Awesome / Final Fantasy XIV: Legacy/A Realm Reborn

Final Fantasy XIV Main Page
Legacy/A Realm Reborn - Heavensward - Stormblood - Shadowbringers - Endwalker

• Getting to watch a massive dragon go postal on an airship bigger than he is, completely ignoring its entire offensive complement being fired at it, and just ripping it apart. It's so awesome it gets replayed in ARR, for new players, when Louisoux is recapping some recent history.
  • The point which marks the dragon's arrival. The enormous air fortress has hundreds of AA guns firing in every direction at the large host of small dragons surrounding it when the tracers start to peter out and pause for a poignant moment before they all simultaneously start firing up into the clouds with much higher intensity, moments before a gigantic head breaks through said clouds. One can only imagine the panic of the command center implied by this. They may have not planned for a battle with dragons but thought they had things well in hand, being the biggest kid on the playground high up in the sky, only to detect something absolutely colossal bearing down on them from above the clouds.
  • Going to Mor Dhona and seeing the wreckage of that same airship with the dragon's body still wrapped around it qualifies as well. And yeah, it's still there in ARR. All factions involved and in the area consider it as having been a mutual kill.
  • Turns out that dragon is actually Midgardsormr, father of the Great Wyrms who rule dragon kind and by extension God-Patriach of all Dragonkind on the planet. And yes, he's not actually dead, just resting and you get to fight him too.
• Nobuo Uematsu is composing the soundtrack solo for the first time since Final Fantasy IX.
  • Special mention needs to go to Answers, the main theme, linked here in live symphonic glory. The song is sung by Susan Calloway, the English vocalist from the Distant Worlds concert series, and Uematsu intended it for her from the start. The choral part is a complex layering of phrases and sentiments, and the lyrics manage to be both uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time.
    • And then... and then they set it to the end of Legacy. See directly below.
    • And then, they set it to Turn 4 of the Final Coil of Bahamut, where you get to face Bahamut himself.
• The End of An Era trailer. Every. Second. Of it.
  • Could also count as a Tear Jerker toward the end. Even if you haven't played the game.
  • Keep in mind, this actually played at the shutdown of 1.0. Square Enix, for all their mistakes, wasn't going to just shut down the game (until the launch of A Realm Reborn in August 2013), they were going all out with a bang. This sort of flashiness is what you would expect from a new Expansion, not a shutdown. With poor review scores (which are pretty much death sentences for the average MMORPG), they decided to just reboot the game entirely. And they did it in the best way possible with a giant dragon wreaking hell on earth. To quote the Fiery Joker:
    I love how Square Enix basically says, "Whelp, we blew it, but the show must go on! We're not going to just kill it, we're going to kill it and have it be the most amazing thing anyone ever sees."
    • Unknown thousands of people logged on just so they could say they were there when the world ended.
  • How about the Extended Trailer, A New Beginning? A True Masterpiece, indeed.
  • Flames of Truth, reveals what happened to Louisoux after his spell: he goes totally and completely Dragon Ball Z-like, catching and preventing Bahamut's Teraflare from hitting the ground, then shooting right through it AND Bahamut in a Mutual Kill.
• The boss fight with Titan. Ifrit, for all his flashiness, was a pushover. Titan? Is fought atop a platform so high up, falling off means instant death, out of reach of raise spells. He will occasionally target a random player with a knockback attack which may send them falling to their death. He will regularly use an attack which damages everyone in the party, which is a Difficulty Spike for a healer new to the fight. And twice throughout the fight, he will break off the edge of the arena, making it even smaller. All this, and he still has a One-Hit Kill move like Ifrit you have to interrupt to survive. How could this be any more awesome? With the rocking BGM that plays throughout the fight, getting more and more intense along with the fight itself.
  • And on the subject of primal battles, Garuda's battle theme is something else.
• EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE PRAETORIUM. From the Nero tol Scaeva fight, even with his whinging about being in Cid's shadow, reuniting with your sentient Magitek Armor, Maggie, fighting Gaius van Baelsar on a freight lift, and then fighting the ancient Allagan superweapon, Ultima Weapon on another badass elevator reminiscent of the Olga Flow battle from PSO, seeing it use Ultima, confronting Lahabrea, good LORD what a finisher. And that's not even counting the extra lengthy and super-touching ending cutscenes!
