Endwalker is a rollercoaster of quality that can overall be seen as either awful to alright depending on how you look at it. It's marketed and framed as the end to the overarching FF14 storyline that began with 1.0, so it's tempting to view it as the end to the overarching FF14 storyline that began with 1.0, but this is actually one of the worst things you can possibly do, because Endwalker is absolutely atrocious as an ending to FF14. Instead, the only way to salvage any appreciation for EW is to view it as a completely independent story, or really, view each ZONE as an independent story, since overall it's impossible to view it as anything but a trash fire.
First and foremost, it's important to know that Endwalker had two to three expansions worth of plot cut down until it managed to fit into one expansion. I believe this crucial decision by the producer to turn two expansions into one for pacing purposes destroyed EW's chances of being a satisfying conclusion to the overarching narrative, while also kneecapping the writers in general. There are many extremely important events built up over literally 10 years of content that get skimmed over in the blink of an eye, and several crucial plot elements to the conclusion are introduced without any foreshadowing right at the end of the expansion. Even the biggest laymen can see how rushed the story is and how most of the plot was invented just for EW without any long-term planning whatsoever, which feels absolutely terrible for a so-called conclusion to an overarching story.
There are many angles from which to tackle this, since there's just so much rushed content, but let me start with how the main antagonists are treated. The Garlean empire is the primary threat from 1.0 onwards; they are the main antagonists. It's true that they were created by and puppeted by the Ascians, but it's still the empire itself that is the primary antagonistic force: they are the ones on the ground floor in Eorzea causing problems, rather than just pulling the strings, and they account for an enormous amount of screentime.
In EW, they're nuked offscreen, and their plot is resolved in a single zone, with almost no characters really caring that much.
The zone itself isn't necessarily bad when viewed independently (perhaps more on that later) but in terms of the broad narrative it is almost indescribable how offputting and unsatisfying it is for the primary antagonistic force to blow up off-screen and for people to largely not really care that much since the plot immediately moves on. I've heard some say this is "realistic" and "reinforces the themes", but this is equivalent to saying a sun abruptly going supernova midway through a plot and killing every named character is "realistic" and "reinforces the themes" -- it doesn't change that it's awful narratively, and in the first place this theme was introduced in EW, so it remains abrupt.
Varis, the emperor of the Empire as shown all the way back in Heavensward, is a decent character. He has strong motivations, a rich history, and has the power to accomplish his goals. One of the best scenes in all of FF14 is simply Varis sitting down with the Eorzean leaders and having a conversation, because his perspective is interesting, and thanks to his extensive reading of Eorzean history he's able to point out how hypocritical the good guys have been, which is a breath of fresh air after 100+ hours of being baffled by their blatant racism and imperial practices.
Michael Martinez
In the pre-EW patches, he is abruptly murdered far away from the protagonist, and that's it for him. There is no resolution to the hypocrisy of the Eorzean leaders beside a SINGLE ONE of them saying "Oops I guess I was being stupid for no apparent reason" and then doing a complete about-face in behavior. There is no one to replace Varis as the head of the empire; it promptly collapses and as mentioned dies off screen. In an instant the Empire is transformed from a sprawling monster of a country with countless legions + rich culture of their own (due to their inability to cast magic etc), into a piece of cardboard that gets knocked over once the figurehead dies.
FF14 in general has a problem of getting increasingly shallow with its worldbuilding as time goes on. The genius writer of 1.0 left troves of lore, which the producer and new head writer subsequently said "they didn't know what to do with." I sympathize with the challenge of writing stories in a world you didn't create, but over time we can see the rich world of FF14 get flattened and flattened until instead of rich countries filled with people and culture interacting, we get figureheads representing entire countries/organizations shallowly interacting with no substance. The empire dies with Varis because in the new writer's head, the empire was not a rich and meaningful organization of people, it was the baddies led by Varis. Hence why the zone in EW is subsequently focused heavily on painting them as brainwashed psychopants, and subsequently ~humanizing~ them when there was never a need to do so in the first place - they were already humans. One of the worst scenes in EW is an imperial asking Alphinaud, "If you love peace so much, why didn't you just let us conquer you?". This statement is stupid, and easily defeated, but Alphinaud just clenches his fist and falls silent, unable to protest. In one moment, three people are painted as shallow idiots: The Garleans, Alphinaud, and the writer.
