I personally loved Elpis and the character of Hermes and Meteion... I thought they were very relatable and I felt a close connection to them. I think a lot of the hate I'm seeing is if you can't stand cuteness (cute bunnies and bird girl) you'll dismiss those parts of the story no matter what... but that's on you and your tolerances or suspension of disbelief.


I liked how endwalker was fast paced, like a victory lap for the ending of the saga. It wasn't a well structured story in the sense that it's complete in itself where it would be a good starting point for a new player (heavensward and shadowbringers are this type of neat self contained story). Endwalker depends on everything preceding it. It's not a good starting point or self contained story. But as someone playing trough it, knowing it would tie up the story and lead us to the ending of it, I liked the frenetic pace. We have a lot of things happening fast and unexpectedly, like garlemanld being dealt with so fast (me, personally, can't stand garlemald, already had too much of it with stormblood, sorrows of werlyt, bozja and shb patch interludes) and when the end of tower or babil happened, sending us to the moon so fast felt like things were off the rails, happening too fast, only for shortly after realize zodiark was the first trial!? I liked the exciting pace, and the breaking of expectations. Elpis came straight out of left field. I liked the wild ride feel. However, I don't think the ending was the best possible.


I feel like, for example. 5.3 had a way better ending feel than endwalker's end. However, when comparing expansions, we can't include the patch content, in my opinion. Heavensward had a quite lacklustre ending, with the ambiguous estinien / nidhigg fate. I think it would only feel complete after the dragonsong war ended. And while 5.3 was amazing we can't judge endwalker against the entire shadowbringers yet. Who knows what the patches msq will be like. I think shb was only exciting by the very end, on knolusia pt.2 onwards. Endwalker meanwhile was exciting all the way trough. When making these considerations of player experience as I play trough it all, I'd put Endwalker and Shadowbringers interchangeably at the top, Endwalker for it's exciting story moments every step of the way making it have a breakneck pace that I enjoyed. and Shadowbringers for it's more self contained story that was very well executed. If we add 5.3 it goes to the top, for sure.