BOMBSHELLS I Didn't See Coming - FFXIV JP FANFEST Thoughts & Recap 

Devs: We forgot to draw you into the poster art, Krile Krile: I'll do it myself!

Solution Nine is even more crazy when you realize that they never show the last zone, and the last zone is almost always a wtf moment!

For those that missed it Yoshida mention that all players were going to get a free fantasia when the new graphic upgrade come out, it was stated in the opening after showing 3/4 of the new player character model updates for those that want to hear it being said in the translation.

Krile first mentioned way back in ARR as background audio via Linkshell call with Minfillia. To have such foreshadowing of a character before HW to be literally forgotten about damn lol.

My general guess on Solution 9? Its a part of a civilization from the First Astral Era. Or what remains of it. And very likely the one that caused the Second Umbral Calamity (the Calamity of Lightning). This would explain why they adopted some of the Ancient Language into their tech; because they would have only experienced a single Calamity and those ruins would have been far more available. It also explains why the steam-powered based town developing under the Solution 9 plate is called "Heritage". As that civilization would be the "Heritage" of the peoples of the New World. It also explains why the Northern New World looks so utterly devastated in terms of terrain from the Glimpse in the Bridge Scene in the Cinematic. Similar to Zadnor. As well as why there is that massive Scar separating North from South on the Map.

0:30 I only recently learned this: apparently, Thancred ended up adopting the Strategically Placed Nutkin. I didn't know this until I watched PlayFrame's playthrough of FFXIV, and when Thancred had to tell F'lhaminn, the Nutkin was sitting on the counter right next to him.

Solution Nine is so cool. I love it because a lot of people were complaining that some of the casual glams like the newest pvp gear and Magitec Attire in the cash shop weren't fantasy enough (and btw we just got a new fantasy style in cash shop) but this area makes me think they gave us those to set us up for this. We already have glams that'll look great in this new area! I'm not a Balmung person but I wanna dress up in cyber punk style and hang out there. I think it'll be really cool if people dressed for that area.

The soul storage is literally a story beat in FF9

I love how they tease the song in the trailers. The last one always has something that they never show in the first two previews. Amanda's vocal part was a complete surprise (an awesome one). Krile got her moment in the spotlight, and it was glorious.

Solution 9 is visible on the map for Turial. We also saw a concept art of a village with a train under Solution 9.

Before JP fanfest I was looking forward to a new expansion. Now I’m excited for THIS expansion. I think pictomancer looks like a nice change of pace for a job and I’m really happy there’s gonna be sooo much to do and explore :)

Calling it - Solution 9 is in the 9th reflection. "Some of the societies in the reflections will surprise you..." -Emet

The male hwrothgar pictomancer is gonna be a sight to behold 😅

The second calamity was the calamity of lightning, so I started thinking this was a solution for the people of that time to avoid it, only the first 8 failed.

Thanks for making these videos, Zepla! :) It's always so much easier to stay on top of everything because of you

I laughed hard at the “Krile has been forgotten” part 😂

Great job on the video -- some of your beginner guides were a huge help to me and I need to check out more of the channel!

im super excited for pictomancer... it looks so adorable and fun!

I knew there was going to be something more interesting going on based on the UK Fanfest. The reveal of the Eliminator as well as the art for some of the dungeons hinted at the Solution 9 stuff. Definitely worth going back to look at that art. In one of the images is a whole bunch of pipes going to a large tank full of glowing blue liquid. Possibly related to Soul supply?

When I had a break between Heavensward and Stormblood and then later on I did Eureka and I met Krile again, I straight up thought she was a new character. I didn't even think twice I just knew this is some Eureka NPC that I guess also ended up in the story later(?) During Shadowbringers I knew she was part of our group but I was still sure we first met her in Stormblood. Then in Shadowbringers when I did NG+ with a friend I found out she was introduced in Heavensward and was pretty important in the story too. I literally forgot Krile existed.

