If I'm remembering correctly too, the Hildibrand quests are also animation tests alongside being just genuinely fun, so a lot of the overexagerated expressions and motions you see are there to build the way for future expansions animations' updates! It's really cool watching things grow and get more polished as time goes on, and then being able to point in-game and be like 'that, that's from Hildibrand!'.
Yes! Was going to say this. Perfectly worded. Hildebrand started as a way to test new animation styles and people were like, "why don't we let players see this?"
In my second playthrough I noticed that in a certain Shadowbringers transformation cutscene. It kind of made me chuckle despite the extreme tonal dissonance.
The best part is he keeps doing it, and has been doing it too. Back in 1.0, Hildibrand showed up to add color and humor to the end of the original storyline. By that point the moon Dalamud had gotten about as big as the white one and people were starting to freak out. Enter Hildibrand and Nashu, going off and investigating hotel rooms (and thus unlocking the feature at the time). I believe he was intended to be a silly character for nonsense, but they had their fans. Extending beyond that, they started to use HIldibrand to test not facial animation but the character model's movement physics. The thing is, he was so strange and bumbling that he was a big hit back then. Since, he's cemented himself as a fixture of FFXIV, and every time he appears he seems destined to get into trouble and also test out the limits of character models of some kind. Truly, we have much to thank the Inspector for.
I've always explained that Hildibrand is the FFXIV equivalent of the old Inspector Gadget cartoons. Good ol' Saturday Morning cartoon nonsense. Pure fun that abides by the Rule of Funny, bending even the rules of the in-game world to sell a gag. It is one of my favorite parts of FFXIV.
Hammerspace bombs, exaggerated facial expressions and an absolute lack of logic and seriousness. It really is a Saturday Morning Cartoon with you in the guest role
Hildibrand is technically entirely optional, but if you want to do the Endwalker relics then you must complete all of the Hildibrand quests up to that point.
It's really funny how in ARR hildy we are like wtf is his guy, in HW we are oh its just Hildy, in SB we are already a part of it and in EW we fully embrace hildy chaos, and it's epic! Most fun storyline by far!
Apparently they didn't put him in Shadowbringers because they were afraid people were getting sick of him...but they saw popular demand for his return, sparked by his absence and so put him into Endwalker.
There' a very famous easter egg for him in ShB, but to say more than that would be spoilers. The Endwalker quests also explain where he was during ShB.
@@Adu767 Infamous more like. I've never seen him, and I know where he can show up. The manner in which he turned up in EW gave me my biggest laugh of the whole questline.
Hildi: /just a silly little guy Storyline: Unironically adds colour and lore areas to the game. Some that I was curious about like why are there zombies chillin in the desert. Some I didn't even know I needed like everything about Godbert, and some that's dark as hell (Uldah wtf). Also adds a big bridge. And a green chicken. I really enjoyed some lighter moments of GW2 (like the mosh pit :D) but yeah there's no Bald Gentlemans of Light over there 😂✨.
YEP. For the longest time it was literally the only place to get decent Sil'dihn right up until Endwalker, for example. It adds so much flavour to the world.
@@corokossa My theory is that FF9 is the world where he is originally from, so in FF9 we are seeing him before he became "The Man, The Myth, The Legend" that we know him as in other FF games.
@@corokossa Probably not 15 either. Though the music has motifs of 'Clash on the Big Bridge', the enemy itself is MUCH too different to be Greg. 11 also has a Hume (Hyur) NPC called Gilgamesh that is not Greg, and an enemy / Notorius Monster that LOOKS like Gilgamesh.
If you liked the elezen rival/friend, there is a sidequest within the Hildibrand quests that are unrelated to the man himself, but you help solve some actual crime in Ishgard. (I can't remember the guy's name off the top of my head). You get a glam item and an emote at the end, if you need incentive.
I like to think that my WoLs have some sort of PTSD from dealing with Hildibrand, but no matter how hard they try, they still get sucked into his shenanigans.
