Haven't gotten too far in. Just met Wuk Lamat's dad and had him tell us the basic objective for 7.0

I love how Estinien's first act in this expansion is "Just show up fighting the Biggest Guy".

Going with Bird for my first path.

... I am now operating under the belief that the head under the veil is, in fact, dead.

I have no evidence for this, but the whole "he's just napping" thing seems... sus.

The Hrothgar continue to be strangely adorable.

New information! Erenville is from the Northern part of the continent.

Makes one wonder how he grew up in Eitherean South America...

Oh my gosh the piercing stare of everyone when Alphinaud comments on not wasting money.

Boy

Well, with my first level-up, I'm comfortable saying that this is so far more or less what I expected from DT.

Comfy, relaxing, an overarching goal to move towards but nothing anywhere near as world-shaking as basically any of the stories up until now. I expect they'll just continue building up Tural until 95 or 96 and then spring something on us, but I'm not sure what.

And I kind of appreciate that! We've had four continuing expansions of Raising The Stakes, it's time to unwind a bit.

Merchant: Yeah I'm a hundred percent on the conquest route, makes me more money.

I love how all three of Old Man Dino King's kids are basically going for different victory conditions in Civilization.

Oh goddammit Wuk Lamat's biggest brother wants to pull a Vardis.

Except without the calamities part.

Dude that didn't work for the Allagans or the Garleans and it won't work for you either.

Yeeeep, just as I thought. Catboy Prince has the boyfriends as his escort.

That's kinda cute actually.

Aaaaaand first DT dungeon, leeeet's go!

Well. Hated that.

It started off fun with a boatride down the river while we fought, but the first boss had an attack that sent shit all over the battlefield and was almost impossible to dodge, and the end boss was downright Made Of Bullshit.

Stupid fucking tornado...

So, Prince Catboy is making friends with the boyfriends, I'm pretty sure Biggest Bro has an Evil Chancellor whispering in his ear, and Two-Headed Team Rocket is playing a fighting game while everyone else is playing Civ.

Dino-Dad... good.

FF XIV has had Good Dads from ARR on (never forget Fishdad) but Gulool Ja Ja is a major contender for the top spot.

Two-Head Team Rocket: /picks fight with Biggest Bro
Biggest Bro: /single slash
Two-Head Team Rocket: /ded

Okay he's not dead but damn, get wrecked.

Jackass kidnapped my kitty!

Catboy Prince so worried about his baby sis~.

These are weird Roegadyn.

Oh hey, Quetzacoatl on ice!

Aaaand now for the second dungeon. (With me hoping it's a little less ARRRRGH than the first)

O-kay! Second dungen was way more fun than the first.

I especially had fun with the leader of the giants at the end.

Well, I think we found out what the first trial is...

To nobody's surprise.

Bakool Ja Ja, what the absolute fuck?

I've been calling him Team Rocket, but Jessie and James would never.

Eyyyy Biggest Bro coming in clutch right when we need him!

Current theory: He really does love his little siblings and wants to keep them safe, but he sucks at communicating and feels obligated to be the one to succeed his dad. He mostly needs to learn to lean on others.

Ohhhh that was a fun one. First DT trial is intense, but it never felt unfair.

What's kind of hilarious is that this is basically the Turali equivalent of Bahamut that we just fought, and he was the first trial.

Wak Lumat about to board a blimp: Will you hold my hand until I feel less nervous?
Me: All of the yes give me your paw.

Pffff. Next feat is in teams and Biggest Bro is stuck with Team Rocket.

And it's a cooking contest! Oh my gosh I love this.

Several Cutscenes Will Play In Sequence

And Team Rocket goes dooooown!

Also discovered the leader of the village is our kitty's dad, which... no real surprise there. Somebody tried to off her as a toddler, so that's pretty grim.

Meanwhile Dadcred is raising his head for the Catboy Prince.

Yeah I can't be surprised that Team Rocket's dad is an abusive PoS.

Can't tell why Dad King made him an elector though...

Oh hey, they're referencing the final boss of WP Hard!

Oh okay, so the Mammool Ja are eugenicists, and now I'm crying over Bakool Ja Ja!

Well fucking played, Square.

Well. Dad King's ghost is beaten, the Mamool Ja don't have to be eugenicists anymore, Catboy Prince has decided to give up the throne to our Kitty, and we've got all the keystones!

Aaaaaaand I am level 95. Yeah, there's definitely a humongous swerve coming.

Going into the 95 dungeon!

Well, that one was pretty good. The last boss was a bit much, but honestly I had a lot of fun with the others.

Really looking like some Allagan shit is happening here though.

Pfff, thanks Alisaie.

Okay, so we've got the Sharlayan-style seal, probably Galuf's work, and then the path in, but we stop at the gate and King Dad says we're done. Right, so we won't be actually opening up the city... We'll leave that to Biggest Bro and his Evil Chancellor, who are clearly being set up to be the Final Boss of the expansion.

Right after our Kitty gets crowned!

Awww, and she calls up Prince Catboy to be Co-Ruler with her!

I was thinking she'd make him her top advisor, but yeah, that's actually a great solution.

Confirmation that Dad King's Smart Head is, in fact, dead and not just sleeping... no real suprise there.

Aaaaaaand somebody (Biggest Bro?) just attacked and probably murdered Uncle Sailor.

That's one way to remind us that everything's not actually wrapped up.

