantasy VII into Final Fantasy XIV. Incorporating a few homages to their source games, the Ruby Weapon served as a great secondary extreme boss for the patch, which while reasonably easy was a good ‘Welcome to Extreme Raids’ for players.
Although looking forward to a second extreme to challenge me this time around, Square Enix delivered what appeared to be a test for content to come rather than an actual raid. This time around, players are pitted up against Sapphire Weapon in a solo instance, this time piloting a craft rather than defeating them with your own skills. It was rather drab to be honest, akin to some of the longer drawn-out instances in Stormblood where players took control of other characters with only a few skills at their disposal. It was a novelty which done once, I think is enough. That said, if they were to expand upon this mechanic, say… for the third YorHA: Dark Apocalypse raid with 24-players… then I think it could bring something to the table.
Unreal trial brings first taste of classic bosses developed for current-expansion gameplay
Final Fantasy XIV has this smart level syncing system which ensures that players are always at the right level when tackling dungeons. This is to ensure that new players will not need to wait around for hours to form a party to tackle earlier dungeons, with the roulette system ensuring higher-levelled players are amply rewarded for their time. The issue, however, is that it is also possible to unsync content from previous expansions, meaning that you (and any party members) retain your level, abilities etc. This is useful when it comes to things like mount hunting, but it means almost nobody is running extreme trials as they were initially meant to.
Introduced in this Patch, with a new boss to be rotated in every month, Unreal Trials are battles which have been revamped to meet the current level caps/item levels and pose new challenges with each primals original mechanics.
Fortunately, you do not need to worry about being punted off the stage by Titan this time around, with the first Unreal Trial featuring Shiva in Akh Afah Amphitheatre. While the mechanics are nothing revolutionary, as someone who only actively began playing Final Fantasy XIV since Stormblood, it was a fantastic experience getting to tackle the primal with a level of difficulty comparable to those playing Extreme in A Realm Reborn. With the promise of a new one coming to each numbered patch going forward, I for one am looking forward to tackling these old foes!
Plus, there are a whoooooole lot of quality of life changes
From being able to fly in most A Realm Reborn zones (albeit with incredibly low height limits) and a sticker expansion in the /gpose system to a few cool news dances and class refinements – Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal offers a bounty of new optimisations and features to enjoy. Perhaps due to the extra time they had between patches, even despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the development team had the opportunity to tackle lower-priority issues. These range from no longer needing a wait time when queuing for chocobo races, to including action indicators with the Aurum Vale’s coin counter.
Perhaps the most notable minor enhancement, specifically for newer players, is the main scenario quest for A Realm Reborn being streamlined, removing much of the grind which tested the endurance of so many players in the past.
So where from here? In Patch 5.35 due in a month or two, we are due to receive the next instalment in the Save the Queen questline which will see players exploring The Bozjan Southern Front, a new area which is the Shadowbringers equivalent of Eureka. From initial impressions it will be at least somewhat less grindy than Eureka was, but by how much exactly has yet to be seen. Crafters will also be able to continue their progression on the restoration of Ishgard in Patch 5.31, perhaps getting servers one step closer to the long-rumoured and hoped for housing district.
It could be argued that a lot of the major content in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal can easily be completed in a couple of nights – maybe an extra week or two for the Extreme and Unreal fights. This ultimately is an issue with odd-numbered patches lacking Savage or Ultimate content to unique the raiding scene for months on end. Still, there is still a lot of improvements and features to keep things fresh until we see Patch 5.4.
Read my earlier patch summaries for Final Fantasy XIV below:
FINAL FANTASY XIV: SHADOWBRINGERS PATCH 5.1: A week in an updated Eorzea
FINAL FANTASY XIV’S PATCH 5.15 BLUE MAGE UPDATE: Less limited in scope and much more fun
FINAL FANTASY XIV: SHADOWBRINGERS PATCH 5.2: Weeks in an updated Eorzea