My experience with Hildebrant had some ups and downs; sometimes just not feeling the story, sometimes dying of laughter. My slow pace also wound up with an interesting crossover between the MSQ and Hildebrant, where I got to experience both Godbert the businessman and Godbert the naked lunatic wrestler within moments of each other.
I'm a story guy, so when I played I did the msq twice back to back thru Endwalker. Both times I needed a break between expansions. Hildy certainly helped, and some leveling other then my Bard, ya that twice too. Even at the DnD table lol. Like I said, a story guy.
I mean... we're playing games to have fun, right? And this is a questline only existing for having fun and laugh. If thats not the best reason to play it, I dont know what is...
As someone who dreaded every time they released new Hildibrandt quests I feel the need to explain that this questline can be a mixed bag depending on what you find funny. Quite a few jokes here did not make me laugh but cause second-hand embarassment. At the same time it has enough interesting tidbits, lore moments and yes, the occasional laugh that it feels like I miss out for not playing it. But, yeah. Mixed bag for me.
It was a blast watching u go through the quests and enjoying it all. A fun thing that u can discover in Heavensward after u complete the MSQ is a quest with Brairdien where u learn more about the culture and the aftereffects the MSQ had on it, its not funny as Hildibrand but its a great way to do something with him again.
as you progress through the story, if you're familiar with the Final Fantasy franchise, you'll see that 14 is just a giant love letter to the franchise itself. The game is full of callbacks and references
HE IS EORZEA'S AGENT OF INQUIRY! INSPECTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE!! hahahaha these last two years ive been catching up since post Heavensward after a 5 year hiatus, MIRACULOUSLY done, i happened (last week) caught up with everything in the game Story-wise. I told myself, "I am ending my run with the Endwalker Manderville quests and Relic DIRECTLY a week before Dawntrail starts".... HERE I AM NOW, TWO MORE QUESTS IN FOR HILDI ENDWALKER, TWO MORE STEPS FOR THE RELIC, AND IM HAVING A BLAST BEFORE MY VOYAGE TO TULLIYOLAL.
In addition to hildebrand, in terms of silly content, you also have some of the beast tribe questlines... ...not all of them, mind you, they vary greatly in tone... And they're an absolute grindfest second only to the relics weapons
Hildibrand is a Himbo. He is a GLORIOUS Himbo. And his quests are hilarious. Right up until they start dropping atomic grade lorebombs. And they do, eventually, start dropping the bombs.
It's like the British equivalent of inspector Clouseau. Oops, he accidentally the case. Legitimately my favorite quest series in the whole game. They only get better with each expansion, although Shadowbringers does not have a Hildebrand quest sadly.
You're mentioning how much levity that the Hildibrand quests give, and that's why it's important. I would like to mention that back when Stormblood came out, my computer was so old it could not run it at all, and I had to stop playing for an entire year; I missed out on Endwalker's arrival and only started playing when I saved up enough money to buy a new laptop. At the time I had been hearing a lot of people talking about how doom and gloom the world was, including a circle of friends that I shoulda gotten the hell outta dodge from their group way before, because they literally started giving me depression. There was nothing happy going on with my life, and I was so sad and tired of the world. When I finally could resubscribe to Final Fantasy 14, before I bought Shadowbringers to continue the story, I went straight to Hildibrand's Stormblood story, and I laughed so hard, I saw that there was good in the world again. There was light, and levity, and joy, and stupidity, and funniness. It literally cured my depression. I usually compare Hildibrand to a cross between Mr. Magoo and Inspector Clouseau from Pink Panther. When I was a kid, I found them funny, but it's only now that I start to understand why funny, bright, silly things are made during such terrible times. This really is the best way to give your brain a nice soak after seeing too much horror. Just like those old, silly cartoons and movies from ye olde times, these sorts of comedic stories are there not to just be absurdist and crazy, but to literally pick you up when you're down, brush you off, and tell you that things can and will get better. Hildibrand is the best part of Final Fantasy 14, and anyone who disagrees has never hit the bottom that one needs to see that.