Oooof, Kitty wants us to stay on and be part of her government but obviously that's not gonna happen.

Downside of making friends with an adventurer!

Aaaaaand Biggest Bro is going full villain. Even killed his Evil Chancellor. Awww man, I really had hopes for the boy learning his lesson...

Here we are going over to North America aaaaaand Texas.

Just, maximum Texas right from the beginning, even got the oil. That's kind of hilarious.

We're gonna ride bison holy shit I want that mount.

Oh fuck it's Estinien in a saloon

He's playing the world-weary, wise and mysterious stranger who strolls into town oh my gosh it's perfect!

Someone on the staff realized they were going to be doing wild west stuff and was just like "Yes. This must happen."

Oh, so it looks like Erenville has a deadname.

And they just shoved an entire western in there, because of course they did.

Oh shit I found the Source counterparts for the trolley team! And they work on trains, appropriately enough...

Aaaaaand the other shoe drops. Hard.

Biggest Bro, what the actual fuck?

Not cool.

Oh shit, it's another reflection!

Thank you Y'Shtola, I genuinely was not expecting that.

Aaaaaaand Krile is from another reflection, folks!

That's one hell of a twist.

Gee who could this mystery spearman taking out all the robot soldiers be?

Y'know, Zell's a lot more tolerable when he's a clearly teenage gunslinger in the old west.

So we threw a train at Biggest Bro's base and the 97 dungeon is invading it. I love our plans.

Well designed dungeon all things considered, but I can't help but snicker when they keep saying "this is like nothing we've ever seen before!" And the enemies just all act like reskinned Garlemald robots.

Hoo boy, Erenville's home is not looking good.

Actually it kinda looks like X's thunder plains.

Which is unsurprising considering the whole dome of lightning thing.

Suddenly princess-looking lady who knows Biggest Bro?

Aaaaand Erenville's mom is in a robot now. Sure why not?

Just following the Omicrons way, really.

Going full-on sci-fi metropolis with what I assume is the last area!

Krile's parents were freedom fighters and that's awesome.

Also, hello third version of Gerolt we've seen?

Whew, got locked into the game too much to post anything for a moment there.

So we've got a pretty big IX shout-out going on here, which basically amounts to "what if Garnet pulled a Garland to save Alexandria?"

Impressive as far as justifying horrible atrocities goes.

Slightly annoyed that I am now in a position where I need to find something else to do to level up before I can keep going. The MSQ should be providing just the right amount of XP to make that unnecessary for the main Job by itself.

Well, looks like Biggest Bro has basically no support at this point.

That's kinda what you get for becoming a genocidal monster against your own people, dude.

Or it should be, anyway

Still kinda wondering who the heck he had a kid with...

Unless he cloned himself.

It's time for the level 99 dungeon! Let's go get biggest bro!

Jeez, the man's just going full voidsent at this point.

Well, we're down to the Ghost-Queen of Alexandria... who is currently deliberately turning herself into a sociopath so she can go through with her whole energy-draining plan.

She's like a reverse Meteion...

I do love going through the weirdass mechanical heaven they've made for themselves.

Semi-surprise family reunion!

Oh Krile...

Okay, I've been wondering this whole time what the big thing that was going to tie the next set of expansions together was with the Ascians, Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and so on gone. Really looks like it's going to be the key, and perhaps finding out what happened to the rejoined reflections.

Well, having finally wrapped things up and then passed out last night/very early this morning, let's jot down my thoughts, hmmm?

I gotta say, I had a great time.

New characters, all great, especially our Kitty, of course, though I'm also very fond of King Dad and Sad Extremist Queen.

(I ship Wuk Lamat/Sphene now, there is no stopping me)

Catboy Prince grew on me quickly, and I was honestly really sad about Biggest Bro's turn to the dark side. It wasn't super surprising, but he definitely could have gone the other way and been the big protector for his sibs, and it's such a shame that wasn't good enough for him.

Two-Headed Team Rocket went from utterly insipid and really only good for giving us obstacles to overcome, to honestly really pulling through and yanking some tears outta me in the process.

The various peoples more generally were all a delight, with the Yok Huy and the birds as standouts.

Things did start slow, as I'm sure everyone was complaining about, but we're beginning a whole new story arc here, that's what I expected.

The WoL slips nicely into a mentor role for the Kitty, setting them into a support role just like SB. I do wonder if people will complain about that, but personally, I liked it.

Makes you really feel like when they step into the fray, things are getting serious.

The Scions are largely as delightful as ever, but I feel like poor Y'Shtola got shunted to the side this time. Estinien too, though he at least got to show up dueling King Dad and playing the Mysterious Drifter in the Western-themed area.

Krile, however, hit the ground running and never fucking stopped. Holy shit this expansion did her wonders.

The overarching plot went from kinda laid-back and relaxed and ramped up to the usual huge world-ending stakes, but mostly in a way that felt like its own individual FF game more than anything else.

IX is absolutely the installment being brought forward here. A bit of a disappointment we've already used Alexander and couldn't really bring him in, but that's okay. Sphene didn't really need any help to pull of her role.

She came across as almost a mirror image of both Meteion and Emet-Selch in a lot of ways, in addition to a corrupted Garnet/Dagger. So that's very impressive they managed to juggle all of that together while still making her a unique character.

All in all, a solid opener to the next part of the storyline. Very interested to see what we do with that key in the future, and what we're going to learn about the other reflections moving forward. Thumbs up all around.