FFXIV Just DOES NOT Miss: Alexander’s Story Was PERFECT 

Twinning blew my mind at release. My phases were, "what's going on?", "this seems familiar", "why's that here?", before hitting me. Might not have the same emotional impact post 5.X, but I'd still recommend it.

Can't talk about Alexander without mentioning the music... There's a lot going on there. It was a radical departure from what came before and it really feels like a significant milestone for all the music in the game that came after.

I'm not surprised Bellular missed the bit where they explain that Emet-Selch (and Hythlodaeus) regain their memories of their time in Elpis after returning to the Aetherial Sea, not when they were summoned with the Azem Crystal. He *did* rush through ShB and Endwalker like hella. Also he needs to unlock the Twinning, stat :)))

The greatest thing to me is still that they were able to implement the feature of stopping and winding time into the boss mechanics. That blows away my mind. Its the way to make the coolest part of the story INTO boss mechanics. Already back then this team was decades ahead of everyone else.

Emet remembered Meteion before EW. As soon as he we killed him. It was stated the memories return to you once you go back to the aetherial sea. That's why he helped us in 5.3 Can't wait for that Twinning video. It's absolutely mindblowing!

14:30 this is only PARTIALLY correct, saving yourself from the time stop earlier isn't actually tied to your ability to defeat Alexander prime, instead its specifically tied to the "Timegate" Mechanic that happens in the 2nd phase of the encounter. I'm not sure if your group skipped the mechanic, or if your spot during the mechanic itself was taken by another player, but during 'Timegate", Alexander will send 4 "Arrhidaeus's Lanner" adds outwards into 4 little wormholes (they'll be in the Intercardinal quadrants, i.e. Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest) If you follow these Lanners into the wormholes, you'll end up on these little platforms high up in the air where you have to kill the adds as part of a DPS check, but if you look down at the arena below, you'll recognize the earlier scene after Cruise Chaser where your character + Cid & the gang were frozen in Time while Alexander charges its laser. Killing all 4 Lanners specifically is what actually dispelled the time freeze & allowed you to dodge the laser in the previous cutscene. If for whatever reason the 4 Lanners are NOT killed in time, your character does not react fast enough to dodge the laser and it results in a Paradox: You are killed in the past & as a result you cease to exist in the present, resulting in a group wipe.

Also Alexander probably knew about the final boss of EW because it says in it's music "celestial noise detected".

I stumbled onto Alexander by just following a quest that offered lots of gil because I was strapped for cash in my sprout leveling days through HW. Didn't expect to get this banger of a raid, what an experience!

“Liquid metal” excuse me, that’s Pepsi Man. Of all the people Bellular…

Emet selch and Hythlo recovered their memories when they both returned to the ethereal sea. The currents of the sea washed away the magic done unto their memories bu Hermes. Remember the old teacher guy explains how it all sorta works!

Just so you know if you did the alexander raid before going into shadowbringers and endwalker msq you will get additional dialogue and also cutscenes.

Cant wait for you to see the Sorrow's of Werlyt if you get the chance

The writing team have a specific talent: making optional content fit into the narrative of the MSQ without being information that's needed to progress or understand the main story. They are standalone objectives that at the same time give further context which only enhances the lore that you've already gotten through the MSQ. It's fantastic writing especially as you work backwards and see the threads of future content that you either missed or never would have thought ties into the larger narrative as a whole. And that goes for the yellow side quests as well... they have quest chains assigned to some of them that are so rich for little addendums to the story or, at times, even gives you a reward (check out the 'Great Serpent of Ronka' quests on The Rak'tika Greatwood some time).

Sorrow of Werlyt is something you definitely have to check out, it's the Shadowbringers trial series and the story there is fantastic.

Alexander was definitely one of the more interesting raid experiences for me when I started playing and I mean that in the best way I can’t really think of a way to describe it other than say I was entranced in just exploring the inside of the thing to the point where sometimes I’d forget it was even a raid

ENDWALKER Spoilers 18:10 I thought he recovered his memories at the end of Shadowbringers, right after we defeated him. After all, when we summon him at the end of EW, he says something like "I've been forced to watch this show", referring to our journey from his defeat until his summoning. At least that's what I thought happened.