  • Changes to Praetorium in Patch 6.1 somehow are more awesome. Castrum and Prae are both turned into 4 person dungeons, with Ultima Weapon becoming its own separate 4 Player Trial, akin to Ifrit, Titan and Garuda before it. No longer is Gaius or Ultima a pushover, which is awesome for them, but a super awesome for the player comes in during the final Ultima Cast, where Hydaelyn pushes herself to her limit to grant a four person light party use of Limit Break Level 3, the first one a new player will see in the game, since 8 person trials are locked behind finishing the main ARR story. Needless to say the DPS who pulls the trigger will feel like a total badass for it.
• "Escape From Castrum Centri". A rescue mission to recover the survivors of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Two fun fights, and a show of why the Scions deserve the respect they receive. Everyone shows their own form of Badassery, everyone gets hit with a major shock when they learn who's behind Lahabrea's mask, and the final escape by airship is one awesome moment after another.
• The level 50 Weaver quest, "A Miner Reborn," has Wawarukka dive into the path of Kokomo's fiance, Mamajaru when he's about to hit her for not reacting to his story.
  • The level 50 Blacksmith quest sees the Warrior commissioned to forge a new sword for a flagging Gladiator. It eventually becomes clear that both the gladiator and the mysterious Miqo'te who's commissioning you are adventurers who have been active since before the Calamity. This means both of them likely have badass credentials to rival ARR-era Warrior of Light. The gladiator then takes up the sword you've forged for him, admiring the beautiful weapon. He plants his old sword in the floor - and then uses yours to slice through it in a single blow, leaving not a mark on your handiwork. The gladiator departs, promising to use the blade to rise to a place of prominence worthy of such a weapon. The entire affair really sells the idea that you've personally created a weapon which will go on to have a long and storied history.
• At the end of "Return of the Holyfist", Hamon Holyfist goes to confront Weggfarr in a fight that could likely end in the pugilist guild leader's life. Thankfully, he has undergone training with you for this fight. When Weggfarr goes at Hamon with an axe, Hamon moves with such blinding speed that his counterattack was barely perceptible. And For just a split-second, he looks just like his younger self◊!
  • The entire questline ends in a way appropriate to the Pugilist's Guild: an all out rumble in the streets of Ul'Dah between the entire Guild and Weggfarr's gang.
• The Labyrinth of the Ancients. It's the first dungeon to require an alliance of 24 players (3 parties of 8), and the bosses are designed with this in mind.
  • The Bone Dragon. It seems to go down pretty quick... then the skeleton enemies that you've been killing during the fight get back up and start running towards it. If they reach the dragon, the raid takes massive damage. Then the dragon gets back up. The fight isn't even half over.
  • Thanatos. He's incorporeal, so he can't normally be harmed. Good news, there are friendly NPCs who will turn you ghostly too so you can hurt him. Bad news, lots of enemies will spawn to kill them, so those who aren't ghostly need to protect them.
  • The King Behemoth. As soon as the fight starts, the floor becomes electrified. There is no safe place to stand. Instead, players are assigned to the four towers around the arena to keep them active, reducing the electric damage to manageable levels. Sometimes, a comet will land on a player. This is actually a good thing, because the Behemoth's strongest attack, Ecliptic Meteor, will outright kill anyone, unless they cower behind the comets left around the arena.
  • Phlegethon. The final boss of the labyrinth is actually not that difficult, but the mechanics involved are unlike anything else in the game, making for a very fun end to the instance. He has nonstandard shaped AOE moves, and the Ancient Flare, which will kill everyone unless enough people react correctly.
• In the 2.2 story quests, the plan to defeat Leviathan in his own domain. Use a scaled-up version of the same tactic used to fly the Enterprise through Garuda's tempest. None of the Lominsan ships can carry enough crystals to make it work? Lash two ships together to carry them all! How is this thing going to get close to Leviathan in the first place? Tow it with another ship!
• Continuing the Crystal Tower quest and dungeons from Labyrinth of the Ancients, we now have Syrcus Tower. Besides being a massive shout-out to Final Fantasy III, it's another alliance raid, with the following four boss fights.
  • Scylla's fight is pretty much Phlegethon version 2. While she doesn't have any instant death attacks, and her Ancient Flare is toned down (assuming you stand in the puddles of water first), she solves this by having constantly respawning adds call Elder Staves that have various AOE patterns. Additionally, to even use the barrier mechanic for her AOE Stun and Damage Daybreak attack, players have to run orbs of electricity to terminals to power them up, while at the same time, freeing players hit with ice orbs using fire orbs, leading to a frantic fight with everyone constantly on the move. Scylla will also spam a dark version of Holy called Unholy, which comes with a deeper sound effect compared to the normal Holy used by White Mages.
