Endwalker vs shadowbringers story, which did you enjoy more and why? (spoilers)

I've seen a lot of people saying they enjoyed shb story more and I'm honestly intrigued on the why, this is not meant to be an objective opinion thread or whatever but I just wanna see why did people enjoy their favorite and what do you think played a part on it? Im curious.

Personally I liked endwalker more maybe because there was a lot more interactivity in the gameplay and the closure of many themes on the story, also the moral topics touched with ultima thule and the final fight with zenos.

ShB's story was better paced and had more emotion to it.
Every questline seemed rigged to turn me into a sobbing mess; from the entire MSQ, to the Role Quests, to every character introduced with some heartfelt backstory. It all felt very real for a world that had lost so much to the Flood and Sin Eaters.

By comparison, EW was a huge let down in virtually every regard. I'm sorry your business is failing but you're really going to try and sell that as the catalyst that kicks off the end of the world? What? The drunk that lost his wife in a mining accident last expansion has you topped by a country mile my dude.

Shadowbringers I think. It felt more like an adventure than endealker did because the maps didn’t feel so disconnected. and there was emmet selch and less chores. It might just be that endwalker is fresh in my mind but a lot of the chores in it were painful

Endwalker. ShB was more tightly and consistently written but I found the entire first half of the story to be unbearably dull. EW kept more of my attention more frequently and more or less did everything I wanted the story to do. I enjoyed the themes covered by EW much more, too, so I can forgive any logical inconsistencies in the story.

Personally Endwalker. It felt like a beautiful culmination of the story so far, as well as hitting those high notes more consistently than I felt SHB did.

Shadowbringers.

I've spent enough posts reeing about all my dissatisfaction with EW, even though both had themes and messages I agreed with, Shadowbringers executed its own better in my eyes. It had its filler and boring points but it did feel like we got dumped into a world with the apocalypse incoming. Some say there was a bit too many sympathetic antagonists and they are tired of it, but I liked how pretty much everyone got a chance with little/no judgement in ShB, including even Ran'jit and Vauthry getting their moments. Even with Eulmore being the 'decadent' and 'hedonistic' city, the people were still given a chance to change and weren't all condemned. The Chais certainly showed it. I was kind of eh on Ardbert at first, but the moments with him including the one where he tries to help out in Lakeland only for his axe to phase through... I felt for him, and would look forward to the Sad Ardbert Talks in the inn room.

The Big Talos scene where everyone comes together and contributes and it grabs Gulg right out of the sky and then you're thrown into the dungeon with the bombastic encouraging theme was probably my favorite next to Amaurot reveal and the humanization of the Ascians. The whole Amaurot thing honestly kind of ruined everything else for me and made everything else feel smaller and pointless, I must admit, and also I got to that part at around 4 am with no sleep so their voices spooked me hard at first. Even though they were ghostly I got the sense that, yes, they were people, just with a different culture and in a different time, and even though Emet-Selch judged mankind, the story and narrative itself remained fairly neutral. Good iconic moment just before the final fight.

Shadowbringers.

It had a more consistent and touching narrative. Endwalker felt like a bad fever dream after a certain point and didn't really serve as a satisfying conclusion to many of the story arcs that had been in the making for years. Whilst Shadowbringers encouraged players to come to their own conclusions regarding various characters, Endwalker proved to be incredibly tone deaf in many of its assumptions. The entirety of the second phase of the final boss consisting of flailing about was also bitterly disappointing to me. I want a game first and foremost, not a glorified visual novel.

I enjoyed SHB far more. The revelation of Amaurot, learning more of the ancient origin of the Ascians, Emet-Selch, the truth behind Zodiark's creation, the light/dark visuals, the cast of characters etc. Post-MSQ stuff was a mixed bag, and I had conflicting views on 5.3, but overall I still enjoyed it for the most part, and I ended up liking how they portrayed Elidibus.

EW had maybe Elpis as a highlight, and some other stuff like Garlemald and Sharlayan which I enjoyed to some degree, but the conclusion to the main story arc that SHB shed more light on was disappointing to me, and it just got boring with the same droning narrative preachiness and "this looks like that, so it's totally the same" muh themes, that I switched off and begged for Zenos to return to spare me of it if only for a time.

