What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

Based on that interview I'm not inclined to believe that Ishikawa is the problem. Ishikawa clearly leaves it open to player interpretation which is the most efficient and sensible route to take when it comes to complicated moral issues. It's Yoshi-P who has been doubling down on questioning why people like Emet better than Venat or Hermes.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

I'm at the point I'm just going to throw my hands up at EW. Hermes made no sense to me outside the context of being mentally unwell.

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Uhh, yep... I think Hermes being understandable to the player is like... an agree-to-disagree kind of thing. It has to be, because I've seen enough people say his character made so much sense to them and that he was the most human, and I just can't assume these people are lying. As soon as the guy started expressing anxiety at the thought of someone immortal peacefully ending their life, I was befuddled. What's the deal here? The whole "meaning of life" motivation is something that seemingly flies way over my head because this is honestly not a question I've ever asked myself. As far as I've always been concerned, there is no meaning other than what you make of the journey, dude, all right, let's move on now. Aliens are dead? ...And? I'm sorry but I can hardly bother to give a damn when we don't know how much or how little these aliens were comparable to Ancients at all from the couple of lines we got; at best, you should take lessons from them when applicable in context.

Couldn't understand that, and couldn't relate to the animal-rights-bleeding-heart deal, though intellectually I'll concede there are things to discuss about the creation (and deletion) of sentient entities, okay. But how he snapped at the Charybdis guy who just wanted to fix the concept for future iterations of the animal? That made literally zero sense to me. As for the Lykaones... jfc, Hermes, take a break and consider quitting from this job you obviously cannot handle. I know, dude, I have had job-related depression due to empathy myself, and guess what, I took a step back from it all and had to face some things, but maybe there is no HR whatsoever in Elpis, or no therapists anywhere. A fair point, if we're going with Ancients being stupid and having no common sense.

As for going from "nooo we kill animals" to "ok meteion you can kill us all lol after all we kill animals don't we", knowing full well we've come from the future to tell them this is literally going to kill everything, including the poor animals, I want to say this only makes sense if we identify him as the finest edgelord around.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Based on that interview I'm not inclined to believe that Ishikawa is the problem. Ishikawa clearly leaves it open to player interpretation which is the most efficient and sensible route to take when it comes to complicated moral issues. It's Yoshi-P who has been doubling down on questioning why people like Emet better than Venat or Hermes.

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My point is more that it doesn't matter what they want to say in the interviews. The game picked the choices for us and that will most certainly make most people lean towards how the characters react in the end.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

As I recall, Yoshida said they intended for Shadowbringers to flesh out the motives of the Ascians, but it was Ishikawa specifically who wanted to "humanize" them, and also her who had the idea to have Emet travel with the party so the player would grow attached to him and give more weight to his perspective. Yoshida was actually skeptical of that at first. And he was definitely pretty baffled about the overwhelming response to him in the space immediately after Shadowbringers - I recall him having a tone along the lines of "okay, but, he's killed so many people...?" and "I'm surprised so many people took him at his word?" and wondering if the giant Talos scene was the reason so many people were praising Shadowbringers's story? He did come around to Emet later, and that the majority of the playerbase liked him and wanted to honor his wishes, but there was definitely a learning curve involved.

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I don't doubt that - I think she must've helped him to some degree in formulating answers to some of the interviews on that (frankly, I'd need to go over them to see how his thinking changed... which is a bit more effort required than I am motivated to put in at this stage given my views on the plot :p), it's more by this point I'd have expected him to go in with that understanding, particularly since that long interview he gave in Famitsu, where he explained Emet-Selch's disappointment with what he saw in Azem's sundered shard, seemed to hit the nail on the head from my POV on why a being of the kind Emet-Selch is would be struck by grief when confronted by the fragmented remnants of their old friend, only to realise it's not the same person, once more dashing his hopes. On-going learning curve, perhaps.

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I'm not being really serious, but a friend joked that with the approach to Venat post-game, she wouldn't be surprised if they just quietly saved the Ancients in an alternate timeline in a Lodestone sidestory and basically never speak of Venat again. I-it maybe doesn't feel entirely implausible at this point...

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I could see them doing it, in all honesty. It is the one potential upside I see to the time travel route they employed. I was a bit surprised that they committed to Venat's soul being gobbled up in the process. My concern was that she'd be returning in some facet... but seems not.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

Uhh, yep... I think Hermes being understandable to the player is like... an agree-to-disagree kind of thing. It has to be, because I've seen enough people say his character made so much sense to them and that he was the most human, and I just can't assume these people are lying..

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Yeah, I've seen that point made as well, and it does not really make much sense to me. As Fandaniel, he separates himself both from the ancients and sundered for clinging to life, as he puts it. I'd say that sort of existential dread he exhibits is an outlier thing amongst humans too. Heartily agree with the rest of your well-worded post.

This is the complaint thread, so I’ll keep it brief, but even though people are saying Hermes is not understandable, you are able to clearly pinpoint the reason he decided to judge humanity’s worth. (I’m not saying you agree with it or find it sympathetic, only that you understand what the game is presenting about him.)

