FILMMAKER REACTS: FINAL FANTASY XIV | SHADOWBRINGERS
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- Опубликовано: 13 фев 2024
- UK Filmmaker Kai Zammit reacts and breaks down FINAL FANTASY XIV: SHADOWBRINGERS Full Trailer. My First Final Fantasy!!
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"don't over-expose your skies" you did it man, that's the plot of Shadowbringers
Holy shit you're so fucking right! lmfao
actually goated comment
The narrator is not the guy in the red cloak. It's actually the guy in the hood in the tower looking through the Magic mirror
Recommend seeing all of them in order.
yeah, this one especially has bits and pieces of all the trailers, even the 1.0 one!
Second
@@JM-nothing-more Yeah, to me Shadowbringers feels a lot like accumalation of all the things that happened before, point being the flashback. So having that context makes it way better, at least to me.
And this is secondly because I want to see him react to the others as well tbh.
What's the best order fella?
@@kaizammit
Final Fantasy 14 (Version 1.0) Trailer (somewhat optional, this version of the game was shutdown and reworked into what it is today)
A Realm Reborn Cinematic Trailer OR Flames of Truth Cinematic (an alternative cut of the 2.0 trailer that became available in game a while after release, it diverges after a certain point in the trailer to follow a different character)
Heavensward Cinematic Trailer
Stormblood Cinematic Trailer
Shadowbringers Cinematic Trailer (moot point now)
Endwalker Cinematic Trailer (this was the end of the first major arc of the story, a 10 year finale, so there's a lot of context you'd be missing, but it's worth watching regardless)
Dawntrail Cinematic Trailer (beginning of a new story, and only fully released very recently)
One note: The reason the animals are the anime approach of basically a human with animal ears is obviously a Japanese aesthetic (the Kemonomimi - human with animal ears - is an Eastern design more than full bestial races being utilized) but also a resource issue.
By having similar body skeletons, it's easier for them to create the gear used in the game. Otherwise they have to custom design the armor set per race due to different skeleton structures.
So instead of having 8,000 pieces of armor that fit on 7 races, they would have to create 8,000 pieces of armor to fit on 5 races and then another 8,000 for bestial race 1 and yet another 8,000 to fit on bestial race 2. Each additional bestial race would then be another rework of every armor set in the game plus another set of every future armor design to fit them.
They did eventually introduce more bestial cat people (inspired by Final Fantasy X), but were originally male only and they can't wear helmets (again, they have to model every helmet in the game different and customized exclusively for them), but the artists kept working on female versions of this race (and male versions of the bunny girl in this video) in their spare time to offer to fans. We're getting the female bestial cat people in Dawntrail and you can see one in the Dawntrail trailer.
.....but also because rule 34. And the developers know their audience is a buncha deviants.
What’s also subtle and often overlooked is that the hero changes jobs when fighting the angel and uses the most powerful weapons available (relics) and still they get shattered. Then he changes to Samurai and uses the same skill he used in the 1v1 combat at the beginning. It’s a powerful attack that clears the clouds and the battlefield but the angel doesn’t even blink. And that’s because he’s been the warrior of light all along but against light (angel) it doesn’t work and he needs to embrace darkness.
It also makes the sound that plays in game when he switches. Love that touch
The cluster of banners in the beginning represents the factions on one side of the battle we're sweeping through. And the white banner afterwards is the enemy's.
The sword it focuses on belongs to one of your allies that falls in battle right before you show up to 1v1 the enemy in the next shot.
The barrage of flashbacks we see are all taken from the previous expansion's trailers. And when the main character flashes in blue throughout the battle with the angel, they're swapping thru the various classes and fighting styles that they used in the previous expansion trailers. This shows that all the power they've built throughout the story are no match for this new threat and that they have to "become what you must" in order to defeat it, as stated later in the voice over.
As a final thought, it's interesting that you said you assumed the cat in the black cloak was a villian because this expansion plays a lot with the concept of light vs. dark and flips it on its head. Hence the angel being an enemy.
The banners I feel are also a symbol of unity where the lone banner is foreshadowing of things to come. Being alone; without "the power of friendship" to keep you in the fight. The City states start off looking out for themselves and are weak until they band together to fight a common enemy.
You can also see the banners behind the two characters representing or foreshadowing which banner they belong too.
The Warrior of Light with many banners in the background or the armored opponent with the single banner also in the background before they dule.
Isn't it the garlean banner that falls right there too before the clash?
@@kazunamori943it’s also a call back to the first trailer
Indeed, notably all the banners you've spent the last three expansions helping, solving their major problems, and uniting for the last three expansions against the common enemy of the empire(Solitary banner)
33:39 Something interesting you mentioned here is that the framing is TOTALLY about the weapon. We've known the white-haired guy for a while; the base game, two expansions, and to a lesser degree, the original cancelled version of FF14. He's not new to us at all.
But the weapon IS. This weapon with the cartridges is an iconic reference to an older FF game, and it (along with the character class that wields it) was introduced for the first time in Shadowbringers which again is the 3rd expansion of the game. Clearly the weapon and the character _class_ are the source of hype for this section of the trailer
Well, that, and the other character reveal that totally threw us all for a loop. Minfilia? HOW!? AND WHY IS SHE TINY!?!?
Thancred got a second chance to save the one he cared for deeply. Loved. And Thancred, mistakes and all, did everything he could to not fail a second time. A beautiful plot point for the expansion.
@@WalkerRileyMC Lol my first reaction was *SPOILERRRRRRRRRRRRRRS* When I saw her lol.
It always makes me laugh when people who don't play accurately call that thing a gremlin, because that's what it is. It's a somewhat unique enemy type that insults players to debuff them and inflict negative status effects. The one in this cinematic is actually a stand in for a very important character, who mirrors those exact same lines in the final battle of this expansion.
"you have no fight left to fight, no life left to live"
Canon gameplay nugget: Anyone can use the emote "/comfort" to remove the debuff from someone with the Misery effect. It's adorable.
Wow im so impressed by this video. So many "film people" have reacted to this trailer without going into yhe detail of tbr cinematography like you did. Thanks so much. Your analysis snd even your criticisms made me appreciate the trailer more, as some of your critiques directly relate to the theming or motifs of the expansion.
