First Look At Asura, The FFXIV FanFest Battle Challenge Trial

mmorpg.com:

While at FanFest 2023, the return of the official Final Fantasy 14 live gathering, fans were given the opportunity to take on one of the new bosses from Dawntrail , which was announced at the event. Fans reserved time to take on the Final Fantasy 4- inspired trial Asura, partying in groups of eight for that first glimpse and Battle Challenge, as they called it. 

I was able to hop in with my static and some others at the event to take her on. It’s always a bit hectic taking on a new boss, but it was a lot of fun—so here’s what I observed.  

For one, using a FF4 boss seems to cut out the possibility of real spoilers. We already know that Dawntrail , the new expansion, is taking a lot of inspiration from other franchise games, especially FF6 , though Endwalker also draws heavily from FF4. It’s also not unheard of for multiple games to be referenced, as we saw FFX’s Anima in Endwalker, too . 

As for the actual battle itself, the setting and boss design were gorgeous. Gold hues lined both the arena and the boss, and bright colors of stained glass windows underlined them well. None of this took away from being able to see the attacks, either (though perhaps my divided attention did). 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear new music; they used one of the “Battle With the Four Fiends” themes. Mixed with the aesthetics parallel to Thavnair’s South Asian themes, some are speculating that this would be a late 6.5 trial, though they’ve already officially declared that this is a 7.0 trial. 

I’m going to be honest in that I zoned out when I was doing mechanics. But if you’ve done FFXIV’s newest Alliance Raids, there shouldn’t be anything particularly outlandish to look out for. 

There were some memorization dodges, at least,