Wyatt Long
baste, keep posting
Christian Richardson
Thankfully for us, there's only one zone dedicated to the rotting corpse of Garlemand, and swiftly the narrative moves onto the moon, where we swifly defeat Zodiark at level 83. FF14 has long had a problem where at level x3 we fight a world-ending threat in the form of a primal, that everyone had made a big deal about before, but as soon as it's dead everyone is blandly saying "Good work" and moving on without a care in the world. This is bad enough usually, but with Zodiark it's mind-fuckingly bad. This is the figure that has been presented as the main antagonist, the big bad, for 10 years. The Leader of the Ascians, blah blah, and after an alright fight he's gone and nobody gives a shit. It's hard to even remember what people said about us killing him, because nobody really gives a shit - there's a "Good work!" or two and then we're doing other shit. The wind leaves one's sails at lightning speed, and once again one must look back at the narrative like "What was even the point?" I don't believe there are any spoilers in FF14, you can dump the whole plot and it won't spoil a single moment, but I do believe you can kill someone's enthusiasm by revealing how meaningless everything ends up being. Imagine how much worse ARR plot would feel knowing that Zodiark dies like nothing and nobody cares.
There is the argument that Elidibussy is the true heart of Zodiark, so the actual final fight with Zodiark was in fact 5.3, but I find this extremely paper thin. Elidibus has been treated as a separate entity for the entire narrative up to the reveal, and even then he was just the heart rather than the body, so literally nobody viewed that fight as a Zodiark fight. There was no payoff or buildup to it as Zodiark, which is fine, it didn't need to be, but retroactively justiying the 83 fight since we "already beat" Elibibussy is extremely weak. The reality is that Zodiark, much like the Garleans, were pushed aside to make room for the new narrative -- or, alternatively, he was included just to have an obligatory fight. I don't think this would be so bad if we found Zodiark's immobile half-corpse and it was like "Ah we already fought Elidibussy and so on and on," and there was proper narrative attention given to this. Instead. the highly uninteresting Fandaniel possessed him and forced us into a boring fight that was immediately brushed over. The narrative and writer cares almost as little as we do.
Jose Foster
With all the vestiges of FF14's previous narrative assassinated, Endwalker can now proceed to focus on its new narrative and antagonists. There is no argument whatsoever that EW's cast consists almost entirely of new characters introduced in ShB and EW by the new writer; the bulk of the cast that has been built up previously is largely absent aside from the main plot extremely shallow cameos. I can only describe this as a narrative having incredibly large inertia in one direction, and then suddenly it vanishes; you look around for the narrative you've been following, wondering where all the weight went, and find yourself in another world entirely. To be clear, I'm not saying that like say I wanted more character arcs and plot threads to be resolved, but rather than the story was moving in one direction for a long time, built up a lot of inertia, built up a large cast, and then in this finale just none of it matters. Characters that were as significant as the protagonist in the past now have zero relevance to the plot and are at best briefly present in side content, or at worst completely ignored aside from insulting cameos.
Nicholas Parker
Dude I just wanna come home from work and whip my throbbing cock out at Limsa and Jack off too all the 2B booty. I just wanna relax n shit.
