The Adventures Of Pirotess: Unlocking Blue Mage And Make It Rain Event

Many of us who enjoy Final Fantasy XIV are excited for the upcoming Shadowbringers expansion. The blue mage job class has been added. If you played Final Fantasy V, IX, X, and XI you will remember the blue mage job class. Blue mage is an interesting job class because it learns spells from specific enemies by having them use the spell on them in order to learn it. For blue mage in Final Fantasy XIV you start at level 1 and you can level the job to level 50 right now until the new expansion release.

In order to unlock the blue mage the following criteria has to have been met: you must have a mage or war job class that is at least level 50 and your 2.0 main scenario quests must be complete. You will need to travel to Limsa Lominsa and talk to the NPC near the main aetheryte to start the quest Out Of The Blue. This will have you traveling to Summerford to meet a self proclaimed blue mage named Martyn to see if his claims of having blue magic are true.

Pirotess meets the blue mage Martyn. 

This is where you get introduced to how blue magic works. There is a cutscene where you have to fight a monster and learn your first blue mage spell. When you finish this part of the story Martyn gives you a full set of blue mage gear to use on your adventures. 

Quest complete, here's your full set of blue mage gear!

Just like that blue mage is unlocked and you will get a brief explanation of how blue mage works and how you get spells. Specific enemies have spells that you need to learn. It can take a bit of time and patience as you wait for them to cast the spell you need, but once they do you learn the spell. There are 49 different spells to learn and you can have 24 spells enabled so you need to really think about which spells you want to have for your battles. 

Blue magic tutorial explanation. 

I did play on blue mage a bit and it is a lot of fun. Fighting the monsters in order to learn spells is challenging, but once you learn those spells, it is pretty rewarding. It is designed for solo play and is a pretty sturdy job class once you get the rest of those spells and get better gear. So get out there and have fun learning those spells! 

Pirotess ready to learn more blue mage spells. 

I had fun doing the Make It Rain event because it was a nice quick break from adventuring. To do  this quest I  needed to head to Ul'dah to the main area to talk to the Lalafell who is sad and worrying about not being able to achieve his dream of being Senor Sabotender at the Gold Saucer. Once I talked to him this started the quest, The Sabotender Shimmy.

Start of the Make It Rain event quest. 

My adventure took me to the Gold Saucer to encourage the young man for his audition after he learned from the original Senor Sabotender how to move just like the real sabotenders in the game. There were conversation choices where I could offer encouragement to the young Lalafell as he auditioned. 

The audition begins!

Once the audition was complete, I was able to talk to the Lalafell again and he was quite happy. The reward for finishing this quest was the Senor Sabotender emote and some tokens that can be used at the Gold Saucer with the various mini games. I had fun doing this event because it is whimsical and a short detour from every day level grinding. If you missed the event, don't be too sad because it will be back next year. Thanks for reading. See you at the next adventure! 

Pirotess gets a new emote and some tokens. See you at the next adventure!

*Final Fantasy XIV is available to play on the following platforms: Microsoft Windows and Playstation 4

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Mother Gamer Plays Beyond: Two Souls

I had never played Beyond: Two Souls and I got the game for free with my Playstation Plus subscription. I decided to check it out. Right from the start of the game, the story hooks you in with an introduction to a young woman (played by Ellen Page) sitting in a sheriff's office looking grim. This is where Beyond really begins. It's an intriguing way to start a story and I found myself wanting to know who this young woman was and how she got to this point.

A strong introduction to Beyond: Two Souls

As the story progresses, you learn that the young woman's name is Jodie and she has a psychic connection with an entity known as Aiden. Jodie can communicate and work with Aiden to use telepathic abilities such as moving objects or possessing people's minds. This is where the game has time jumps between Jodie's childhood, her teen years, and adulthood. It seems the story does this on purpose, showing that memories in Jodie's mind are jumbled so there are frequent time jumps back and forth. It can be a little confusing at times, but it seems to meld well with the story. 

The memory time line skips around like this. 

You can adjust the difficulty settings in the game from easy to normal depending on your play style which is nice. Since this was my first time playing the game, I went with the easy setting so I could get a feel for things and just enjoy the story. As the story switched back and forth in the timeline you get to see the things Jodie went through as a kid with Aiden and how she came to be with the lead scientist of the paranormal department, Nathan who is played by Willem Dafoe. Throughout Jodie's childhood, Nathan is a constant presence and a bit of a father figure to her as they run tests to see how strong Jodie's abilities are as well as testing her connection to Aiden. This is where the game introduces you to the controls and the quick action button events. 

Jodie as a young child with Nathan. The game shows the controls here.

You can also switch views between Jodie and Aiden. There are many points in the game where Jodie relies on Aiden for certain parts of the story in order to move objects, possess people, or fight enemies. This is where the quick action controls come in. Honestly, I did not like the quick action controls because for me it detracted from the story immersion and often felt like a chore to do especially if I missed it the first time. There were times where it was vital that I not miss the quick action moment and it could be very frustrating when I did miss it. 

Aiden's point of view to move objects. 

The aspect of Jodie and Aiden learning and growing together as the story progresses is definitely interesting. There are great emotional moments in the story with Jodie as she is trying to navigate what it means to be herself while trying to adjust and separate herself from Aiden. You also get to see how her relationships change with people like Nathan as she grows. The time skips through the fifteen year span of Jodie's life fill in some of the gaps in the story, but there are times where it feels a bit muddled because in some aspects it takes away the player control and just takes you along for the ride. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because Ellen Page does a phenomenal job as Jodie and I found myself caring a lot about this character and wanting to protect her from all the people who were trying to control or manipulate her. 

There are multiple endings to Beyond depending on choices you make as Jodie, but it doesn't always seem like there are a ton of choices because you are basically there to see Jodie's story unfold and see how she came to be where she is. The voice acting and motion capture of the game is incredible and everyone did a fantastic job telling this story. That's not to say Beyond isn't flawed. As I said before, I did not like the quick action event sequences. I felt this detracted from the story a bit. I also felt there were a couple of writing choices that could have been done better and in a more thoughtful manner such as a troubling scene in one of Jodie's teen years memories. I also felt the ending could have been stronger because it took an odd cliffhanger turn. That being said, I did enjoy Beyond: Two Souls because of the great casting and the story. Ellen Page as Jodie is the real deal bringing a great sincerity to the character that made me care genuinely about Jodie and wanting her to be okay. That is the sign of some good storytelling. Beyond is definitely worth playing through at least once to see the story unfold through Jodie's eyes. 

*Beyond: Two Souls is available to play on the following platforms: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, and Playstation 4

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