This was to be the last part, but I had far more words than anticipated. Before heading into the final zone, I’m going to discuss Sphene for a moment. Personally I have polarized feelings towards her: on the one hand she’s a likeable character and wants to mean well to everyone around her. However, on the other hand, her being predicted to be the final villain in this whole ordeal was kind of easy to deduce and hard to emphasize with.
The issue is like with a lot of this second part of the Main Story, she feels really rushed. I know previous expansions’ villains – practically all of them except Emet Selch – had similar issues, but at least with those they had most if not all of the entire expansion to get to know. Even Zenos, who I very much disliked as the villain of Stormblood (and only specifically Stormblood) gave us reason to dislike him when he invaded Rhalgr’s Reach and knocked the ever living wind out of our sails. It gave us that motivation to go after him and one felt that.
Emet Selch not only had an entire expansion to get to know (and very well we did) he was introduced in Stormblood post patches, and that not only made him more relatable, but also an additional ‘oh, who’s this feller??’ when he was introduced in those post patches. Elidibus is another one that comes to mind as well, even though he wasn’t around consistently.
Even Goblez, who was only really in the post Endwalker patches, I felt more weight with what he was doing because of being around Vrtra for a lot of Endwalker, but he is also built upon years of prior story with the dragons. Even him in the end I had empathy for what he was wanting to do, and those were just all in post patches!
Sphene… just wasn’t given the same amount of time or treatment, and it’s a bummer. We might see her again in post patches and that might give her that time to really become of herself, but for now that’s just how I feel currently as of expansion launch.
The reason for this compare/contrast real quick is because it affected how I felt about the final zone, Living Memory.
I kind of hopped over how we got here, and it’s basically Krile’s clover earring is actually a data storage node gifted to her by her parents from the other reflection that we’re about to go to. Shale helps deduce this, but once at the gate to enter, it would not give Krile access. However, thanks to Zoraal Ja gifting his kingdom to Gulool Ja as the new ruler, he was able to use the earring and open the gate.
The entire group of comrades and friends at this point gets reduced down to three: Wuk Lamat, G’raha Tia, Erenville, and Krile who go in with us. Everyone else stands guard at the gate on the Source’s side. I get why they did this, but it would have been neat to hear even Y’shtola’s additional take on things seen in Living Memory.
Upon hopping through, a very luminous city of warm auras can been seen emitting from every area of this world – the City of Gold (a.k.a. Living Memory). Living Memory is basically a giant set of terminals housing data (memories) of living people that have passed away and their memories are projected like holograms into this city. The area itself is broken into five sectors, and I’ll break it down into each sector since they’re all isolated as to what happens where. The central sector, Meso Terminal, is where the final boss and dungeon lies; so it’s the first and last place that is visited here.
Before departing to the first sector, Canal Town, the personification of Cahciua appears and says she’ll be our guide throughout Living Memory with the request we shut the whole thing down. After a forced answer cut scene (ugh), we agree and begin the process of visiting each terminal to shut it down seeing as the living can only do so.
Canal Town
We didn’t take nearly any screenshots in Living Memory, so I’ll try to keep these brief. The first area is Canal Town which resembles Venice, Italy with the canals, bridges, and buildings built around channels of water. Early into this area we were treated to a quick gondola ride with G’raha and that turned out to be a delightfully emotional little trek around the area. Seeing as G’raha has so many experiences with death in this current life and elsewhere as the Exarch, it’s little surprise to having feelings about this place.
Bit after that, we’re treated to a fun fountain show and we all meet up with Namikka, Wuk Lamat’s adopted mother. Rewinding for a moment, Namikka was introduced early into Dawntrail and after Wuk Lamat becomes Dawnservant, she departs home to Yyasulani right when it becomes Heritage found. She’s affected by the 30 year jump so Wuk Lamat meets her again in a town called Outskirts in Heritage Found only to see she’s about to move on. The explain that her physical self will perish, her memories will head to ‘the cloud,’ which being Living Memory. It’s a very emotional farewell and hit me pretty good seeing as we’ve been with Wuk Lamat this entire time and can tell Namikka meant a lot to her. This felt like a pretty good closure.