Joseph Nguyen
Instead, the plot is now about a completely new set of characters facing an entirely new theat (that had zero foreshadowing whatsoever) powered by a completely new energy source. The new cast of characters, to be clear, is not bad at all; Ishikawa's characters are blatantly the best characters in the game, and they are quite fun to be around. However, as the FINALE of a long-running plot, I can only view it as insulting to toss aside established characters like old toys to focus on new ones. A pirate fuck introduced in 5.4 has more screentime and dialogue than many established characters, which feels beyond terrible - the best explanation I can think for this is that the new writing team feels uncomfortable using characters they didn't create, while the worst explanation is that they simply don't care about old characters as much as they do their own characters, but either way it makes for a terrible finale. Even ignoring all my criticisms, and pretending the story is 10/10 in every possible way, it just does not at all feel like a conclusion to FF14. It does not at all feel like the narrative beginning in 1.0/ARR has concluded here. It feels like the ShB and EW story has been concluded that the new writing team came up with out of their ass overnight, at the expense of everything that came before.
Adam Adams
Unfortunately, it's not a 10/10 regardless. The worldbuilding takes another heavy blow as the new emotion-powered Dynamis is introduced as a pivotal force that defines both the big bad and how to defeat them. Everything resolves around this Emotion Power, and it's so blatantly shallow that I feel it was introduced by a junior writer first trying their hand at a narrative. The rich aether-centric worldbuilding of FF14 is given a deathblow as the ultimate force is revealed to be this new power, never mentioned or foreshadowed before (beyond the extremely copium defense of "it's what powers limit breaks!!!), that in fact is what makes or breaks all of reality. Let me be blunt: unsubstantiated Emotion Power is boring and overdone. Not content to destroy the old narrative in plot beats alone, this new Emotion Power destroys the overall integrity of the world as well - there can no longer be a meaningful plot or narrative in a world where Emotion Power is the be-all-end-all, because we all know the Warrior of Light is an incorruptible beacon of HOPE and FORGING AHEAD. Organizations don't matter, feelings do; individual power doesn't matter, the strength of your feelings do (unless you're not the WoL); etc. FF14 has always been shaky here, but this solidifies that characters no longer win because they're stronger, they win because they're right, and now all we have left is more sequences of the Warrior of Light winning because they're in the right, like we've seen 1000 times, except sometimes done without being so boring. This is the final nail of the coffin on EW being a satisfying conclusion; not only is the long-standing worldbuilding and plot ruined, but it's all centered around and reliant purely on a never-before-seen force -- hardly a planned-out and well-built up ending over 10 years.
The Endsinger arises from the corpse of good narrative and worldbuilding. Truth be told, I find the concept of Meteion quite compelling. Thousands of birds in a hivemind sent out to absorb feelings, only to get corrupted by the overwhelming amount of negative feelings. I think this is very good and interesting on its own. However, as the final boss of FF14's narrative, she's an outright embarrassment. Arriving at the final hour like God appearing at the end of a generic JRPG, you don't need to be a FF14 enthusiast to see that she was thought up last-moment and has had no presence or relevance in the narrative beforehand due to lack of existing at that time. She appears at level 86, is gone for the level 88 zone, then rants to the party in level 90 zone. Then she is defeated. As a midboss, I think she's fine, but the final touchstone to FF14's main narrative up to this point as a whole? Absolutely an embarrassment. Transparently unplanned and abruptly dumped on us. Again, if this had been 2-3 full expansions, they likely could have made this a lot smoother, and perhaps sold the idea that she totally wasn't thought up at the last minute by Ishikawa while she was trying to do damage control, but they didn't and they didn't. And thus the shitty finale is topped off with a shit final boss.