For example, the overexposed sky being bland is actually a really smsrt detail. In this world, there is no night and light is in overabundance to the point it plagues people and creates horrific, stone-like monsters (the lion, the angel) that kill people indiscriminately. The sky is a bleached color that looks sickening. Thus, the main character must become the "warrior of darkness," when they were previously known as the warrior of light in their home world. This also revealed Dark Knight as the canonical job of the expansion. Thus, the cutting through the bleached light sky to reveal the night is a huge triumph.
This is the best trailer of the series, but i am interested if you make me appreciate the other ones more witb your analysis.
Thank you so much for watching and hanging out with me. KZ
"They don't look animal-y enough!"
Oh you're gonna love the Dawntrail trailer.
This was fascinating to watch from the perspective of someone who has played this game. It made me realize what bits of information are taken for granted. From the presentation it's actually more logical to assume the VO was the dark haired guy's thoughts. But players know that he's mute so hearing the voice immediately had us asking "who's speaking right now and why does it sound like he's talking about the *past* while we're watching a scene thats supposed to be our *future*".
A small note, the job/class changes are in reference to the jobs the Warrior of Light is during the course of the prior trailers.
1.0 he was a bard, ARR he was warrior, Heavensward - Dragoon, Stormblood - Monk then Samurai.
He's the stand-in to represent all the players.
Archer(class) rather than Bard (Archer advanced form Job). Jobs were added late into 1.X's lifespan and Warrior is the form taken for the End of an Era trailer which temporarily ended the game. It was later adapted into "A New Beginning" for "A Realm Reborn."
One thing that you haven't taken into account for your analysis at 33:24 about the framing.
Yes this is a story trailer, but it's also a feature trailer. The reveal and focus was to be on the sword(the gunblade) because this expansion added the Gunbreaker class(the character you were focusing on) and the dancer class along with the Viera playable character race(the bunny girl a few seconds later in the trailer)
Really glad you are looking at these! You replied to my suggestion yesterday and I have to say that even if Shadowbringers is a great trailer the original one(A new beginning or Flames of truth that includes some very old minor spoilers) is in its own league.
You need to react to all the other Final Fantasy 14 trailers/cinematics as well!
There's so much to unpick from this trailer. It's the 3rd expansion to the MMO so there's a lot of historic references in it. The flashbacks are snippets from old trailers and there's an story arch across all of them leading to this point basically (and into the next expansion Endwalker). The classes/jobs that he transforms into are in order of the games/ expansions. Archer for original game, Warrior for A Realm Reborn, Dragoon for Heavensward, Samurai for Stormblood, then Dark Knight for Shadowbringers. The main guy shown fighting is essentially your player character represented in all of their trailers
As mentioned below, the two sets of flags represent the battle that happened prior to this expansion, showing the alliance on the one side and the enemy faction on the other.
The female cat lady (along with the other speaking characters) are long term companions of the player character, so interesting about the ambiguity of her allegience as a non-player. As players we were very much happy to see them (given the circumstances in the game).
The specific focus on the "Gun Sword", and the rabbit lady in the trailer would be for a specific reason. The Gunbreaker and Dancer were new classes/jobs introduced in the expansion (albeit exist in previous iterations of the Final Fantasy franchise) so it was kind of their introduction moment. The bunny race (Viera) was also new hence the slight slow-mo on them I reckon.
The whole premise of this expansion was quite different. In the previous ones you were the "Warrior or Light", going out in the world to conquer the darkness. In this one, you get transported to another world that's been consumed by Light and you have to become the "Warrior of Darkness" to save it.
The little girl (Minfillia) is a throw back to a person you knew from earlier expansions, a major curveball for players as she effectively died in earlier expansions. Ironically this trailer I think is more confusing for people who play the game than those who don't as there's a couple of things that make you think "what, how?", whereas, being just a viewer you can sit back and think, yeah that's cool. :D
Also worth noting that the voice over isn't sourced from the player character but the guy with the crystal arm.
If it makes you feel better, there is a full cat race called Hrothgar, which are full blown fur, big lion type humanoids.
The game is huge, there's a lot of story and plenty more trailers to watch (if you watch the older ones you'll see some of the easter eggs in this one), highly recommend them as they're all pretty fantastic.
Always love watching your videos. I'm not a film maker or anything like that but I find your videos great to watch and very interesting so please keep up the good work!
Having seen these trailers so many times as a player, it's really interesting to see a filmmaker's perspective of the technical side of it. I really enjoyed your in-depth analysis and explanations! As an artist I know SOME of the concepts like composition, camera placement, high/key/low-key lighting, but a lot else is lost on me in terms of technicality, and how they frame things and present the characters as the camera moves.
To answer your questions/queries: Firstly, the banners at the start represent the city-states who have allied on one side of the war, while the white banner represents who they are facing. Secondly, the trailers are produced with English dialogue first and then dubbed over with the other languages, as far as I'm aware. Even at the Japan Fanfest, the English version of the latest trailer was exhibited, subtitled into Japanese. Thirdly, the voiceover is not that of the player character (or the trailer's representation of the player character), though it's very easy to believe it could be and I think that is something intentional - this trailer actually hides a lot of 'spoilers' in plain sight to throw you off, even as a long-time player, of thinking you've figured out what's going to happen. Fourth, the part you thought may be a flash-forward was a flashback to the trailers of the previous expansions. The FF games aren't connected in that way, they are all independent of each other, but 14's expansions run in a linear order, and Shadowbringers is the third expansion. I also avoided the games for a long time because I believed you had to play them in numerical order and that was too intimidating for me, but then I learned you didn't have to, and 14 was my first one! The base game is called A Realm Reborn, then there's Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker and the soon-to-be-released Dawntrail, if you wanted to look up any more.
Another thing: I think your point about the Dutch angles in the beginning is very interesting - up until that point the opposing character (in the helmet) has overpowered our own character, but at this point, they're on an even footing - which I think may be the reason they went for a straight horizon line on the shot after. It's definitely given me some new thoughts on a trailer that is my personal favourite of the lot, and one that I've seen a ton of times. I enjoyed this a lot!
Thanks you for checking out the video and hanging out with me. I think you're absolutely right on the horizontal line, they were both level so their power statuses had changed. Good spot.
