Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Rosenstrauch]

I am probably going to wait until I've finished with the MSQ to really put together my thoughts.

But I really just want to say one thing. Endwalker spoilers, natch:

I can't be the only one who felt like having an aneurysm when Alisaie attributed Arenvald and Fordola's immunity to the tower's tempering power to the Blessing of Light. I am going to chalk it up to Alisaie being an idiot, because otherwise it's going to sour my mood if this is indicative of anything else.

EDIT: Okay, there are now two counts of "it's the Blessing of Light that protects you from the Towers". This is seriously bothering me now.
EDIT: Midway through the Thavnair leg and it's become abundantly clear this isn't just an oversight—after the entire lifetime of the game attributing our resistance to tempering to the Echo, Endwalker appears to have retconned it. No mention whatsoever of the Echo, and it seems the characters are well versed in the knowledge that the Blessing of Light is what has always protected us from tempering.
EDIT: They are still going with this. Thavnair revisit, and Thancred just implicitly declared that it was the Blessing of Light that allowed us to engage with primals.

Suffice to say, I'm not impressed with the story so far. How does an error this big happen?

EDIT: Okay, two things. Labyrinthos spoilers!

Hydaelyn claims that Minfilia returned to the aetherial sea after her sacrifice on the First. On the one hand, I take this as vindication for my belief that Ryne is not her reincarnation and that they did not rejoin. On the other hand, this makes the situation with Ryne even more ambiguous than before. Shortly after her transformation into the true Oracle, Ryne claimed she could still feel Minfilia's presence within her, describing it as warm and gentle. And in 5.3, she speculates that the reason she can feel Hydaelyn is through Minfilia herself. I had taken this to mean that Minfilia's soul was bound to hers, and that it would take some serious effort to undo that. But it sounds like no such merger took place at all.

On the third hand, Hydaelyn could be lying outright. But if so, it's strange that we didn't get to call her on it, so I'm inclined to think she's telling the truth. On the fourth hand, the writers could have very different ideas on what any of this even means.

EDIT: Zot spoilers

The whole thing folded like a paper tiger. I can't help but feel underwhelmed at how easily the tower was disposed of. Also, it feels like there was a missing cutscene here. G'raha starts casting something to get us out of the tower, and then we cut to everyone face down in the dirt. Krile explains what happened, but it's like... they could've animated that.

Also, now that I can use Avatar mode, I can confirm that Ryne's level is capped at 80, and she can not be used in Endwalker dungeons—Estinien replaces her slot altogether. Shame.

EDIT: Garlemald spoilers

So, en route to Thavnair, we decide to use an experimental aetheryte to teleport directly there rather than go the long way. Not only do this allow us to get there without having attuned to a Thavnairian aetheryte, the experimental aetheryte allows Thancred to go with us.

The MSQ in Garlemald covers the presence of aetherytes within their territory. As it turns out... the Garleans use them. And this is actually not at all surprising. Like the experimental aetheryte tech Sharlayan is developing, the Garleans have some sort of control system to allow people to use the aetherytes. And between Garlemald being heavily isolated from the outside world and being founded by the guy responsible for the rise of Allag—the apparent source of aetheryte technology—it's not surprising to me that they'd be well accustomed to having tech that the outside world is only just discovering.

Also, both characters suspected of being Nerva Galvus... are not. And Nerva is nowhere to be seen, with the IIIrd Legion being "led" by a new character instead. Led in scare quotes because she's tempered, natch.

EDIT: Garlemald+Next Zone spoilers

I remember some folks doubting that the Magus Sisters would be limited to a dungeon fight. I, on the other hand, expected them to remain a dungeon fight and Anima to instead be a trial fight. But as it turns out, both Anima and the Magus Sisters are the final bosses of the first two dungeons.

So what the heck will the Trials be? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Surprised to see we just... immediately go to the Moon after killing Anima, no questions asked. It's kind of funny.

I suppose I've come around to the threat of Zodiark being unsealed for the sake of Fancy Dan and Zenny's plot, though to be frank I still would rather he not be killed off just to make Zenos look more threatening. And it's interesting to see just how zealous Hydaelyn is about keeping him sealed. Feels like she has motives apart from our own, which is... nice.