One thing that strikes me about Hildebrand is how it encourages some players to continue playing and discourages others. If you're willing to have a little bit of fun, not be the center of attention, and learn a bit about the world and its people, the quest line gives you plenty to appreciate with a spoonful of sugar. If you are a certain sort of perpetually angry gamer, rubbing salamander oil on Hildebrand, over and over, is a great exit point before you take a bad attitude into multiplayer.
I've seen actually a number of comments where players are absolutely turned away from hildibrand. Especially the oil scene lol they really did not like that
@@CaffeinatedDad And isn't that wonderful! Take a few implications and some some great comic timing to alienate a fraction of the sourpusses, and voila: a stable community with less overt toxicity.
Ah good old ARR Hildi. So many silly details too. I vaguely remember at one point you have to look through random Items laying around, getting you Item Descriptions like "It's a simple Rock. What did you expect? A Rock that keeps Coeurls away?" and another one reading "At least you didn't just pick up a Rock"
I hope this isn't a spoiler, but the Hildebrand quests are only semi-optional now. You need to have completed them to unlock the relic weapons in Endwalker. If you do Savage Raids and Extreme Trials you can get weapons that are as good or better, but for most players the relic weapon will be their weapon of choice.
Caffeinated Dad: "I'm expecting an emotional gut punch in HW because it's Final Fantasy, that's what it's going to do" a good strategy... maybe if something sad does happen, it won't hurt as much if you're mentally prepared
I'm going to save some people a lot of trouble. If you want to do the Endwalker relic weapons, you have to be completely caught up with all of Hildebrand.
I dont need to go much further then the intro to say this: yep. You understood. Even if the humour of Hildi's zanny shenans doesnt do it for you, they are an important counter point to the main story. Sure the msq does balance itself with moments of levity but having this whacky anything goes just pure dumb moment of joking is important to the game. And it gives a "safe space" in a way for the devs to experiment with different type of quest, different animation etc.
The best part about the Hildibrand quest is despite their jokey nature, it provides important lore like Ul'dah's dark history or how Primals function. I'll refrain from spoilers if you're not there yet.
I'm afraid I am one of the admittedly few people who absolutely detested the Hildebrand quest. Maybe an age thing, I don't know. However... although you say, and quite correctly, that these are optional, if you want the Endwalker Relic weapon, you need to have done all the Hildebrand quests up to and including the Endwalker ones, which continue all through the relic stages. I gritted my teeth and powered through them all in about 40 minutes :), running the trials unsynched except for the last one.
All jokes aside, the Hildibrand Quests are just a nice break from all the seriousness of the MSQ. They're primarily comedic, but they have some nice worldbuilding and emotion in there too that just gives that extra bit of flavor to the world of FF14. They're also one of the few times the WoL is seriously not the centre of attention and is kind of just along for the ride, ironically letting them have more of a personality.
I understand this is your first time to the game, and don't have the full game yet, but the MSQ is REALLY long... I mean easily a hundred hours long if you don't speed through it. Doing too much of the side content is a huge reason for people to get burnt out, and everything can always be done after the MSQ too.
fyi, the story does incorporate more comic relief into the MSQ, but it's fairly sparse until about the Stormblood expansion. As for Hildibrand, one of the things I love about the quests is that there's usually an interesting and serious mystery going on that's being complerely destroyed by Hildibrand's buffoonery.
Gilgamesh isn't a call back as such. There are recurring names in Final Fantasy, like Cid, Biggs and Wedge. They are different characters but they share the same name. Gilgamesh is different. He is the same character in each of his appearances. The end game of Final Fantasy V gave him the ability to travel between the different worlds/dimensions. He has shown in up multiple games since V, and in some remakes of older games as well.
I think my favorite hildy related moment is the part where you find a hook to start his Stormblood shenanigans and the quest accepting box goes super meta at you and says something like "You have only yourself to blame for what happens if you choose to approach Nashu"
It is quasi mandatory for relic weapons (very long optional questlines for powerful weapons with unique skins), older ones were tied to optional side quests. This is familiar to shadowbringers being tied to bozja and stormblood to eureka which are activities on its own but you'll see it later if you will try getting relic weapons.