"Is that a gremlin?" Actually yes, that's exactly what it is~
Fun fact, they can inflict a debuff on you and your party members in dungeons while shouting an insult in a speech bubble. The debuff can be used by using /comfort on the player.
"All these people said it was really good, so I didn't try it."
I have never understood this thought process.
That said, in the Final Fantasy franchise it's at least less intimidating because none of the games are related. Some give nods to previous games, but you don't need to know anything about the previous ones to enjoy it. That they managed to pull off a story that made me cry several times in an MMO, is just mindblowing. Each section of the game has a theme and its a wonderful hero's journey.
A Realm Reborn is world building and coming together as a group.
Heavensward is about death and rebuilding afterwards.
Stormblood is about the cost of war, and the humanity on both sides.
Shadowbringers is a subversion of Light vs. Darkness.
And Endwalker is about the dichotomy of hope and despair.
It's an amazingly powerful ten year story arc. I highly recommend it.
Heavensward is also about the cycle of revenge, and how it's ultimately meaningless.
@@paine_inflicta You are absolutely right.
Sometimes you just get sick of hearing the hype so your brain stubbornly refuses it. Doesn't make much sense, but it happens nonetheless
@@craazyy1 I am, admittedly, one of these people. If something gets hyped to an overwhelming degree, I just get to the point where I do not want to see it anymore, and it throws me off from actually wanting to look into it until AFTER the hype dies down. I'm unsure why, I just get real tired real quick of something being shoved in my face in all corners of the internet, so I get real stubborn and petty and will outright refuse it until it's no longer *everywhere.*
8:50 first shows the alliance banners (the nations that have banded together to battle the opression of the empire) then it shows the Empires banner shortly after (standing alone).
This trailer and song will always give me goosebumps. It's soo satisfying to watch.
Additional support for the rest of the FFXIV trailers. Start with A Realm Reborn, then Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers goes here but you already did that one, then Endwalker and Dawntrail.
Definitely watch the rest in order so you understand what is going on better! They are all amazing!
To take the full journey:
Final Fantasy XIV:
1.0 Trailer
A Realm Reborn Trailer (this is two videos in one. The first half is actually what players were shown when 1.0 servers shut down, the second half is the Realm Reborn trailer)
The Flames of Truth
Heavensward
Stormblood
Shadowbringers
Endwalker
Dawntrail
I think I would counsel against Flames of Truth, if you ever plan to play the game seriously. Awesome as it is, it is actually a huge spoiler for a major sidequest in A Realm Reborn
The Gunblade used via the FFXIV job Gunbreaker is used differently than what was in FFVIII. It uses bullets (using your character's bodily 'aetheric' energy) to cause explosions when the sword's trigger is pulled and used on contact. This allows the gunblade to cut harder against foes due to the explosion by the gun and your aetheric ammo.
Literally all of the trailers/cinematics are worth your time, and seeing the earlier ones can provide a little context, or at least some continuity, for the later ones.
i cant believe how making a ultra detailed inspection of this trailer happened to be so damn captivating :D
The flashback is also foreshadowing. Just within the trailer. It helps the audience remember the different classes that Meteor had throughout the expansions. Which you then see him change through during the rest of the trailer. Ending with his new class, the Dark Knight.
OMG YES! I came here from league of legends and now you are reacting to my fav MMO. I recommend A Realm Reborn trailer "Flames of Truth" for your next react. Its best to follow along with the story and this is the first part of the current game storyline. The song 'Answers' just gives me chills while watching the visuals.The fun thing about watching final fantasy trailers is the music as well as the visuals contribute to the storytelling. I got so emotional at the reveal of the crystal tower because the music transition slaps in a very nostalgic way. Same thing with the movement from classical 'Tomorrow Tomorrow' into the modern 'Shadowbringers Theme' in the very beginning.
14:23 "The balancing is sorting itself out" is so spot on as you start as weaker than this character then you basically have a high stakes duel to prove you are "worthy."
The gremlin is actually a way of hiding spoilers as his lines are repeated by another iconic character in the game who is a secret at this time.
I feel a lot of love went into the Angel because she is you first real "trauma" in the game and Japanese anime likes to make us cry. :(
There are actually 2 kinds of cat people in the game, there is one race with more fur (Hrothgar) that are newer to the game. These cats are Miqo'te; more humanoid like the Viera; bunnies. I think they are aptly chosen as they fit the "Fat cat" them of being wealthy and privileged.
I hope you love the FFXIV rabbit hole as much as I do, I will be looking forward to you reviewing the rest. The fans are quite passionate because of all the love that goes into the game and we are waiting patiently for updates to the story so it was a real treat to get this review now. Thank you for your time.
The beautiful moment when he splits the bright angelic cloud cover(and the angel itself) to reveal the night sky behind. Bringing the dark back to a world to save it from the brink. The Warrior of Darkness and Light both.
This is the 5th/7 cinematic trailer for FFxiv, in order there is:
1.0 trailer
2.0 Answers / Flames of truth (extended)
3.0 Heavensward
4.0 Stormblood
5.0 Shadowbringers
6.0 Endwalker
7.0 Dawntrail
The two fan favorites are Answers and Shadowbringers. They're by far the most epic and dramatic.
The big guy at the beginning also shows up in the Endwalker trailer.
You mentioned how the cat lady was wearing all black, so your initial thought was that she was evil until she said," ...our friend..." That is a whole theme within this game: dark is good and light is bad. It is not a normal thing at all and that is why I love it so much.
You have no idea what you’ve done. The FFXIV community will see this and they will find you.
Be prepared for once of the best communities around to welcome you.
I love this outsider look at how these cinematics are constructed. A lot of people that look at these are already fans and know what is going on. But I enjoy these kind of perspective a lot.
*knock knock* Hello there, have you accepted Yoshi P as your lord and savior?
So, in answer to your questions or make comments of my own:
The opening was the battle of Ghimlyt Dark, a region between Eorzea and Garlemald. The first group of flags represents the Eorzean Alliance, the 'good guys' (though the game doesn't shy away from giving them serious flaws), while the second flag (the one you mentioned you thought represented 'us') was actually the Flag of the Garlean Empire, the antagonists (though again, it's more complicated than that. It's a dungeon in game, not dissimilar to WW1 in appearance, though with an obvious Final Fantasy twist.