That said, while I'm loving the down to earth moments of this story, I can't say I'm thrilled with the overt, in your face "all that is Good is Light, all that is Evil is Dark" stuff after Shadowbringers. It rings hollow to me.

EDIT: Okay, I hit the first trial. I take it back. This turn of events was actually really nice. I got a little misty and had to rinse my eyes because of it.

Last EDIT for a while: Depression hit me like a truck last night/this morning.

Zodiark's fate is very reminiscent of... well, most major bosses in the Souls franchise, but particularly the end of the world as seen in Dark Souls 3's DLC. It's depressing, and I like depressing story beats, but this one just... hurts. And I don't think it was supposed to hurt.

And the whole answer to "Why did Hydaelyn lie to you?" being "I'm sure she didn't mean to, but also you can see why she did, right?" is just... No. That's not going to cut it for me.

The sheer disconnect between the story trying to present Hydaelyn as this amazing forward thinker that's too good for this world, and what is actually being presented—the entire purpose of Zodiark's imprisonment being "if he dies, Final Days", that Hydaelyn effectively ended the world she was supposedly protecting solely to make imprisoning Zodiark easier for her, and that her millennia spanning plan for dealing with the Sound is both ruthlessly pragmatic (just let the planet die rather than expend any effort to find out why it's happening, vamoose to a new planet where this will probably happen again, and the reflections—of which she is personally responsible for creating—are SOL) and oddly shortsighted (how the hell did she never inform the Lopporits that people aren't twenty feet tall anymore?!)…

The story also just seems to ignore the part where, even with as out of scale the Moon's comforts are, there simply isn't enough room for an entire planet's worth of people on this itty bitty moon, let alone in the places they'd be expected to live.

To quote a certain Summoner from a certain hit franchise: "I don't like your plan. It sucks."

Between that disconnect and my growing depression, I think I'm going to take a break here. Not sure I even want to keep going.

EDIT: For anyone reading this and thinking, "Wow, he must really hate [Spoilers]"—I have further posts in the thread. The one on the second page (20 posts per page) goes into why I felt that way, and the one on the third page goes into why I changed my mind and no longer feel that way. That probably comes across as fickle and mercurial. And I am, admittedly, a fickle and mercurial person. But, and this will be the true final edit to this post:

86+ Endwalker Spoilers

Thanks to the latter half of Endwalker, Hydaelyn/Venat has rapidly risen to be one of my favorite characters in the game, period. She is, in my opinion, one of the most well realized heroes in this story.

[Riastrad]

Oh, do I have things to say.

[Naria]

I normally don't post in these this early but after finishing zot/the studium:

These brackets contain speculation, If I'm right (I'm probably not) but it would possibly be major spoilers so read at your own risk:

This is really messy b/c I need sleep but here goes:

So I read over the Allag entry again in Encyclopedia Eorzea while waiting for my food to get out of the oven, thinking I'd refresh myself on Amon since what I remembered about him was something something immortality, while Fandaniel is at least presenting himself as a nihilist. Instead I now have a half-formed darksteel foil theory about Zenos and Clone!Xande who really really sounds like Zenos and not Emet-Selch.

I've only gotten as far as the Avengers Assemble scene and not to Garelmald yet, so maybe this will all be proven false quite soon, but we've had repeated refences to Zenos being an experiment by Varis and/or Emet-Selch. I'm now wondering if a previous incarnation of Zenos was actually the soul piloting clone!Xande. And . . that's all I've got atm. I guess I'll find out over the next few days. My apologies if something like this has already been discussed as I haven't kept up with the lore forum for a while.

[redheadturk]

One single complaint: SE, unless it's an instanced duty, at least make it so if we fail a stealth mission a set number of times [Some of us avoided Metal Gear Solid becausewe suck at stealth] let us progress past it anyway.

I am stuck on the part where you follow the girl in Garlemald because she keeps turning around right as I get to the last hiding spot and seeing me, and it is frustrating as Hell.