It’s not as though he is presented as someone who loves the status quo and then flips when he discovers the rest of the known universe is dead. Hermes is presented as emotionally unstable from when we get to know him as Fandaniel and his motive remains fixed through ShB and EW. This is not a judgment of his quality as a character, just the way he is written.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

And he was definitely pretty baffled about the overwhelming response to him in the space immediately after Shadowbringers - I recall him having a tone along the lines of "okay, but, he's killed so many people...?" and "I'm surprised so many people took him at his word?" and wondering if the giant Talos scene was the reason so many people were praising Shadowbringers's story? He did come around to Emet later, and that the majority of the playerbase liked him and wanted to honor his wishes, but there was definitely a learning curve involved.

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This is so baffling to me. How could anyone who had been involved with the evolution of that story come away with the certainty that Emet-Selch would read as an unrelatable, 1-dimensional villain and that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to empathize with him in spite of his past deeds? Did...did he read the script? I know that there are those who dislike him or don't love him, but the guy's got personality and his story is tragic as hell. People tend to naturally gravitate towards those kinds of characters. There's a reason he's so damn popular and it boggles the mind that this all came as a surprise to the Producer of the game.

Also, "okay, but, he's killed so many people...?". Really? But I am supposed to unequivocally be in love with Venat when she's killed so many more? Why did he seem lost at the idea that she might not be universally loved during the Live Letter? Shouldn't I, by his own reasoning, not love people who kill so many, no matter what their justification may be?

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Originally Posted by PawPaw

This is so baffling to me. How could anyone who had been involved with the evolution of that story come away with the certainty that Emet-Selch would read as an unrelatable, 1-dimensional villain and that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to empathize with him in spite of his past deeds? Did...did he read the script? I know that there are those who dislike him or don't love him, but the guy's got personality and his story is tragic as hell. People tend to naturally gravitate towards those kinds of characters. There's a reason he's so damn popular and it boggles the mind that this all came as a surprise to the Producer of the game.

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I mean... this is also the same person who was surprised that cute-looking moon bunny nostalgia references were popular. Anyway, it's all just so messy I can't even blame Hermes for anything. Perhaps he was really just a gigachad who saw how this story was going to go and tried to stop it.

Well, the next Live Letter is set for the 1st of April. So at least it isn't too long to wait for further news surrounding 6.1 and whatever it's due to bring with it.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Well, the next Live Letter is set for the 1st of April.

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This is where we will learn the sundering and all of the story from ARR to now was just an early April Fools prank.

Opinion poll time! :P Are you more confident, less confident, unchanged, or undecided about Ishikawa possibly (I'm not sure it's been confirmed) having done the outline for the next 10 years?

I'd have to say undecided. I wish they'd talked about Venat. Ishikawa admitting despite Hermes being her favorite character she thought 80% of players would hate him indicates she has her finger on the pulse more than Yoshi-P does, but without knowing the same about Venat it's hard to say.

I'm significantly less confident regarding Yoshi-P. I don't know how much influence he has in the story, but I'm as baffled by his responses to things as he is to ours.

Undecided. Comes down to how much freedom she has in practice, especially if they reshape things based on focus groups and how the story is received.

It should at least be interesting to see what they can do when they outline the whole thing from the start.

I, for the most part, have liked all the MSQ and think they did a reasonable job tying it all together, but it's also incredibly obvious that they didn't have the end in mind when they started.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Opinion poll time! :P Are you more confident, less confident, unchanged, or undecided about Ishikawa possibly (I'm not sure it's been confirmed) having done the outline for the next 10 years?

I'd have to say undecided. I wish they'd talked about Venat. Ishikawa admitting despite Hermes being her favorite character she thought 80% of players would hate him indicates she has her finger on the pulse more than Yoshi-P does, but without knowing the same about Venat it's hard to say.

I'm significantly less confident regarding Yoshi-P. I don't know how much influence he has in the story, but I'm as baffled by his responses to things as he is to ours.

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I really gotta side with Yoshi P on this one. Both were motivated by emotional needs and wants, both acted to bring about death on massive scale in service of those emotional needs, and both were wrong to do so. Hermes existential crisis and need for meaning is no less understandable to me than Emets loneliness as a motivator after all. There’s not much reason to be ok with one over the other morally speaking.

I’ve liked Ishikawas work since Ysayle and Moenbryda so she’s got my support. Endwalker has only made me more a fan.

I'm between undecided and less confident. Depends on the direction the next couple of patches take. I'm not terribly interested in going back to an ARR-style of questing and waiting ages for something interesting to happen. Also depends on how much interference there is in the writing process, I guess; Though I'm not sure how much of the Disney feelsy crap was due to her or Yoshi-P.

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Originally Posted by PawPaw

I'm between undecided and less confident. Depends on the direction the next couple of patches take. I'm not terribly interested in going back to an ARR-style of questing and waiting ages for something interesting to happen. Also depends on how much interference there is in the writing process, I guess; Though I'm not sure how much of the Disney feelsy crap was due to her or Yoshi-P.

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Honestly we could use the break. Doesnt necessarily have to be exact ARR pacing but the low scale stories pre-waking sands massacre is something I would want to just setup back into just adventuring

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Opinion poll time! :P Are you more confident, less confident, unchanged, or undecided about Ishikawa possibly (I'm not sure it's been confirmed) having done the outline for the next 10 years?