  • Glasya Labolas requires the alliance to constantly stop various machines that are charging him up for a major AOE attack, as well as to redirect power to special pads that cause the players to jump away to safety. Players either have to have a member rush to Clockwork "Wrights" to have the power diverted to one player, while everyone else destroys the machine, or lure Clockwork "Knights" (based off of Final Fantasy XIII Pulse Machina soldier type machines) in between two terminals to redirect power.
  • Amon, is a mad scientist who dresses like Kefka with a touch of Kuja's music and theater themes to his attacks, such as Elemental Forte, and Curtain Call. Additionally, he calls various experiments of his to aid him in battle, while confounding the alliance by turning random members into Frogs, planting Pyrotechnic bombs on others that cause periodic explosions and knock away those near them, and tries to inflict Mini on others with special orbs. The alliance has to figure out how to turn these things back on their creator to help aid them to victory. Amon will also speak down to the alliance with polite mannerisms, viewing you and your party as "rude guests".
  • The final battle, is against Emperor Xande, the first ruler of the Allagan empire, who attempts to take out the alliance using powerful attacks like Ancient Quake, or by summoning multiple comets and a meteor. Xande even boasts how the stars must bend to his will.
• After watching him nearly eradicate all of Eorzea, you finally get your chance at Bahamut◊ in the Final Coil.
• The player character is dubbed the Warrior of Light due to the blessing they were given by Hydaelyn. The player character is granted the Echo, a power that lets them see memories of people near them and resist being tempered by primals. But then your blessing is taken away by Midgardsormr and an Ascian senses your light is no longer with you, dubbing you as weak and nonthreatening. When said Ascian kidnaps Minfilia, you proceed to kick his ass anyway without Hydaelyn's blessing by sheer determination and with your own powers and skills.
• The Zeta Zodiac weapons. What started off as a quest to recreate a relic weapon of legend evolved into something much greater. Anyone who stuck with a relic all the way endured a LOT: recreating the relic (base relic), defeating powerful enemies to gather materials so that the relic can be fully reborn (completed relic), obtain special items to enhance the relic's power (Zenith), find 12 incredibly rare items to begin the process of further enhancing your weapon (Atma), slaying tons and tons of monsters and foes to bathe the weapon in their blood and souls to gain even greater power (Animus), collecting a ton of materia and alexandrites so that the soul enhanced weapon will be further boosted (Novus), going around Eorzea on your daily adventures so that the weapon can be attuned to the souls within and power up further (Nexus), spending a fortune of several kinds to obtain special materials while also spelunking in dungeons to find even rarer items while crafting other items so that you can transform your relic into a weapon that was once used by the Zodiac Braves (Zodiac), and finally, going around and adventuring again to fully awaken several different types of sentience within your weapon so that the Zodiac arm achieves its ultimate form (Zeta). For anyone who stuck by their relic through the thick and thin, the moment of seeing your Zodiac Zeta awaken with triumphant fanfare and glory is its own reward.
  • Not to mention the other reward - it's pretty much agreed that the Zeta weapons were the Best In Slot weapons of the 2.x era, period. While the Dreadwyrm weapons are of equivalent item level, the fact that the Zeta weapon can be configured to the player's wishes gave them the edge.
• At the end of Turn 12, you get a CGI cutscene showing Louisoux's battle against Bahamut. What the rest of the world saw was just a blinding light and then everything was silent. What really happened? Louisoux used the hopes and wishes of the people of Eorzea to turn himself into the primal Phoenix, and using his new power, he proceeded to blow a hole in Bahamut's chest. Had it not been for Bahamut's malice and craftiness, Louisoux would have ended the entire tragedy of Dalamud in a single strike.
• The climax of 2.55 has a lot of awesome to go around as well as mixing in some moments of Tear Jerker. Raubahn is in sorrow when he hears that Nanamo was assassinated and Teledji Adeleji, one of the most antagonistic members of the Syndicate, taunts Raubahn by saying that Nanamo would be glad to have her strings cut since she's not in charge anymore. Raubahn, who knows of the schemes that Teledji had a part in and had held back from acting for Nanamo's sake, flies into pure rage and cleaves the Lalafell in half, which makes it doubly awesome for everyone who wanted to see him finally reap what he sowed. Ilberd, who reveals himself as the true assassin, cuts Raubahn's left arm off, but it does little to stop the enraged man as he engages the assassin one-handed and manages to hold his own as the Warrior of Light and the Scions flee for their lives. Sadly, Raubahn lost the fight and was thrown in jail, but it's still a crowning moment of ass-kicking for a man who had won 1000 gladiator matches in a row.