SHB also still had the mystery of how it would all end - with EW that is gone and with it not being particularly satisfactory to me, I can say I barely rate it above SB. That expansion I found more consistent. EW was more of a rollercoaster. So SHB is not a difficult pick for me.

I thought it would be Shadowbringers but for me Endwalker. Endwalker capitalizes on years and years of storytelling though while Shadowbringers is a stronger self-contained story.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

he entirety of the second phase of the final boss consisting of flailing about was also bitterly disappointing to me. I want a game first and foremost, not a glorified visual novel.

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Honestly yeah, I 100% agree with this. I really hope the EX version fixes this like it did for Hades.

I'd say Shadowbringers, mostly because I feel like Endwalker fell flat on delivering a satisfying conclusion to the Hydaelyn/Zodiark business to me when it really deserved better.

At minimum I was expecting we'd have actually gotten to see the two gods face off against each other in their world-changing conflict, but we didn't get that, and the actual reasoning behind why it all it started felt like a cop-out when it ended up mostly being "Because the future said so", rather then giving more perspective to the elements we were actually aware of back in Shadowbringers.

I liked them both. Hard call as to which was better for me. I thought that ShB would be a hard act to follow given it was so good but Endwalker did a great job of following that. I've played through it a few times and still watch all the major cuts on my alts. Have a couple now on the moon and a couple in Elpis.

Hoping the new story line will be good as well can't wait to see what they're going to come up with,

Shadowbringers by far. Endwalker was riddled with pacing issues, plot holes, and overall just strange decisions with how the story played out. I thought it was a very disappointing end to the story.

Shadowbringers by miles. The more I think about Endwalker the more unhappy I am about Endwalker. It's fine as an EP when you just go along the path that the writers try to push you along but it falls apart like tissue paper the second you stop and look hard at the plot. Very disappointing ending to what had been my favorite story up until this point.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I thought it would be Shadowbringers but for me Endwalker. Endwalker capitalizes on years and years of storytelling though while Shadowbringers is a stronger self-contained story.

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Exactly how I feel too.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Shadowbringers.

It had a more consistent and touching narrative. Endwalker felt like a bad fever dream after a certain point and didn't really serve as a satisfying conclusion to many of the story arcs that had been in the making for years. Whilst Shadowbringers encouraged players to come to their own conclusions regarding various characters, Endwalker proved to be incredibly tone deaf in many of its assumptions. The entirety of the second phase of the final boss consisting of flailing about was also bitterly disappointing to me. I want a game first and foremost, not a glorified visual novel.

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A pity we'll likely only see the proper version of that fight in Extreme. I'm definitely going to do it - but it sucks a good chunk of the playerbase will miss out on it.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I thought it would be Shadowbringers but for me Endwalker. Endwalker capitalizes on years and years of storytelling though while Shadowbringers is a stronger self-contained story.

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Reading this kinda makes me realize that yeah of course shb feels better its more of a standalone story that uses elements from past expansions... endwalker was bound to be wonky with how much story it had to wrap up but I still like that it tackles its own set of points like nihilism, the meaning of life and our own morality as heroes.

If we're talking about expansions as a whole, it is entirely too soon to make an assessment.

I'd suggest tabling this discussion until the end of the expansion, and then we'll talk.

If I had to pick, Shadowbringers felt more like a coherent story to me. It took more time to let us get to know the characters involved. Lyna, Feo Ul, hell, even Magnus felt more like a fleshed out character, and he's only relevant for about a quarter of a zone. The stakes also felt a lot more personal (I mean, yeah, of course the WoL isn't actually gonna turn into a Lightwarden and effectively die, it's an MMO with a continuing story, but it actually felt pretty horrifying to me).

Endwalker....I dunno. I liked it overall, but it felt like two expansions mashed into one to just get the whole story arc over with. Garlemald in particular needed another zone or two to let the story breath. I feel like everything up to the moon should've been one expansion, the post-Zodiark stuff up to the first blasphemies appearing should've been the patch stories, and from then onward should've been another whole expansion.

Stormblood

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

Honestly yeah, I 100% agree with this. I really hope the EX version fixes this like it did for Hades.