Im excited for Dawntrail, its gonna be beefy with content. One thing I hope they do is give us a cool mount for leveling all jobs to lvl 100, unlike the headpiece that nobody uses like they did in EW :/

The Shadow Lord was a dude who got betrayed and basically became Sauron with a crazy army of demons and all the beast tribes. The Shadowkeeper boss in XIV actually has attack names that are references to his attacks.

Honestly after everything everybody went through up to this point, it just makes me happy to see everyone smiling and having fun.

Solution Nine was the biggest bomb of the keynote. People knew Hrothgals were coming, and people had guessed about Pictomancer, but seeing a Phantasy Star Online zone as a TOWN for this expac is wild.

As excited as I am to play viper, I shall remain strong and continue to main warrior/dark knight and do my part. I shall help as many as I can to get into the queue!

zepla excited for final fantasy again!!!! im SHOCKED!!!!

tbh this is the best recap video i've seen in regards to the expac, i wasn't excited about expansion during fan fest but now im some what hyped

9:50 Okay Zepla we shall see if this comes true! I'm coming back to this in 6 months! 😂

the way you feel about the bunny nose is how i feel about the bright limbal rings for aura but i heard they were keeping them bright for the people that want the glowing eyes even though i dont feel like weve seen pictures of that. im SO excited for beast master

Thank you for starting my day with a smile. :)

I hadn't seen anyone else mention the removal of the bunny noses, so thank you for that! I watched the keynote with a few friends and that was the first thing we all noticed when they showed that picture as well. I agree completely that they need to make sure that stays around after the graphics update. We don't even have bunny tails (which tbf would have probably been hidden by most gear anyway) so we at least need to keep the nose!

im also very excited for this expansion to come out, thank u zepla for making vids, they always have lots of good info =)

So hyped for the expansion!!

My opinion is I'm also pretty hyped. I'm not one of the people who felt there wasn't enough to do in Endwalker, possibly because I have the general disposition of an especially surly cactus covered in nitroglycerin, but it's nice to see the people who did have that problem will have their solution. And speaking of solutions, yo what the hell is up with that cyberpunk space?

Thanks for the recap!

The comment about FFXIV time vs Square Enix time is hilarious because it’s so true. I have adored Square Enix forever but yeah they don’t have their shit together (probably because they always have a ton of massive projects going on at once). 14 definitely has the more stable structure and schedule of anything I have played from them 😂

Pictomancer and field operations! I'm sold 😊

LOL ... crow brain ... I have never heard that before, but can completely relate! lol ... I have a crow brain too. Thank you for that. I am so going to be using that from now on

One thing I found a bit odd about the trailer was that the twins looked significantly younger than they have in the past IMO. Especially Alphinaud, where it was jarring enough that I had to rewind for the Hroth reveal. It just struck me as odd, since pretty much everyone else came out perfectly as to how I'd expect them to look in a trailer.

I can't wait to do every side quest

People before Pictomancer: I'm going to become the greatest Sith Lord of Eorzea People after Pictomancer: Let me paint you like one of my fur girls lol

I'm going to wait for DT and experience everything, everything we've been shown so far has literally been massive, extremely hype.

Im super excited about the whole expansion and hroth girls! I likes the classes they are def really cool, but I’m pretty content with my reaper. Definitely gonna try both of them! Hearing all this news def makes me sad as i havent been able to play since summer due to my accelerated nursing program I’m in ;-;. Definitely can’t wait to resubscribe this summer after I’m done with school! The free fantasia is definitely a bonus! Might see me being a hroth girl, but definitely gonna try out the other races new looks!

It was again very interesting to watch and follow Tokyo 2024 Fanfest and see what is coming in the future. Pictomancer was really nice and those cyberpunk city things looked interesting. Beast master was also nice new job announcement. I have liked Warlock job in WOW and possibility to summon aid in the battle.

My personal opinion on the news from fan fest... Maybe it was just me, but I didn't seem all that excited. Maybe I just don't have enough details, but I don't know. I want to be excited, but aside from an additional dye channel, I'm just not in the groove this time around. They did a good job of telling us a lot of interesting things without telling us a lot about them. I feel like if I got excited I wouldn't truly know why.