However, I don't think that EW fails in EVERY respect as a finale - there are many instances of things actually done well. Putting aside all the fun surface-level cameos like the Thancred/etc pose from 1.0's ending in the Endsinger fight, stuff like Urangier's longstanding regret over Moenbryda's tragic death is tied off neatly in a tear-jerking scene where he meets their parents, which is the kind of scene you can only get when someone respects narrative threads even from 10 years ago (notable is that this scene was specifically requested by the producer, and was not the invention of the writing team). Venat as Hydaleyn was executed much more smoothly than the Endsinger; while this is also undoubtedly and unarguably an invention that occurred in Shadowbringers, the ***execution*** of introducing us to her is far superior, and it feels extremely plausible and believable that Venat was always Hydaelyn (aside from a few highly suspect quotes from ARR which EW has to actively bring up and explain away with shaky reasoning). The key piece which really sells Venat is her remixed track of Answers, which finally explains the true meaning behind HEAR, THINK, FEEL which I have been waiting for since the beginning of the game. It's all done very well, in stark contrast to Zodiark. (I wonder if defenders of Zodiark's execution would theoretically be like, "Oh I love how we just killed Hydaelyn and it was all glossed over like it was nothing, really sells how chad we are and how big the current narrative is" or something.) I have no complaints with the Hydaelyn's resolution, although the actual fight itself was extremely forced. At the least the scions actually got to fight beside us in a very cool moment that more or less confirms the narrative of FF14 overall would have been a LOT stronger if we could always do trials with the scions, and therefore the narrative would not have to make up excuses to shoo them away during fighting time.
Luke Allen
why are you sperging so much about this it's been months
Andrew Jackson
(The Minfilia Dog is one reason why the execution is good here; it's instantly understandable and funny to think 'Ah, Hydaelyn chose Minfilia because she looks like her dog,' even though that definitely was not the actual reasoning back then.)
And best of all, I would say the final credit sequence genuinely nailed the nostalgia factor. The Ul'Dah daytime theme playing instantly filled me with nostalgia for my favorite moments of exploring in the game, back when I first started the game and felt a whole new world opening up before me. The cuts to old content as it plays a melody of themes from major regions hits right in the spot, and the final bits with us walking out with the scions really makes you feel like an epic adventure has been concluded. This is the greatest trick FF14 ever pulls.
Okay. So in short, FF14 is a terrible conclusion to the overarching narrative. An absolute embarrassment of narrative design resulting from major crunching down of content and the writing team devoting themselves to a new cast of characters. However! While I deeply resent EW for being so disrespectful to past content and the overarching narrative, it's entirely possible to divorce it from said narrative and view it as an entirely independent work, which is easy since it's so cut off from everything else. How does it fair on it's own?
Well... Significantly better, I'd say, although I'm not in love with it. The absolute disaster of the Garlean zone, for instance, is not so bad when viewed as an attempt to tell a minor story about shallow imperial citizens, rather than as the conclusion to 200 hours of Empire buildup and characterization. But there are still critical storytelling problems that keep Endwalker down.
>a random foe not explained or foreshadowed is the true final boss based, ishikawa keeping with final fantasy traditions
Logan Morgan
First and absolutely foremost is FF14's continued insistence on distributing plot through a chain of fetch quests that gradually bring you further into a singular zone, unless you finish the fetch quests there and move onto the next zone. There is absolutely ZERO sense of exploration whatsoever as you trudge down the linear halls of each zone, made worse by said fetch quests being blatant filler with no meaningful narrative or even enjoyable dialogue. This is nothing new for FF14, but I'd say about 75% or so of Endwalker is this kind of low-effort, poorly made content.
Unique to EW, however, is how they have put a LOT more effort into a certain subset of scenes. Every expansion has some scenes with actual effort put into them, but EW has extended this effort to some normal SOL scenes, to incredible results. Playing Endwalker normally feels like being a shambling corpse, trudging through hellishly boring content, and these high-effort scenes palpably breath life into one's deadened soul. In the blink of an eye, the quality of writing increases, and everything looks good, and it feels like you're playing an actual game. These moments are very nice, and the beginning of Endwalker in particular had many very high-quality and fun moments. There's even new BGM produced to suit the new level of presentation. In this respect EW is a huge step forward, and a complete game of this would be something very worth playing indeed, but as of now it's only 25% or less of the content. They last only briefly before you're back to low quality, low effort garbage - bland textboxes upon bland models standing still.