Heh, I feel you on the aether currents. I did most of alexander unsynched with a friend, just for the story, and the fact that she couldn't fly yet (and I didn't have a multi-person mount) ground our rush to a halt for a bit while she hunted down the last few.

Thank you for making this! I skipped all the cutscenes thinking I can just watch it on RU-vid, but all of the vids are just unending journey videos with big chunks of story missing. I love your summary to fill in the gaps.

This was a great retrospective, thanks for making it! It's been so long since I did Alexanders story (did it when it was current) so I'd forgotten a lot of details and it was nice to re-experience the story through your eyes. Loving your XIV content as always, thanks!

The Alexander raids had some of my favorite music tracks, especially Rise and Metal: Brute Justice Mode. Also he needs to do the Weapons trial series ...the devs really hit the feels there.

Wow, I actually hadnt thought about the repercussions and the small tie ins Alexander has with Endwalker until now! Great video!!

There is something special about the Alexander raids and I don't think it's necessarily the fights. It's the enivorments in the raids as well as the touching story. All around beautiful raid series :)

fun fact, that horn was actually a macguffin in FF14 1.0's Limsa story line where through echos we piece together an plot of the former admiral to get one of these mythic horns for the Ascian and succeeds. but most creatures have 2 horns, where's the other, you might ask? on the tip of Tupsimati, Louisoix Leveilleur's famous ether siphoning weapon that again, was attempted to be taken by an Ascian for likely another rejoining plot. amazing what you can do when you try to not leave loose threads.

@5:50 Randomly getting A5N, yep, easy wipe if no one remembers gorillas or to respect the bomb radius.

So quick note note that was potentially missed and a fun theory in regards to your endwalker comments. During the track locus one of the lines is "celestial noise detected" almost like a certain song of oblivion. Obviously nothing concrete, but if true it really shows how good ishikawa is at pulling things together from all sorts of different sources and potentially how yes, Alexander knew about the endsinger.

I always enjoy not only your reactions but the recount of the story. I did this already but I find what part of the story is appealing and also the interpretation really makes me see the story from a different point of view. Thanks again!

The fact that Alexander sends adds to the past, and they were the ones who set it up the Stasis field and You enter the portals to stop that from happening was pretty cool, also if no ones enters the adds portals you simply die

If you read the lyrics to the Brute Justice fight theme, you will see some *very* interesting points raised about the content of the newer expansions.

Alexander is one of those rare quests that call directly back to a storyline that happened in 1.0. Travanchet (the unidentified Ascian) & Y'shtola crossed paths briefly in the original Limsa Lominsa storyline where he stole the horn out from under her. That made it all kinds of amusingly awkward while playing my Travanchet NPC character through the MSQ with the Scions. :D Though, in helping create Alexander, Travanchet inadvertantly put in motion the events that permanently derailed the Asican's grand plan of Rejoining by destroying the remaining Unsundered. See "The Twinning" dungeon for how Alexander effects events in Shadowbringers.

The best thing about Alexander is the music that you'd otherwise hear in a freezing warehouse rave somewhere in Frankfurt.

I'm only into SB patches now but just went back and did FotF just this past weekend with a few friends and it was a great time. The effects in some of their fights are amazing. Like the time stop in this one or the glass breaking in Thordan. This team nails the spectacle aspect and it always has amazing music. I love it.

Very nice video. I hope you also get around to do all of Eureka and its grand lore as well.

The Twinning is so amazing. It cant be overstated. One of the best musical mixes in the game, Gorgeous set pieces, and its literally a lynch pin of some of the biggest content in the game. All in an optional dungeon. Mind blowing.

When Mide and Dayan had their ending it was genuinely lovely. I found it quite similar to BSG's Helo and Athena's ending.

Interestingly, I think Alexander is the least interesting of the 'Normal Raid' stories. Which, I suppose, just sets the bar for the rest of them very high because - yes - Alexander is indeed very good. Edit: Also, the normal raids have a tendency to elaborate on important, but not essential, parallels to the side story that are used both to resolve loose threads and expand the overall world lore. And it's a great way to do it.