So originally hildibrand was a character they added to 1.x to have silly quests that unlocked and advertised inns being added to the game. Players and devs liked him so much however that he just kept showing up
I'm happy that you had the same thought as I did about Hildibrand being a palette cleanser from just how dire and serious everything can get in the storyline. Trust me, with the things that go down during Heavensward, you're going to be like me and praying for Hildibrand to show up, do his pose, and invite you to go investigate a case.
*pauses at the start* i had been told early on that hildibrand was a hit or miss depending on the player and how hildibrand's the main character while the WoL is more a side character. as i was leveling i did do the first chain of hildibrand quests and promptly stopped because i didn't enjoy it. in particular i remember the moment when you were repeatedly oiling him up being the tipping point where i decided to skip out on the rest. it's optional, it's fine to not do chains you don't enjoy... until i learned that you NEED to do the ENTIRE thing from arr to endwalker if you wanted to gain access to a certain feature that got released in endwalker. good lord i hated every moment of it especially since i was FORCED to do it for that feature! in particular i hated how my character was humiliating herself with certain actions repeatedly. but eh, i was proven how i'm in the wrong for disliking the ivalice chain for the reasons i disliked it, so let's see how wrong i am again... *end of video* yeah i do fully get how the importance of having an optional mental break... unfortunately i... still don't think my character really has the correct mindset for such a thing with the lore i had given her, and i still stand by that i disliked it. thankfully i don't feel like the villain like i did with the counter points i got about the ivalice chain, so thank you for that. genuinely, thank you.
At the end of the questline you'll be pondering that they allocated a dev team to actually add this to the game. I personally didn't enjoy this quest line, but my brother finds it hilarious.
I’ll tell you this much, it’s definitely worth your time and effort to stick with history line. Payoff at the end of the journey is very much worth it.
This thing is dumb and funny at the same time, but it is a important test bed for facial animations and how far can the devs can pull out of the animations. 😂
The funny thing is.....long ago I used to believe 14 was just a bad game because I didn't know the 1.0 to 2.0 transition happened. All I heard was how bad FF14 was as a game. Then I saw a video of the Hildebrand questline in Heavensward......i swiftly downloaded the old demo (back when you could only play up to level 35) and got hooked HARD. Hildebrand....god damn Hildi is the main reason I got into FF14 and finally broke my stigma lol.
The best part of Hildibrand? He returns in every expansion... except Shadowbringers because the writers had run dry on ideas. They did come up with some new ones by Endwalker though.
If I'm remembering correctly too, the Hildibrand quests are also animation tests alongside being just genuinely fun, so a lot of the overexagerated expressions and motions you see are there to build the way for future expansions animations' updates! It's really cool watching things grow and get more polished as time goes on, and then being able to point in-game and be like 'that, that's from Hildibrand!'.
Yes! Was going to say this. Perfectly worded. Hildebrand started as a way to test new animation styles and people were like, "why don't we let players see this?"
In my second playthrough I noticed that in a certain Shadowbringers transformation cutscene. It kind of made me chuckle despite the extreme tonal dissonance.
The best part is he keeps doing it, and has been doing it too.
Back in 1.0, Hildibrand showed up to add color and humor to the end of the original storyline. By that point the moon Dalamud had gotten about as big as the white one and people were starting to freak out.
Enter Hildibrand and Nashu, going off and investigating hotel rooms (and thus unlocking the feature at the time). I believe he was intended to be a silly character for nonsense, but they had their fans. Extending beyond that, they started to use HIldibrand to test not facial animation but the character model's movement physics. The thing is, he was so strange and bumbling that he was a big hit back then. Since, he's cemented himself as a fixture of FFXIV, and every time he appears he seems destined to get into trouble and also test out the limits of character models of some kind.
Truly, we have much to thank the Inspector for.
I've always explained that Hildibrand is the FFXIV equivalent of the old Inspector Gadget cartoons. Good ol' Saturday Morning cartoon nonsense. Pure fun that abides by the Rule of Funny, bending even the rules of the in-game world to sell a gag. It is one of my favorite parts of FFXIV.
