Awesome / Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

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Legacy/A Realm Reborn - Heavensward - Stormblood - Shadowbringers - Endwalker

• 3.0 has you confronting one of the new primals by pretending to surrender yourselves to the Gnath as a sacrifice to their lord, Ravana. Once he's summoned, Ysayle uses the crystals in the room to transform into Shiva and fights him and even uses most of her moves that she used when you fought her previously. Sadly, Shiva loses and you have to fight Ravana yourself, but it is no less awesome to see a primal that's on your side fighting against another primal.
• In 3.0, early in the story quests, you, Alphinaud, and Yugiri team up to save Raubahn by exploring Halatali together as a team. It's awesome in that, prior to this, most NPCs took a backseat in story content, and now they're actively helping you take on a dungeon together. It helps make both characters feel like part of your team in a way that's not been present until this point.
• In 3.0, the final dungeon includes a lot of reused mechanics from Crystal Tower and the Binding Coil of Bahamut. Soon after in The Singularity Reactor, the final boss's long desperation move does the same with Primals added. The feels of nostalgia are very real. To top it off, the Primal(s) in question is the Knights of the Round summon from Final Fantasy VII. Players get to face off against what is widely regarded as the most powerful summon in the entire series slowly building up to the moment they strike the party with Ultimate End, causing the screen to shatter much like the original.
  • Even better is that you canonically fight Thordan and his twelve knights all by yourself, and you still WIN.
• Midgardsormr, a dragon who mocked you for trying to find sanctuary within Ishgard, mocked you for thinking you could stop the Dragonsong War, and mocked you for relying on the light from the Mothercrystal, finally sees your true worth after you overcome so many trials and hardships by the time you reach Azys Lla and declares you worthy of the blessing of light. He rewards you for your efforts by becoming a full-sized dragon (though not his original massive form) and allowing you to ride him.
  • Not only does he declare you worthy of the light (as the Warrior of Light restores the link to the Mothercrystal by themselves as they go through the story), he enhances it with his own blessing making it stronger than it ever has been.
• Through a Sightseeing log, you can discover that Ysayle didnt just sacrifice her life to buy the Scion's time to escape and reach Azys Lla, she permenantly disabled the Gration (Equal to the airship which took down Midgardsormr in a mutual kill...of sorts) when fighting it as Shiva. Her primal aetheric ice magic has sealed its engines and it is effectively grounded at Azys Lla. The Garleans lack the ability to manipulate aether which is the only way to remove aetheric ice, and later events faced by Garlamald in upcoming expansions take up their attention, which means it is grounded indefinately taking it out of the equation in all future potential events where it could have been used against Eorzia.
• The whole ending for Heavensward is one big awesome moment that will be a part of Eorzea's history books. Ishgard is now united with the Eorzean Alliance once more, bringing its people together again. Ishgard is also free from the chains of the church and its people will now be able to make their own fate rather than being born into a societal class. When the Warrior of Light returns to Isghard with Midgardsormr, the knights draw their weapons at the sight of the dragon, but then hesitate when they see the Warrior of Light riding on Midgardsormr. After Midgardsormr introduces himself, Aymeric and the rest of the knights all kneel before him as a sign of respect and change, swearing to him that they'll do everything in their power to reunite man and dragon together. Midgardsormr, while stating that it will take generations to repair the damage done, is also willing to help mend the bond between dragon and mankind once more as long as man keeps their promise to uphold the peace.
• In 3.1, the display of magical might put forth by Diabolos as he awakens the Void Ark is incredible and awe-inspiring to behold. Climaxing in him using its main gun to tear open a dimensional gate in the Sea of Clouds.
• Heavensward was also the launch of the Mac client so that Mac users can play without using a Windows emulator/wrapper. However, the Mac client had extremely terrible performance, even if the user's computer exceeded the recommended specifications. After players gave their feedback, Yoshida personally apologized for having the Mac client release in such a sorry state and he took full responsibility for it since he was the one who gave the go-ahead to launch the Mac client as is. Not only did Yoshida apologize for a broken product, but he actually went out of his way to explain why the problem occurred (mainly due to a chaotic schedule leading up to the release of the expansion and the client releasing early before it was ready) and offered refunds to anyone who purchased the Mac version of the game. Yoshida also had the Mac version pulled down from the store and says it will not go back up until the client has been thoroughly tested and meets the requirements. In an age where major video game companies usually treat their customers like dirt, Yoshida's gesture was a very welcoming sight.
