I'd much rather listen to Giott go on about their favorite greasy spoon anyway. Perhaps they lack in practicality a smidge since they do not disperse new abilities like job quests, but that's fair trade in my eyes.
The one-two punch of main scenario quest pertinence, while also fleshing out the world's backstory made Role Quests more compelling to me than Job Quests have ever been. I learned of the exploits, triumphs, and failures of Norvrandt's heroes that came before, and how their misactions ultimately led to the current state of the world the hook was great on its own, and you even get to take part in these tales in the form of playable flashbacks. If Giott wasn't busy pounding-back a fourth (or fifth) round of booze, we'd be off hunting Sin Eaters. As a White Mage, I went with the healer Role Quests, and that's where I partnered with Giott a dwarven warrior whose soft, luscious bread smelt of freshly tapped ale. But instead, here in Norvrandt, Role Quests are divvied up depending what part you play, which is a welcome change. I'm just so accustomed to begrudgingly trudging all the way back to Gridania to learn a new skill every few levels. I paused, then cocked a brow before undertaking the first Role Quest, Shadowbringers' progression supplement for job-specific quests.
This would otherwise be a straightforward mission to complete, but the writing humanizes the typical MMORPG go-here-and-kill-seven-boars manner of quests, and mundane tasks are suddenly made captivating. She sang, and sure enough, I had to bust heads. A songstress pleads I accompany her to the wilds so she can practice singing in peace, too bad her high-notes tend to draw the attention of Sin Eaters. Eulmore is a decadent house of debauchery, and the oppressed only gain entry through a showcase of artistic talent. People were clamoring to enter Eulmore, the City of Final Pleasures, and wanted my help to get in. The islands of Kholusia is where my journey began, and it’s also where I bore witness to the geopolitical ramifications of the encroaching light firsthand. Instead of representing the side of good, this light is an abhorrent miasma of death and disease shepherded by the Sin Eaters, malevolent beings that want to imbue Norvrandt in a twisted radiance. Light and darkness as a motif for good and evil is hardly a new idea, even just within Final Fantasy, but it's how Shadowbringers challenges those tropes that make its story extraordinary to me. So, you know, you should probably reunite with them and chew the fat while also saving the realm. The Exarch also admits he kind of, sort of, totally-not-on-purpose dragged the spirits of your fellow Scions to Norvrandt and gave them corporeal form here too. Malevolent light ravages this land as an unchecked blight, darkness is but a memory, and it's up you to restore balance to the firmament. That voice belongs to the Crystal Exarch, the self-appointed guardian of a world called Norvrandt ("The First" to the celestial-inclined), and he, like his world, require your god-slaying talents because all their own heroes are long dead. A voice beckons from across the void the same that courted your companions, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and rendered them catatonic. The story dug its hooks in me from the get-go. It's bloody brilliant, and the most fun I've ever had with Final Fantasy XIV. Square Enix's MMORPG catastrophe-turned-remarkable-comeback-story is on the eve of the sixth anniversary of its revival, and I couldn't dream up a better way to commemorate the occasion than with what this new expansion brings to the table. That's how my journey through Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers felt. Norvrandt isn't Eorzea, and as the light fades from my heart and a sunless sea of night seeps in, some emboldening words from my precursor, Ardbert, help me gain balance: "not even the most valiant heroes can stand alone" - the Warrior of Darkness has come. Hell, if the locals knew I was a champion of the light, they would grab the closest pitchfork and mount my head on a stick. However, those titles mean nothing in Final Fantasy XIV's newest world, Norvrandt. In Eorzea, the masses gather in the streets and cheer for me, for I am Nidhogg's bane, Ala Mhigo's liberator, a knight of House Fortemps, and the Warrior of Light. The people's faces are familiar, but their names and customs are alien.