[Caurcas]

No spoilers, but I think I dislike Fancy more than Zenos. I hate them both and how the WoL just kind of lets them do things, but Fancy is like an great value version of Jester from DMC3.

[lezard21]

I was expecting expansion to not live up to it's hype but booooi was I not expecting Game Of Thrones Season 8

[Veloran]

I was expecting expansion to not live up to it's hype but booooi was I not expecting Game Of Thrones Season 8

Let's not be dumb here. Extreme spoilers below.

In terms of overall criticisms, I would say first of all that in a story billed as the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga, the titular primals are horribly underutilized. Zodiark is nothing but a skinsuit for Fandaniel and expresses no individual character whatsoever - It's nothing but a plot-enabler. With both him and Hydaelyn we get very long awaited (and generally excellent) boss fights, but in both cases they lack the necessary narrative payoff. Zodiark is a non-entity and Hydaelyn's fight is just a test, robbing both encounters of the weight they should have had.

Secondly, too many plot elements are introduced without sufficient buildup, specifically Dynamis and Meteion. You could say this was somewhat alluded to previously, but that's a bit of a stretch. While the Endsinger is a bit of a classic FF "final antagonist introduced in the last 10% of the story" thing, I don't think it's resolution fully justifies it's late introduction. Personally I'm not sure about the decision to make Meteion a character at all, I think people were more interested in the Sound as a force of nature or purely alien entity. FF9 didn't try to humanize Necron, and for this type of meta, existential threat that's generally a good idea I think. Though to be fair in this instance Meteion is really just an accelerating force, not exactly a root cause.

I'm sure more than a few people are irked about the almost flippant use of time travel, even if the payoff to that was pretty spectacular.

The fact that none of the main characters die, that is to say the protagonists, is an extremely questionable decision. The Scions are effectively retired anyway for a fresh start, so it's doubly confusing. But what is actually worse is the flagrant death baiting. Like, you did it multiple times in ShB already, there is clearly a limit to what can be gotten away with on this front, especially now at the end of the saga.

On the positive front, there are countless excellent moment-to-moment... Moments. Simply too many to list really, there is truly S+ execution and plotlines to be found abound. But personally I'll point out something I hardly thought possible, which is Zenos being made into a character that I really did love. Almost every scene with him was great, even if I think he kind of undermines the main themes they were going for. But at the same time I feel like this is sort of by design, and I'm a little apathetic towards the strong push for "hope good" anyway, so I guess Zenos constantly just coming in from left field to not give a shit is very satisfying.

Basically it's hardly Game of Thrones S8.

[Slatersev]

Let's not be dumb here. Extreme spoilers below.

In terms of overall criticisms, I would say first of all that in a story billed as the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga, the titular primals are horribly underutilized. Zodiark is nothing but a skinsuit for Fandaniel and expresses no individual character whatsoever - It's nothing but a plot-enabler. With both him and Hydaelyn we get very long awaited (and generally excellent) boss fights, but in both cases they lack the necessary narrative payoff. Zodiark is a non-entity and Hydaelyn's fight is just a test, robbing both encounters of the weight they should have had.

Secondly, too many plot elements are introduced without sufficient buildup, specifically Dynamis and Meteion. You could say this was somewhat alluded to previously, but that's a bit of a stretch. While the Endsinger is a bit of a classic FF "final antagonist introduced in the last 10% of the story" thing, I don't think it's resolution fully justifies it's late introduction. Personally I'm not sure about the decision to make Meteion a character at all, I think people were more interested in the Sound as a force of nature or purely alien entity. FF9 didn't try to humanize Necron, and for this type of meta, existential threat that's generally a good idea I think. Though to be fair in this instance Meteion is really just an accelerating force, not exactly a root cause.

I'm sure more than a few people are irked about the almost flippant use of time travel, even if the payoff to that was pretty spectacular.

The fact that none of the main characters die, that is to say the protagonists, is an extremely questionable decision. The Scions are effectively retired anyway for a fresh start, so it's doubly confusing. But what is actually worse is the flagrant death baiting. Like, you did it multiple times in ShB already, there is clearly a limit to what can be gotten away with on this front, especially now at the end of the saga.