• The finale of the 3.1 quest chain, after having endured a riot and a shanking, Aymeric, alongside you, Thancred, Y'shtola, Alphinaud and Artoriel, raid the Vault to save hostages that a splinter group of clergy have taken. Things finally reach a head when you confront one of the priests responsible and he tries to drop a child to her death, only for her to be saved... by Vidofnir, the dragon guardian of Anyx Trine. Try as the nobility might to discredit it, Ishgard's status quo is one step closer to being shattered as commoner and nobility alike see a dragon rescue someone from their death out of nothing more than the goodness of her heart. To make things even more heartwarming, speaking to the child in the Brume after the events has her asking if she could ride the dragon again.
• The story of how Thancred spent the interim between 2.55 and 3.1 is this sprinkled with some Funny Moment. He emerges from the Lifestream completely naked, alone, no longer able to use magic, and suffering a painful leg injury in an unfamiliar wilderness, infested with dragons and other countless predators. But he wastes no time in trying to get his bearings, sharpening some obsidian into makeshift daggers, and the screen cuts to him WRESTLING A BEAR. WHILE STILL NAKED, INJURED, AND ARMED WITH NOTHING BUT SOME POINTY ROCKS. AND WINNING. And then he skins the bear and wears its pelt until he's able to trade with the Vath for some better clothes. Soon Thancred learns of Ravana and the 'mighty warrior' who defeated him, and realizes that if he were to track the Gnaths' movements, he'll be able to reunite with the Scions. And the Big Damn Heroes reunion in question is another Awesome Moment altogether.
• 3.2 has a very awesome moment for Thancred. After Emmanellain discovers that his manservant was roughed up by the people that were trying to cause a riot in the Falcon's Nest, he becomes hysterical and starts to blame the people that beat up the poor boy. The Warrior of Light becomes visibly angry at Emmanellain's self-pity and is about to punch him in the face, but Thancred stops them and tells Emmanellain to calm down. Emmanellain punches Thancred in the face in a jealous rage and whines about how Thancred always comes out a hero and how everyone fawns over him. Not only did Thancred barely react to the punch, he returns a punch that hits Emmanellain so hard that he knocks him off his ass and follows it up with essentially "I'm not a hero and I have failed people. Learn to live with the consequences. I have."
• 3.2 also has a spectacle called the Grand Melee that can be described as a massive free for all. With Ishgard needing to instill confidence in its people, Aymeric, Emmanellain, and Hilda all join you in the battle to reclaim Ishgard's honor against the Eorzean Alliance while you wear Ishgard's garb to represent them. After coming close to victory, Raubahn takes you one on one in a Duel Boss moment and uses a ton of ass-kicking moves that covers most of the field while the two of you are surrounded by flames. For a man who won 1000 battles in the coliseum in the past and lost an arm, Raubahn is able to go toe to toe with the Warrior of Light. The entire event showcases just how much support the Warrior of Light has from his Ishgardian comrades and how much of a badass Raubahn is.
  • For bonus points if your character is a member of the Immortal Flames Raubahn will address him or her by rank before initiating the duel.
  • It can be made even better through the player's own actions. Going into the Grand Melee, your gear is temporarily glamoured to look like House Fortemps Knight chainmail. If you happen to be a paladin, you can go into the melee bearing the shield (or glamour of the shield) of House Fortemps given to players in the previous patch.
  • When a Cyclops appears out of nowhere and threatens the match, Thancred calmly walks up to it, decks it so hard it gets knocked on its ass and then tells them to continue on while he takes care of it. Made even more awesome when you remember that he can't use magic anymore AND has no pugilist training - that knock-out uppercut wasn't him using magic to propel up and beat a cyclops, it was just him.