I'd have to say undecided. I wish they'd talked about Venat. Ishikawa admitting despite Hermes being her favorite character she thought 80% of players would hate him indicates she has her finger on the pulse more than Yoshi-P does, but without knowing the same about Venat it's hard to say.

I'm significantly less confident regarding Yoshi-P. I don't know how much influence he has in the story, but I'm as baffled by his responses to things as he is to ours.

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I think she has poor taste if Hermes is her favorite character. Between Hermes' poorly developed metanoia at the end of Elpis, the utterly contrived "test of humanity" and time-reversal plot devices, the vague hand-waving of the continuity of his soul post-sundering, the overall lazy and unnecessary retconning of Amon into his backstory, and the general insufferability of Fandaniel--imo a poor example of how to write a flippant character, as far as mannerisms, dialogue, and plotting are concerned--I think he is possibly the worst character in the series. I understand what Hermes/Fandaniel was supposed to function as in the story--I think it was horribly handled.

I think she's overrated. As much as I enjoyed ShB as a self-contained side story, I think it stands out as the least necessary expansion to the Hydaelyn arc. And Endwalker felt too splayed and rushed conceptually, and in several ways just a retrod of ShB ideas. So I don't have much faith in her ability to plot a whole multi-expansion arc. I wish I could say otherwise because she seems like a very nice person and despite being largely superfluous ShB had some outstanding ideas. But if Hermes is her barometer of her writing style, I think it quite likely that I will not like the ideas she puts forth in the future.

Less confident. Though this is more likely because I don't have any connections with the remaining characters anymore. Every npc I love are dead now. Among the living, I only like thancred, alphinaud, and lyse. The rest can burn for all I care. And we all know lyse will be non-existent for the next adventure. So that shorten the already short list.

Sure, there will be new characters, but I hope to God they don't introduce characters who worship the WoL. Because that's the kind of character that get popular, and in turn become more focused on due to writers wanting to satisfy the fanbase. Sort of a loop I guess.

I just want the next story to be less "feels", and definitely less "shove down the writer's ideology and morality into the player's throat".

I think people got too enamoured by the edgy, emotional stories such as DK questline and Shadowbringers that honestly dampens too much the mood with the story sometimes. Im happy we got our lighter moments in EW and in general still enjoyed the expansion experience but yeah I miss the tone style of ARR and I hope 7.0 leans into it with more emphasis on adventure and less melodrama

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Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

I think she has poor taste if Hermes is her favorite character. Between Hermes' poorly developed metanoia at the end of Elpis, the utterly contrived "test of humanity" and time-reversal plot devices, the vague hand-waving of the continuity of his soul post-sundering, the overall lazy and unnecessary retconning of Amon into his backstory, and the general insufferability of Fandaniel--imo a poor example of how to write a flippant character, as far as mannerisms, dialogue, and plotting are concerned--I think he is possibly the worst character in the series. I understand what Hermes/Fandaniel was supposed to function as in the story--I think it was horribly handled.

I think she's overrated. As much as I enjoyed ShB as a self-contained side story, I think it stands out as the least necessary expansion to the Hydaelyn arc. And Endwalker felt too splayed and rushed conceptually, and in several ways just a retrod of ShB ideas. So I don't have much faith in her ability to plot a whole multi-expansion arc. I wish I could say otherwise because she seems like a very nice person and despite being largely superfluous ShB had some outstanding ideas. But if Hermes is her barometer of her writing style, I think it quite likely that I will not like the ideas she puts forth in the future.

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This.
Guys... dying is sad, and I think we could treat these animals summoned from our own aether better. You want to judge them? Well, what if... they judged US? Huh? Huh? This says a lot about society. Are we... the baddies? Really makes you think about the meaning of life... oh, and FF3 funny clown theatre man because it's Yoshida's fave.

I do think planning out everything from the start, at least in a basic skeletal form, would benefit the next story though. It seemed obvious they were improvising things as they went along to an extent, though I've seen many who think that the writing team all planned everything out meticulously for the entire 10 years as if a writer looking at old things and going "Hmm, this will be useful" is something new. And as much as I liked parts of Shadowbringers for actually showing the antagonist's pov in a slightly more fair way than what we got in EW, it was also ground zero for all the "forge ahead!" "stand tall!" "better brighter tomorrow!" "hope hope hope!" nauseating and cloying preaching.

On top of that, it doesn't make me look forward to FF16 or its story much...

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I
I’ve liked Ishikawas work since Ysayle and Moenbryda so she’s got my support. Endwalker has only made me more a fan.

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She wrote Ysayle? Never knew that. I liked her since she was flawed and more gritty and had an actual spine. Her "delusion" of being Shiva reborn was shattered, but her sincerity and conviction wound up winning over Hraesvelgr. The game also never gave me the impression of forcing me to love her. Horsefarts seemed to get most of the acclaim, though.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

I just want the next story to be less "feels", and definitely less "shove down the writer's ideology and morality into the player's throat".