Kevin Cox
If you can't condense this shit to at least a single post's character limit then your shit opinion isn't worth listening to. Go make a 12 hour video essay or something if you really get off on WORDSWORDSWORDS, at least then people can listen to it to fall asleep. Nobody's gonna read all this shit even if they are interested in arguing about the topic, like I was before coming into this thread.
The good moments of FF14 really are good, which is my running theory for the popularity of ShB and EW's narrative is that the average player will skip, skim, or turn their brain off for about 75% or more of each expac, then bask in the most kino scenes, and remember only those scenes. I can already feel this happening to myself with Shadowbringers; the middle of the expansion is incredibly dull, but the ending is amazing, and the ending is largely what's sticking with me now. I can easily see myself in 2-3 years looking back at Endwalker's best moments and thinking, huh that was pretty sweet, but they're more flashy than anything, and tend to be drenched in the sludge of the surrounding context.
The sludge of EW takes many forms: The final days, the shallowness execution, and the fanservice.
The Final Days in Endwalker are an actual joke. The end-times are here, but they impact only a single region (coincidentally, one of the new regions!), and are so blatantly over-the-top with despair it feels less like an actual event happening and more like the writers taking a visible brown dump on the world that shrouds it in brown darkness. The majority of the world has no real reaction to the final days and are not impacted by them at all; there's no sense of urgency or realism. It feels like going through a theme-park apocalypse, and it's all constrained to a SINGLE zone that's quickly blasted through. I think most will agree that the Final Days zone is the weakest of the expansion, although I dislike the Garlean zone more in general, and it's a real bad sign when not even the final apocalypse is interesting or well-executed. I'm not even going to mention the towers, because they're even more a fucking joke than ARR primals.
Juan Gomez
They tried to explain her pretty hard.
Jacob Cruz
The apocalypse is really ruined by the shallowness of the execution; quite literally, feeling too much despair turns you into a monster, while having hope will keep you safe. It's like something written by a grade schooler, and I audibly laughed out loud when someone said "AIIEEE THERE'S NO HOPE" (literally), then started burning with comical black fire, which was immediately extinguished when a main character gripped their hand and said "NO, THERE IS HOPE" (literally). At this point, there is not even a masquerade of the people in the world being people; they are vessels for Hope and Despair. They have no nuance or depth, they exist to push a point about "the inherent suffering of life" vs "the hope to FORGE AHEAD.
The problem with being so blunt is that it's extremely noticeable what you're doing, it's extremely lacking in thought, and it's extremely lacking in substance. Literally everyone who plays EW is aware that the veil of a plot/world/characters falls away, and what's left is themes. I've read countless reddit posts addressing criticism of FF14 by saying "Yes, the plot and characters are shallow, BUT EW is actually about the themes, and this stuff is actually deep because philosophy," or some other garbage. No. You can't just have characters bluntly state a theme and then justify this by saying well it's thematic so it's good. There's a whole art to storytelling; a whole art to convey themes through example rather than through directly stating them. There's a difference to inspiring and mainsplaining; a difference to powerful themes backing up strong plotting/characters/etc and nothing existing at all except for the themes.
Grayson Murphy
didn't read lol stop being an autist, go touch grass
Nolan Bailey
>One of the best scenes in all of FF14 is simply Varis sitting down with the Eorzean leaders and having a conversation, Doesn't he go batshit insane three minutes later when he advocates for the calamities in order to make mankind stronger? Wasn't his intentions and the Black Rose threat integral to why you had to stop the light-aspected calamity of the First? I don't think remembering him as just the antagonist from the summit is completely accurate.