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Equally, I wish they didn't have to rely so much on the Minstrel's made up version to do that... with trust trials in the future, although perhaps vainly, I hope they'd use that to feel less constrained in their MSQ DF trial design. With Hades it wasn't as pronounced as it was circa the last 10% of it - this is closer to a full 35%, but I have to say it's one reason I vastly prefer the .3 trials like Tsukuyomi or SoS.

Shadowbringers, the pacing and overall story being the most part. Endwalker was more like a sprint towards the end of the story. It had a lot of good story points but they all would have benefited from a little bit more time to bloom properly. Like Meteion given the Elidibus treatment and given a little bit more time(a couple of .x patches) in the villain spotlight, or long lived baddies like the Garleans and Zodiark not ushered to the B plot.

With the Chrono Series, FF11, and FF8 under there belts, I'm surprised at how hamfisted the time travel was handed. Like it was good in a RPGmmo that Hydaelyn had a bunch of warriors of light and Shadowbringers showing that just about anyone had the chance to be a WoL thus making stuff like us summoning others to fight for us seem valid, but while I love Elpis for shining a light on the unsundered, it also made it feel like we're in a Fry's Grandfather type situation. It would of been a really neat thing if we gained something more than the knowledge about the origins of Meteion. There is already a branch in time were the WoL straight up dies from the black rose.

And finally as important to a lot of the Main Ascian's story as they are, unless Pandemonium goes a way I really hope it does, I really feel like we might have missed the bus on actually meeting Azem.

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Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

And finally as important to a lot of the Main Ascian's story as they are, unless Pandemonium goes a way I really hope it does, I really feel like we might have missed the bus on actually meeting Azem.

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We'll probably never see Azem in person, because they're supposed to be us as an Ancient. The game matches Azem's gender to your character, so they're already mutable.

Also the whole "Azem's familiar" cover story would fall apart and cause too many questions.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

We'll probably never see Azem in person, because they're supposed to be us as an Ancient. The game matches Azem's gender to your character, so they're already mutable.

Also the whole "Azem's familiar" cover story would fall apart and cause too many questions.

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I don't believe so. Azem is always framed as someone who thinks outside of the box and probably would go with the whole familiar thing. Its one of the reasons why people were so ready to accept that the WoL is just a familiar of Azem and one of the reasons why I am surprised that we have never met them.

Its a really missed opportunity. While we experienced Hythlodaeus in Elpis, Azem the only other person that Emet considered a close friend and shaped him to act a certain way towards the WoL just because of the similarities.

To me it has always felt like the WoL is Simon and Azem is Kamina. We do all this stuff just like Azem would have done to the point you'd think he'd show up(like Fray did in the Dark Knight 30-50 job quest) and give us a boost or encourage us in some way.

Sidenote: If Urianger's specualtion ends up being true then there might be another chance for us to actually meet Azem in one more place so this point might turn out to be moot.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If we're talking about expansions as a whole, it is entirely too soon to make an assessment.

I'd suggest tabling this discussion until the end of the expansion, and then we'll talk.

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The most sensible answer.

Endwalker, even if it had some lower lows and higher highs, had more variety than Shadowbringers and fewer areas where the pacing dragged for me, and the variety worked in its favor. Shadowbringers benefited from the nearly blank slate of the self-contained world that had homages to the ARR zones, but Endwalker fulfilled the mammoth task of referencing and tying in everything, and even began to justify Zenos's purpose for the overall theme instead of a character I was already bored sick of before his introductory cutscene was finished. On a petty personal note, I adored the narrator in Ardbert for Shadowbringers, but every single audible second of Emet Selch's voice was painful and thus made every new zone introduction aggravating and sucked out my enjoyment. The Tempest as a whole was my least favorite zone in the entire game, from OST to visuals, so that no zone in Endwalker was as annoying (until returning to Ultima Thule and the lyrics version of the zone music stayed) helps, in that all zones were unique enough to feel both distinct from each other and past zones. Also I will never not be impressed that we continued the Ascian/Ancients' homage to IX with Terra as the dying world leeching off of the newer world Gaia with a redo of the Endsinger as Necron, only explained and presented better.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If we're talking about expansions as a whole, it is entirely too soon to make an assessment.

