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

[NanaWiloh]

FFVI's cast was all clearly distinguishable from one another on the SNES. In fact, all of the characters in FFs on the SNES are clearly distinguishable from one another. Try again.

Funny you mentioned FF6 as I not long be back picked up a snes copy complete in box. Cost a pretty penny as they would say but I also sold another game I owned for a lot more.

[NanaWiloh]

While I have yet to finish Endwalker, thus far the venture to Garlemald is the single biggest let down so far. I realize it goes against the power of friendship and goodie two-shoes to a fault narrative of the main cast but some kupoing catharsis would be nice every once in a while, especially after everything that's happened, everything we've gone through. After everything Garlemald has done, they are finally on the back foot and crumbling from within. Everything before the Telophoroi were introduced in late 5.x seemed like Eorzea was gearing up to counter invade Garlemald and FINALLY dish out some divine retribution, crush their forces, and bring their aggressive people to heel. Lol nope, we're gonna risk sending limited soldiers and supplies behind enemy lines for humanitarian aid to people that up until now have despised us and tormented most of the world for years. Yeah, I know they're almost all tempered, but... they're more or less doing exactly what they were doing before that happened, just for another reason and for another master and I don't have much sympathy for the people that happily cheered on what the Empire was doing while they were the victors. I just really wish Garlemald itself, as a creation of the Ascians, could have been the big bad in need of taking down rather than them resurrecting Zenos, again, and pulling a new villain out of thin air, thus forcing us to rush to the rescue of our second biggest enemy for the last decade.

It's just so disappointing and underwhelming. It makes me wonder what Ishikawa had in mind for the story before she had to rewrite and change so much of it.

From my understanding is going to basically be a stormblood rehash if they did and expansion focused on Garlemald. Will leave it at that as I have long since removed myself from the topic of this thread.

[Lauront]

My type are tall, skinny, pale guys. Were it not for the fact I don't find most male Elezen attractive I'd be living the dream in FFXIV.

Also, latest plug for the thread discord. :P https://discord.gg/htS5TTP2

I'm curious to see how the graphics touch-up will benefit Elezen. It's mostly going to focus on improving the textures, but I'd like to see them take a stab at improving their proportions and sprint a bit. Yoshi has mentioned they may consider character creator upgrades but that it would require more thorough-going engine upgrades, and seeing as their approach to this game is spend as little as possible so long as people don't quit in droves, I'm not expecting much.

As an aside, is anyone here interested in 'story focused' NFT's?

https://www.siliconera.com/square-en...-focused-nfts/

Granted, the article implies that it is up in the air as to whether or not the Final Fantasy games will be subjected to such a thing though as we no doubt all know, plans change and even a hard no can be reversed on a whim.

It wouldn't surprise me if we're never rid of any prominent characters because of a desire to potentially sell NFT's based around them in the future, though.

No SE you must resist!

I can't imagine any good coming from it as I doubt it'll be done subtly. And the comments on the article are indicative of what the reception would be in the West.

reading my mind

Agree with everything you said.

On another note, I can't recall if it was mentioned, but the producers of Dying Light 2 are also going to do an RPG of their own, so in addition to XVI, 7 Rebirth and Dragon's Dogma 2, there is that to look forward to.

[CrownySuccubus]

FFVI's cast was all clearly distinguishable from one another on the SNES. In fact, all of the characters in FFs on the SNES are clearly distinguishable from one another. Try again.

Once again, people seem incapable of intuiting the appendix "Although, there are some exceptions".

FF6 has such a large cast of characters that, yes, a few break the mold such as Cyan, Shadow, Sabin, Mog, Umaro, etc.

But that doesn't change the fact that it still has a cast full of pretty boys.





'

Clothing, hair style/color and various accessories are the primary way you have to tell the characters apart, unless they aren't human like Mog, old like Strega or have no human features visible like Shadow or Umaro. Cyan, in fact, is the exception because he has a mustache.

will continue bringing this scene up because it is the perfect example of the cringeworthy writing style of Endwalker which feels more like a walking simulator on a college campus at times than an expansion at the end of the world. Shadowbringers was exciting to play for me because there was always some level of tension there, with very little filler on par with the trolley sequence. Endwalker however wastes the player's time with multiple long treks in Sharlayan made even slower with the NPC that has to tag along behind you, and 3/4ths of the moon. So many people defend these out of place scenes as "oh but we need to alleviate the tension!" as if there weren't more logical and thematically on point ways to go about doing this.

You can bring up the problems with the follower mechanic, and the padding that involved walking around Sharlayan, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the Dreaded "Burger Scene".

In Shadowbringers, we would go back to our apartment in the Crystarium and have chats with Ardbert, who provided insightful commentary instead of just vomiting lore in a nonstop stream like the Sharlayans do. In Heavensward and Stormblood, we had our campfire scenes with our party members where we could look up at the sky and reflect on the adventure so far. That is what I expect out of this game - not Uber Eats in a college dorm. I will forever oppose this nonsense because if someone wants those kinds of scenes then they can already go play Persona and have an entire game's worth of them. I feel betrayed after having fallen in love with this game in ARR/Heavensward under the premise that this would be a game with high fantasy and sci-fi elements with a story that takes itself seriously and Endwalker ruined that.