The messaging is so blunt they're not convincing at all; the only people moved by EW are those who already agreed with the message to begin with and scarf it down. All you have to do is disagree with the base premise of nihilism and everything falls apart, because there's not actually any thought put to the message, it just shoves nihilism at you without any argumentation or elaboration. Characters explicitly ask, "Is there a meaning to life?", and characters explicitly say, "No" or "Yes" and that's that. It's laughable. It's shock-and-awe, you gasp at the bird saying "No there's no meaning to life", then you cheer and cry when the protagonist says "Yes there's a point to life," and that's it. No substance whatsoever. Conclusions are stated without any groundwork put in. There's nothing to actually think about or chew on here, unless you have literally never been exposed to nihilism before, and even then the only thing to think about would be the existence of nihilism.
Finally, it ends up immensely boring. When a character is just a vessel for pushing this message, then that's all there is to them; there's nothing interesting about them as people, there's nothing interesting about where their next step in life is, whatever. You listen to the author lecture you through them then they disappear, irrelevant beyond their job as a messenger. It's just so fucking boring. The conversations aren't fun or enlightening. They're not supported by any plot or narrative. They're just empty, surface level back-and-forths without any substance, and so critical zones like the final one completely fall apart. By the end of EW I was gritting my teeth every time yet another character began an unprompted speech that no character even responds to, because it's not conversations between people happening here, it's the author puppeting characters to lecture the audience.
Did not read but FF14 is a tranny game and it's important that this is noted in the thread. Carry on.
Dylan Long
mentally ill 40 year old freak
Angel Adams
The themes of EW are not the problem. Nihilism is a fine theme, and in opposition existentialism or what have you is fine as well. It's fine to ask, what is the meaning of life, and search for answers. The problem is when you do nothing but ask, then do nothing but state your conclusion, and shove it in the face of your readers without any proper groundwork or couching in a narrative. People who don't already agree will laugh in your face, or otherwise be rolling their eyes. The sin EW commits is sacrificing the plot and characters to push a message, without realizing how weak that makes the message and how boring everything becomes as a result.
The final problem with EW on its own merits is the fanservice. Emet-Selch was the breakout character of Shadowbringers, as we all know, and fans love him. So they put him back in EW, with a whole zone centered around him, and even the ending of the narrative putting a lot of focus on him. This Emet-Selch dick sucking is so transparent it's obvious to literally everyone playing that his popularity morphed the ensuing narrative, and this cheapens it as a result - which was inevitable since he was given an amazing send-off in Shadowbringers, so bringing him back so much does nothing but soil what I would describe as the best narrative moment in FF14 as a whole. How do you send off a character saying, "Our time is over, I entrust the rest to you, but remember we existed," and then immediately spend the next expansion bringing them back, focusing on them as critical player, and so on? Let me be clear: This is cringe. There's no other word for it. This makes me cringe. It's embarrassing.
Kayden Ward
The most eye-rolling moment is where they even go out of their way to have the character outright state things that had been left clear but unstated before, essentially sledgehammering the most subtle and nuanced storytelling the game had to offer. Emet-Selch setting up his own defeated because he WANTED to lose and be proven wrong was powerful and handled with excellent grace. Now, in EW, Emet-Selch faces the screen and says, "That can't be right, you're making it sound like I wanted you to beat me!" Later on, he says "I entrusted the rest to you, why are you dumping it on me again?" and you know what, good goddamn question.
All that said, it's undeniable that Emet-Selch and his squad are the best characters in FF14. When viewed independently, EW certainly does benefit by focusing so heavily on them, at the expense of all previous characters. However, I wish that ShB had been written with this in mind, so the narrative didn't have to contort to undo itself and bring back all the characters it had explicitly said it was time to move on past.
Luckily, there is one character which is newly introduced in EW and therefore not soiled by being abruptly brought back: Hermes. I think Hermes is a really compelling character, and as stated before I find the actual concept being Meteion quite interesting as well. It is for this reason that I say EW's narrative, when viewed independently, is decent. The Garlean and merchanttown zones are irredeemable, but going from Sharlayan to the past and then following Hermes and Venat's journey to the present day through Amon and Hydaelyn was highly compelling. Herme's infamous line about "I taught you to fly, but not to walk... not how to live" is very powerful. Overall I think the narrative painted Herme's melancholy and pain well, and respected him greatly - the narrative did a lot with him over only a short amount of time.