• The final mission in the Kobold beast questline has a few but most noticeable is the confrontation with Zo Ga. You don't actually get to confront him. Right before the point where you figure you would, Gi Gu (who until this point was absolutely pathetic and helpless) manages to get back up after being beaten within an inch of his life, blows up Zo Ga's mining tunnels and single-handedly take down the larger and much more ruthless Zo Ga using a bomb to propel himself at him to deliver a flying rocket punch. It's as awesome as it is satisfying.
• The quest you unlock after finishing all the ARR beast tribe quest chains has a rather amazing cutscene involved. The leaders of all the friendly beast tribes band together to fight a powerful enemy while you handle a hostage situation]]. The fight ends with a sylph-magic buffed Amalj'aa shoulder tackling the enemy, followed by a pacifist Ixal throwing a sword to a legendary Sahagin warrior who then finishes the fight with a kobold-assisted ROCKET JUMP. Also counts as a Funny Moment for the five beastman leaders as they perform a "Super Sentai" Stance introduction complete with Badass Boasts and multi-colored fireworks.
• While "The Parting Glass" is a Wham Episode of the first order, it does have a Catharsis Factor thrown in the middle. After Teledji Adeleji gets a Near-Villain Victory from his plan to kill the sultana and frame the Warrior of Light for it, he goes full Smug Snake, thinking he's invincible. Raubahn proves otherwise after Teledji mocks Nanamo as a Puppet King. Raubahn says that Teledji can "mock her from Hell", drawing both of his blades and literally slices Teledji in half. Bullying a Dragon was not Teledji's smartest move, and it provides a fitting end to his scheming.
• Each Job has a heavy amount of lore around it and, in some cases, that lore can and will affect the story so if the players go to certain fights in certain classes it only adds to the emotional weight of the fights:
  • If the players fight any of the starting primals with classes or jobs from the respective City-States, fighting Iffrit as a Gladiator/Thaumaturge/Pugilist, Titan as a Warrior/Summoner/Scholar/Ninja or Garuda as a Bard/Dragoon/ White Mage, then they get double the satisfaction given the dread that the people of each nation has towards each deity.
  • Gaius van Baelsar was basically the face of the imperial occupation of Eorzea so he made plenty of enemies in the continent. This only means that the fight can have multiple additional meanings once the Warrior of Light and the Black Wolf face off. If you go into the fight as a Monk you fulfill Widargelt's desire and avenge Ala Mhigo, if you go as a Warrior you redeem the tribes that once were casted out of Eorzea due to being uncontrollable berserkers by saving it once more in its Darkest Hour, if you go into the fight as a Summoner you prove that Older Is Better by defeating the weapon that supplanted the Summoners: The Ultima Weapon.
  • Facing off against the Crystal Tower as a Summoner or a Black Mage is doubly cathartic for very different reasons. If you fight as a Summoner then you are avenging all your predecesors who were persecutted for crimes many of them did not commit in the face of a hyppocritical empire who was commiting even worse attrocities. If you fight as a Black Mage then you are fulfilling your long forgotten obligation of defending the Realm from the forces of the Void, even managing to defeat a Sovereign in the form of the Cloud of Darkness.
  • Then there's the fight against Bahamut which not only sets the Realm free from a thousand year old mistake but also helps with a few other matters. Summoner once again has a part to play as they are putting their empire's greatest mistake to rest and facing off against THE Primal, as they were originally meant to do. If you fight the Dread Wyrm as a Dragoon you mark what is essentially the beginning of the end of the Dragon Song War by defeating an image of one of the First Brood and, unknown to everyone sans Alisae, Alphinaud and Urianger, become the only Dragoon in history to have faced off against Bahamut, Nidhogg, Hraesvelgr and Midgardsormr and live to tell the tale.
• Most of the Level 30 quests for the base Jobs have big stakes for the guilds and characters involved and are suitably climactic, but also tend to be limited to just the guild's characters. The Rogue's final quest involves discovering a plot to detonate a massive Garlean super-explosive in the heart of Limsa Lominsa by a gang of pirates to bring about a new age of piracy. The entire Rogue's guild comes together in a desperate last-minute battle to save the city in a huge fight straight out of an action movie.