She was there to be the hot catgirl. Great emotional support for the WoL. Very important.
As somebody who has been following FFXIV's story since 2.0, I'm extremely disappointed. Things with years of build up being pushed aside, seemingly to make room for some of the writers' OC. What was thought of extremely complex was actually very mundane and had the lamest answers ever.
The villain is an one-dimensional character who makes a ridiculous jump of logic and gobbles up screen time repeating the same nonsense until we say the magic word and she cries and all is solved. Zones all disconnected from one another, there's no progression that feels natural. Pacing all over the place, spending more time in the Carrotorium than finishing Zodiark's plot, yet at the same time, the moon felt completely unimportant, that whole Labyrinthos section, I thought we had a Final Days upon us? Why it feels less urgent than us becoming Lightwardens and taking the First with us? The whole dynamis thing, added just to explain how ridiculous the villain is both in power and logic, taking away the magic and the mystery of both the Final Days, and future expansions, as now we know, anything problematic for the writers can be solved with "dynamis" now. Either that, or will be completely forgotten.
The one character that saved everything was Zenos at the end. He was great and showed up at the right time to at least let me finish with a smile. Zenos should've been used way more, he has been around for years, why did we have to deal with that dumb bird's nonsense instead of Zenos? Zenos being bored is an actual better justification than birdie's.
I am disappointed in it.
Zodiark wasn't trying to talk to you. You are literally the nail in his way the whole game. He's not Eggman talking to Sonic where they have a relationship of bad mouthing each other and battling egos. If he had anything to say to you it was in the fight. He wants you dead.
I was disappointed at first, but the further I went the better the MSQ got. The last boss was probably my favorite encounter of the entire game, and what came after that only made me interested in what might come next.
If Endwalker has problems, it's scattershot tone. Going from the epic first trial to a comic relief throwaway arc gave me whiplash. I can understand their desire to lighten things up after being so serious, but I don't think that was a way that worked.
That's not true. The pope is not evil, his way of solving his people's problems might be morally corrupt to us, but that's what that person is talking about, a more realistic approach to things. And in Stormblood and ARR we were dealing with the Garleans plot of imperialism, again taking a very realistic approach that hits close to real life.
Just now we've reverted into "fighting despair itself" as if we're back to the 90s or early 2000s.
Personally it's positive, overall.
The whole "not just about Hydaelyn vs Zodiark, but there's -X-" kind of suspicions had been etched in my hunches since I went through post-HW MSQs. The base ShB MSQ further reinforces this from the whole story of Hydaelyn vs Zodiark in ancient times and the explanations to Astral/Umbral aspects. Zodiark themselves has no reason to oppose us, their summoning only had one purpose: forestall the Final Days. The whole Hydaelyn being unable to vanquish Zodiark was more like a farce to me and it makes me believe even more that we NEED Zodiark for a reason. It's been hinted long ago how those two aren't the only sole determining factors. What makes this less desirable was the way it's presented to me; I felt it was slightly rushed. The chores, specifically speaking: the Lopporits actually destroyed my immersion, hard.
Additionally there are few more I'd like to point:
- I was hoping that our possessed WoL would do at least some damage or injure few of the scions. Instill that terror and discourse.
- Alphinaud's RP duty. Why wouldn't dev lock Dosis into our default [1] hotkey was an utter annoyance.
- During the party's excursion within the final zone, I wish the Final Days back at Etheirys would progress further. I.e. Old Sharlayan's skies starts to burn, chaos emerging all across the landscape of Aldenard, Othard, Ilsabard, etc.
- The last quest, particularly speaking about our WoL. I was really hoping it would beat hard our WoL. Wound them, physically and/or mentally. Batter, stomp, and break them hard. But still emerge victorious, albeit collapsed right before death's door. Let the Scions and their allies fear for the worst for days; make them work hard for the hero. Let our hero slumbers in peace as they traverse in the dreamworld filled with their memories/flashbacks before waking up to the worried souls. Ironically Zenos finally gets a positive impression from me in this duty.
If ShB instills angst and depression (figuratively good way) in me, EW instills determination and hope. I really cannot rate one is better than another. I do know these two expansions are still going to be on top of my list for now.
I think I got all the answer I need in endwalker and i Found most of it to be sensible, I have high expectation and my expectation is answered more than what I expected, everyone can have different expectation but i got my money, time, and question all answered, go find another game or entertainment more satisfying than endwalker, there ia very few of them, more of them will have more plothole and more question rather than answer..... this is just my opinion
I enjoyed most of it but I wasn't moved or impressed or touched by Zenos' presence at all since Stormblood days and the times where he did showed up had me zone out of otherwise emotional scenes... He just wasn't for me, and even his arc in this expansion did nothing for me.