Oliver Perry
t. Shaman main in dead mythic raiding guild
Jordan Gomez
This is accentuated by FF14's ungodly good music. I think it's safe to say FF14 might have the second best music, and use of music, in any video game, ever (behind only the Exa-Pico series); it's extremely strong music used extremely well, and gives intense emotional weight even to otherwise garbage scenes, so it goes to show how powerful they are when used with scenes of even moderate quality. A big part of FF14's popularity is no doubt the music, which draws one into narrative moments and can be listened to long after the fact, improving one's perception over time as the music begins to drown everything out.
An especially powerful use of music in EW is the use of old FF tracks, from FF4 music on the moon to FF1 music near the end of the journey. It really gets one to feeling like they're playing a great and epic part of the Final Fantasy series, and I would be lying if I didn't feel a strong compulsion to go play through every FF game right now to bask in the music and allusions. If nothing else, FF14 does great at fanservice for other FF games.
The voice acting is great too, every line of Hermes is breathless with emotion, and Venat's seiyuu is just a master of her craft. I saw an interview about her being a perfectionist and I believe it; every line of hers is delivered perfectly and powerfully. That's another character that does a lot in a short time. It's funny, but as I type this I realize that while I hate almost all FF14 characters, I love almost all of their voices. When they speak the words are like a sewer coming out of their mouth, but their voices are beautiful nonetheless.
David King
filtered brainlet, literally took me 10 minutes to read up to this point, ironically enough I haven't subbed to the game since Stormblood dropped, is this really the state of xivfags lmao
Ian Lee
you definitely copypasta'd this from somewhere where'd you get it? Reddit? some homo groaning on Discord? tl;dr lmao and I don't even play it anymore.
Ethan Parker
I would be remiss if I didn't mention at least in passing how much I liked the Space Bunnies; they are, in my opinion, the only survivors of the Thematic Apocalypse in EW. They are not vessels for the author's message, but rather a charming and lovable little community with immediately distinguishable and likable characters. The drama in their zone is conveyed with subtlely and weight; they spent 12,000 years building this ship for humanity, but we think it's actually kind of shit. Their enthusiasm over serving humanity, their internal conflict over the problems they face, the resolution we find with them is all 10/10. I genuinely love the little guys, and all the cute touches like their relationships with their names. It helps that they have many high-production value cutscenes as well, emphasizing their energetic movement. The rabbits really kept me grounded with FF14; they were a reminder of how much *execution* matters, and how fun the story can be when actually done well. Pic related was my favorite moment in Endwalker.
So, for all the above stated reasons - Hermes/etc being compelling, the rabbits being good, the music being 10/10, the voice acting being good, etc, I wouldn't call EW irredeemable when viewed independently. All things considered I'm wavering around a 6/10, while as a conclusion for the overarching story I would put it at around 2/10 or so. The strong moments are very strong, such as the final duel with Zenos, or him arriving to help in a comically over the top dragon form. The weak moments are unfathomably weak, like the 40-some hours of fetch quests, but the great moments are very enjoyable. EW is, overall, a rollercoaster of quality, ranging from shallow fun to shallow soul-crushing boredom, which is hardly the sendoff I had been looking for, but at the very least, it's certainly an expansion to the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14.