I really love the unique perspective your team brings to the way we think about what XIV does with its narrative, the structure/format. Thanks guys!

About raiding in other MMOs, I think the main difference is that other MMOs have sort of abandoned the idea of having complex and satisfying storytelling. They've realized that most of their players are perfectly fine with an average story if the raids/combat are fun, so they focus on raids and combat, rather than story. FFXIV on the other hand focuses on what makes the FF franchise popular: Stories. And on top of great stories, they've learned what makes raids and combat fun from other MMOs.

happy lad enjoying the good old content, I still do when I get it in Roullettes or farming an old relic/glam

I enjoyed the speculation in the latter half of the video! It's the type of content I was hoping to see from Bellular when he started covering FFXIV.

his ultimate also has a time themed gimmick. the enrage never kills the party, it just resets the instance as if it never happened

The amazing thing is that we don't know who created the Enigma Codex. My headcanon includes the story of The Twinning and the Eighth Calamity. In the Twinning we see the artificial Enigma: The Tycoon which Biggs Descendant created in the likeness of Alexander to control the time-space of the crystal tower. I'd like to think that somewhere in the far future someone found those notes and used them to create the Enigma Codex which included the blue prints for the Tycoon or, the new name, Alexander. Somehow that codex ended up in the past. Basically Alexander was created to look and work like the Tycoon which was created to look and work like Alexander. I love time travel!

Boom, 23 seconds after posted. Time to watch! I appreciate you guys' hard work and am looking forward to the Pale Beyond. :)

Im very curious how much they can make relations with what we Discover in Elpis and what we already have in the sundered world, and this only talking about the ‘concept’ to future being stuff going on. Just think about the implications we can have with Kairos, the time-controlling mega computer from Hermes, compared to Alexander as a primal itself and its concept final use being Typhoon (the twining), allowing shadowbringers to happen. I rly love this questline above all else as a lore bomb as it still has some questions if we think about everything we’ve seen so far

Alexander has some of my favorite visuals in the entire game. Grinding down conveyor belts into a giant steampunk city inside of Alexander will never not be an awesome experience!

I wiped many times on the Alexander raids and still do when I go in there for roulettes. Every time it's a pleasure because of that banger soundtrack.

Wanted to talk about a couple of things regarding Shadowbringers & Endwalker spoilers. Firstly, Emet-Selch regained his memories from Elpis when he died in Shadowbringers, and not when he's summoned in Endwalker. Which is probably the reason why he helps you during the Seat of Sacrifice in 5.3. Secondly, Alexander's power is used a few times in the games story after Heavensward. It's used alongside Omega's power to get G'raha and the Crystal Tower to the First ot orchestrate the plot of Shadowbringers. Alexander's power is also implied to be used by Elidibus to get you to Elpis in Endwalker. Take that for what you will in regards to your theory about Alexander potentially knowing about the ancients

I initially skipped a decent number of the Alexander cutscenes because my friends were doing the raids with me and I didn't want to feel like I was wasting their time. So glad to be able to go back and get the story!

During Alex Prime, if you go into the black orbs and look to the bottom platform, you can see yourself standing there frozen with Alex readying to shoot the laser at you, if you clear it, you can see yourself dodge the beam

Friendly reminder that this was out during Warlords of Draenor

I remember a few complaints of the story being slow in the beginning when it first came out though that may be due to having months in-between installments.

It's interesting that you bring up the raid/alliance raid stuff being separate from MSQ and what that lets them do. I've honestly been thinking that an "easy" way to shake things up in the future might be to drop a surprise alliance raid in the MSQ somewhere. I think if we ever do another "war" expansion it might be worth doing. I know a lot of folks felt like the Doma Castle and Ala Migho dungeons in SB didn't quite have enough impact and I wonder if it had been different if they had something that felt more like the Bozja raids. Also I hear you on the queue times. I'm secretly hoping that they when they reduce the main scenario roulette rewards they also increase the normal raid roulette rewards, because that queue has needed more people running it for three expansions now. More generally, I'm hoping that once trusts are an option for the MSQ dungeons they can push people more towards trials/raids roulettes as daily content because I feel they are a much better expression of the XIV combar system than the dungeons.

