Quote Originally Posted by ddwarbird View Post
[[Warning: Major spoilers for Endwalker, please don't read as I don't want to spoil the story for anyone.

So it really bothers me that Square Enix played it rather "safe" with this story. I came into the story hoping that Hydaelyn was actually going to be the villain of the story all along and we have been doing her bidding because we were "tempered" to her. I think they really did hint at this in Shadowbringers.

But no, she's a good girl all along and I really feel let down with this, feeling Square went for the "safe" option narratively. I think it really could have made this game a masterpiece in the vein of FF7 or FFIX if Hydaelyn had been evil, in an "Overprotective Helicopter Parent" sort of way and we had been forced to serve her the whole way through the game in a very "meta" sort of way as this is an MMO.

I certainly felt like that as I met plenty of characters I was doing stuff for that I simply did not care about (Tataru for example) and I felt the limited narrative choices in the story were hinting that we were under Hydaelyn's control and that's why Ifrit could not temper us.

I kind of feel a bit disappointed with this rather safe story. Its NOT badly told, infact I commend its writing but it just feels a little generic, especially with Metion just turning up from nowhere to be the "big bad".
I don't think saying they chose to go the "safe" route by doing what they did with the story.. The more I've seen of this part of Endwalker I'd argue they had most of the story written and decided before it got too far.. so I'm not sure how much they honestly could have changed. Also, considering their was always a camp of hate Hydelen since before Shadowbringers (and shadowbringers really brought the crowd more traction) so saying by doing that wouldn't be a "safe" story isnt something I'd agree with either.

Also, Metion being the big bad, while not fully visible from the start, isn't entirely "out of left field"... it's a twist on final fantasy after years in a way (which endwalker has very strong ties and references too), but she was connected too and was created by Fandieal who actually was revealed to also be Amon and thus have very strong ties to several parts of final fantasy.