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I like emotional stories, I'm just over having my heart ripped out for people we're forced to kill and are never given another chance. The only 'redemption' stories I can recall are Gaius and Fordola, neither of whom I felt sympathy for or felt bad about defeating. Even after said 'redemption' I'm still not particularly a fan of them either. Next antagonist they make us fall in love with better switch sides and join us in the end is what I'm saying. :P

Agreed 100% about the ideology and morality.

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Originally Posted by Skyborne

She wrote Ysayle? Never knew that. I liked her since she was flawed and more gritty and had an actual spine. Her "delusion" of being Shiva reborn was shattered, but her sincerity and conviction wound up winning over Hraesvelgr. The game also never gave me the impression of forcing me to love her. Horsefarts seemed to get most of the acclaim, though.

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And she did also write Ardbert. So it's not like she hasn't written good characters in the past.

I just wonder what the hell went wrong with Hermes/Fandaniel. Hermes starts out okay and then takes several hard left turns into nonsense territory.

As much as I like a realistic story, I also don't need it to be real, after all, a lot of people play games to escape reality. I don't need it all to make sense in the end, I just need it to be fun. A sad scientist making a robot that decides the best thing for humanity is for all of use to die isn't that far fetched, and honestly a very common trope. As flawed as Venat was at times, at least it did breath more life into Hydaelyn, a character that I gave no care to at all till EW if I am completely honest. The Venat to Hydaelyn arc was at least more interesting than some benevolent all good light god that whispered at us now and then, though of course it could have been fleshed out a bit better. The only thing that I felt was SUPER forced was Fandaniel also being Amon. I feel ShB made you side with Emet TOO much as it caused many to forget he was a mass murdering psychopath, self included. And I would not have been surprised if there was a push for "hope in times of despair" more so in this expansion due to them working on this mid-pandemic, which I can't blame them for.

For me, regardless of it's plot holes I still had fun, and I enjoyed the surprises without them feeling forced. Zodiark as the lvl 83 trial, traveling back in time to Elps, seeing the faces and talking to people we really only knew as shades or hooded figures for a long time, discovering the reasoning for the final days, the self sacrifice of yourself to teleport your friends away only to have Zenos crash through the cieling(which to this day I still love), followed by an epic anime style Metion fight, ending with fisticuffs with Zenos. I enjoyed it all. Sure I could feel the pacing being a bit off here and there, and I wished this was two expansions instead of one, but I am not too worried about future expansions cause I had more fun and memorable moments in EW than I had in any previous expansion. I could be huffing the copium, and we will have to wait and see, but I am excited for a clean slate and a new story.

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Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

And she did also write Ardbert. So it's not like she hasn't written good characters in the past.

I just wonder what the hell went wrong with Hermes/Fandaniel. Hermes starts out okay and then takes several hard left turns into nonsense territory.

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No way I could forget him either... the Sad Ardbert sessions were one of my favorite parts. He should really knock on the door before showing up, though. Rip WoL's privacy. Hermes made sense to me but I'm just not that big of a fan of the archetype or motivation, Yoshida claiming it was impartial even though Hermes was clearly having an emotional crisis before and during was odd, though.

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Originally Posted by Ixon

only to have Zenos crash through the cieling(which to this day I still love).

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If only he had showed up sooner and interrupted the endless Alphirants/Scion speeches, Jack Garland style. Also, IIRC, I can't find the source but I'm sure Lauront could, but they did originally plan it to be more dismal but irl events influenced them to make it 'brighter'. And honestly, Amaurot/Elpis was the best "escapism" and a nice slice of paradise away from the increasing gloom of irl for me (and from characters I largely did not care for), until crystal mom told me that escapism was bad and dragged me out Marche-style. Thanks...

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I think people got too enamoured by the edgy, emotional stories such as DK questline and Shadowbringers that honestly dampens too much the mood with the story sometimes. Im happy we got our lighter moments in EW and in general still enjoyed the expansion experience but yeah I miss the tone style of ARR and I hope 7.0 leans into it with more emphasis on adventure and less melodrama

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I honestly thought EW tried to be the most melodramatic of all the xpacs to the point that it became overdone and stale. Every time an "emotional" scene came around I was like: "Ok, here we go again." I'd also much prefer if it went back to a light-hearted setting in 7.0.

Leaning negative on Ishikawa, or at least the direction of the story as of late, seems hard to tell who is exactly is responsible for what right now. I'll check out the next patch and if it interests me then maybe I'll stick.

Personally, I'd rather not judge my confidence in the writer since, afaik, it's an entire team working on it and I'm sure covid and perhaps other factors may have led to unusual stresses and difficulties of a technical and / or emotional natures.

My confidence however has been rattled in the story delivery, particularly with how Venat/Hydaelyn has been portrayed.

TMI perhaps, but I had an abusive mother who was adored by outsiders, she used that to gaslight me into believing I deserved it and that I was in the wrong for making her do it and therefore causing her distress. (As Emet says though, 'spare me your pity, I have no use for it'. I only mention it because it is relevant to this discussion.) So I am more sensitive when I see similar things and certainly don't want that in a game I love.

That said, from a coldly analytical view of a story that ends the Hydaelyn / Zodiark arc it had very little of either of them in it.