I live for Zepla’s puns. Even though sometimes they make me want to die.

What I have to say about Solution 9, the "Ancients" weren't the only race of their stature during their time. This was when we were exploring the sunken Amaurot on the 1st in Shadowbringers. There was a small quest segment where we had to observe the discussions of the shades around the city, and one of them was a debate where they were discussing whether they should intervene in the affairs of the civilization on the other side of planet, who were already undergoing some other kind of catastrophe of sorts. They ultimately determined that if the civilization fell to their catastrophe, then so be it. This is probably that civilization. Though it looks way too intact.

This video is exactly a perfect example of why I love Zepla!!! Her personality just makes my world so much brighter. It is so addictive.

Excited for Pictomancer, was enough for me to want to come back and play :)

I think I'm most excited for the field operations stuff. After finishing msq, clearing savage, doing whatever... having something there you can just grind is gonna be great

We gonna be eating good in Dawntrail. I'm looking forward to the cosmic stuff.

in regards to Urianger's chuckle, I thought it was more because it was a schadenfreud(sp?) reaction, chuckling at Thancred's comical misfortune. there's also that tidbit that the scions are supposed to be divided this expansion and it makes sense if there's a competition and Thancred and Urianger are on opposite teams.

Dancer + Painter will be so colourful together

Yeah the Femgars definitely give that Mommy Mithra look (helps with that FFXI crossover!), I love it, can't wait for my fantasia to give it a whirl for an expansion or two! 😅

Solution Nine is actually shown on the northern part of the continent Tullyolal on the map.

FYI: 'Solution 9' is the name of one of Zidanes (FF9) limitbreaks. Hopefully we get more FF9 references.

Her energy always makes me smile. Great video

Dawntrail sounds like it's going to be amazing. I'm really excited to see what that PSO looking area is all about.

Solution Nine feels like an SE exec goes I want cyberpunk in this. The feels just like a bear added in long ago.

New expac looks good, hopefully the oceanic servers get folks playing again so I can progress endwalker content when I re-sub closer to launch as I was not able to get a group for some content and was thus stuck progressing when I last played.

ganna be crazy trying to hop between WoW/FF14 this year ugh

I think solution 9 is under old sharlayan. The bunker is probably a fallout shelter built to save the sharlayans from the final days, and it would make sense that there's a "soul supply" when the mothercrystal and sea of souls is also under old sharlayan.

1:43 - Hahaha, my meme prediction for Green Mage turned out to be wrong, but at the same time this reveal reminded me of that saying about how you should just go with your gut/1st instinct. What I mean by this is that after the very first trailer at NA fanfest I saw people in Twitch Chat predicting Pictomancer almost immediately since the Ninja Turtles are all named after famous artists. And it looks like they were right! 😆 Viper was the only obvious one to me (not the name of course, just the dual wield concept) due to Leonardo being on the front and center of Yoshi's T-shirt with his dual Katanas that I've always loved. But then I got gaslit by the community talking about Corsair cuz of FF11 apparently (I never played FF11) so I doubted myself and didn't say a word hahaha~! 🤣 Great video Zep, keep up the good work! 😇❤

I'm still a little hesitant to be hyped for the story because I know it's gonna have another writer, but Erenville is such a plus! So far I'm most looking forward to the return of FIELD EXPLORATION YAYYY. :D I'm definitely going to try out the new jobs as well.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed the female viera nose. I do think it might be because of the skin color though.

I cannot wait. I've just returned to FFXIV after playing GW2 and SWTOR for months to get ready. So excited!

When they announced the name "Solution Nine", I just immediately thought about the amarautians speaking about how The Convocation of Fourteen stirred them safely from previous disasters.

I would say if you want some background and lore on FFXI before the alliance raid you might want to try playing it, I know it's pretty confusing to install but the story and lore are fantastic. I I've played it since the Western release and still sometimes go back and play.

I'm all for collection so I would have appreciated it if they touched on the cosmetics situation. Overall I'm looking forward to more content:)

Crow Brain, I love that, totally fits myself as well.