Hammerspace bombs, exaggerated facial expressions and an absolute lack of logic and seriousness. It really is a Saturday Morning Cartoon with you in the guest role
Hildibrand is technically entirely optional, but if you want to do the Endwalker relics then you must complete all of the Hildibrand quests up to that point.
It's really funny how in ARR hildy we are like wtf is his guy, in HW we are oh its just Hildy, in SB we are already a part of it and in EW we fully embrace hildy chaos, and it's epic! Most fun storyline by far!
Apparently they didn't put him in Shadowbringers because they were afraid people were getting sick of him...but they saw popular demand for his return, sparked by his absence and so put him into Endwalker.
And he's back for Dawn Trail too, hooray!
There' a very famous easter egg for him in ShB, but to say more than that would be spoilers. The Endwalker quests also explain where he was during ShB.
No, the devs said that they were a bit tired and didn’t have an idea for what to do, so they skipped an expac
@@Adu767 Infamous more like. I've never seen him, and I know where he can show up.
The manner in which he turned up in EW gave me my biggest laugh of the whole questline.
He would have popped up in the thick of covid while they were transitioning to WFH so the Hildi quests were dropped from production.
Hildi: /just a silly little guy
Storyline: Unironically adds colour and lore areas to the game. Some that I was curious about like why are there zombies chillin in the desert. Some I didn't even know I needed like everything about Godbert, and some that's dark as hell (Uldah wtf). Also adds a big bridge. And a green chicken.
I really enjoyed some lighter moments of GW2 (like the mosh pit :D) but yeah there's no Bald Gentlemans of Light over there 😂✨.
YEP. For the longest time it was literally the only place to get decent Sil'dihn right up until Endwalker, for example. It adds so much flavour to the world.
Hildibrand is the second best questline ever just behind the MSQ and everyone with a different opinion, I'll wait for you at Wolve's Den!
-THE END
Gilgamesh is canonically the same Gilgamesh in every Final Fantasy game in which he appears. Which leads to some fun references later.
well, maybe not ff9. but afaik all the other ones are the same guy.
@@corokossa My theory is that FF9 is the world where he is originally from, so in FF9 we are seeing him before he became "The Man, The Myth, The Legend" that we know him as in other FF games.
@@corokossa Probably not 15 either. Though the music has motifs of 'Clash on the Big Bridge', the enemy itself is MUCH too different to be Greg. 11 also has a Hume (Hyur) NPC called Gilgamesh that is not Greg, and an enemy / Notorius Monster that LOOKS like Gilgamesh.
A giant frying pan as a baseball bat = peak experience. I love the quests and look forward to more in DT.
And the blatant Ichiro batting stance!
If you liked the elezen rival/friend, there is a sidequest within the Hildibrand quests that are unrelated to the man himself, but you help solve some actual crime in Ishgard. (I can't remember the guy's name off the top of my head). You get a glam item and an emote at the end, if you need incentive.
I like to think that my WoLs have some sort of PTSD from dealing with Hildibrand, but no matter how hard they try, they still get sucked into his shenanigans.
Wol: "I Hate It Here"
My experience with Hildebrant had some ups and downs; sometimes just not feeling the story, sometimes dying of laughter. My slow pace also wound up with an interesting crossover between the MSQ and Hildebrant, where I got to experience both Godbert the businessman and Godbert the naked lunatic wrestler within moments of each other.
I'm a story guy, so when I played I did the msq twice back to back thru Endwalker. Both times I needed a break between expansions. Hildy certainly helped, and some leveling other then my Bard, ya that twice too. Even at the DnD table lol. Like I said, a story guy.
The story of hildy has been alot of fun and honestly something that is different but engaging on its own right!
Hildibrand questline is kinda required for endwalker stuff, not gonna spoil for what but going through it yields rewards later on.
I mean... we're playing games to have fun, right? And this is a questline only existing for having fun and laugh. If thats not the best reason to play it, I dont know what is...
As someone who dreaded every time they released new Hildibrandt quests I feel the need to explain that this questline can be a mixed bag depending on what you find funny. Quite a few jokes here did not make me laugh but cause second-hand embarassment. At the same time it has enough interesting tidbits, lore moments and yes, the occasional laugh that it feels like I miss out for not playing it. But, yeah. Mixed bag for me.