The thing you thought was a base was actually a crashed airship. Basically the equivalent of a WW2 battleship that flies.
With Zenos (the blond guy with the low angle), part of it was to drive home the power just like you said, but part of it was to show the bodies around him to make the point of just how dangerous an enemy he was. The interesting thing was, this trailer actually shows an 'alternate history', one that leads to a bad end. I'll get into it more later, but the duel with Zenos from the trailer, that Zenos loses? In the game, YOU lose. He crushes you, no matter what you do, and this in spite of the fact that you/your character routinely kills literal gods.
This victory is why it cuts to the Warrior of Light (us, the player character) wandering through a wasteland. Winning the duel with Zenos in an alternate timeline actually sets events in motion that kill the entire planet.
All the visions that the WOL has while trudging? Past battles, past victories, past defeats from across the previous expansions.
The little critter is, in fact, a gremlin. He's a stand in for another character, one they couldn't put in the trailer itself because it would have been such a massive spoiler.
You mentioned that, as the winged angel-statue looking thing (what is called a 'sin eater') descends, it looks bland. That's deliberate. See, in FFXIV's lore, an overabundance of Light-aspected magic is actually deadly. It causes stasis, complete and utter unchanging emptiness to everything. Weather, animals, humans, the terrain. It's an absence of life itself, because life is change. This is why....
The two characters you couldn't decide were villainous or heroic during the burning forest scenes are wearing black. In a world consumed by an over-abundance of light, that which is Light and Bright is considered evil or wicked, whereas that which is dark is considered heroic. The soothing darkness that pushes back the blinding, all-consuming radiance of the light. Both Urianger (the male elezen, an elf basically, with the golden star ornaments) and Y'shtola (the female cat-girl, called a miqo'te) are not only heroes, but people who have been at your side in the story since the original game, well over a decade ago. When Y'shtola talks about holding the line until their friend returns? They're talking about you. They're standing and fighting until you arrive to save the day, because they KNOW that you will come.
This adds to the impact of the next scene, in Eulmore. The City of Paradise, where the wealthy and those they deem worthy live a life of luxury and safety. Notice the ramshackle buildings outside, right before the camera zooms into the literal fat cats? The huts are drab, scrappy heaps, but then inside this 'paradise' everything is bright and colorful and beautiful and well made. This continues to drive home the fact that here, light is not necessarily good and dark is not necessarily bad. It's supposed to be dissonant for the player, for exactly the reasons you stated about how people associate certain colors and visuals with certain alignments.
Then, you pan down beneath the city, and you seek dark, dank caves with chains and cages, and a man desperately trying to help a young girl escape. Then a sin-eater arrives to stop them, and the man says that the town has changed, and not for the better. Originally, Eulmore led the armies of the world in fighting against the sin eaters to preserve the lives of the world's people. They were on the frontlines the entire time. But then, all of a sudden, they allied with the sin eaters. They started to live amongst them, cohabitate with them.
You mentioned the camera looked down at him a little, made you feel like he was weak somehow? A couple of expansions ago, Thancred (that character) lost his ability to wield any kind of magic. He is, in many ways, now a bog-standard human (if a highly trained one) in a world where magic is used to level cities. He is not only lesser (in pure power) than many of the people around him, but lesser than the him of a few years before.
The reason Minfillia is dead center and represented as vitally important, is she used to be our leader, before she sacrificed her life. This being her reincarnation, basically. This is particularly important to Thancred, because of their past. See, Thancred messed up stopping a rampaging beast during an accident in one of the cities when Minfillia was a child, and Minfillia's father was killed. Thancred then raised her, only for her to sacrifice her life. Now he's found her again, and is obviously desperate to protect her.
The city that you said looked more high-key, more positive, with the giant Crystal Tower? That's the Crystarium, and that's the 'good guy' city of the expansion. That's where all the people resisting the wickedness of Eulmore live and stand together. That's why it's so bright and cheerful despite the overabundance of light, the oversaturation as you say. Eulmore was surrounded by ramshackle huts, right? Only the inside was beautiful, the beauty was hidden and seperate. In the Crystarium, the beauty surrounds it. It's part of everyone's lives, instead of only certain people's lives.
The narrator is the man with the crystal hand inside the tower, with the mirror wall, and this is where we circle back as promised. See, in the timeline where we killed Zenos, his father the Emperor unleashed a gas weapon (keeping up with the WW1 parallels, you see) that inflicted stasis on everything. It ended up running wild and killing not only you and all of the scions, but most of the planet. The crystal-handed man, one of your allies that managed to survive, crossed a couple of centuries of time and a couple of planes of existence to prevent it from happening. That's why he refers to a calamity, how it must be unwritten. He's referring to your death and the death of the world you call home.
Finally, the warrior of darkness thing. In a world where Light is evil, being the Warrior of Light would be a very bad thing. The people there don't need light, they need Darkness, and who better than a Dark Knight to bring it to them? That's why, when the angel is killed, it splits the sky and you can actually see the stars again. What's particularly interesting about this is how it fits into the lore and ethos of the dark knight, who fundamentally function as vigilantes that literally weaponize their grief and regret and desire to prevent others from suffering what they have suffered.
Layers upon layers!
Anyway, if you read all this, thanks, and you've gotten a new subscribed out of the deal hahaha.
If you do a single other final fantasy xiv one, it should be "End of an Era"/A Realm Reborn trailer. The original game was shut down, remade and relaunched, and End of an Era is the cinematic that bridges those events in game. It's much more of a tight cinematic story compared to being as much of a trailer as this cinematic you just watched was. It's incredible in its own right, and even more when you understand what it represents (shutting down a game, remaking and relaunching it like this had never been done and has never been done since).
If you want a full list of the cinematics, here they are in chronological order:
FFXIV 1.0 trailer: ruclips.net/video/Vg6yutR3AG0/видео.html
A Realm Reborn: ruclips.net/video/h542YbZuwkQ/видео.html
Of all the suggestions in the comment section, i think this list has been (imho) the most useful in terms of completeness, convenience, and structure. I send you my commendation. :)
Thank you for reaction :) Waiting for other cinematics now
You should absolutely respond to the other trailers too! The first one (the one for A Realm Reborn, the reboot for this game that came out in 2013 or so) is actually surprisingly epic and I think you'll enjoy it. Responding to them all in order will give you some more context for what's going on, if only a little. (obviously playing the game will give the most context but I honestly don't advise that unless you really want to, it's a lot of game play to catch up on lmao).