26:20 This actually surprised me since I had assumed you'd have 'streamer privilege' to circumvent queues. Don't forget you can also create an open role Party Finder group or add specific criteria to get those quick clears. Don't be afraid to name drop your channel also.

Whenever that trumpet hits, I start jammin'.

It was a good time, but I gotta say that fractioning the raid into so many small pieces made Alexander feel less like a cohesive space that we were exploring, and more like a selection of arenas disconnected from each other.

I do like how Alexander gets larger and larger in the zone as you progress through each wing of the raid. Going from an arm sticking out of the lake to a gigantic fortress which transforms the look of the whole zone.

I wouldnt call the raids themselves B-plots. They look like B-plots but they are often plot adjacent or connected to the main plot in some way. Bahamut connected a lot of threads that were left loose, while a player could go through ARR and not touch the raid, there's still missing context and heading into heavensward you're left with questions that eventually you'll go back. The same thing can be said about how Crystal Tower - Alexander - Omega all tie together, along with Alexander tying together with the Elpis time recall. You get this feeling that because the bureau of architecture is responsible for all sorts of creations that Alexander must have been created by one of the trio to aid you in coming back to keep the time loop stable. You have exactly two time loops running concurrently within the story and you dont realize that until you get Shadowbrings and up to the 87 dungeon.

Oh also a fun fact you can unsync solo or at most duo the Savage fights to get the mounts if you’re level 90 now. I almost solo’d a12s (Alexander Prime Savage) as a White Mage a few weeks ago. Brought my friend Summoner and the two of us killed it easy on Savage to get the weapons for glam and the mount!

One of the lyrics to Brute Justice's theme (this part of the song is from Alexander's POV): "Celestial Noise Detected." At the time of writing HW the writers probably intended that to mean that Alexander could detect Zodiark, because we're pretty sure the writers already had planned for him to be in the moon. That said, looking back at it now with Endwalker knowledge, it's probably safe to assume that current lore implies that Alexander could detect the Endsinger's song, even if he didn't quite understand what it was (or else I imagine he would have warned us).

FFXIV is a great game. It has so much to offer that is lacking from other MMO's especially pay to win casinos like lost ark.

When you get to The Twinning, the most important thing to remember to do is TURN UP THE MUSIC!

If you don't wanna wait too long you can try hosting a partyfinder and point out first time bonus, people gladly tag along for it for an easy extra reroll chance for their Wondrous Tails. And don't feel too bad for unsynching it, because you will get it from normal raid roulette quite frequently from personal experience so you will do the fights properly at some point or another lol. Alexander synched is mega fun.

I really looked forward to Alexander because he's a recurring summon I like from other FFs. On top of that, Cruise Chaser is based on my favourite summon from FF9 that was a namesake of mine for the last 22 years. So it was really cool to battle it, then Alexander Prime just blew me away.

Looking forward to your video covering the Twinning. I expect you and Matt to do your own version of the meme ;)

With how seemingly neatly the FFXIV lore all overlaps and connects, you would think they have like a curator or a team of writers keeping track of everything just to make sure nothing too glaring or distracting gets missed or put in to the lore. I just imagine the Charlie meme with the string and dots grid behind him except its the entire FFXIV writers office, in a positive way of course.

Bellular said it's not connected to the A plot. But actually it is connected to the A plot, but just not enough for you to miss the beats of the A plot because you didn't do it. For example, the future where G'raha comes from the future Ironworks used what Cid learned of Alexander and Omega to cross the rift and time and space. Time and space being Alex and the Rift being Omega. This is what you learn in the "Twinning" dungeon where you fight the Tycoon which is a replica of Alexander. Same with Eden, the restoration of the First is brought up but not to the point where it will confuse you if you just do the MSQ. It's brilliant.

Heavensward’s Alliance raid series is also a ton of fun and worth running. Lots of lore, voidscent, and sky pirates.