You can meet Godbert in a side quest in the open world.
If you've done that quest, he'll recognise you during the Hildabrand quests.
Just to note, it's the same Gilgamesh in every game. Canonically.
Yes even when he looks totally different don't question it.
"Chortle is a word word by the way" Did someone get reminded how much older he was than his audience again?
*back in my day*
It was a blast watching u go through the quests and enjoying it all.
A fun thing that u can discover in Heavensward after u complete the MSQ is a quest with Brairdien where u learn more about the culture and the aftereffects the MSQ had on it, its not funny as Hildibrand but its a great way to do something with him again.
If you arent a Mander-Manderville Gentleman or Gentlewoman, we cant be friends.
Hildibrand! He has the silliest, funniest parts of the game. They just get better and better.
as you progress through the story, if you're familiar with the Final Fantasy franchise, you'll see that 14 is just a giant love letter to the franchise itself. The game is full of callbacks and references
I headcanon that the WoL spends the entirety of every Hildebrand quest blitzed out of their mind
I.. I can be on board for this
HE IS EORZEA'S AGENT OF INQUIRY! INSPECTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE!!
hahahaha
these last two years ive been catching up since post Heavensward after a 5 year hiatus, MIRACULOUSLY done, i happened (last week) caught up with everything in the game Story-wise. I told myself, "I am ending my run with the Endwalker Manderville quests and Relic DIRECTLY a week before Dawntrail starts".... HERE I AM NOW, TWO MORE QUESTS IN FOR HILDI ENDWALKER, TWO MORE STEPS FOR THE RELIC, AND IM HAVING A BLAST BEFORE MY VOYAGE TO TULLIYOLAL.
You have to approach manderville the right way, basically go in with a goof ball mentality and your good to go! Best luck to you in DT!
@@CaffeinatedDad thanks Caffeinated Dad!!! we'll be waiting patiently for your arrival in Tulliyolal :)
In addition to hildebrand, in terms of silly content, you also have some of the beast tribe questlines...
...not all of them, mind you, they vary greatly in tone...
And they're an absolute grindfest second only to the relics weapons
Hildibrand is always one of my favorite things about the game. I always look forward to his adventures.
For some reason, Hildibrand reminds me of the musical "Anything Goes" -- absolute shenanigans.
I love the word shenanigans! it really does have that feel of everything is on the table and nothing is off!
less important (I'm cutting off his oil addiction) & more required to get the Endwalker weapon :D
I heard the path to getting the relic weapons is fairly long
@@CaffeinatedDad depends on which set you're doing. ARR very much so. Endwalker /points at Hildebrand
Hildibrand is a Himbo. He is a GLORIOUS Himbo. And his quests are hilarious. Right up until they start dropping atomic grade lorebombs. And they do, eventually, start dropping the bombs.
It's like the British equivalent of inspector Clouseau. Oops, he accidentally the case. Legitimately my favorite quest series in the whole game. They only get better with each expansion, although Shadowbringers does not have a Hildebrand quest sadly.
You're mentioning how much levity that the Hildibrand quests give, and that's why it's important. I would like to mention that back when Stormblood came out, my computer was so old it could not run it at all, and I had to stop playing for an entire year; I missed out on Endwalker's arrival and only started playing when I saved up enough money to buy a new laptop. At the time I had been hearing a lot of people talking about how doom and gloom the world was, including a circle of friends that I shoulda gotten the hell outta dodge from their group way before, because they literally started giving me depression. There was nothing happy going on with my life, and I was so sad and tired of the world.
When I finally could resubscribe to Final Fantasy 14, before I bought Shadowbringers to continue the story, I went straight to Hildibrand's Stormblood story, and I laughed so hard, I saw that there was good in the world again. There was light, and levity, and joy, and stupidity, and funniness. It literally cured my depression.