• Ser Aymeric's speech managing to rally almost all of Ishgard, even those who planned and attempted to sabotage the peace talks, behind the idea of finally ending the endless war with Dravania. Though Nidhogg's arrival did sour the moment a little, the player can find Emmanellain in the Jeweled Crozier afterwards where he admits that Nidhogg's actions did manage to unite the people of Ishgard towards a common goal to end the strife (redirecting most of the hatred for dragons in general to just Nidhogg, who is actually responsible for most of the current tensions between them).
• 3.3 sees possibly the crowning moment for the entire game, culminating in a final, climactic battle against Nidhogg. And it begins with you arriving at the Steps of Faith, besieged by Nidhogg's Horde, upon the back of Hraesvelgr, having convinced him to aid in the fight against his twisted brood-brother. What follows is an undeniably epic confrontation between the two great wyrms, both unleashing all their might and magic against one another. And just when it seems Nidhogg has triumphed, his defeated brother reveals himself to be missing an eye... cue the player stepping forward, imbued with half of Hraesvelgr's power, and ready to take Nidhogg down personally.
  • The scene, in particular, is, from a lore standpoint, the climax of the Dragoon job story that's hung over the heads of Dragoon mains since 2.0 or even further back to those that stuck around for 1.0. It is at last time to face their destiny as the Azure Dragoon; to face Nidhogg in battle. Like the Azure Dragoons of the past they are empowered by a dragon's eye. Only this time this is assuredly the last time such a clash will happen and it will be a battle with both Nidhogg's brood and all of Ishgard to bear witness. It makes the slow walk across the bridge towards Nidhogg all the more intense when combined with Dragonsong accompanying the scene.
  • The battle with Nidhogg just gets even more awesome with every phase passes. First is the dragon himself, then a bunch of his brethen, and then he goes through a mutated humanoid form of Estinien himself. When all of that fails to take you down, Nidhogg goes 'absolutely beserk in his final phase and goes through a relentless amount of attacks to Taking You with Me
  • At the end of the battle, Nidhogg, in Estinien's body, appears ready to continue the fight, only for Estinien himself to regain enough control to throw away his lance and grab his own throat, in order to hold the dragon at bay.
    Nidhogg: I am of the first brood! I am vengeance incarnate! I am Nidhogg! Thou wilt die at my hand!
    Estinien: This is not your hand, wyrm!
  • With the opening Estinien has created, and in spite of his demand to give him a Mercy Kill, Alphinaud and the Warrior of Light rush forward to tear the Eyes of Nidhogg out of Estinien's body. And in the last moment, when it seems like they might fail, Alphinaud and the Warrior of Light see a vision of Ysayle and Haurchefant, helping them to save their friend. With that, the eyes are finally wrenched from Estinien, ending Nidhogg's second life.
• Alexander: The Heart of the Creator has the Cruise Chaser as the boss and it's designed after the dark elemental summon Ark from Final Fantasy IX. Halfway through the fight, gusts of air appear and you have to use them to avoid its One-Hit Kill attack. Using the air ducts has your party leaping onto the boss's back as it transforms into a warship and you get to fly around the arena watching it blast the battlefield to bits (plus the unlucky players that got left behind). You then have a Quick Time Event to jump off the ship and land inches away from the blast zone.
• Alexander: The Creator has a few, but one, in particular, stands out. One of the DPS checks is you and Alexander himself starting a Stable Time Loop, undoing the frozen time bubble Quickthinx had used on you in the cutscene prior to the fight — revealing that you are the one that saves you and your companions' past selves from death by Wave-Motion Gun.
  • A big moment of awesome for Alexander in general. Being a Primal whose own powers are based around the temporal, they also have the ability to see every possible future. By all accounts, the WoL should have been destroyed almost from the moment they made the choice to take them down. And yet they weren't. It's only later on in the story that we learn that the Primal had been playing the long con on everyone involved. Having seen that in every future where it attempts to exert its powers, it always leads to a Calamity, they opted to let the Warrior win (after a Secret Test of Character) and killed off Quickthinx before sealing itself off from time and space altogether to make sure no one else could misuse its power.