From there, we all headed to the terminal to shut it down. After a couple of warnings saying that the area will not be recoverable once the deed is done, the power is shut down and the entire area (minus a few roaming creatures) disappears. All that is left is darkness, desolate, and no music for that sector; all a rather unsettling feeling.
Yesterland
Probably my favorite area. Yesterland is designed up like a massive theme park inspired by old Alexandria before it was destroyed during the Storm Surge. Seeing kids running around here kind of hit me, but since the people here can chose how they look, I hope that they weren’t actually children when they passed away.
I’m not sure if the above shows up for everyone or just for folks who have completed the Pixie Tribal quests, but that was a nice additional touch in either case.
This area we’re met with Otis again, but before he knew us. Otis from Heritage Found was killed in his robot form defending Sphene from a lightning monster while we took it out. What follows is putting on a play for all of Yesterland to partake in watching, with both Wuk Lamat and I [the player] as knights of opposing nations together in a mock fight. Everything leading up to this was wholesome, heartfelt, and so darn fun! The reaction from the crowd (that included, Krile, G’raha, Cahciua, and Erenville), was great and seeing our friends’ reaction was priceless!
Once the entirety of the play was over, we said our farewells to Otis once again and headed to the terminal to shut it down like the previous one. We really enjoyed this section, and it stuck out to be pretty memorable.
Asyle Volcane
The whole area is fiery-like with artificial lava, a coliseum, hot springs, and a history museum.
This section was pretty much dedicated to Krile, as she gets to meet her biological parents here. It’s an awkward reunion at first, for in which G’raha Tia helps ‘break the ice’ that causes Wuk Lamat to react so and is hysterical!! There’s a lot of lore here about the key and where it kind of came from, this unknown figurehead referred to as ‘The Speaker’ who used the Key to transport this race called Milalla from their ancestral home to this reflection. It’s heavily believed as of right now that the Milalla are from the Source’s South Sea Isles before the 5th Umbral Calamity froze it. They tried to leave this reflection once the lightning started, but couldn’t get the key to open another portal again. Instead an organization named Preservation researched it and figured out how to use the interdimensional fusion, so they planned on using that ability to fuse back with the Source and take all the aether and lifeforce they could get to keep Everkeep/Living Memory going.
This didn’t sit well with Krile’s parents, so they took Krile (who they wanted to experiment on due to her Echo ability) and the key through a prototype portal to Yak T’el around the time Gulool Ja Ja, Ketenramm, and Galuf were exploring it. This kept it out of Preservation’s hands thus disabling their ability to use the fusion technology. Before departing, they tell Krile that her name to be was Maya, and so she adds it to her full name. After that, it’s just turning off the terminal and heading to the final area.
This was a pretty good lore-heavy area with some decent answers, and it kind of is left ambiguous as to what happened to Krile’s parents before they passed away. This is fine, I suppose? Personally I hope they lived a full life away from all of this, but seeing as they ended up in Living Memory tells me otherwise for better or for a lot worse.
Windspath Gardens
The final sector is for Cahciua and Erenville, and as much as it was trying to infuse emotion, it just doesn’t do it well. I feel what should have happened here is some sort of open heart talk and full closure between the two of them. Erenville has been hurting since entering Heritage Found, but putting on such a strong front, that this would have been a perfect time to at the very least explain how she got here to begin with. Instead, she dismisses him for practically the entire zone with a couple of interactive discussions here and there, with this area being the more focal ones.
It’s similarly laid out, but a large garden with a natural museum; some light talks about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen, but that’s really about it. Cahciua does show remorse for not seeing anything beyond Tural, and Erenveille tells her that he’ll keep her close as he does that in her stead. They do have some parting words near the terminal and do in their own ways bid the other one farewell. It’s still a bit emotional, but frustrating at the same time.
From there, the terminal switch is hit, and everything minus Meso Terminal goes dark. It’s time to head back to said terminal for the final showdown. By the time we got back to the Meso Terminal, I wanted this to be all said and done now.
I really wanted to love this part and it does have really good emotional moments, but again due to the entire second half of the story feeling rushed, it doesn’t come off all as well as I feel they wanted it to. I suppose I’ll call it here, and finally finally conclude this all in another post.