One of my favorite things about Final Fantasy gameplay wise is the dungeons and raids. My favorite thing period would of course be the story but from a pure gameplay standpoint the dungeons and raids are the best. Luckily there's a lot of them to. There's around 80 dungeons in FFXIV and that's not counting the ones that have now been released with Endwalker.
The first dungeon in Endwalker is called the Tower of Zot. This is one of many towers that started appearing around the world at the end of Shadowbringers to brainwash the people close to them. They trap the people inside only to feed on their aether so that they can summon powerful primals. We also learn at the end of the dungeon that most of the aether is being funneled somewhere else which can only be a bad thing.
This is not the first time we see one of these towers but it's the first time we get to see the inside of one outside of cutscene. This place is just absolutely huge. It has this weird spiky, fleshy doomsday architecture that's just nothing but creepy. All over the place you have these elephant people trapped and mounted on the walls as well which doesn't help with the creepiness.
This dungeon follows the general setup of that FFXIV dungeons has been following since Stormblood. There's three bosses with an area of trash mobs in between. The trash mobs are mostly thralled and turned imperials with their machines while the bosses are the gods of the elephant tribe summoned as primals. We fight each of them leading up to the final boss room where we end up fighting all of them together.
These bosses are absolutely crazy. They have so many huge abilities and effects that you have to almost inch perfect dodge if you don't want to get hit by them. Most of these abilities happen in close succession so it almost feels like you're dancing your way through each fight. Hectic boss fights like the ones we get in this dungeon are definitely my favorite kind.
It also makes it extra fun because the small changes they've made to the Paladin class have made it all the more fun to play. I have more buttons and options now as well as a fair amount of self heals. The new level 82 ability is a monster of an ability which both lets me block attacks for a while, reduces the damage I take by 15% as well as healing me over time. Tanking as a Paladin was fun before but it's even more fun now.
Due to my immense skills as a tank we managed to clear this dungeon first time without any wipes. I hope that the other Endwalker dungeons will be as cool as this one or even better. The dungeon design, both visually and mechanically, has just been getting better and better throughout the FFXIV expansions so I hope they keep delivering on that.
With this threat quelled and the land of Thavnair having been saved it's time to move on. The story now takes us to Garlemald, the capital of the Garlaen empire. This is quite huge as they've been one of our biggest enemies throughout the entire story of FFXIV.
Now though they are a great nation that's fallen from grace. Zenos, the prince and also the main antagonist in the Stormblood expansion, has taken to rule. He's sided with an Ascian called Fandaniel and they're plotting to bring about the end of the world, the Final Days which I mentioned in my last post. The capital is in ruins and the Imperial Palace has been turned into this monstrosity of a doomsday tower.
It's gonna be exciting to delve into this area and learn more about the Empire and what has happened here. Our mission: End the thread of the Selophoroi and save the populace.
As you can see I had some time to pose in front of the Imperial Palace. Now we march to save the world. For Eorzea!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.