I'd suggest tabling this discussion until the end of the expansion, and then we'll talk.

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The endwalker story is over though, the devs stated as much. The story isn’t continuing until 6.3 like other expansions. The story is over and 6.1+ is new. So this is the best time as any to discuss it.

Both, there's way too much ree'ing about various expansions. With a story this long and with this many characters will every single moment hit perfectly for every player? Unlikely, but people seem unable to distinguish good vs bad vs "I would have written it differently". Is Meteion a bit of a left field late game McGuffin-with-feathers? Sure yes but that doesn't mean it didn't work. Would I personally have preferred a longer build up to the fight with Zodiark? Yeah sure but the version delivered still worked. Every expansion had its particular moment of pacing issues where excitement tripped into tedium for a short period but on the whole nothing serious.

For what is the most detailed story-telling in MMO (and maybe gaming) history I can drift over the 10% mis-steps and just enjoy the 90% that hits hard. For me Shadowbringers had better lore and world building and was more cohesive, Endwalker had more emotion and "Yes!" moments, so I like them both equally for different reasons.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

The endwalker story is over though, the devs stated as much.

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As far as I'm aware, that could just mean that they wanted to have the big finish in 6.0 instead of, say, having Hydaelyn be the 6.0 final boss and having to wait until 6.3 to fight the Endsinger. (A bit like Heavensward has Thordan as the final boss but it's very definitely Not Over Yet and the ending isn't as satisfying as it should be.)

Shadowbringers seemed to definitively bring its plot to a close in 5.0 and yet still found further elements to draw it out into 5.X, so I'm not convinced that we are going to have an entirely new arc starting in 6.X either. There are still potential loose threads in the catastrophic aftermath of not only the Final Days but whatever the dissipation of Zodiark and Hydaelyn has done to the Lifestream.

I expect 6.X to be a transition phase setting the stage for a proper new story arc beginning in 7.0.

Story wise I think Endwalker is probably the worst expansion so far. It suffered the same issue as Stormblood by trying to tell a story over to many various areas. The plot was basically your chilling with the boys eating breakfast and drinking coffee, then suddenly you are doing something crazy that ends with what felt like a random twist. The zones were mostly bad, I was not excited about the moon since they announced it. We have a plot surrounding the end of times which only really happens in one area of the world, where no important characters were. The villain was revealed to be a random bird girl that one of the ascians made.... The more I look back at Endwalker the dumber the plot feels to me.

Shadowbringers probably had the best plot so far and I enjoyed the high fantasy aspects of it. It really brought everything in the plot so far together and almost felt like it could be its own game.

In terms of the overall story I think Endwalker has Shadowbringers beat, but unfortunately the pacing in Endwalker is ATROCIOUS.

They advertised the length of the new story but at least 1/3 of that story was pointless filler. It makes sense for a story to have highs and lows, but if the lows don't contribute ANYTHING to the overall storyline of the expansion then it would be better without them in it.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There are still potential loose threads in the catastrophic aftermath of not only the Final Days but whatever the dissipation of Zodiark and Hydaelyn has done to the Lifestream.
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They do touch a bit on this already during crafters/gatherers' quests in Sharlayan, would be nice if it continued indeed.

Also, I preferred Shadowbringers since Endwalker failed to deliver the quality that could've followed ShB. Sadly I'll keep seeing this last base story expansion as a wasted potential and nothing will change it as it is the finale.

Shadowbringer wins for me.

Endwalker has a similar ‘too much issue too little time’-syndrome that Stormblood similarly suffers from. There are also some sore points in the story where grave matters are handled in all-too-familiar ’with the power of friendship’-solution; or overall just seemed to happen without stakes on hand.

Final Days descends upon Thavnair? It’s alright. It won’t spread elsewhere.
Possessed by your nemesis? Oh don’t worry, everybody’s favorite scions have plot armor that are too thick to pierce; not even WoL can pierce that!
WoL fought to their last bits of energy & knocking on the death’s door? Don’t worry, a cast of Cure I & Diagnosis is enough to get them alive and kicking again!

My disappointment with Endwalker stems from Elpis. I predicted our journey to the World Unsundered was going to be an expansion in itself. The First being just a reflection got this treatment, yet the entirety of all 14 and no void to speak of back then; and we get one zone? Talk about squandering away one hella huge opportunity for the sake of bringing the current story to a close.