• The climax of 3.4, a conflict built up since the stinger of 3.0: the Warriors of Darkness vs. the Warrior of Light, accompanied by the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Special mention goes to Alisaie, who despite carrying an Arcanist's book like her brother, summons not Carbuncle but a Sword of Light!
  • Urianger shows up in the middle of the battle, and given that he's been working with the Warriors of Darkness, things look grim... Only for him to reveal that he was The Mole and has figured out a plan to save both worlds; revealing his Batman Gambit to save The First by gathering the Warriors' crystals together, transporting them to the Aetherial Sea to personally beseech The Word of the Mother to absorb the light flooding the world.
  • While morose, how the Warrior of Darkness claims that they fight everything villainous there is to fight in The First and won makes the group something of utter badasses.
• 3.5 Part One brings us the climactic finish of the Shadow of Mhach storyline with a final showdown and rematch with Diabolos that is as much Dragonball Z as it is Final Fantasy. The first phase of the fight ends with Diabolos charging a massive ball of void energy and hurling it at the party, only for the party to open a portal in the middle of the field that fires a massive beam of energy back to stop it. What ensues is full on beam war ending with Diabolos eating his own ultimate attack, only for him to absorb the Queen as he originally planned to supercharge himself for round two. Then after beating him AGAIN he tries to play dead long enough to ambush everyone, keeping the Nullstone out of Cait Sith's hand only for Leofard, despite his earlier injuries, to ram into Diabolos with his personal airship forcing him to drop the stone and allow Cait Sith to blast him with it, finally ending a story with origins back in 2.2.
  • Way back in A Realm Reborn, Diabolos's ultimate move, Ruinous Omen, was an instant kill that could only be survived by opening the correct two doors in time. This was despite being weakened after being sealed for 1500 years. In Dun Scaith, the Warrior of Light once again faces Diabolos, this time much closer to his original level of strength, and he uses Ruinous Omen again... but this time, the Warrior of Light tanks it. It doesn't stop there. In the next phase, he uses an even stronger version of his ultimate move powered by Scathach's darkness. The Warrior tanks THAT too. Which goes to show just how monstrously strong they've become since their first battle.
• Part 2 of 3.5 has one heck of a battle at the Carteneau ruins. With waves and waves of back up coming in no many how you kill, things seem to be lost until Nero lends you his personal Magitek mount to even the score. Not only does it have the same kind of firepower as the Magitek mounts you used at the end of 2.0, it also has two extra methods of attack designed by Nero himself; a huge firebomb and a massive laser. The enemy commander shits his pants as you mow down his men and automated colossi. Eventually, the commander's men go Screw This, I'm Outta Here while said commander begs for his troops to come back before he decides to fight you and your allies anyway. You send him running after a good beating.
  • The purpose of this battle? To secure the Omega Weapon known to be sealed beneath Carteneau and unleash it to take down the twisted Primal summoned by Ilberd; Shinryu. What follows is a cinematic showdown that rivals 3.3's epic duel between Hraesvelgr and Nidhogg, culminating in a Beam-O-War that detonates a massive blast over Baelsar's Wall and seemingly dispatches both of them. A fitting send-off to Heavensward.
• One of the three new jobs introduced in Heavensward was the Dark Knight. The quests involve fighting alongside a figure named Fray, the "mentor" of the jobquest, as he teaches you of justice. The opening quest involves storming a church full of holy knights to save a girl falsely accused of heresy. You continue to do work with this figure to embrace justice, but along the way, they seem... perturbed by the treatment you get from locals. It comes to a head after you rescue goods from some Qiqirn, but ruin them by getting them bloody, prompting the merchant to demand compensation. Fray goes off on the merchant, and lets slip something, claiming they (the gender matches the Wo L's) should have let Leviathan drown the city. Except Fray wasn't part of the Company of Heroes that you know, and you were the one to fight Leviathan the other two times he was summoned... What follows in the level 50 quest is an epic confrontation with Fray, where they finally take off their helmet - to reveal the Wo L's face staring back. This version of Fray is all the things the Wo L wishes they could say, all the pragmatism they wish they could use instead of idealism, given literal life and form, and the heartbreaking ending of the battle makes the Wo L accept that part of themselves, and come to peace with it.