Eta: I forgot that there's one before ARR trailer, the one for 1.0. It's also worth a look!
If you want to watch more FF XIV Cinematics and kinda "in Order" you should go as follows:
1. FF XIV - Flames of Truth
2. FF XIV - Heavensward Trailer
3. FF XIV - Stormblood Trailer
4. FF XIV - Shadowbringers (this is the one you watched here and is the second latest update to the game
5. FF XIV - Endwalker Full Trailer (this is the most recent one that is live at the moment)
6. FF XIV - Dawntrail Full Trailer (this is for a new expansion coming out in summer 2024)
You won't really make a hold of the whole story since it is way too complex but they are all phenomenal trailers to watch and analyze. Keep in mind when watching the early one that they are 10 years old. Trust me they do NOT look that way ;)
No, don't watch Flames of Truth. Flames of Truth contains a spoiler from a in-game raid. Instead, watch Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - A New Beginning.
@@Reinhard96 Agreed
@@Reinhard96 but he will never do those raids xD and if you don't know them as a player you wouldn't know what to look for. So i don't really see the issue tbh
@@Seraphima249 exactly! as a non player, its best to watch the complete trailer rather than force him to watch it in pieces.
Flames of Truth is shit unless you have the proper context. Just like FMA Brotherhood.
*End of an Era* is the proper trailer.
So you said that the length of the series intimidates you but something to keep in mind about the final fantasy series is that each game is self-contained for the most part. 13 doesn't lead into 14, 14 doesn't lead into 15 in general. There's a few exceptions but for the most part they are standalone games. I don't even think they are set in the same setting but I might be wrong about that. If you wanted to play Final Fantasy 14 then you can try it for free as the base game "A Realm Reborn" and the first two expansions are free to play.
That's really interesting. I thought it was all part of the same thing. I've heard the name Final Fantasy for years and always wondered where would be a good place to start 🤔
@@kaizammit I think the connection between them is mostly thematic. There's reoccurring elements in the games with characters sharing similar or the same names or traits like the dragon Bahamut being in multiple games but it's not actually the same character. Also 14 is a MMORPG unlike the other entries in the series but it's also heavily story driven like other Final Fantasy games.
my ABSOLUTE favorite of all times, is a realm reborn. The first trailer after they closed down the first version of the game. .and remade the game and that was the setup for the "new" version of the game. It is breath-stealing. If you thought THIS was great for the eye shot? You will faint. .at that one.(it was part of the flashback he remembered)
The girl with the cat ears in the black cloak is an ally and friend, but she does have some darkness as she dabbles in powers that are dangerous and double-edged, dark magic used for good kinda vibe... it was also known characters so with an unknown situation so there was a whole 'Wait, what? That's not her name, what are they doing...? Oh, guess she's taking charge of something." and a lot of other thoughts there.
In the later scene in the dungeons of the fancy place surrounded by slums the known character had an unknown weapon, so that was a bit of the focus in that scene... but also the reveal of a character with a very similar appearance and exact same name as an existing character that was kinda... not alive(And also he blamed himself for her loss.) so there was that reveal a bit in there, too.
Also, while Shadowbringers is probably one the best independent trailers, I'd say close behind it is the first one this team did, the FFXIV 'A Realm Reborn' cinimatic trailer, older, but super lovely... most of the other FFXIV trailers tie into the current story beats a lot(and all of them focus some on 'New job' and 'new playable race', but are well done their own way.
For context the flashes in memory was history being rewritten as time was being rewinded, the Warrior of Light (MC) was aware of alternate histories being changed. The banners in the beginning represent the different nations banding together to fight the garlian invasion. The Warrior of Light is transported to a world where light (Tyrannical Order) has become too strong and thrown off the balance causing the end of humanity and so must become the warrior of Darkness (An element of Chaos) to return the balance.
It's somewhat funny how you mention at 36:07 that the extreme brightness makes the scene look more positive. In general I think that's a correct observation, but in this particular scene there are story elements that make this the exact opposite and the overexposure is instead meant to demonstrate how oppressive the light is (in my interpretation anyway). The same with the introduction scene of the angel looking monster fighting the "main character", the light behind her was completely blown out and correlated with how overwhelmingly powerful she is. The scenes with the main character in general in that yellow-ish field just have that feeling of being beyond saturated with light, everything is so bright that it kind of makes you uncomfortable.
So with this world, the lighting is actually opposite yeah? That is interesting. Thank you. KZ
@@kaizammit For this expansion during this particular chuck of plot, light is the "enemy" so to speak. It's difficult to explain without mountains of text and spoilers but it's also a very compelling and celebrated story. You should definitely give it a try if you're cool with MMOs and have some time to burn (though don't be intimidated, FFXIV can largely be played as a single player RPG type game with multiplayer elements, you don't have to engage with the timesinks and can put it down after you experience the story if you want to).
@@kaizammit In the story you are the "Warrior of Light" and the trailer opens with that line. At the end of the trailer the voice over says "Become the Warrior... of Darkness", then titledrop Shadowbringer. See what they did there
Some information about the classes and outfits the characters use.
It starts with a bard. A supportive role, so easily taken out.
Next up is warrior with an axe. Rough and can take a lot of abuse. That is why he was smashed through a hill and just got up.
The one with the lance is a dragoon. Specialists in jumping and fighting dragons. They got a really spikey armor so when dragons swallow the, it will hurt a lot.
After that comes monk. Really agile and quick to counter.
Then samurai, as in the intro. This time, his attack does nothing.
At last, the darkknight. The darkness of the attacks counters the bright light of the enemy.
The white haired man with the girl is a gunbreaker. Agile and very robust. His weapon, a gunblade, is a sword with explosive slugs loaded into it. It does not fire bulles, but causes explosions on trigger. It is also a new class introduced with this addon.
The bunny girl with the rings is the demonstration of the other new things, the Viera race and the dancer class.
