A Christmas-y Review Special; A Moogle Kupo d'Etat and A Shantotto Ascension
About the Review
Written by Vlorsutes of Garuda. This review is his personal opinion and is not to be considered the viewpoints of Zam.com
In my closing remarks for my review for the first of the three add-on scenarios for Final Fantasy XI, "A Crystalline Prophecy", I mentioned that the developers would have a lot to prove for players of the game to want to purchase the subsequent add-ons. Having just come from finishing up the final battle for the most recent scenario added, "A Shantotto Ascension", I can honestly say that I feel that they learned a great deal from their mistakes and delivered two very well put together stories that will appeal to both the hardcore and the casual fans of Final Fantasy XI.
With my incredible distaste for the first scenario, I was initially apprehensive about the second, "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat". However, I quickly found myself enjoying MKD, with its cuter and more whimsical plot, its clever and nonsensical humor, and the more accepting missions. I was frustrated early on by the same time-grinding quests that plagued the first, but what made them more tolerable in MKD was that these items we were sent out to farm had some relevance to the plot of the story. Rather than going out and collecting crystal fragments that had no real purpose, we were out collecting materials to repair a Mog House or to help our winged butler retrieve his life savings. It genuinely felt that what I was doing was affecting and furthering the plot, which made those fetch quests feel like less of a chore.
The fights were more enjoyable as well, particularly the final fight, which had just the right level of challenge and exhilaration. Unlike how I felt regarding the rather strict job requirements of the final fight for ACP, which alienated any player who didn't have the select few jobs desired, the final mission battle for MKD allowed for a far broader range of desired jobs, encompassing what could be called a "classic" party setup (tank, damage dealers, sleepers, etc). Having it this way allowed for pretty much anyone to advance and finish the missions instead of being turned down because they didn't have Paladin or Ranger leveled.
I know that a lot of players don't really care whether or not the missions are fun or the story is intriguing, as long as the reward at the end is worth it. Fortunately, the augment choices for the Champion's Galea, Anwig Salade, and Selenian Cap can easily trump what else is out there for a lot of situations, such as weaponskill head pieces, TP pieces, etc. That being said, some of the other augmented items you get through your special key rewards are extremely lackluster in comparison to the potential ACP key rewards. In place of rings and earrings that can match or exceed some of the better TP or weaponskill rings out there, you have capes and neck pieces that have in general very lackluster stats, such as a bit of MP or even things like negative magical accuracy.
For everything about MKD that I enjoyed and everything about ACP I found absolutely atrocious, "A Shantotto Ascension" found a happy medium.
Storyline wise, what else would you expect from a series of missions dealing with Vana'diel's most powerful Black Mage? Without giving out any spoilers for those who have yet to complete it, it can be said that the scope of the new scenario is nothing short of epic, with a world-spanning threat that seemed more real and legitimate than that which was posed by the antagonist of "A Crystalline Prophecy", yet still retaining humor to keep the story fresh and lively. The twist at the end is, for a lack of a better word, quite surprising, and for those of you that pay close attention to the cutscene following the final fight of the scenario, there is a possible reference to the popular Dissidia: Final Fantasy PSP game, which as you may know featured Shantotto as a hidden character. Speaking as a fan of that game as well, I found it a very nice touch to root a connection to Dissidia within XI and establish that they exist in the same continuity.
When it came to difficulty through challenge versus difficulty through cheapness, the fights were, again, a happy medium. Strategy and preparation prior to the two major fights of the storyline are the key to winning them, as a group ill-prepared to adjust their tactics to accommodate any changes will easily fall. The major downside to the final battle is the same issue that I had with the final battle for ACP.
Unlike the more diverse job setups that one could take into the final MKD battle, the final fight of “A Shantotto Ascension†tends to demand a very select group of jobs, to the point where if you don't have any of them, chances are you'll have a very difficult time trying to get a group to do it with. While a part of this has to do with the difficulty of the actual fight, a large part is due to the annoying prerequisite for the fight, which is at the least on par with the frustrating pre-req for "A Crystalline Prophecy". Granted, the majority of ASA's can be skipped, but it ramps up the difficulty of the actual final fight so significantly that it makes it virtually impossible to beat otherwise.
What proved to be the biggest and most glaringly frustrating aspect of ASA's mission repertoire for me though had to be the very first fetch quest. The items themselves had an absurdly low drop rate, even with a Thief's Treasure Hunter effect on the mobs, which, when coupled with the crowded camping situations during the first few days following the add-on's release made it nearly unbearable at times. To add insult to injury, unlike in MKD and ACP, where collecting the items was all you needed to finish that particular mission, for ASA one had to use these items in various synths to eventually create an Exclusive item. If your crafting skills (Alchemy, Woodworking, and Clothcraft specifically) aren't leveled high enough before trying to make these, then you'd likely break them and potentially lose hours upon hours of farming for nothing. Even though the synthed items needed for the final synth could be purchased from the Auction House or from Bazaars, the final item can't be, and must be synthed by you. For an expansion scenario that's supposed to be open to anyone, forcing players that haven't leveled a certain craft (or crafts) to do so if they want to avoid countless breaks on a vital item is absolutely uncalled for, and seems to be there for no other purpose than to act as a timesink.
All in all though, despite these issues, both "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat" and "A Shantotto Ascension" proved to be considerably more enjoyable than their predecessor, and if Square Enix learns from the mistakes of their first three scenarios (which they already had started to storyline wise), then the future looks bright for more add-on scenarios like these.
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