On the positive front, there are countless excellent moment-to-moment... Moments. Simply too many to list really, there is truly S+ execution and plotlines to be found abound. But personally I'll point out something I hardly thought possible, which is Zenos being made into a character that I really did love. Almost every scene with him was great, even if I think he kind of undermines the main themes they were going for. But at the same time I feel like this is sort of by design, and I'm a little apathetic towards the strong push for "hope good" anyway, so I guess Zenos constantly just coming in from left field to not give a shit is very satisfying.

Basically it's hardly Game of Thrones S8.

Doubt he is even talking about the story, did has been whining about not being able to play for two days and demanding Square ban people on free accounts because they get in his way, lmao

[Rulakir]

Last EDIT for a while: Depression hit me like a truck last night/this morning.

I sympathize on both fronts. Usually immersing myself in a game like FFXIV helps, but not when I'm disappointed with the story direction. I agree with everything you said and, unfortunately, for me that was the worst case scenario for this expansion and it has sapped my enthusiasm.

Zodiark has been name dropped since ARR. Despite being half of the Zodiark & Hydaelyn arc billing, the eldest primal and either the greatest savior of the world or its greatest threat (not due to ushering in the Final Days until now), when we finally see him face to face it's so he can be mantled like a Gundam suit by Fandaniel (I'll be getting back to him). I wanted interaction equal to what we've had with Hydaelyn, I felt his character deserved at least that much. I wanted to see what type of 'person' he was, how or if he had been misjudged all this time, etc.

I expected Hydaelyn to be morally grey at best. That they chose to make her and her questionable choices align with good is not satisfactory. She's not receiving the criticism she deserves (I honestly thought they were going to go with Hydaelyn tempering in the beginning because I couldn't believe the abrupt about face regarding her character and the retconning of the Echo/Blessing of Light) and I've thus been deprived of the confrontation with her I desired. I didn't care if we physically fought, but I wanted a lot more in terms of her being called out on her decisions.

Then there's Fandaniel, who I had such high expectations for after Emet and Ishikawa saying he was her favorite character. Him being Amon didn't add depth to his character for me, he remained essentially unchanged from ShB. Both he and Zenos are such massive letdowns as antagonists (not that I had hope for the latter) after Emet and Elidibus, in addition to everything else I've struggled to believe it's the same writer/team that did ShB.

Still waiting on other items on my EW wish list that increasingly look like they're not going to happen. It might be fine if this weren't the end, but knowing that my list of desires and grievances regarding this arc will never be addressed again after 6.0 has made it all the more unfulfilling.

[symbiote129]

Man, it kinda feels cursed having read many sorts of media to know ahead what kind of action the non-tempered Garleans would do. Boy, it sapped a alot of my enthusiasm and just kinda want to go through it already. It dampened my want of trying to know more of Garlemald. I wanted to feel for them but I guess the indoctrination they were raised with is perhaps the tragedy that I should feel.

The transpiring event in regards to the Garleans

One of the first non-tempered Garleans we meet is a girl. Thought it would be one of our first footholds in establishing a friendly relation with them. But no, they stab us in the back.
Worst first impression now because of their belief and then the girl and her sister we didn't saw before is I guess no different. They think better to kill themselves than to interact with us in proper manner.

Next would be the 1st Legion. Bad impression as well. One of the quest names did hit me like a truck as it calls "No Good Deed". Half of the phrase of "No good deed goes unpunished". Already giving warning signals that after the cereleum gathering something that we don't like will happen. And then hearing the phrases of what the legatus of the 1st Legion as said in lauch trailer as the scene with him was happening immediately gave me "He'll kill himself" vibes and he did off himself.

Not gonna lie, even the Thavnair part with the talisman testing gnawed on me.

Like why is my character and elephant alchemist woman have a lot of distance and she was too close to the entrance like I was screaming "Why the heck are you too close to the tower entrance while I'm a bit far away?!"

A lot of events that made me "Why?! Why are you making me dumb or rather my WoL?!"