Since Final Fantasy 14 is an MMORPG, the fights do not look like that. It has many cutscenes, but the trailers are definetly much more cinematic.
Every Final Fantasy game is seperate from another (there some connected ones, but they are usually labeled as such). If you want to play a game of the series, there are many options.
"I went through a stage in my life where I watching anime every single day."
BASED
XIV is an MMO, so while it's my favourite by far it might not be the best place to jump in.
Luckily, for the most part they aren't connected at all story wise so you can just try whichever one looks the most interesting to you :) And if it doesn't click, there's a good chance another one will!
Really enjoyed the analysis, it's tied for my favourite XIV trailer for sure, and besides a few spots I agree could have been better I'm glad you enjoyed! I can confirm that the man and woman in the burning forest are allies of our main character, and those were indeed flashbacks to previous events! I could go far into detail but at this point we are three expansions into the story so I don't want the overwhelm :)
yeah, each numbered game is standalone from each other (although some have varying amounts of spin-offs)
the things that connect them are certain elements (holy crystals often tied to elements, the Warrior of Light, Chocobos and other enemy/wildlife designs, a mix of fantasy and tech, etc), but the games can vary wildly in both gameplay and setting
FF1 and 2 with almost classical fantasy settings
FF5 which heavily features travelling between different worlds/dimensions
FF7 starting in a high-tech metropolis surrounded by barren wasteland
FF10 on an ocean world travelling to various islands
FF13 with a bustling modern city floating above a savage jungle planet
and on and on
You picking up the importance of every character (especially the gremlin) was wonderful! Very insightful and thoughtful analysis!
Amazing video! Love watching your breakdowns especially since you are unfamiliar with the franchise. Like some of your criticism are very valid only because you don't have the context but you picked up on really important details.
For example the cat girl with the uncool beard elf guy haha, you mentioned how you thought she was a bad character because of her color palette but it the point of that shot is that she is now a Black Mage (sorcerer) . But to the people who follow the franchise it was more of a teaser since originally she was a White Mage (conjurer) so the class change was the important detail in this expansion. Same thing with the guy with the gun sword, the character is a recurring character but he was a different class but the emphasis of his sequence was the introduction of a new class the Gunbreaker.
Again amazing video, such a fun video to watch. Also a side note you mentioned you were intimidated by the franchise, which is fair. And to be fair Final Fantasy 14 is probably the most intimidating because it's the only one that is live service with expansions every 2 years or so. That being said, most Final Fantasy games have nothing to do with each other (plot wise) except for the ones with direct sequels/prequels, which are FF7, FF10 and FF13. So please don't be intimidated to try them out!
Another side note, I was not aware they were called Dutch angles haha, my professor always said if you wanted to add mood or oomph to your illustrations, just tilt the horizon to make it dynamic
I highly recommend you watch all of them in order. They are all amazing and seeing them improve as you go on is beautiful.
Where should one start?
@@kaizammitI would recommend Flames of Truth. It's my preferred version of the trailer for A Realm Reborn since it includes a scene at the end that shows the finale of the events contained within. That final scene is only shown in-game after you complete the raid series for the expansion so it wasn't included in the trailer. But it's an amazing scene and if you're not playing the game it's the better way to experience it in my opinion.
@@kaizammit There are compilations, but if you wanna see each one, the order is: Final Fantasy 1.0 cinematic, Flames of truth, A new Beginning, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers (which you already saw), Endwalker and Dawntrail.
Hope to see more FFXIV in your channel soon!
Love this format! Hope to see you do the rest. The older trailers do hold up, and for me personally Endwalker's is still one of my favs. Lots of info in the comments here already so I won't waste time by explaining some of the references and stuff...though I will add I am very impressed you picked up on the importance of the weapon in the one shot. :) New sub!
Thank you so much for being here fella. I will absolutely start covering more of the cinematics. This was a Patreon request but also the introduction of a new franchise for the channel.
There's always things to learn even from older cinematics so yeah, definitely checking out some of the older ones. KZ
8:43 Those are the banners of the different city-states that make up the Eorzean Alliance and their ally, Doma
From left to right, Limsa Lominsa (Red), Ul'dah (Black), Gridania (Yellow), Doma (Green), Ala Mhigo (Purple), Ishgard (Blue)
Prior to this expansion, a big part of the story centered around getting the different city-states to join together against a common enemy (the empire Garlemald). The Garlean flag is shown at 8:46 (White)
Showing the six flags of the alliance standing together and the single flag of the empire alone sets the scene
The cat girl in black with white hair: She starts off as a healer, wearing mostly white, but in this, she switches to wearing black and uses "black magic"/offensive magic. The one thing I wish this trailer showed were the Hrothgar (a more beast like race) that was released with this expansion, not just the bunny girl.
But I loved this breakdown. Most people I've seen reacting to this hasn't gone this in depth and I love this.
Please do the others
It also shows the teammates/your friends in a different light. Each of them isn't just one dimentional that you see in this. But they are all still bad ass.
"Is that a gun on his sword" made me laugh SO hard. A like just for that. I am SO used to final fantasy nonsense that I just never thought how it'd look to someone not used to the shenanigans!
It opened my eyes, put it that way.
21:05 Those are flashes of previous trailers all the way back to 1.0 of the game, so it's a flashback. But since Shadowbringer does deal with WoL's trauma sustained over his years of being a hero, you could say it's foreshadowing
I've been waiting for this for a long time haha
I love that they keep the Samurai class to the end in the fight. they had already shown that the hero won the duel at the start with the same gear, so keeping it for the end having set it up as very powerful shows all failed. set up the reveal of the darkness powers a moment later really well.
I started playing FFXIV a couple of years ago having never played anything in the franchise before. You don't need any prior knowledge of the franchise to enjoy it thoroughly. I've played through the entire game and expansions, and it's fantastic. I learned all sorts of cool things watching your video! I knew there's a lot involved in filmmaking, but I didn't realize just how many subtle details really bring out certain emotions or offer so many clues on what's happening in the story. Thanks!
That change in music will ALWAYS give me goosebumps..... Small tidbit... the job-change sequence where the "hero" keeps changing weapons, is a mechanic in the game (the players can swap classes quickly when not in combat), BUT, the caveat here is that the job-change that happens in this trailer, happens in the "Order" that the "Hero" of the story changes jobs throughout the lifetime of the game and its various expansions.
