ffxiv 6.5 spoilerwhile i've expressed a lot of joy and excitement over this patch, i am ultimately very...critical, even now. it's frustrating that this patch was enjoyable and pleasant when up until now the story has been actually bad, overly drawn out, and deeply unpalatable. i only wish that it had been good from the start, because this would have been a great conclusion to even a serviceable story. but the 6.x msq is not serviceable, it is actively terrible in some places. with that said, i liked it, and the difference in quality makes me think straight up the same people who wrote the prior patches did not write this one.

6.1-2 and 6.3-4 should have just been one patch each, and this should have been 6.3. zero was likable, ryne was written to the quality i prefer her to be, and durante's arc conclusion was nice.

ok myths it was stupid the story was already bad and it was just stupider. the only good thing it did was confirm its been 12000 years since the sundering. other than that it's so whatever. g'raha got not a lobotomy but a brain removal for this whole part, the final boss was ugly, this raid was more fun than the last one but not as good as the first. whatever/10 better story than nier but thats not a high bar, way worse raids, i dont expect good stories out of xiv 24mans but if you're gonna do a stupid story i'd rather another bad crossover. this actively takes away from the interesting worldbuilding and it was like. wol cocksucking which you guys know i hate.

ok msq

i will say before i continue i did not care for or enjoy zero save her design and a scene here or there before this patch. but she had so much life so much personality. i know the "point" is she lost herself and had to find it/regain herself but we did not need 4 patches, 2 years of content to reach that conclusion. she was boring. you can do dull and monotone mysterious character and have it be good. this was not that. she was bad and then suddenly good.

i wouldn't have minded if golbez was good and zero was dull but both of them were SOOOOO dull so it was like. blah.

i never wanted to get to know her and i wouldn't have mourned her but THAT SAID man her voice actress pulled out all her stuff here, the animation was great, zero's realizations felt fun, she was expressive and motivated, she was an active character in her own story i like how it was her story too, the wol was just a part of it. i like her friendship with jullus existing outside us.

ryne was delightful, i was very surprised they committed to having gaia show up at the end and not have her be a generic nicegirl, ryne's characterization was as good as it was in shb msq, all was well. the parallels drawn between zero and the wol, with golbez, with zenos, with ryne, were all so on point here without being as overdone.

and yea they did the corny power of friendship stuff but i liked it. now there were like two dumb zero death fakeouts but they weren't over the top offensively bad and ultimately one was the big bad striking her down, one was her trying to do something dumb on her own and thus her being proactive so i didn't really mind it, especially because it passed so fast.

i'm sad to leave her behind and actually excited to see her again, meanwhile before i honestly couldn't wait to abandon this dead weight character with nothing but cool clothes going for her.

she's extremely pleasant, the DURANTE GOLBEZ REVEAL...yaoi real. the dungeon was beautiful too i really liked it i don't know...why they still didn't show us golbez's face though i guess setup for future stuff.

also. durante. my god. his motivation i love it. i thought they were just gonna do "worse fandaniel" and rolled my eyes but he's actually an intteresting inversion on ardbert. ardbert was duped by the ascians as was golbez but ardbert learned he was duped after her was doomed to be unable to do anything more in his physical life. durante meanwhile, seized his fate. it's this twisted inversion of ardbert and their handshake (golbez and zero's) took me back to our fistbump with ardbert.

zero and durante's stuff also draws a neat parallel to zenos and the wol. while obviously what zenos did is unforgivable, so is what durante. but that said zenos didn't have the capability for growth, he was stagnant, but golbez can, and honestly we kinda need him to reverse this stuff. so her being there for him when endwalker leaves the question of "what if zenos's life went different" as one of the explicit things to ponder on is great.

zero and golbez were fun

azdaja is cute :)

i wish vrtra was better. i wanted him to be better but he's dull. the scions are all also dull, even the twins. i'm...not super excited to return to them.

i AM excited for krile though. i hope she's important in 7.0. i can see how we're gonna get to the plot that yoship said we'd have in 7.0.

i'll give more extensive thoughts on our stream after spoiler ban is lifted. overall it's just...frustrating that this would be so much better if the setup was better. i wanted to like zero for so long and finally do, but i don't think i "get it" because nothing clicked for me about her prior character, she's just enjoyable now. thank you for reading  i hope you enjoyed patch.