What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[ReynTime]

Very true, Final Fantasy VII is many things but a hugbox for comfort characters isn't one of them. How they will handle upcoming sacrifices in the story remains to be seen, but if nothing else at least the journey in the remake felt good to be a part of. I can't say the same thing for my journey with the Scions, who have no grit or uniqueness to them. In the first 5 minutes of the added dialogue in the remake between Barret and Cloud, the two of them show more personality than the entirety of Thancred during Endwalker.

The original VII sure. But this is a very different SE now.

I'm surprised people still have doubts they won't chicken out on everything, considering the red flags so far: (SPOILERS)

The alternate universe and multiverse pretentious nonsense they added has been pointing towards "let's fix everything to make fans who hate deaths/sacrifices happy".

You want to tell me Wedge being alive wasn't a red flag already? Or the fact literally every named character from Sector 7 escapes from death wasn't either?

My prediction is that even Biggs is alive. And somehow they will find a way to have Zack return sometime in Part 3, and Aerith's death will not happen.

If they had actual balls they'd have Aerith and a few other characters die again/stay dead and try sending a message of letting go rather than rewarding the fanbase for being so hung on characters they like dying.

I lost optimism for SE long before FFXIV 1.0 even came out so I have a different perspective from most people in a FF game forum I guess. The last FF I enjoyed was XII, and even that one I can no longer go back to, which means the only ones I persistently have fun replaying are I ~ X and XIV.

("than how a handful of people view Graha")

Ok serious talk. What is it about a portion of this game's fanbase that they feel this weird necessity to reassure themselves and everyone witnessing a discussion that people disagreeing with them are a 'minority'.

Seriously, every time I see a negative criticism to any aspect of the game I can already see at least one person holding a cup of tea, trying to contain their hands as they start shaking, then telling themselves to take a deep breath, and give a nervous smile to their fellow yesmen/women who look absolutely horrified that someone who had bad things to say about the game exist, and thus the person smiling says: "Don't worry! Don't worry guys!! It's just a minority!! Everybody knows the SILENT MAJORITY loves everything about this game, right????"

[RyuDragnier]

560 pages. I guess trolling is still a art.

No, it's just a topic with the exact same people saying the exact same things about why they don't like the story over and over again, with people showing up now and then arguing against their personal opinions that causes this place to spike in pages and makes the thread continue. That's the only reason this thread has gotten so many pages.

[Raoabolic]

I lost optimism for SE long before FFXIV 1.0 even came out so I have a different perspective from most people in a FF game forum I guess. The last FF I enjoyed was XII, and even that one I can no longer go back to, which means the only ones I persistently have fun replaying are I ~ X and XIV.

FFX-2 is a lot of things but I will shill for it's battle system. I could play X-2's via purifico dungeon all day. Just strip the story to it's bare bones and let me play as the three magical girls that transform into FF classes!

[RyuDragnier]

FFX-2 is a lot of things but I will shill for it's battle system. I could play X-2's via purifico dungeon all day. Just strip the story to it's bare bones and let me play as the three magical girls that transform into FF classes!

Man I love FFX-2's battle system. It's a shame the international version culled the amazing Cat Nip trick, I don't think I'd have been able to clear Via Purifico's final boss without that max damage Trigger Happy spam. <_<

[Rulakir]

It's very clear they do not think the average person playing their game is very intelligent otherwise they would not keep doing this. Between everything else mentioned throughout these 500+ pages, I honestly think it's time for new blood on the writing team. Not to potentially monkey paw, but I'm not confident in the writing team going forward. A combination of being terminally online, too obsessed with fanservice, a lack of will to have actual consequences for anyone or anything the players actually care about, inserting extremely bizarre moral messages, a seeming lack of consistent vision, and an utter lack of respect for the intelligence of their audience.

I wonder if it's a cultural thing? According to the Famitsu polls, the average age of the JP FFXIV player is between 20-40 (if I recall correctly). I would say that's a demographic too old for the Disney-like handling of the story. I think more than the writers it seems to be Yoshi-P who's out of touch, especially based on interviews. It's a rated teen game, so it's strange to me that they don't push the limits of storytelling more. The single player titles are grittier.

I read somewhere that ShB was basically entirely Ishikawa with few modifications, but EW seems to have been meddled with extensively. I'm left to assume that the writers if given creative freedom can do great things, the problem is they don't seem to be given that freedom for whatever reason. It's particularly odd to me since supposedly they've said they like darker stories and I'm thinking, okay, so where are they? Either that or we have very different definitions on what makes a story 'dark'.