ShB also has to include our clash with Elidibus, which happens post MSQ; while EW only gets the initial release to tell its story in which they cram the two most powerful known gods, and sprinkle on an Endsinger who we get less than a patch to attach to all the while our beloved final boss from the previous expansion gets to narrate the whole thing to make everyone not even think about the major setbacks I just mentioned. That's like getting Tom Hanks to tell us about an economic recession.

So yeah, I have a LOT of problems with EW, and ShB wins this, handedly. I don't hate EW though. Some things it did really well. I want to say up to the moon is absolutely flawless, then it starts falling apart from there.

I rank both ShB and HW above EW, which is around SB.

Thematically, EW was a huge miss for me. The messaging was full of platitudes. I think Fandaniel is the worst antagonist we've ever had, he was annoying and his motivations weren't compelling. The Final Days was a lot of nothing, so was Zodiark. As much as I loved Elpis, I loathed the time loop which ruined it. I recoiled at the celebration of Venat, which is a whole other rant in itself. I also thought the post-Endsinger scene was dumb, we could've just held hands with her in Elpis and avoided everything. :P Garlemald, one of the better aspects of the expansion, was way too short.

There wasn't much I disliked about ShB. Mostly the trolley and the talos.

The thing about Fandaniel is he plays his part in the story very well. He is flawed, incompetent, emotionally driven, and will always find a way to screw up as a result. I'm even willing to bet that losing a shard to the void was very likely mostly his eff up. Nobody was more suited to bring back their lord only to lose him immediately; then go on to think his grand scheme was fulfilled, only to lose completely in the end.

They even chose the most rotten, hateful, rat-arse piece of scum to house his essence. Trust me, everything you feel about Fandaniel is intended.

personally i think ShB was a miss for me
they really kicked sin eaters to the side to push Ascians back into the narrative really a concept that should have stuck around longer and post shb msq is horrendously mediocre till elidibus.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I'm even willing to bet that losing a shard to the void was very likely mostly his eff up.

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According to Encyclopedia Eorzea, that was Igeyorhm's fault.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

personally i think ShB was a miss for me
they really kicked sin eaters to the side to push Ascians back into the narrative really a concept that should have stuck around longer and post shb msq is horrendously mediocre till elidibus.

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I'm kind of hoping they don't go the same route with the blasphemies and we spend at least some part of the 6.x cycle or even future expansions dealing with a lingering threat posed by them; moreso when the turning incidents realistically would've been happening the world over.

I'd especially want to see them as A/S rank hunt marks in some future zones.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

According to Encyclopedia Eorzea, that was Igeyorhm's fault.

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Also according to Emet-Selch as well =)

I enjoyed Shadowbringers more.

I think Endwalker had two problems.

First is pacing. They squeezed 2 expansion's worth of story into a single expansion. It would have made more sense if 6.0 was dealing with the towers and Garlemald, 6-1 to 6.3 Fandaniel and Zodiark, 6.4-6.5 meet the Loporrits and see the start of the Final Days, then 7.0 discovering the cause of the Final Days and ending the threat. They did a pretty good job of consolidating that much story into a single expansion main MSQ but it was still less than it might have been.

Second is the new escort/follow mechanics introduced. Because they were new, they ended up distracting from the story.

The escort quests are plain annoying. Having large glowing circles appear on the ground is very immersion breaking. I think back to Stormblood and Hancock escorting us through Kugane on our arrival, and preferred that much more. If I needed to break away from the quest for a few minutes to help a friend, I could then return to where I left off. Now? Can't move away to help a friend. Can't use an aethernet or mount up. If you do not run every step of the way with your NPCs in tow, you're forced to start over from scratch or retrace your steps to try to figure out where the NPC was left behind. That's bad quest design.

The follow quests are a bit better but they didn't always make sense. Why on earth did we have to play hide and seek with Urianger when he wanted us to follow him so we could talk?

It would have been better for SE to introduce the escort/follow quests in the post-main MSQ patches so we would be used to them, same as they did when introducing the RP duties in Stormblood. That way we would have been used to them and they would have been less distracting to the story.