Out of all the jobs they could have chose from... they chose pictomancer...

yooooo shoutout to S O M A! loved that game and the story was dark af with the "ark."

I wonder if YoshiP cried about the delay because he knew Soken was fighting cancer and had to delay to give him more rest or something. Maybe it was a multitude of things, but I wonder if that was a key issue with the delay. All those emotions at once.

Hey, Zep. Noticed your eyes seem red in this video, you okay? 😢 Also, all the cyberpunk looking stuff really surprised me during the keynote, but I'm loving the aesthetic. Very interested to learn more about Solution Nine.

Ooo, that hadn't occurred to me that Solution 9 might be a part of a lightning aspected shard. That's a good theory!

Enjoyed the vid!

Yep, i had the exact same uncanny valley feeling with the CGI of Femhroth, felt a little jarring, but in game they look amazing!

Pictomancer reminds of my friends in their junior year of college in the art wing.

15:50 YoshiP did not say he was too old for cosplay. He said he did not think that specific costume would look good on a 50 something year old man

I’m most excited for the duel dye system lol….the 2 new jobs I’ll try out but I’m disappointed we are getting melee n caster, but the duel dye system will be a great addition

So Solution Nine is a trance attack from Zidane. Considering the overt themes of two worlds in FF9 I wouldn't be surprised if some Shard shenanigans happened with regards to this city. I wonder if there's a Lightning aspected Calamity happened and the people managed to come across the Aetherial Sea.

Rejoice... In the glory od visual arts!

I'm Really Hyped To Check Out The Pictomancer Class! Let's Go Team Viera 🎉

8:49 confirmed Zepla is an Alien

I'm very excited for both pictomancer and viper! And who doesn't want to get an apartment in Solution 9? Like I'm already designing it in my head!!! so exciting!

8:59 omg, so glad you know this gem! SOMA might be the best game story that I've ever seen in my 25 years of gaming, it's haunting me to this day in a positive way! 💕

Honestly I'm praying the 4th Hrothgal face/head has a longer muzzle, but it may be unlikely. It feels they compromised into making them beastly but short snouted because they knew some people would prefer the "Cats 2019/Bless waifu" look and there can't be severe differences between head models.

I keep watching the news for more, hopefully many more, glamour plates being made available but have I yet to see anything about it. I already have more costumes for my Idol than glamour plates so I just don’t see myself coming back until they fix that. I mean I play on Balmung, my toon’s Idol RP is the main reason I play

Solution 9 is also the name of one of zidane's attacks from Final Fantasy IX

I'd love to see a Zepla take on FF11, whether that's just thoughts, or playthroughs, or guides.

i cant wait for Pictomancer but omg THE DPS queuessss! ;-; theyre going to be so long that we're going to need some heroes to not play any dps for the next 2 months and queue tyvm

Yoshi P definitely been playing some Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty. He did say the dev team are full of gamers and they get ideas from all sorts of games.

Yeah, about the face changes- I play a male Au Ra with the. I can only describe it as the Garchomp Face (if you know, you know), and I really like how sharp and angular it looks, so I hope it stays that way.

as someone whose still pretty new to ff as a whole, id love to watch you play ff11

I feel like Solution 9 is in the sky, based on the levin energy and stuff. Also it's the name of one of Zidane's trance moves, so I feel like we're getting some FF9 content this expansion. I feel like there will be genomes and stuff in S9.

i really hope they let you fight in turn based pvp battles with the Beastmaster Pets YES I WANT POKEMON IN EVERY GAME

I FF8, we discovered a high tech city ran by Laguna and his buds. Solution 9 reminds me of that.

I liked Ishikawa's bittersweet and profound way of writing, i have a hard time accepting this change, it's not easy combined to accept to go towards a new story without knowing about it with the previous story over I guess i'm not too hyped by the vacation thing either

I'm getting FFVI, IX, X, and obviously XI vibes from this expansion. Mostly XI and X tho, and that alone has me excited. Glad to hear there's more Group Content coming to the game to!

I never thought Dawntrail would be just Slice of Life stuff. XIV needs its tension, that's why people like the story in the first place.