I just finally reached credits on Shadowbringers patches. Holy shit has this ever been a ride and a half.

I bought FFXIV for the first time on steam, back in Decmber 2020, when Shadowbringers went on sale, I've always adored final Fantasy but had never quite gotten much into MMOs, much less one you had to pay for expansions and a monthly sub for (could never quite convince my dad to pay for that as a kid haha).

It was the middle of the pandemic and I figured I'd have nothing better to do (I was right), so I started my journey in ARR. After I had gotten through about 75% of it I ended up having to take an extended break for ~a year. But the release of Endwalker (and my subsequent impulse preorder) made me come back and sit through the 2 hour long queues during the launch, even though I was no where near Endwalker.

I made my way through ARR, and I absolutely hated the last 25% of it to get through, but I did it, barely. From there I started Heavensward as a WHM but not long after starting it, I decided that I wanted to be a DRK instead, and sat in Ishgard, for literal weeks after work and classes, just grinding up DRK to level 53 so that I could continue the story. I fell in love with Tank, and even though I've tried every role and most jobs now Tank is still my favorite, with GNB (the job I just finished ShB with, alongside my boy Thancred), being my favorite of the bunch.

After Heavensward, and Estinien becoming an actually likable character (seriously hated that jerk in the beginning), I made the switch to DRG, during the patch quests. Only issue was that I hadn't even started Lancer at that point... so I started the long climb from 1 to 60 so that I could continue the story again.

I stayed with DRG for a long time, until about halfway through Stormblood. At this point I was getting worried because I'd only really enjoyed the last half of each expansion (with some portions being an exception early on), and really hadn't enjoyed the patch quests whatsoever. I resolved to finish Stormblood and see how good Shadowbringers was like I had kept being told.

To my surprise, Stormblood got good (in my opinion at least) much earlier than ARR or HW, granted the highs weren't as high, but it was more overall good, spread out across the entire expansion. About halfway through, I switched to DNC but that was very short lived, as I soon learned the hard way that DNC is very squishy and was not fun to solo for me, seemed to be more fun with friends to buff, etc. So I finally switched to GNB.

And I'm not going to lie, at this point I wanted to reach Shadowbringers so badly, I opened up my wallet and purchased GNB level skip. I really didn't want to do more grinding but up to level 68 instead.

I finished off Stormblood and to my surprise, really really enjoyed the ending, and going even further in surprise, I really enjoyed the patch quests. I especially loved the Tsuyu arc, especially the finale of it.

At that point it had been over 2 years since I bought Shadowbringers and I was finally getting ready to start it. I was so excited and to be honest, that excitement was not wasted. Shadowbringers threw me in head first unlike other expansions, and tensions rose straight away. It was fun, tense, and engaging. I found myself enthralled by every cutscene, reading and rereading dialogue, and just having a blast.

In the span of the last 3 months, I flew through the whole thing, and the patch quests, I think this is the longest consecutive amount of months I've actually kept my subscription active for. It was insane, there were times I laughed and times I cried and I absolutely loved every second of it, however, in the end, I'm a little sad to have it end. But at the same time I'm excited to see what comes next, what the finale of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark Saga has in store for me.

P.S. after all of that, the thing I'm most excited to finally get, is my island sanctuary 😩👌. Just a little further and I can live out my stardew valley dreams in FFXIV...