• After one DRK quest ends with Sidurgu screaming at Rielle for not saying that her mother is the Inquisitor hunting them, and blaming her for the real Fray's death despite the fact that she's already upset and frightened, Rielle gets to answer him back in the next quest. She tears a strip off of him for never listening to her or her wishes in the first place and asks him if he's doing this for her or if he's just using her as an excuse to kill Temple Knights—and also refutes his attempt to make her responsible for Fray's death because he was just as guilty for using her as an excuse for his own revenge. At the end of it, Sigurdu is left sputtering and unable to answer, and eventually admits to both her and the Warrior of Light that she's absolutely right.
• Just like with A Realm Reborn the lore of the Jobs can give extra sweetness to certain events in the Main Storyline:
  • Defeating Nidhogg the first time around as a Dragoon serves to fulfill the promise the Warrior of Light made with Estinien, it also, just as the the Elezen points out, marks the first time in history that two Azure Dragoons fight united against Nidhogg, a combination the Great Wyrm cannot withstand. If you decide to fight him as a Machinist on the other hand, you prove Stephavinien's words true that his machines are the equal to any knight and mark the first step in Ishgard's new era.
  • Storming the Church, can have multiple added moments of awesome. As a Dragoon you are starting the first steps toward Ishgard's redemption, just like the original Azure Dragoon wanted. As a Dark Knight you are fulfilling the promise that the Temple Knight that started it all swore unto the rest of the clergy, delivering vengeance in the name of people they had long since abandoned and oppresed. As a Machinist you essentially start a revolution by defeating the men and women responsible for keeping the hierarchy of the City-State in place. And as an Astrologian you deliver payback for what they did to Leveva's father and for all the problems they created for you throughout the storyline.
  • Fighting Thordan and his Knight Twelve can have two very different meanings added if you fight as a Dragoon or as a Dark Knight. If you fight as a Dragoon then you are finally finishing the original sin that started the War and clear the name of Azure Dragoon from it's previous stain, redeeming the soul of a man who gave his life for atonement. If you fight as a Dark Knight then the sins of the Church finally catch up to them, with the added sweetness that one priest doing unspeakable things to a child started a chain of events that would give one adventurer the means to take down the Church.
  • And, of course, there's the final fight with Nidhogg, if you defeat him as a Dragoon then not only are you defeating the very image of vengeance from the dragon's side in the Wyrm, but you are also defeating Ishgard's in the form of Estinien. It also serves as a testament, it is the the Dawn of an Era, the Azure Dragoon's of old are finished.
  • Defeating the Iluminati and Alexander as an Astrologian adds more sweet to the fact, throughout the job storyline you are told the importance of working with the present for a better future despite how cruel the current fate might be, so it's only fitting that someone who accepts the hardships of the present and fate defies a bunch of Goblins trying to rewrite history for their own convenience in the name of their obsession.
  • The sins of Mhach once again come back to hunt the present in the form of Diavolos, Scathach and even more voidsents than before. So its only fitting if the Black Mage adventurer steps up and puts the sins of their nation to rest once and for all.
  • And finally there's the fight against Illberd, which can have two very different emotional pay-offs depending on your Job. If you go as a Paladin you are finally taking some measure of vengeance for all that he and the Crystal Braves did in Ul'dah. If on the other hand you go as a Monk or Red Mage then the very first step of Ala Mhigo's liberation will be paved by a member of the Crimson Duelist or the Fist of Rhalgr, heroes who the ala mhigans had long thought dead.
• One boss in Void Ark, Deathguise, has That One Attack which causes players to get blown off the ship. What keeps this from being a Total Party Kill is that prior to this, it summons an ice wall on the field that players want to get blown against. The problem is? Players just tried to avoid getting hit by that attack - meaning it's not uncommon for multiple players to end up getting killed. But there is one way around it: Use the ability Arm's Length or Surecast. If you are able to time it just right? You can completely ignore this. When people manage to time it right, it's an awesome moment in truly telling mechanics "Haha! I beat you!"