We get to know Venat and some lead up to those events (Metion & Hermes) but not the main question of why, what exactly led up to the moment of sundering. Shouldn't why Venat didn't seem to try to stop the end days, and why she chose to become a primal to sunder 'her children' and the entire world be extremely relevant in this story? It's not exactly a minor plot point.

Yet we are to just accept this was a good thing since not one of the scions or other characters question it and continue to adore her. We're given a "Herois" minion of her. Our own WoL is given no other options but to show love, respect and be thankful to her for it all. (From a personal emotional perspective, it honestly made me feel more than a bit sick. Perhaps that's why I spent so long pouring over screenshots and reading the theories of why and what happened, to make it make sense... yet it never does.)

From a purely analytical look at the writing, there were a lot of things I loved about Endwalker, them dropping the ball on such a major plot point and not thinking that perhaps not all players will approve of her actions, lacking even dialogue options for the WoL to show opinion... that does not inspire the least bit of confidence in me.

They did so well with grey morality in Emet, how did the ball get dropped so badly with Venat?

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

I honestly thought EW tried to be the most melodramatic of all the xpacs to the point that it became overdone and stale. Every time an "emotional" scene came around I was like: "Ok, here we go again." I'd also much prefer if it went back to a light-hearted setting in 7.0.

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I see no reason for this to happen(hopefully), due to the fact that we have zero pressing matters at hand other than trying to make Garlemald an ally of the world and doing a Fordola and Giaus style arc of "be nice to the previous enemy that killed your loved ones". I feel the patches leading up to next expansion are to cover that, with something happening near the end that will have us plan to go to either the New World or most likely Mericydia and deal with some sort of conlfict on a much smaller scale over there.

I would be concerned over hearing "ten years of outlines from Ishikawa", but for a slightly different reason than most are giving.

Ishikawa's writing strength comes from character details; the actual structures of her plots are pretty typical and not terribly exciting on paper--there are things I like about the "plot" of EW, but it's also a fairly standard, "go here and do X, learn about Y, go here to find out more about Y" etc. She excels at things like blocking out individual scenes and working with Soken to make sure the music gets the proper emotion across.

Saying that we have ten years worth of outlines sort of implies that Ishikawa won't be the one writing those stories directly, which does worry me. I'd rather hear we have ten years worth of outlines from someone like Maehiro and Ishikawa will be the one writing.

After going over a bunch of interviews both old and new, it's kind of hard to tell whether or not the weird story decisions were on Yoshi or Ishikawa, particularly with the former initially not understanding why Emet-Selch was so popular, then being similarly confused when people had a less then shining opinion of Venat. He's ultimately the one who chooses whether or not to approve the story drafts he's given.

Overall, I'd consider my dislikes with Endwalker minor in compared to what I liked so I'm still optimistic about things going forward, I just feel like they could've tied up the plot threads surrounding Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and the Sundering in a much more satisfying way that didn't leave me feeling like the story is pushing some kind of moral double standard.

Ishikawa is capable of producing high quality stories with fleshed-out characters, such as Emet-Selch and the original demeanour of G’raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch back in Shadowbringers. I want to see her do more of *that* and less slice-of-life sequences and less nebulous “meaning of life” nonsense. When given freedom, she knows exactly what she’s doing, and I imagine what she had in mind originally for Endwalker was better than what actually occurred in-game.

I believe, that to begin with, she can probably write an excellent 7.0 “Heavensward” style expansion now that we are no longer dealing with cosmic-level plots. I imagine that she could have written an excellent expanded Varis in a Garlemald expansion and made us feel for him the same way we did for Emet-Selch, and I hope to see more “human” antagonists moving forward as opposed to ones like Hermes, or goodness forbid Zenos. The Scions were significantly more tolerable during Shadowbringers where from what I gather she was less restricted compared to Endwalker.

On another note, I managed to beat Stranger of Paradise recently (it was a lot shorter than I expected) and seeing as how it is the single most *unusual* Final Fantasy game out there, I am going to compare it certain parts of Endwalker. Full spoilers for the story through the ending below:

The character interactions in that game somehow managed to make me feel something for the most bizarre cast of heroes in the entire franchise. Their sacrifice in the end felt meaningful in a way that the Scions’ just didn’t. I knew the Scions were coming back without question because the sequences were just too predictable. However, when Jack’s allies attacked him and thrust me into the fight against them, I was taken by surprise and couldn’t automatically predict what would happen next. The dialogue they gave during that fight was also an excellent send-off for each of them, and was more impactful than the Scions going on about “despair” in Ultima Thule. A detail I noticed in the final battle was that Chaos actually had the faces of the party grafted around his collar, and when they appeared before Jack as the four fiends in the ending, I appreciated all they did over the course of the game despite it being regrettably short.

Keep in mind this was accomplished largely without the use of long drawn-out monologues and speeches about ideals or morals. Jack cutting people off whenever they start talking like that was such a refreshing breath of fresh air.

I was surprised to like Astos as much as I did, especially when the full truth of his story was revealed towards the finale of the game. I didn’t know what to expect from this character, but less than 2 hours of Astos screentime was more entertaining than however long *Hermes* was on my screen. Whatever it was, it was too much. Do you see my current avatar?? Perhaps if things had not turned out the way they did, I would have Hermes as my pic instead.

