>It all began with a stone...This was probably the worst "add-on scenario" I had the displeasure of completing. Released in 2009, it begs the question "What were they thinking?" But like most bad jrpgs, I think a lot of it can be explained by poor localization, marketing, and materials never put into context outside of Japan. So in an attempt to try and appreciate it I'm going to try to piece together that context. To begin, the scenario title in japanese translates to something like "A Stone's Dream: A soul's reply (ode) to the song (musical lay) to end Vana'diel" This was dumbed down to A Crystalline Prophecy: Ode to Life BestowingThe big picture is that despite being a mainline final fantasy games, FF11 didn't actually use the Final Fantasy theme music until this. Accompanying this release was a soundtrack. "Ode to Life Bestowing" is what they named the track using the FF Main Theme. Typically, the Main Theme plays on the title screen or in the prologue. FF11's prologue features a boy (Aldo) and his sister, and this scenario sorta explains what happened to them afterwards while plugging the main theme in as a narrative device.
>>3681915This came out well after Chains of Promathia and Wings of the Goddess. It's unlikely anyone playing this will be unfamiliar with the lore of Vana'diel at that point. For most people it felt like a rehash of those storyline elements. As a refresher in [current year], the creation story of vana'diel involves the Dawn Goddess, Altana, and the Twilight God Promathia. Promathia is more or less dead, his essence dispersed into the hearts(or souls) of the races of Vana'diel. To resurrect Promathia would require a massive genocide. This is mostly explained in the Chains of Promathia expansion, with Bahamut ready to press that reset button should a need arise. However Bahamut isn't in this scenario (or is he?). Neither is Diabolos (he should be).
>>3681919The scenario begins in Jeuno. A Crystal appears in the sky, "singing" a verse. This would be clearer if they used a music track with vocals. Everyone stops in awe. The Star Sibyl goes "That thing should not exist! Love! Love will be our destruction!"We don't see anymore of her after that. The "love" she is referring to is Altana's love for Promathia. Basically, Vana'diel wasn't meant to last forever. In a roundabout way this "fate" comes with the goddess' consent. Some will stretch that to say it's the "will" of the goddess to see everyone die eventually. Anyway. The Crystal explodes for some reason. Almost everyone forgets what they saw. Except for (you) the player character, and Aldo (the game's prologue adventurer), and his sister. I have no idea why some people forget while others can remember. Also shown is boy who stops time to talk to the player character about what they just saw. You find out who he is later. But he claims to know all about you. This feels like a plot hole to me. I think this "boy" was meant to be like Bahamut's Fayth from FFX or something. I'll come back to it.
>>3681932The boy tells you to "gather the light" (the English mission name) of this crystal, and meet him in Qufim. The Japanese version calls the mission "The Resurrected Will of the First" with a description that implies the Crystal is controlling everything. I think it's meant to be understood that everyone who forgot what they just saw was implanted with these crystals. So, you go collect some shards off of beastmean in specific locations. (Guide Dang it style).The implication seems to be that this Ghost Kid, calling himself Young Aldo, doesn't know himself what the crystal is up too. Until you gather some shard for him to "listen" to. Again, it's not explicitly stated in English that beastmen are being controlled with these shards transmitting some kind of instruction. He understands it as the "Lay of Destruction", but he mentions the how the gods don't awaken. This makes me think this "Young Aldo" is actually Bahamut saying "That's suppose to be my job, but I'm asleep right now so something else is going on."You go get more shards from Notorious Monster spawns (Guide Dang it, again). And Young Aldo is like "Good news. There's an antiphon (counter song) to cancel out this crystal's directive."So, literally, the story could have ended at this point. A solution already exists and is in place, so it's not a problem. Everyone go home.
I thought this was going to be an actual thread but it turned out to be you shitting up the board again.Please stop.
>>3681956Yeah, it's dumb. But just to force the story to continue, Adult Aldo walks in like "What's all this now?". Aldo was the kid seen in the game's opening movie. He lost his sister and grew up to become an adventurer. This ghost kid also calls himself Aldo too, so everyone is wondering what the connection is. We get this really unnatural dialogue between them. "You have you sister's eyes."And Aldo is like "How do you know my sister?" And Young Aldo is like "Well, you're my uncle. Btw, beastmen (controlled by the crystal) kidnapped my mom. Go rescue your sister. Bye." and he disappears.
>>3681974This really isn't any of the Player's business at the point. But we go to Fei'Yin anyways. We have to run around inspecting light fragments that form a "Seed Crest" on the back of you hand that will open the Arena. There's a 30min timelimit. Also, the developers moved one of the fragments, and there's like 1 guide online with a footnote pointing out the change. The "Seed" naming convention just comes out of nowhere. And the crest doesn't actually have a graphic.