Alexander was peak FFXIV for me - great atmosphere with the way you're lead through Alexander's bowels before most fights, trash that never overstayed its welcome, and story, story, story on all levels. Everything from the escalating levels of Fausts you deal with (culminating in what was exclusively a trash mob making a major appearance in a late Alexander raid boss), the Goblin Dr. Frankenstein who fused together several of his brothers in this horrible amalgamation in a room filled with their discarded masks, masks goblins never normally take off... the big twist at the end of the raid that happens in a boss fight... XIV has never stopped being good, but I really wish they'd bring back some of Alexander's atmosphere, well paced trash, and gameplay and story integration.

The Tank LB3 is based on Dynamis not Aether. Alexander is made via creation magic bvased on aether and can only control the flow of Aether. If intervention by Dynamis happens its something he cannot account for nor change. I think it was the Alexander seeing our capability to master Aether and Dynamis (as proven several times in Endwalker, like when we are in the soldiers body without our aether, the whole concept of Limit Break) made him realize that if he cannot "do it" we are the only one who might and of course the fight against him was just that test to check if we are up to it.

Let's also not forget that Biggs's and Wedge's Excellent Adventure was in all likelihood the catalyst to them working on time travel theories that would generations later be used to send the Crystal Tower back in time.

Alexander is a fantastic bit of storytelling! And what's great is that when they made it, they hadn't planned out all of the plot that goes on in ShB and EW, so it's brilliant how they made all of that work so well with it. As for the Twinning, honestly the thing that gets me is how the music is a fusion of the themes from Crystal Tower, Omega, and Alexander.

The Alexander questline has got to be one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. The Omega questline was a damn close second. Now I can't wait to see his reaction to The Twinning!

that's not onslaughter, that's BRUTE JUSTICE my man!

Alexander story starts off meh but starting halfway gets interesting then ends great. Also banger OST.

We need some Bellular lore investigation. It has to do with the Time Travel. When you get to Shadowbringers, you’ll be enlightened on how one such method is achieved. This is actually the second method. The first, being Alexander. They do not properly explain whether the two are connected, or, why they weren’t connected. This is an important thing. What’s MOST IMPORTANT, is that the oldest civilization that we know of, the Ascians, had not discovered either.

My thoughts were, "Huh, they really ARE all about the narrative, aren't they?" This was the first piece of side content that I just completely fell in love with, and it does still hold up! Enjoy Twinning, my mind was blown :)

Omg, when you mentioned the connections to endwalker I immediately thought of the core of the facility. Hermes had control over it, used it on Emet and Hythlo. We know the identity of Hermes and we don't know where Alexander came from. Do we think the core to the Elpis facility is a party of Alexander and it's subsequent functions?

Alexander is incredible. I love how naturally the game pushes you into it too.

i also did alexander unsynced and it was fantastic, easily soloable on lvl 90 SMN

18:30 actually, yeah, he sees that future, you know why? because of the twinning, that dungeon. The twinning was the mechanical process of moving across TIME and the RIFT. Omega moved the crystal tower across, and Garland brand Alexander(the Tycoon) across time. even if this alexander did not know, the blueprint version aka the tycoon sure knew the precise moment which the crystarium needed to exist in for the future to turn out as it did. Also 19:00 a Qayah free version of alexander was created "in the future" and by that i mean on one of the planets that meteion saw. During the final days dungeon, one of the dungeons features a civilization where machines have destroyed every single life but one, this is what the logical conclusion would have been to happen if there was no other influencing factor Either, the fact that alexander knew about everything including the 12 shards of ehterys, or that there was a human "osul" , contributing more then just the cold calculating heart of the machine to its own calculus.

I really hope you do the SB and ShB content synced instead of unsynced. At that point all the jobs are pretty much feature-complete and interesting, and a lot of the fights are really cool and a lot of fun in ways that are impossible to experience unsynced.

I’m wondering how you’ll feel going through the Dun Scaith Alliance raids. I know you had to do crystal tower so you got the feel for the exploration and combat but if you’ve ever wanted to know more about the ancients of Mhach and the denizens of the 13th shard it’s full of information about them. (Still not enough though)

I love that FF got their claws in you for this MMO. As an old school MMO vet, this is by the best MMO I've ever played. Sure it has its flaws (raid lockouts for example) but its excellent compared to the competition.

gotta learn how to use that party finder to make groups instead of the duty one. a lot of people like myself look at party finder to help others clear content from time to time. makes for a shorter queue and people that more often than not know the fights and can help with mechs in it.