Another thing I wanted to point out was that Princess Sarah’s form of hero worship was far less jarring than G’raha Tia’s ridiculous scene where he met Estinien for the first time and his subsequent ramblings about how much he cares about us. I also say this knowing that Sarah was clearly written as a satirical character that makes fun of the “princess” trope. Interactions with her are more endearing because I know that I’m speaking to someone...who is not on the same wavelength as me and isn’t pretending to be some wise sage half the other time when they aren’t eating hamburgers.

Lastly, there’s the sequence just prior to the final battle. Jack had a very interesting choice of words for when he addressed the Lufenians. There should have been an option to tell off Hydaelyn, perhaps in a less vulgar way than how Jack went off prior to the final battle in Stranger of Paradise, though ultimately a means to express disagreement with her actions would have been nice. As much as I enjoyed interacting with her in Elpis, I felt betrayed by what she did later on. I was hoping for a story of how potentially she was left with no other recourse but to become a goddess as an absolute last resort, or a fallen-angel type story. Either way would have made for a character that was a lot easier to feel sympathetic for in the end. Instead we ended up with neither, and the only way I can make sense of Venat’s later decisions is through my own personal headcanons that I’m not going to go into here. The dialogue in the scene prior to our fight with Hydaelyn felt somewhat rushed and forced. In any case I was cheering and rooting for Jack in that critical moment before his final battle, and I was rolling my eyes whenever Y’shtola said her quip about “fighting a supreme deity everyday.”

In the end I just find myself surprised at how an objectively weaker story that was thrown around quite hastily made for more believable and emotionally involved moments than my experience with what should have been the highlights of Endwalker. A lot of Endwalker is still great-especially our time in Elpis with the trio, the events in Garlemald, and our second visit to Thavnair after the moon. But looking back, Hydaelyn and Zodiark were completely mishandled and Ultima Thule was a joke of a zone that I saw straight through the moment we arrived there. For all the efforts to “subvert expectations” it was easier to predict and call what would happen in Endwalker accurately than it was in the moments leading up to the ending of Stranger of Paradise or FFXV. Characters with too much plot armor, sacrifices that meant ultimately meant nothing, the stakes couldn’t have been lower.

I only hope FFXVI does not suffer from this style of storytelling-at least the Heavensward writing team didn’t shy away from consequences. I’m hoping for that game to be more like Dragon Age Origins than...whatever soap opera the later half of Endwalker felt like.

The DRK questchain I enjoyed, as it was an interesting psychological take on the trauma the whole MMO was on our otherwise "silent protagonist". If Ishikawa was responsible for Ysayle, Ysayle's arc was my favorite thing about Heavensward, even if they did have to retcon that opening scene of her attacking Ishgard directly. (Moogles were "so fluffy", so that may have indeed been her writing.)

But I haven't had confidence in either Ishikawa or Yoshida since Stormblood, which seemed so much more concerned about the colonizers rather than the colonized, and while Doma was thoroughly explored, Ala Mhigo seemed just a rushed prop to make Yda--er, Lyse relevant in some way, killing every experienced officer in line to command until it somehow fell into her lap because of her name. (They brought back Meffrid only for a shock killing, that lost me extra.)

It also highlighted an odd narrative style that feels very much like certain characters were being shoved in your face, the writers saying "Do you like this character yet? How about now? Now? HOW ABOUT NOW?" It was Lyse and Fordola, then. Gaius got that treatment in Werlyt later.

It only got worse with Shadowbringers, which relied on despicable stereotypes for half of the story arc, and the trailer made sure their intent to show "fat is lazy/evil" was on full display. If I had a nickel for each person who didn't know Dulia-Chai was the Stoneworks bookkeeper because all they had her talk about is cakes, I'd be rich--and the hypocrisy of Alphinaud's judgements on Eulmore versus our buddies, the Allied city-states, was unreal.

The nobles of Ishgard, not lifting a finger to invite in the shivering poor of the Brume? Our besties. The Crystarium, stating if we expected to stay, we'd be expected to work? Our besties. Doma, using the Xaela tribes as meat puppets for a war otherwise not their own, and quietly hushing over sex traffickers? Our besties.

Eulmore, not letting in "the hopefuls", who left their homes and farms and families for a lotto's chance at something they were never promised, and self-inflicted squalor? Eulmore, the place that provides bouncers to protect dancers, the place that paid workers so well they were unhappy when it switched to capitalism in 5.1? The height of evil. "Bones of the poor", even though only the free citizens were guaranteed "Ascension". The evil rich, even though rich people were made to give up their wealth to get into Eulmore in the first place--in order to make everything free for all living there, including workers, who outnumbered the free citizen by far. (Sure, a lot didn't like that and left immediately in 5.1, but they weren't getting in before that otherwise.) And as soon as we learned Eulmore was the main fighting force against the Sin Eaters for 80 years until all the loss broke them, the writers promptly forgot it again to condemn them as a "perverted paradise" (which bought all their produce from outside settlements). Funny, anguish over loss was a perfectly acceptable excuse for Emet-Selch.