1) Archer
2) Warrior
3) Dragoon
4/5) Samuri/Monk
6) Dark Knight.
As someone else mentioned, 100% recommend watching/reacting to them in order if this is the first one you've done... they are ALL good
Subscribed. This just popped up on my recommendations. So glad it did. I love the way you broke down this trailer and how you constructed this video, can't wait to check out more from you.
FFXIV is a JRPGMMO, if you are interested in checking out more of the trailers I recommend going back to the beginning and watch them in order. Things make a lot more sense that way. They are all worth the watch.
By the way the game is definitely worth playing in my opinion as well, it has a great story. If you are just interested in the story tho and are not a gamer, I believe there are videos of the cutscenes out there to watch as well.
I can't wait to start watching the rest of your content. This was a great video.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me! KZ
I love how all the trailers has the WoL showcase a class that was added or updated. ARR had Warrior and the base classes, Heavensward had Dragoon, StormBlood had Samurai, Shadowbringers had Gunbreaker, and Endwalker had Reaper.
in the Endwalker trailer the WoL is a Paladin though, Reaper went to a certain friend
@@JM-nothing-more He was a Warrior in the beginning, and yeah, I forgot that the WoL wasn't a reaper in Endwalker. He was the revamped Paladin.
He was Archer first, then Warrior and the subsequent jobs.
I get recommended to FFXIV reacts from time to time. I thoroughly enjoyed your analysis, commentary and insights. It's a delight to hear you breakdown the little details on close-up, lighting, camera movement and all that. Makes me appreciate the trailer even more. Cheers mate!
Glad you enjoyed it! You'll be pleased to know that I recorded my reaction and one breakdown to all the other FFXIV cinematic trailers today, stay tuned!
I really want to see your take on Endwalker! It has a whole mood shift, and it tastefully plays music that was representative of the previous expansions. Of course the sheer beauty of the trailer is gorgeous as well!
There are other videos for A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood, which are the expansions before Shadowbringer. The trailer for the current expansion is Endwalker and the trailer for the next expansion is Dawntrail. :) I agree with those who said that going in order is best. You can learn a little about each expansion and maybe won't be quite as confused.
Oh, and yes, that is a gremlin.
You know, I have only played FFXIV, which is their 2nd mmo or rpg/mmo (Square Enix also has FFXI). What drew me to FFXIV was character creation and if you do like games (and anime) you may like FFXIV . Since it is free through Stormblood (the expansion right before Shadowbringer) you can play A Realm Reborn (full of world building), Heavensward, and Stormblood. After that there is Shadowbringer and the current expansion Endwalker. The expansion they are currently working on and that will be released sometime this summer is Dawntrail.
Now, the bunny girl is important because during Shadowbringer that race was released (female only at that time) and so was the dancer class. The guy with the gunblade (gun/knife) was the other new class gunblade, which is a tank class.
Thank you for your video and have a great weekend!
I'm a bit late, but I looked for a bit and didn't see any comments on it, but a really neat thing about the different job changes that the guy does in the grey/brown scene with the goblin and statue thing is that the job changes are in the canonical order that we've seen him in through all of the other major trailers/prefilmed cutscenes. Bard in 1.0, warrior in ARR, dragoon in heavensward, monk/samurai in stormblood, and then finally dark knight in shadowbringers. The dark knight job isn't new, but seeing the character as a dark knight is, which is why the reveal was so cool. I know a couple people who like to do playthroughs of the expansions as the jobs from the trailer.
18:22 The clash here is straight out of a samurai movie.
Loved your review and insights on film making! I actually learned a lot from that breakdown. I hope for more breakdowns on the FFXIV trailers with ARR and Heavensward!
I certainly will do, this was a taster for the channel. Someone has even given me a list of them to follow. I'm glad to hear you learnt something too, makes my day when I read comments like that. KZ
4:45 "Is this a gun or is a sword?"
Yes
The scene around 23:10 you mention being very flat is explained in game - those creatures are almost like statues, rather than demihumans. So that flat marble look is intentional. Also the over-exposure and flatness is intentional. In this expansion you visit a world overwhelmed by light.
One thing that you wouldn't notice, with this being the first XIV trailer you've watched, is this opening's similarity to the opening of the ARR trailer - a battlezone, death and destruction, mostly the same factions involved. From 1.0, through a reboot and two whole expansions, almost nothing has changed. Except now the good guys have a chance of winning.
Those banners are all nations inside of a war. The 5 on the left are allied to you, and the lone pale banner is an enemy with high technological advances.
The 14 team works really hard on translation and localization, the team constantly makes sure that there's nothing lost in translation, not even tone.
You really need to try the game its amazing ..the gun bloke is called thancred and hes a tank class called gunbreaker.
Technically none of the characters shown are japanese. Although you can make a character give them a background from Hingashi, the game equivalent of Japan, the charcater that represents the players is portrayed as from Eorzea which is vaguely european.
And the character that is the voice over is also from a non hingashin country.
That said, the japanese va are lovely and i enjoy playing in all offered languages just for the fun of it.
I always love seeing the childlike wonder when someone sees a gunblade for the first time
One advantage to the Final Fantasy games is that each iteration of the series (each “numbered” game) is stand-alone. There’s elements that persist in the series, like chocobos, and particularly FF14 loves to reference the other games in the series, but you can play it as is. It has maybe 200 (300?) hours of incredibly well-told main story.
Another great video! Love these, great breakdowns! I hope to see the Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm video soon!
Thinking of filming tomorrow ✌🏻
OOooooh man I can't wait for you to watch the A Relm Reborn trailer :D it's always fun for me to watch peoples reactions to the FFXIV trailers because I love this game and I feel like I get to experience it for the first time again with your reactions. It's also a plus to get your professional take on the cinematography!
22:10 That Gremlin is the main antagonist
About the voice acting part, it was told by the hood character appealed later on in the crystal tower. (I mean the WHOLE EXPANSION of GAME). And he was talking about the story of our pragnoist. (aka. player character)
18:47 Their clash literary split the heavens, which is done again at the end after WoL becomes WoD and kills the angel.