ALSO WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID CID GARLON HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO COMMENTARY ON THE GARLEAN EMPIRE FALLING AND NO PRESENCE AT ALL? WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK? HE WAS LIKE THE MAIN CHARACTER IN ARR AND IS ONE OF OUR GREATEST ALLIES. IS HE NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU ISHIKAWA??!?!?! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I DON'T EVEN LIKE ARR BUT EW HAS ME STANNING IT THROUGH JUST HOW MUCH SHEER DISRESPECT IT HAS FOR ITS OWN ORIGINS. AND HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THIS GARBAGE ABOUT "GRAND COMPANY EORZEA?" THEY DON'T FUCKING MATTER AND GRAND COMPANIES ARE A HUGE FUCKING JOKE FOR THE ENTIRE GAME. WHAT DO YOU MEAN VENAT THAT THE "PROTECTION OF LIGHT" STOPS ME FROM BEING TEMPERED? I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE FUCKING ECHO? OH, I SURE AM GLAD WE GOT A LECTURE ON MEMORY WIPING MECHANICS RIGHT BEFORE MEMORY WIPING BECOMES RELEVANT IN THE STORY, AMAZING STUFF. REALLY? FUCKING DYNAMIS? FUCKING EMOTION POWER? HOLY FUCK. ALL THE SCIONS SACRIFICING THEMSELF ONE BY ONE IN EXTREMELY BORING, PROJECTED FASHION, WITH THE CHARACTERS OUTRIGHT STATING THEY'RE GOING TO BE REVIVED IN A MINUTE. WHAT. IS. THE. FUCKING. POINT. AND THEN FOR 1 MINUTE WE HAVE A DEBUFF CALLED "ENDWALKER YOU WALK ALONE" BUT THE SCIONS ARE IMMEDIATELY REVIVED AFTER WE WERE ALONE FOR ONE MINUTE FUCK YOOOOOOOOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK THIS GAME FUCK YOU
I wish I had not played the MSQ the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14. The raiding is fun though. Good fights. It's kind of hilarious how the trials/raids have far better storytelling than the actual cutscenes.
Total score for Endwalker: 6/10 when viewed independently 1/10 when viewed as the end to the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga.
Jack Robinson
I thought it was pretty funny that Nero didn't give a shit about Dynamis, honestly.
Hunter James
Only good response in the thread so far, everything else has just been mount-stupid room-temp-IQ pseudo normalfags revealing themselves
The garlean empire was falling apart from the start of ARR. It's destruction was gradual with a final culmination in EW. The storytelling of this was fine and it made sense, you just weren't paying a attention. I'm sorry your emotional payoff of defeating the empire didn't happen because it didn't make sense. Perhaps that emotional payoff was not worth it considering this.
Easton Reyes
so why'd you add your own shitty response to the thread, making yourself a mount-stupid room-temp-IQ psuedo normalfag like everyone else except that guy oh wait, since you're that, I can disregard your post entirely making that guy's post just as shitty as the rest
Not emotional payoff, but narrative logic and satisfaction. You can't really slice the neck off a primary antagonist force for stupid, shallow reasons (le epic unforeshadowed tower pops up and brainwashes them while you're away) and still have it being satisfying. There was a ton of inertia moving in one direction through 2 expansions of buildup that all just vanishes instantly with no followup or payoff. That's bad writing - it retroactively makes every scene with the empire even more stupid because it's all pointless, contradictory blustering. And Ishikawa even stated in an interview she made the plot of the Garlean empire filled with holes so readers could fill in the blanks themselves, a sure sign of success.
The only people who like the Garlean zone are brainlets who don't give a shit about Garleans or their culture. They're arrogant midwits that just want to look down with smug pity at their inferiors after they're karmically punished for being racist and bad. Anyone who gives a shit about other people and viewing people as people would be disgusted with the Garleans being dehumanized and torn apart like this.
When was the story in FF14 ever good? All of the main quest dialog is fluffed up with menial garbage that is completely irrelevant to the plot. It's painfully obvious that FF14 was made by a corporation - some asshole in a suit ordered a miserable wage slave to write the story. Art is made from a single artist's passion, not a group of wage slave working a 9-5 grind.
> It's painfully obvious that FF14 was made by a corporation That's wrong >Art is made from a single artist's passion, The problem is that the artist is a christmas cake fujo