This doesn't even cover the DBZ-grade character that is Ran'jit.

And then there's Vauthry, Ishikawa's take on Yoshida's request that the last-minute midboss be "Jabba The Hutt". The narrative had so much worse to say about that character than the one who made him, in utero. There was never a believable chance for that character to be anything else by the game's own lore, because even the WoL can't fight a Lightwarden's corruption, let alone a baby groomed from birth to do the Ascians' bidding. The "truth" about the Ancients was of paramount importance, but the truth of what happened to Vauthry was never told. In fact, the dialogue options in 5.1 let us blame him for the misdeeds of the free citizens, even though Alphinaud previously preached taking responsibility for your own actions.

As excited as a bunch of people were at the prospect of the "thicc'qote" rig, in the end they were only made to push those lazy tropes. We will likely never see those rigs used again. This attitude tracked clear back to Fanfest 2014, where a cosplayer tried to give Yoshida one of their props only to be told "real ninjas should lose weight/work out more" in front of thousands of people. Imagine doing that to someone who loved your game so much they made a cosplay and paid to be at your convention. (And when they placed third in the cosplay contest, many of this "great community" said it was out of pity.)

Endwalker, I'd be disappointed in equally, as it made just about as much sense with even a little critical thought--if I were supposed to pay attention to the story. According to Yoshida, that's not the case. Just stop thinking about things, and give $quare your money--which I guess is the best he could say, given the absolute mess of a story Endwalker proved to be.

I would generally consider myself a fan of Ishikawa's work - so much in Shadowbringers and the enjoyable parts of Endwalker impressed me so much, both in terms of emotional resonance and in craft, that I think it's sort of a minor miracle we got something as wonderful and thoughtful as Shadowbringers out of a commercial product-driven MMORPG. I've already gushed about Hermes and Zenos in EW in this thread, I think, so I won't relitigate. Many of Ishikawa's comments in interviews and panels solidifies that she is a genuinely incredibly skilled and insightful writer.

I do think she has her strengths and weaknesses, like anyone else. While I thought the twist on Elidibus's character in 5.3 was "classic brilliant Ishikawa," so to speak, the plotting and mechanics of it were pretty muddled, and there was a self-indulgence and overcompensation strewn throughout the patch as a whole in terms of being "the big finale!" which also carried over hard into EW. Ishikawa is absolutely wonderful when it comes to sort of quiet, somber moments and reflections - she cut her teeth on the DRK quests, after all. I think she tends to lose me a bit as far as the "big epic stuff" goes - big war stories like in Stormblood, the big finale of ShB, the bigger finale of EW.

I remember one of the recorded Q&As where someone asked her about Shadowbringers's theme, and she actually said she doesn't really like thinking about stories in terms of themes or messages - if she had to sort of sum up Shadowbringers, it was "the story of a hero who saved the world." That's sort of telling and also reflective of what I appreciate about her style when I connect with it: the idea of conveying a description, a situation, rather than a directive of sorts to the player.

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Originally Posted by Teraq

I was almost going to mention that my personal unpopular opinion about Ascians is that as soon as Emet-Selch entered the stage, the Ascian plot became the Emet-Selch plot. I'm thankful for getting my little crumb of Eli, but... yeah... I mean no disrespect to Emet, he's a fantastic character. But. You know?

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A bit late, but yeah can’t say i’m surprised Emet is #1 on the polls, but i can’t help but say EW actually made me dislike him a bit. Knowing what we know now, he basically betrayed Elidibus, left him to have his soul completely destroyed, and then didn’t even mourn or mention it at all. All this on top of him just seeming to steal Elidibus’ role from him and everything now just feeling like Emet pandering, i’m pretty sour about him i have to say.

As far as this latest interview goes…let’s just say i didn’t think it could get worse and this interview basically told me nah it can. Just find it funny how a yoshi p can’t see the difference between Emet and Hermes, but also i find it humorous he’s gonna say he was surprised people took Emet at his word how he was biased but says nothing about Venat.

I’m a bit surprised the new merch stuff they have coming out will be for Emet and Zenos supposedly. Emet has already gotten stuff whereas the other two unsundered have like…a wine glass of merch, and Zenos is just a pretty irrelevant character overall.So much for it being the Zodiark and Hydaelyn ending. Even the merch has been stolen by the fan favorites.

For my opinions on Ishikawa, i thought she did good with base ShB, however i don’t really know what happened after that. 5.3 was a mess, and honestly a lot of her writing lately just all feels the same. Whether or not it’s sue to higher ups telling her what to write idk but i can’t help but notice a lot of this stuff happened when she got in the picture. No meaningful consequences for protagonists, constant slice of life anime stuff for them, sob story for every antagonist etc etc.And ofc the one antagonist she didn’t really do a sob story for is also one of the most worst/boring ones(Zenos).

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Honestly we could use the break. Doesnt necessarily have to be exact ARR pacing but the low scale stories pre-waking sands massacre is something I would want to just setup back into just adventuring

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I feel like we've already had a break tbh, i dont feel like anything substantial has really happened in EW. Despite it being an apocalypse it had numerous fluff and out of touch moments that made it feel more like a picnic than anything else. There was hardly any threat and now the threats are going to be even more downscaled? Doesnt seem like we'll notice a difference tbh. God-like and universal space entities cant harm us or the scions, what hopes do some normal inhabitants or monsters have.