As for the Scions, having them deal with emotional/psychological consequences would be refreshing for a change. Fordola in SB uses her pseudo-Echo to experience the WoL's pain, deems it unbearable, but we see no evidence of this outside of PTSD when it comes to strangers offering us drinks. The Scions display even less, always going back to their usual selves regardless of their experiences. I'm no fan of Hermes, but I at least appreciate that he has ongoing struggles with how he feels and his dealings with others which also affects his job performance. Imagine if we got to witness such a thing on the protagonist's side?

I'd like to see Ishikawa or Maehiro get free reign over the story again and see what happens. Either the problem persists and we can definitely attribute it to the writers, or we get better stories and know for sure it was outside influence causing the issues.

I 100% agree with no pandering to social media though, that is a recipe for disaster.

[RyuDragnier]

I wonder if it's a cultural thing? According to the Famitsu polls, the average age of the JP FFXIV player is between 20-40 (if I recall correctly). I would say that's a demographic too old for the Disney-like handling of the story. I think more than the writers it seems to be Yoshi-P who's out of touch, especially based on interviews. It's a rated teen game, so it's strange to me that they don't push the limits of storytelling more. The single player titles are grittier.

Isn't the Japanese script a lot more dramatic and serious though, with fewer comedic moments, in terms of dialogue?

[Lauront]

No, it's just a topic with the exact same people saying the exact same things about why they don't like the story over and over again, with people showing up now and then arguing against their personal opinions that causes this place to spike in pages and makes the thread continue. That's the only reason this thread has gotten so many pages.

Yes, provided you ignore it featuring more and more people showing up to say they're glad they've found somewhere where they can express their dissatisfaction with a very controversial story without being downvote bombed, told they're "bad people", "don't get it" etc., alongside discussion of all that's happened over those past 6 months. There's certainly been some people who have attempted the usual EW defence bingo card of personal opinions showing up to argue, but that's just part of it.

[RyuDragnier]

Yes, provided you ignore it featuring more and more people showing up to say they're glad they've found somewhere where they can express their dissatisfaction with a very controversial story without being downvote bombed, told they're "bad people", "don't get it" etc., alongside discussion of all that's happened over those past 6 months. There's certainly been some people who have attempted the usual EW defence bingo card of personal opinions showing up to argue, but that's just part of it.

I had actually checked out of this thread for a while, since it had gotten to a point where I felt like I was stuck reading a Groundhog Day style loop with the arguments and posts. So those posts are the ones I hadn't seen, at least not yet (too many pages to go back through).

[Skyborne]

No, it's a topic with the dedicated fans expressing their issues with Endwalker and caring about the writing quality and mixed messaging, with people showing up now and then realizing there is Endwalker discussion outside of the pervasive positivity bubble echochamber and expressing relief that they aren't alone after months of bottling it like up and dropping their own Endwalker rants. Sometimes jilted people come in to snipe, or to throw fits over not getting enough updoots, and unfortunately people keep taking their bait. That's the reason why this thread has gotten so many pages.

Thank you, king. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[CrownySuccubus]

Seriously, every time I see a negative criticism to any aspect of the game I can already see at least one person holding a cup of tea, trying to contain their hands as they start shaking, then telling themselves to take a deep breath, and give a nervous smile to their fellow yesmen/women who look absolutely horrified that someone who had bad things to say about the game exist, and thus the person smiling says: "Don't worry! Don't worry guys!! It's just a minority!! Everybody knows the SILENT MAJORITY loves everything about this game, right????"

Sincere question: are you responding to what I said, or is this rhetorical? Because I'm absolutely not a person who is terrified by, or who denies, that there are bad things to say about the game. At this point, I've probably written enough words harshly criticizing Endwalker to qualify as a Graduate Thesis Paper. So I have no choice but to assume you're talking about someone else.

But if you ARE talking about me, my point is that though I think the people in this thread are (mostly) right, it's still a minority of people compared to those who like the game and sing its praises. On any existent, observable metric, we can see that the number of people heaping endless praise on Endwalker vastly outnumber those who criticize it any substantial way. Like you said, you could then try to argue "Okay, but there's actually a lot of people who really hate it like us, but get silenced by the masses" -- in which case, sure. Let's assume that's true. But that's why I said "existent, observable metric". If those people are hidden, then by definition, we can't observe them. Similarly, if there are "masses" which can silence them, then that is likewise an acknowledgement that the people being silenced constitute a "minority", whether you define that as a statistic or lack of privilege.

There is, after all, a reason why people keep saying this is their "last bastion of hope" of critical discourse against the rest of the internet.