As Last Fantasy XIV’s Endwalker enlargement enters its last content material stretch forward of Dawntrail’s highly-anticipated launch this summer time, Yoshi-P and his workforce at Sq. Enix have determined to commemorate the legacy of the decade-long arc of Hydaelyn and Zodiark with yet one more extremely spectacular statue for gamers to gather. Furnished as soon as once more by the adept fingers of these at Meister High quality, this bust options none apart from Zodiark and Hydaelyn themselves, the 2 omnipotent entities on the middle of the epic conflict between the esteemed Warrior of Gentle and the Ascians.
As wonderful because it seems within the photographs on Sq. Enix’s product web page, and as surreal because it feels to doubtlessly get the final noteworthy piece of merchandise from Endwalker, there appears to be hesitant divide amongst the participant base over it. One would initially suppose it’s totally over the very hefty price ticket of $360 USD (earlier than taxes and delivery), which makes it the priciest FFXIV statue launched to this point. The hilarious irony of those figures is that they’re typically referred to by the sport’s neighborhood as “costly emotes with a free statue included”, as a result of the Meister High quality statues at all times include an unique in-game emote as a bonus for ordering it.
Fingers down most likely the most well-liked instance of this, which really ties in to the reality behind the participant divide over the most recent statue, is the “Omega Simulations” emotes that had been obtained when buying the Meister High quality Omega determine again in late 2020. This statue turned essentially the most notorious in XIV’s whole lineup (which dates again to Shiva in ‘A Realm Reborn’), for each good and dangerous causes.
First off, the design of the statue itself was a direct hit amongst followers, who clamored to the Sq. Enix merch web site to get their pre-orders. It value $229.00 USD, which was certainly pricey however the high quality of the statue appeared totally convincing and justified for a lot of. Not solely that, however it got here with a pair of very enticing in-game emotes that enables gamers to have their characters mimic the basic poses of each Omega-M and F from the long-lasting Omega raids launched throughout the Stormblood enlargement.
Not solely are they flashy and classy, the emotes are “persistent”, which means that they don’t finish till the participant strikes their character. On high of being a really uncommon sort of emote, this made for some very engaging new afk poses that had individuals floating midair far and wide from Limsa Lominsa to Eulmore.
Nonetheless, whereas the emotes had been an absolute hit with the neighborhood and stay a few of the greatest ever launched for the sport, the identical surprisingly couldn’t be stated for the statue itself.
Those that had been part of the preliminary pre-order wave for the Omega statue, and had been undoubtedly thrilled when their supply lastly got here, as an alternative discovered themselves saddled with a bodily product that didn’t remotely meet expectations. Whereas different statues comparable to Shiva and Ultima the Excessive Seraph all got here out as exquisitely implausible as supposed, Omega fell far, far quick.
As identified by these photographs from ‘tuxed0mat’ on Reddit, the focus of the issue (as seen above), was the facial design. Whereas the preliminary product photographs from Sq. Enix depicted pristine expressions of the characters, the ultimate outcome was one thing borderline horrific, notably from the view of anybody who collects figures like these. Folks took to Reddit and different types of social media to point out what that they had paid over 200 {dollars} for, which turned out to be crudely drawn at greatest, one thing you’d sooner see on a $30-40 greenback determine.
It was a primary if there ever was one, and the avalanche-level backlash prompted a radical and honest apology from Yoshi-P and Sq. Enix for the extreme lack of correct high quality management over this specific determine within the XIV collection. To make up for it, they despatched a substitute statue to everybody who had initially positioned an order at no additional value. Nonetheless, a lot of those that obtained their replacements nonetheless complained that the unique issues nonetheless weren’t fastened, because the facial design was barely higher, however nonetheless didn’t justify the associated fee.
This brings us again to the newly launched Zodiark-Hydaelyn statue, which went up for pre-order late final week. Together with its record-breaking $359.99 price ticket, it contains yet one more unique in-game emote referred to as ‘Sundering’ (i.e. – Ballroom Etiquette – Apocalyptic Charades).
This permits your character to wield the sword brandished by Hydaelyn herself in an extremely flashy present of, nicely, sundering power, earlier than floating again down and hovering with the sword in hand. Actually, it’s really fairly much like the Omega emotes of yore. Nonetheless, in a really unhappy flip of occasions, this emote is unusually not a “persistent” one, as your character merely drops again to the bottom afterward. What the heck, Yoshi-P??
Not solely that, this specific emote is NOT account-wide for some motive, which understandably has individuals completely baffled. That could be a first for this kind of product, and we do hope it doesn’t set a precedent going ahead with figures launched for Dawntrail.
Past that, nevertheless, the principle supply of hesitation expressed amongst gamers on Reddit comes from the sticker shock blended with the proverbial burn attributable to the Omega statue disaster. With a greater than $100 enhance in value, some persons are wringing their fingers on whether or not to drag the set off this time. The statue itself is an almost foot-tall assertion piece, there’s little question about that.
There’s apparently nonetheless loads of curiosity regardless, because the statue has really since bought out on Sq. Enix’s US web site. As of this writing, it’s nonetheless accessible for pre-order for these within the UK.
The statue is because of ship for everybody slightly below a pair months from now in March, so we’ll see at that time if the fears are justified, or if opening up the pockets that large is nicely price it.