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Originally Posted by Fiel_Tana

TMI perhaps

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My TMI is I suffer from major depressive disorder and, frankly, most of the messaging in EW sounded like a typical depression meme. Essentially, meaningless platitudes that are insulting to the intelligence and seem like they came from people who have no concept of what enduring suffering and despair is truly like. (The downplaying of the Final Days appears to play into this too as the characters act like surviving an apocalypse is no big deal and why can't everyone just move on from an extinction level event already?) Likewise, as was noted in a thread in Reddit (something I hadn't thought of until I saw others discussing it), if you had a mental illness you were absolutely screwed during the second coming of the Final Days. You'll turn into a blasphemy and your soul will be destroyed. It's only the mentally strong and healthy who'd survive. I doubt that was intentional, but it's just another thing they didn't take into consideration with their 'self help' narrative.

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Originally Posted by tokinokanatae

Saying that we have ten years worth of outlines sort of implies that Ishikawa won't be the one writing those stories directly, which does worry me. I'd rather hear we have ten years worth of outlines from someone like Maehiro and Ishikawa will be the one writing.

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She's said in interviews she's stepping down from the MSQ and wants to leave it to the "junior writers", so your guess is as good as mine what that's going to mean going into the future.

I'm hoping they at least won't just brush aside the fallout from the Final Days and we encounter some places in seriously dire circumstances due to not being able to properly contain the threat of the blasphemies, whether via side content and/or future expansion areas.

Corvos and the rest of Ilsabard seem like they'd probably be an even bigger mess then before given that Garlean occupation and despair tend to go hand in hand.

While Thavnair did suffer, it's kind of easy for the events to fade from memory when no portion of the zones there were damaged or otherwise altered in a way that serves as a reminder of what transpired.

Yeah, hopefully it's not another Sin Eater situation where the problem was effectively dealt with in the same patch that they were introduced in. One of the reasons as to why I really like Voidsent is because they're a persistent threat behind the scenes. FFXIV would benefit from more persistent threats that it isn't afraid to keep around. Everything being wrapped up in a neat little bow doesn't interest me much. It's hard for the world to feel dangerous when the player character is set to win at every turn.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

My TMI is I suffer from major depressive disorder and, frankly, most of the messaging in EW sounded like a typical depression meme. Essentially, meaningless platitudes that are insulting to the intelligence and seem like they came from people who have no concept of what enduring suffering and despair is truly like. (The downplaying of the Final Days appears to play into this too as the characters act like surviving an apocalypse is no big deal and why can't everyone just move on from an extinction level event already?) Likewise, as was noted in a thread in Reddit (something I hadn't thought of until I saw others discussing it), if you had a mental illness you were absolutely screwed during the second coming of the Final Days. You'll turn into a blasphemy and your soul will be destroyed. It's only the mentally strong and healthy who'd survive. I doubt that was intentional, but it's just another thing they didn't take into consideration with their 'self help' narrative.

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The role quests show even those of strong mental fortitude eventually succumb, but yes those more prone to despair would go first and more readily, so they are screwed. Definitely agree on what was being shown in response to the grieving ancients as meaningless platitudes. Though I would also say the same of a lot of what Alphinaud says. :p

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She's said in interviews she's stepping down from the MSQ and wants to leave it to the "junior writers", so your guess is as good as mine what that's going to mean going into the future.

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I know she's said the latter in a tweet (here for those interested), but do we know where she's confirmed it in interview? I've got a similar feeling about it as tokinokanatae.

Bit of a random thing but, yesterday i was looking at my cards and i realized i had the Hermes card so i was interesting in reading it and…apparently Hermes’ staff could be used to commune with Meteion??? Is this mentioned in the story at all and if not why? That seems like such a vital piece of info especially considering that possibly could have been used to help avert the crisis lol.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Bit of a random thing but, yesterday i was looking at my cards and i realized i had the Hermes card so i was interesting in reading it and…apparently Hermes’ staff could be used to commune with Meteion??? Is this mentioned in the story at all and if not why? That seems like such a vital piece of info especially considering that possibly could have been used to help avert the crisis lol.

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How though? The whole point was that Meteion's report gave birth to Hermes's sense of nihilism. In fact if he was able to use the staff earlier he would've heard the report earlier and without Emet, Hythlo and Venat's intervention we would've all just been screwed.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

How though? The whole point was that Meteion's report gave birth to Hermes's sense of nihilism. In fact if he was able to use the staff earlier he would've heard the report earlier and without Emet, Hythlo and Venat's intervention we would've all just been screwed.

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Couple things, 1.I’m curious on how he didn’t get his memories back after Kairos if his staff lets him commune with her, did he just never use it after that? And then 2)Just a spitball but if one of the others was able to get the staff perhaps they’d be able to get more info on Meteion that could help. I’m just mainly curious on something that seems like a really important piece of info is just never mentioned in the story afaik and just left in a card.