Cannot wait for an entire video dedicated to The Twinning. Still the best dungeon ever.

Alexander was the first raid I did as I missed all the coil stuff. The first fight was so much fun when it first came out with all the mechanics you had to follow. Now it's just a joke, unfortunately. Also, I love the after story you get a bit with Mide and Dayan where you find out they ended up in the past and gave rise to the Hotgo tribe. That part broke me a bit. Now you have to do all the other Alliance Raids. They all have stories that are just as good.

The other thing Bellular needs to do are the 25mans which again are another whole story thread similar to the 8man raids and interwoven just as much. They're also probably a lot easier to find queues for since the "alliance raids" are a little more common than "normal raids" for roulette.

"Not peak raid content...Its a nice adventure into a BIG robot... Im happy..." perfectly sumarized my feelingz when it was out those years ago :D :D :D

I’m glad I was not the only one who thought Alexander had a hand in probably setting up Endwalker and Shadowbringer to help save the Star through the WoL

My friends and I unsynched the Binding Coils, then went back for Alexander as well the same way. We were there for the story (minions and mounts, but mostly story) so I totally do not blame you. :) Absolutely do it synched/no echo if you want more of a challenge, but the music slaps either way. Just helped a friend through it (normal synched) and we had a couple wipes, but it was fine. We were grooving to the music and discussing where we went wrong. There's still a couple mechanics I'm pretty sure we didn't realize how they worked, but we muscled through and had fun doing it. How this ties in with everything else? Well then... Also fun note, Do the Twinning... Yes. Definitely. It may explain some stuff.

Have you done any of the Beast Tribe quests yet? I'd love to hear how you feel they compare to WoW's rep grinds.

Any chance of trial series vids from each expansion?

Before I watch the video, all I gotta say is... inject me that Alexander OST into my veins

While the dragons and Omega existed alongside the Ascians though on their own respective worlds, Alexander perfectly encapsulates what the post-sundering world has to offer. I'd say the same for Allag, but I'm interested to see what else. Maybe a greater exploration of Higanshi.

I was very skeptical about time travelling in story telling it always messes up the story of most of the medium but I am surprised they handled it pretty well and it's very self contained

if you havnt done the lvl 80 trials diamond weapon story line yet, I think you will really like that one as well

The alexander raid Lore reminds me of Proto Fal'cie Alpha or Adam in final fantasy 13-2 where you fight it multiple times because it travels back in time after defeat. Not as a retreat, but to make sure Hope estheim is going to Build proto Fal'cie Adam to help protect humanity against time paradoxes and other threats. Wich you as serah and noel ARE paradoxes due to your time traveling, making Adam go kind of insane and cause chaos in order to kill you. It literaly makes sure it comes back over and over again to deal with you, hence you have to fight it over and over again and in the end serah reaches in the rift Adam creates to travel back in time where she shouts at hope to NOT build Adam as its driving her nuts. Wich then makes Adam disappear. As hope never build it in the first place due to serah's intervention.

A lot of my friends really didn’t like the story of this raid and didn’t like Mide but I for one absolutely loved it and thought she was a fun character. Lots of back and forth with the time shenanigans and amazing boss fights. Alexander was a fun raid series.

I'm SO glad he didn't do The Twinning until after these. :D

The raids, and the Shadowbringer and Endwalker role quests are more like "B" plot to the MSQ "A" plot. Not critical, but provide more context and main story and depth - maybe not at the time they are played through, but the writers like to go back and look at this content and pick up themes and ideas from it. This happens with "C" plot elements as well like the 24 man raids, Eureka and Bozja and the ARR->Stormblood class quests, but not as prominently. One of the things the FFXIV team does really well is sprinkle lore and plot seeds around as they go, then review their old materials and create new plot from those old elements. Sometimes (Warriors of Darkness) it is clear they have pre-planned things, but most of the time it seems they just find old ideas that they can tease out and create new materials from.

Wonder if he will do videos on Shadows of Mhach and Return to Ivalice in this format, Great videos.