Review of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, an extraordinary expansion that will be difficult to beat

 Among the different MMORPGs that are active today there are a few that have millions of users around the world. Perhaps World of Warcraft is one of the most acclaimed, but as the years have passed there are others like The Elder Scrolls Online or Final Fantasy XIV that have been gaining more followers without stopping. 

After a terrible initial launch almost a decade ago, no one would have bet that the Square Enix title was going to be able to go very far. However, the company managed to revitalize it in time and not only make it continue forward, but little by little it became one of the greatest references of the genre . In fact, it recently released its third expansion (or fourth if we count the A Realm Reborn reboot): Shadowbringers .

At the time when we had the opportunity to try a preview, it left us with great feelings. However, after a few dozen hours of new adventures, there is no doubt that we are facing the best expansion Final Fantasy XIV has received to date. 

A story equivalent to a full RPG

At first this expansion breaks with the rest of the game by taking us to another world: the First , one of the fragments into which the fountain was divided, which is where we spent the rest of the adventure. There we will have to face the corruption of the Light, which has devastated almost the entire world turning it into a wasteland devoid of life, saving only the continent of Norvrandt , which is precisely where the expansion will take place.

At first it may seem that these new contents have nothing to do with the story so far, but nothing is further from reality, since helping this world will allow us to save ours , as we will discover little by little. To do this we must fight the sin eaters, beings of Light that devour all who are put in front of them. By doing so we will succeed in bringing the night back to Norvrandt , whose sky has been in a perpetual state of day for a hundred years.

Although it is preferable to have lived the entire history of the game so far, newcomers will be able to perfectly enjoy the Shadowbringers storyline , as long as we buy a level up, of course. In fact, the game's producers touted the expansion saying that it could be enjoyed as a complete, standalone RPG . Without a doubt for its duration and quality they were not exaggerating.

For those who do not know Final Fantasy XIV, it should be noted that the game places great importance on the story , with a multitude of dialogues and cutscenes made with the game engine. Even so, those who prefer more action and activities at the maximum level can quickly skip the dialogues and skip the cutscenes. Of course, to unlock all the content (dungeons, raids and others) it will still be necessary to do all the missions that make up the main plot .

These missions, which will be linear, although with a couple of options to make some areas in one order or another, can be mechanically a bit simple , since most will make us move from one place to another to talk with different characters, but also there will be some battle involved. The biggest motivation to enjoy these missions will continue to be to enjoy the story itself.

Here we would like to make a point to remember that, unlike the other titles in the saga, FFXIV is not translated into Spanish , so having a medium-advanced level of English (or Japanese, French or German) will be vital both for understand the story and communicate with other players. Above all, it is necessary to emphasize the intermediate-advanced level, because many characters use archaic language and words that are not seen very often. Yes, we talk about you, Urianger.

Tackling the new dungeons in company or alone with your new system

As we progress, we must complete the expansion dungeons , which continue with the mechanics of the rest of the expansions, that is, meet with three other people, whether they are friends or people found randomly through the search engine, to face corridors of enemies and three bosses. At least the setting and mechanics of these final bosses will be the most varied .

An important novelty offered by the expansion, ideal for the less social or users of damage classes who do not want to wait half an hour to find a group, is the Trust system , through which the NPCs who accompany us throughout the story can give us a cable in the dungeons. 

Whether we are tanks, healers or DPS, we can choose a group of characters controlled by the AI that will complete the group of four. The artificial intelligence of these characters is quite good in all roles, especially when it comes to doing the boss mechanics, although with some flaws so that, if we are healers, we do not relax completely. Perhaps one drawback is that they hardly use AoE abilities, so fighting large groups of enemies can get tedious.

 Beyond the dungeons, we will also continue to find a couple of Trials , boss fights for which we will have to find or form a group of eight players. Apart from the fact that the Trust system is not available for these bosses, the difficulty of these will be higher than those of their fellow dungeons, with higher life points and more complicated mechanics, so that the rapport with the other players of our group will be decisive.

The good (or the bad, depending on how you look at it), is that doing these main missions and dungeons to follow the story of the expansion will not be enough to get up to the right level to continue advancing. For example, there may come a point that the main missions ask us to have level 76 to accept them and we just have 75. So, it will be necessary to carry out other secondary activities until reaching it.

We will also continue to have the roulettes of dungeons, raids and old bosses that will give us a good handful of experience, or the secondary missions that we will find in each of the six areas of the expansion, being able to perform any of them level from 70, something which will be ideal for uploading other jobs.

Likewise, another of the novelties of the expansion is the redesign of the FATES . These mini events, which appear randomly for each area, will make us eliminate a certain number of enemies, collect objects or even face a mini boss to obtain a reward of experience and gems that we can then exchange for unique objects. Adding extra rewards to these FATES encourages us to leave the cities to explore the different places in the expansion, which will make it more frequent to meet other players.

Endless hours of top-level content

Once we finish the main story and reach level 80 we can do the raids , although currently the only one that has been added is the first part of the Eden raid , with several nods to FFVIII. Here, for new players, we have to explain that in all expansions of the game the system of two series of raids has been followed: one of eight players and another of 24.

In the first we will face four separate bosses in each part, while in the 24 each one will be more similar to a large dungeon in which, apart from the bosses, we will face some other enemy and each part will be the pull.

And why are we talking about parts? Well, because in each patch one of a different raid is added . For example, in 5.0 they have added the four heads of the first part of Eden. In 5.1 it is foreseeable, therefore, that the first part of the 24-person raid, based on the NieR saga, will be placed, in 5.2 another four bosses belonging to the second part of Eden will be placed and so on until the end the expansion.

Continuing with the design of previous expansions, we can also do the Eden raid in Savage mode , with a frankly higher difficulty that will require a dedicated and well-connected group to face it, obtaining in exchange for the effort the best objects in the game (until the next patch, of course). Players who want a more intermediate challenge can face the bosses of the Trials in Extreme mode , with somewhat more complicated mechanics, but also with greater rewards.

As veteran players can see, there are no great news regarding the game system , although the different jobs have received several changes (some more than others). We will also find a couple of new ones, which will start at level 60: Dancer , which is a ranged DPS that will increase the damage of his companions after maintaining a combination of abilities, and Gunbreaker , a tank that will use the pistol saber of FFVIII . As if that were not enough, we can create characters of two new races: the Vieras or the Hrothgars .

My opinion

As we highlighted at the beginning of the review, Final Fantasy XIV did not get the desired reception when it started taking its first steps. However, over the years, and especially with expansions like Shadowbringers, it has proven to be an essential MMORPG that deserves to be given a chance, whether you are fans of Final Fantasy or not.

Its formidable story, which gives the impression that we are facing a new installment of the saga, is accompanied by a glorious soundtrack that we will never tire of listening to at any time and some magnificent new areas, in addition to the new jobs or races that we will have at our disposal to give a greater variety to our adventure.

We don't know what Square Enix has planned for future expansions, but there's no question that Shadowbringers has set the bar at a height that will be hard to beat. In the meantime we will continue to experience more adventures around Norvrandt as we wish to know what the next updates will surprise us with.