The issue with this argument is that the scene did offer commentary. It's a seven minute cutscene, in which Gr'aha eating a burger takes up like 15 seconds total, while the rest of it is commentary on the events of the story, how the Scions have changed, speculating on what effect Hydaelyn possessing Krile might have, and with the final goal of showing what happens to the Elpis flower when people are happy or whatever.

Granted, I'm never going to call it a pillar of excellent storywriting, but it just feels like focusing on Gr'aha eating a burger to point out everything that's wrong with the story is like pointing at that moment when a Stormtrooper hits his head on the door as everything wrong with the original Star Wars movie.

[aveyond-dreams]

And of the 3 pretty boys you've just posted are mature adults who behave as such in FFVI, as opposed to the brattier personalities of current G'raha which adds a layer of insufferability to a character who is too strange looking to fit that alien, mystical style of Amano heroes. Setzer literally stole a woman right off a stage, Edgar was a womanizer king, and Locke was entertaining to have around from start to finish. (Locke's in-game sprite is also wildly different from his artwork, resembling a beefy thug instead.)

Because of these reasons, they appeal to those who we can roughly characterize as having "western tastes" when it comes to the heroes they enjoy seeing in media. The personality is there, the looks are there, and hopefully the overarching plot knows what to do with these characters so they just don't sit around wasting oxygen for the entire game. They're not grating people's patience with overt fanservice at every other corner. Instead, the games use these characters to move the plot forward in meaningful ways instead of going around in circles repeating "I love you so much!" like G'raha Tia does each patch. Every time I look at this character all I can see is this:



I do not want this in my party or for the game to keep forcing this on me without me having any say in the matter. Shove it into side content. Get this character off my screen. He doesn't look like a hero, he doesn't behave like one, and with the direction that the plot is going in, I doubt he'll ever have the chance to be one again because no one can hurt the community plushie. Stop forcing a man with a grown voice who looks like Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia in my face.

Those of us who want a decent hero in the party have no real options besides Estinien, because the writers don't know what to do with Thancred besides mention Minfilia every now and then. However, this expansion they took away the cool factors of long elven hair and his defiant personality and turned it into mashed potatoes. At least in Stormblood we had Hien and in Shadowbringers we had Ardbert. In Endwalker we had nothing! Just a bunch of baby-faced men who do not look or act their age. Unless the player themselves decides on making a western style hero (and even then that's extremely difficult to pull off given this game's limited options), there's hardly any representation of them in the plot.

I do wonder if the inclusion of better designed masculine cast members aside from the generic WoL posterboy would do anything to win over the crowd who still paint this game as just an anime catgirl visual novel hub (which sadly, is on a fast track to becoming this). Imagine if besides the WoL, we also had high quality cgi and character models of men like Vossler and Basch sharing the stage. Something that makes people go, I want to either play as this or play with this character. That is how you sell me games like FFXII, I see a character that looks cool like Balthier and I take interest.



Of those 3, Vossler was probably my preferred design beating Basch solely because he had a better outfit during the time he was in our party, but in the end all 3 were examples of what kind men FFXIV needs to start including in the main cast in order to offset the other party members and the overwhelmingly bland makeup of the scions.

[CrownySuccubus]

And of the 3 pretty boys you've just posted are mature adults who behave as such in FFVII

Again, that is your individual, personal opinion.

I do not want this in my party or for the game to keep forcing this on me without me having any say in the matter. Shove it into side content. Get this character off my screen.

To paraphrase yourself, it sounds like you want to play a Persona game, where you get to pick and choose who you hang out with. Not FFXIV.

[aveyond-dreams]

Mischaracterizing my statements in order to argue for the sake of arguing is not the win you think it is, but then again it's not the first time this has happened across this and other threads.

[Raoabolic]

To paraphrase yourself, it sounds like you want to play a Persona game, where you get to pick and choose who you hang out with. Not FFXIV

What an ironic statement considering a lot of the scion characters are devolving into persona characters, lol.

[RyuDragnier]

Mischaracterizing my statements in order to argue for the sake of arguing is not the win you think it is, but then again it's not the first time this has happened across this and other threads.

Except you DO come across as taking your G'raha hatred out on the game. I personally can't stand Y'shtola but you don't see me bashing the entire game because she exists.

[Brinne]

Dear God, burgers AGAIN?!

The unique fury and fixation inspired by burgers and "a male character that doesn't aesthetically appeal to me" in an expansion as rife with actually substantive issues as Endwalker is sort of morbidly fascinating, if depressing.

Wait, no, I take it back. It's not fascinating. It's the most boring thing in the universe, actually.