I usually compare Hildibrand to a cross between Mr. Magoo and Inspector Clouseau from Pink Panther. When I was a kid, I found them funny, but it's only now that I start to understand why funny, bright, silly things are made during such terrible times. This really is the best way to give your brain a nice soak after seeing too much horror. Just like those old, silly cartoons and movies from ye olde times, these sorts of comedic stories are there not to just be absurdist and crazy, but to literally pick you up when you're down, brush you off, and tell you that things can and will get better.
Hildibrand is the best part of Final Fantasy 14, and anyone who disagrees has never hit the bottom that one needs to see that.
One thing that strikes me about Hildebrand is how it encourages some players to continue playing and discourages others. If you're willing to have a little bit of fun, not be the center of attention, and learn a bit about the world and its people, the quest line gives you plenty to appreciate with a spoonful of sugar.
If you are a certain sort of perpetually angry gamer, rubbing salamander oil on Hildebrand, over and over, is a great exit point before you take a bad attitude into multiplayer.
I've seen actually a number of comments where players are absolutely turned away from hildibrand. Especially the oil scene lol they really did not like that
@@CaffeinatedDad And isn't that wonderful! Take a few implications and some some great comic timing to alienate a fraction of the sourpusses, and voila: a stable community with less overt toxicity.
Ah good old ARR Hildi. So many silly details too. I vaguely remember at one point you have to look through random Items laying around, getting you Item Descriptions like "It's a simple Rock. What did you expect? A Rock that keeps Coeurls away?" and another one reading "At least you didn't just pick up a Rock"
I hope this isn't a spoiler, but the Hildebrand quests are only semi-optional now.
You need to have completed them to unlock the relic weapons in Endwalker. If you do Savage Raids and Extreme Trials you can get weapons that are as good or better, but for most players the relic weapon will be their weapon of choice.
Caffeinated Dad: "I'm expecting an emotional gut punch in HW because it's Final Fantasy, that's what it's going to do" a good strategy... maybe if something sad does happen, it won't hurt as much if you're mentally prepared
I'm going to save some people a lot of trouble. If you want to do the Endwalker relic weapons, you have to be completely caught up with all of Hildebrand.
I dont need to go much further then the intro to say this: yep. You understood. Even if the humour of Hildi's zanny shenans doesnt do it for you, they are an important counter point to the main story. Sure the msq does balance itself with moments of levity but having this whacky anything goes just pure dumb moment of joking is important to the game. And it gives a "safe space" in a way for the devs to experiment with different type of quest, different animation etc.
The best part about the Hildibrand quest is despite their jokey nature, it provides important lore like Ul'dah's dark history or how Primals function. I'll refrain from spoilers if you're not there yet.
On top of easily being the most gentlemanly quest line it is also the longest quest line second only to MSQ itself.
Thats actually pretty cool to know haha!
I'm afraid I am one of the admittedly few people who absolutely detested the Hildebrand quest. Maybe an age thing, I don't know. However... although you say, and quite correctly, that these are optional, if you want the Endwalker Relic weapon, you need to have done all the Hildebrand quests up to and including the Endwalker ones, which continue all through the relic stages.
I gritted my teeth and powered through them all in about 40 minutes :), running the trials unsynched except for the last one.
All jokes aside, the Hildibrand Quests are just a nice break from all the seriousness of the MSQ.
They're primarily comedic, but they have some nice worldbuilding and emotion in there too that just gives that extra bit of flavor to the world of FF14.
They're also one of the few times the WoL is seriously not the centre of attention and is kind of just along for the ride, ironically letting them have more of a personality.
Nashu and Hildy share 2 brain cells and they're both fighting for 3rd place.
I understand this is your first time to the game, and don't have the full game yet, but the MSQ is REALLY long... I mean easily a hundred hours long if you don't speed through it.
Doing too much of the side content is a huge reason for people to get burnt out, and everything can always be done after the MSQ too.
fyi, the story does incorporate more comic relief into the MSQ, but it's fairly sparse until about the Stormblood expansion. As for Hildibrand, one of the things I love about the quests is that there's usually an interesting and serious mystery going on that's being complerely destroyed by Hildibrand's buffoonery.
The Hildibrand quest line is only optional if you don't want the best weapons in EW, because the relic weapons are locked behind it...