37:25 this was mostly to show off both a new race and class that was added with Shadowbringer's, but she also is the beta design of a somewhat important character that then does actually show up in game.
"Hey! His name isn't fat shit cat! His name is Meatball, and he's eating your crab cakes right now." - Adam Sandler
Although they didn't use it in the trailers, nor do they use it in most of the cutscenes inside the game, they do have the black bars available as part of the in game image manipulation tool set called "gpose" (short for "group pose" because it was originally added as a means of coordinated group poses for screenshots. And it kind of.... got expanded into the full featured filter set for screenshots.) I've used it to great effect when I'm trying to eliminated some excess dead space in the framing of a screenshot.
100% the team deserves awards
Viera are thay bunny race from final fantasy 12, and that just how they went with it for FF14. They represented her on this trailer because they became a playable race and also the job "dancer," which is displaying. The cat from that trialer are also fat/bigger compared to the actual one because it represents greed/gluttony and their utopia sorta thing. Story plot stuff.
38:21 There is never a bad time to jump into FFXIV. When you do join take it at your own pace. Mosquitos will be in your ear from time to time, but pay them little heed. Enjoy it for what you enjoy it.
Nice video, as always ! Have you planed to watch any other overwatch cinematics (the overwatch 2 cinematics, for example ;) )?
On a small note: with the Final Fantasy franchise, if you ever get the urge to try them out, the games are NOT all interconnected. In fact the vast majority of them (at least the numbered ones) are all self contained stories with absolutely no ties to any others. There are some exceptions, of course, primarily in sequels such as FFX and X-2. And most such exceptions will be named in ways to imply their link to prior releases. They are also almost all single player rpgs, with only 11 and 14 being the odd ones out as MMOs. And even 14 is a mostly self contained story with only the smallest of seasonal event links to other titles. It does however have a lot of fan service/homage aspects pulled from all other titles, yet still has no actual direct story ties to anything that happens in them. So you'd pretty much be free to pick up any of the games, in any order they catch your interest in, and have no concerns you're really missing anything.
If you ever decide you want to try them out.
can't wait till you reach and analyze the Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail trailer
The very beginning, those are the alliance banners and the one standing alone, is the enemy banner
Therevis a full animalistic race called Hrothgar. The female was just revealed in the Dawntrail trailer.
The Bob Ross of trailers. Nothing but happy mistakes. Love it.
Love me some Bob Ross.
@@kaizammit Everyone did. Except his wife.
Those first flags you see are the flags of the Eorzean Alliance. The lone flag is Garlemald, the enemy.
@kaizammit Believe it or not the English Voice acting is generally seen as superior in most cases by much of the community from my experience. The voices fit the bodies more often weirdly enough. The Japanese Dub has alot of bodies that conflict with the visuals and personality of the characters. Like in Endwalker there is a mature adult male that is competent and capable but with a whiny teenager voice in the JP Dub for some reason. Super perplexing.
8:20 Those are the flags of the Alliance and the single one shortly after is the flag of the Empire who is invading.
If you like anime you would love final fantasy. 14 has been one of the greatest stories in gaming I've ever experienced. Cried multiple times. And I have played Tons and tons of games. Yes it's a bit long but it's so worth it. Plus it's free for the first 2 expansions and heavenward is freaking amazing too. This trailer I saved until I got to that part of the story and it was the best feeling I've ever got from a cut scene. If you do t want to play an online game, I would play either 6, 9, 10, or the new ones like 16 and 7 remake of you can't do older graphics. Dont worry they dont connect story wise kinda and are stand alone. 14 is really a celebration of all final fantasy however.
Thanks for the information. Mate I love anime but avoided Final Fantasy because of the history of it. It's literally like where to start type thing, scared me off. Didn't realise they were all separate stories.
@@kaizammit yeah all separate. Really depends what kind of gameplay you like I would say, earlier ones up to 13 and more turn based and the newer ones like 16, 7 remake are more action based. 14 is tab target mmo. There are some common concepts, enemies, bosses, etc between them but all are complete stories on their own.
Watching the Shadowbringers trailer without having seen the others is like watching the Avengers Infinity War trailer without having seen any of the other films. Highly recommend going and watching them all in order!
Dude watch the entire serious in chronological orders it's worth it
"She's obviously a hero isn't she?"
Well, no actually. She's pretty much just there to show off two new things of the expansion: 1. The new playable race, Viera (one of two new playable races) and 2. The new job, Dancer.
She may not be a hero but she was definitely more than background filler. The way they left that shot on her to make sure you see her. Knew it was something more so hence I said a hero. Cool though.
Great work. I may have more questions later because I have to watch the second half of your video when I have more time, but about the scenes you mentioned with the 'zoom ins' during the battle with the angel monster around 24:20, you said the zoom ins made the cinematic look more video-like.
How would you cut that sequence? When the character flips backwards and changes his form and when the camera zooms in on the angel's face, would you just keep these shots a mid or a wide? Or just do what they did in the first samurai scene a close up on the faces then a wide on the action? (If this is confusing I can rephrase the question)
Also, again in the angel scene around 23:20, if you were the DP, how would you light and frame that shot without it having an overexposed sky? How would you dirty up or layer the shot differently? Curious because 3D filmmaking is where I am leading to nowadays. I've been an editor for some years now and there aren't many I can think of who has an informed opinion on 3D filmmaking. Even when I was at "film school" the professors were only focused live action works. Maybe the tech just wasn't ready back then.
PS - Glad you said you were a subtitle guy. So much energy is lost between Japanese and Western voice-actors. Its like the western voice-actors are just reading their lines from the sunday newspaper and each character sounds the same.
Great breakdown! If it helps, not sure if anyone commented... the narrator for this trailer is the hooded guy with the crystalline hand shown towards the end. (The players didn't actually know this for sure until after playing the game, so the who and why was somewhat of a mystery until then.)
Also, the bright light in the sky during the angel scenes, the fat cat scene, the town market scene, etc. was unnatural, overbearing light, as part of the world's setting. During the battle, the final attack was shown to be so powerful that it not only cut the angel in two, but also parted the sea of light, revealing the starry night sky behind it. The lingering shot on the sky was intended to highlight that imagery, I think it was a nice touch
36:50 She is a Viera, and she is a humanoid with bunny ears.