>>3681986The beastmen all have glowing eyes. Indicating that they are possessed. And the Japanese mission description suggest they were performing a ritual with Aldo's sister. None of that is communicated in English. You just fight some "seed beastmen" then Aldo's sister just floats up out of the ceiling. Young Aldo appears again to say they made her resonate with the crystal's song, and she's going to Ro'Mave to do...something to block the antiphon I guess.
>>3681991So you go to the hall of the gods in Ro'Mave and find Aldo's sister floating there emitting waves of light that are resonating with the god statues. Aldo runs in and wakes her up. She recognizes him, but then fades away. Young Aldo appears and explains that he and his mother are astral projecting. Well, "dreaming". His real sister is alive, but has amnesia and only remembers her past in dreams. "The light of the dawn will banish these memories." I think it's implied that this Seed Crystal is also an astral projection. A kind of Dream within a Dream. This raises questions about Diabolos and his dominion over dreams; how did he let this through? In fact, all the Terrestrial Avatars who are not sleeping in protocrystals could have appeared in this story. Carbuncle included because the quest objective involves "gathering light". Ro'Mave is connected to the moon, and therefore Fenrir. Cait Sith and Atomos are in the "walk of echoes" and this crystal is treated as a sort of "Echo" from the beginning of time. I don't remember if Siren was introduced at this time, but she too has her own timeless pocket dimension of vana'diel with time. Silencing Echoes would totally be her thing. Young Aldo then directs you to Delkfutt's Tower to see if the antiphon really works. You have to go up every floor picking up 12 Seed Afterglows, before you can enter the final room to fight the Seed Crystal itself. There's no justification for this in English. But the key items are named differently in Japanese, like "stone of friendship, endurance, ect..." so I think you were actually reassembling the antiphon, maybe?
>>3682015Of course if the Seed Crystal can manifest through Aldo's Sister, then it can manifest through Aldo's nephew as well. I think Young Aldo was a conduit for many voices. Perhaps speaking for all the Avatars, and then the Seed Crystal itself in the end. The Seed Crystal tells you to just give it up. You're all characters in a video game. It not real. It's time to log off permanently. The Seed Crystal fight is bullshit. It's like lv70 content, but it's gimmicky. With lv119 equipment and trusts I still had to fight it 3 times. Every attempt requires you to go through all the floors to reassemble the afterglow seeds. The boss doesn't move, it just uses AoE spells. But it also uses "Draw in" and sucks a character into center. As well as charming them. Siren did this as well in Rhapsodies, so perhaps the Seed Crystal was a Siren Prototype. I play as a tall Elvaan. So when it uses "Draw in" the camera just glitches out and I can't walk away. To solo this right you need to play as a Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, or Summoner, and let them and any trusts do all the work. You can replay these events daily to get "keys". But it's all trash that's not worth collecting.
>>3682027For some reason they made they keys available on your first playthrough. But if you accept them you can't progress the story for 24hrs. And there's no in-game documentation explaining the keys as loot crates you can ignore.
>>3682015I forgot to mention that in order to pick up the Afterglow Seeds you need a lv30 level restriction. You will aggro everything, so you have to use invisible, sneak, and reraise to progress up the tower. Grab a fragment and die in-front of a tome to revive and recast reraise to get through the next set of floors.Monsters respawn pretty quickly, so even if you clear a path before you apply the level cap, they will have respawned by the time you run back, if you do this solo. >>3682027So you fight the Seed Crystal, for no reason. And you win, to no effect. Because it still appears over Jeuno, once again telling Vana'diel to return to the nothingness. They can't deny the will of the Goddess. You get a fairly long cutscene of NPCs looking up at the sky and glowing. I assume, they are all implanted with Seed Shards. But nothing happens. The Seed crystal is like "Nani?! Is this the power of Altana's Children? I order them to die and they refuse? How can this beeee--."Then it just sorta blinks out of the sky. The FF Main Theme Plays, and presumably cancels out the wave pattern "song". Maybe the crystal itself. Not sure if it's still out there in some timeless echo dream space.
ACP came out before Seekers of Adoulin, Abyssia, and of course Rhapsodies. So the Siren Avatar and the Escha zones weren't a concept yet.
Was the armor at the end worth it for your lockstyle?
I just want to say, you used question begging wrong. You meant, it raises the question.Question Begging means the result is presumed in the premise already.
>>3684026I actually did not pick up the armor. Waste of storage space. I don't think it can be stored with a moogle slip
>>3684059You mean to say that there is a fallacy named "begging the question" which is also a phase, and you can't tell the difference.
>>3684358It can't, mostly due to the augments. Lockstyle is the most it has going for after 75.
You got filtered because you only half understand FFXI's lore.
>>3684414Haha, because FFXI's lore only half existed on these release. You're so funny.
>>3681958>newfag nigger complains about a video game thread on a video game boardPlease commit sudoku.