Gilgamesh isn't a call back as such.
There are recurring names in Final Fantasy, like Cid, Biggs and Wedge. They are different characters but they share the same name.
Gilgamesh is different. He is the same character in each of his appearances. The end game of Final Fantasy V gave him the ability to travel between the different worlds/dimensions. He has shown in up multiple games since V, and in some remakes of older games as well.
Are we getting a play through video for the Hildibrand quest? Pretty please?
I think my favorite hildy related moment is the part where you find a hook to start his Stormblood shenanigans and the quest accepting box goes super meta at you and says something like "You have only yourself to blame for what happens if you choose to approach Nashu"
They're.. Not... Mander-tory? /mdance
It is quasi mandatory for relic weapons (very long optional questlines for powerful weapons with unique skins), older ones were tied to optional side quests. This is familiar to shadowbringers being tied to bozja and stormblood to eureka which are activities on its own but you'll see it later if you will try getting relic weapons.
So originally hildibrand was a character they added to 1.x to have silly quests that unlocked and advertised inns being added to the game. Players and devs liked him so much however that he just kept showing up
I'm happy that you had the same thought as I did about Hildibrand being a palette cleanser from just how dire and serious everything can get in the storyline. Trust me, with the things that go down during Heavensward, you're going to be like me and praying for Hildibrand to show up, do his pose, and invite you to go investigate a case.
*pauses at the start* i had been told early on that hildibrand was a hit or miss depending on the player and how hildibrand's the main character while the WoL is more a side character. as i was leveling i did do the first chain of hildibrand quests and promptly stopped because i didn't enjoy it. in particular i remember the moment when you were repeatedly oiling him up being the tipping point where i decided to skip out on the rest. it's optional, it's fine to not do chains you don't enjoy... until i learned that you NEED to do the ENTIRE thing from arr to endwalker if you wanted to gain access to a certain feature that got released in endwalker. good lord i hated every moment of it especially since i was FORCED to do it for that feature! in particular i hated how my character was humiliating herself with certain actions repeatedly. but eh, i was proven how i'm in the wrong for disliking the ivalice chain for the reasons i disliked it, so let's see how wrong i am again...
*end of video* yeah i do fully get how the importance of having an optional mental break... unfortunately i... still don't think my character really has the correct mindset for such a thing with the lore i had given her, and i still stand by that i disliked it. thankfully i don't feel like the villain like i did with the counter points i got about the ivalice chain, so thank you for that. genuinely, thank you.
At the end of the questline you'll be pondering that they allocated a dev team to actually add this to the game. I personally didn't enjoy this quest line, but my brother finds it hilarious.
I’ll tell you this much, it’s definitely worth your time and effort to stick with history line.
Payoff at the end of the journey is very much worth it.
The hildibrand questline was not mandatory at first but now it is mandatory for the relic weapon in endwalker
I think Hildibrand quests skipped shadowbringers, but cane back in endwalker. That last one is for the relic quest line.
No I will not elaborate.
I would hope you wouldn't Elaborate!
This thing is dumb and funny at the same time, but it is a important test bed for facial animations and how far can the devs can pull out of the animations. 😂
Go find "poof, poof" when it comes back again >.
Once again, story skippers in shambles.
Final Fantasy is always about the story.
There are those who think the Hildibrand Questlines are some of the best content in the game and there are those who are *wrong*
The time has come
Nashu is the best
The funny thing is.....long ago I used to believe 14 was just a bad game because I didn't know the 1.0 to 2.0 transition happened. All I heard was how bad FF14 was as a game. Then I saw a video of the Hildebrand questline in Heavensward......i swiftly downloaded the old demo (back when you could only play up to level 35) and got hooked HARD. Hildebrand....god damn Hildi is the main reason I got into FF14 and finally broke my stigma lol.
The best part of Hildibrand? He returns in every expansion... except Shadowbringers because the writers had run dry on ideas. They did come up with some new ones by Endwalker though.
He has a chance to appear in a ShB patch dungeon if you've finished StB hildy
he can cameo in one of the ShB dungeons if you finish the StB hildy quests first