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

[Lunaxia]

After all these pages of reactions and complaining [...]

According to... somewhere (either it was mentioned in the game or by the developers, I can't remember which), Emet's act was as much about helping Elidibus as saving us. He didn't want Elidibus to remain behind alone to bear the burden, and I think it's safe to say with Emet gone and the mental degradation the three of them had already been begun to experience in their individual ways over the past millenia, it was a lost cause that would have only have been agonisingly and fruitlessly drawn out than it needed to be had he not. It was an act of mercy more than anything else.

With the Garleans, I was fairly satisfied and actually pleasantly surprised. I didn't respond much to the mechanical attempts to incite sympathy for them, but the setting was chillingly atmospheric and I found their section of the story far more interesting than I thought I would. We'd already walked around in a desolate, grey-toned snowscape being called a savage for ten hours by xenophobic locals until we had earned their favor in Heavensward, and the writers did well to avoid that repetition while still being able to relate their story and give us a good insight into their state of mind from an unexpectedly refreshing and novel direction, so I have to give them kudos for that. In From the Cold was so much fun in how unsettling it was, it was probably one of the highlights of the expansion pack for me. I just wish they'd had a little more daring to really go through with the set up, because having Zenos go to the trouble of possessing the WoL's body only to stand there and smirk menacingly for five minutes was the definition of an anti-climax.

With the Ancients, I just wanted more. More of Zodiark, more of the Convocation, more of what happened before, during and after the Final Days pre-Sundering, more of whatever the hell Azem was meant to be doing and and more of Amaurot and their world leading on from what we saw in SHB. I wanted to see more of a battle between Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and I wanted quite literally any Ancient to appear in some way and call Venat out on her actions, her disturbing lack of interest or empathy for her own people and how she alone conveniently ended up in a position of godhood and spent the past twelve thousands year having a little nap in the aetherial sea while everyone else dealt with the devastating ramifications of what she did (only to then have the audacity to lament on how long she'd had to wait.) I also wish the source of the Final Days was... quite literally anything other than a hasty, final minute plot addition/ mechanic (suddenly, a form of energy not even the Keeper of the Aetherial Realm knew about! But for some reason, an unhinged animal conservationist did) and that Fandaniel would have betrayed Zenos, either by feeding him to Zodiark or quasi-killing the WoL right in front of him, because it would have been viscerally satisfying to see him denied what he wanted most for once.

More than anything, I just wanted the thoughtful storytelling, engaging characters and subtle nuance that brought me in with Heavensward and made me love the game so much in the first place. Garlemald for a moment really hit that spot - the part with Quintus was a bittersweet reminder of how good they can be when they don't hold back - and then it just became a tired rehash of every preachy JRPG plotline out there (Tales of Symphonia called, and it wants their companion death fakeout scene back.) The game fell prey to what every other franchise does when it reaches new heights of popularity - it discards everything that endeared it to its fans in the first place and shamelessly appeals to the new majority in a bid to hold onto it, even at the cost of its identity. Honestly, I regret SHB's success if this is where it led us.