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

[Adamantini]

I also get the impression that Endwalker was trying to recapture what made Shadowbringers successful without really understanding what gave it the 'soul' for lack of a better term.(...)

I have a feeling SE never knew exactly what good they did. They feel completely lost to me, disconnected from their players, to the point that every part of this expansion is very superfluous. The impression it gives me is exactly this: "we are going to try to repeat our success, but what did we do to have that success?"

And now they start pushing nostalgia, I still wonder what was the reason for the appearance of the Magus Sisters, as they are there or not is completely insignificant. I'm feeling the same impression from these new characters (Golbez, and company). Seriously I've never played other FFs before, and the feeling I have is that if you exchange Magus Sisters, Golbez, the 4 talking chairs, for completely new characters, it kind of doesn't matter, so if it's meant to be like this, why pull old characters if not for the simple reason of appealing to nostalgia and begging for that to be enough?

[MikkoAkure]

And now they start pushing nostalgia

They've been pushing nostalgia and old FF characters since ARR, this isn't something that's suddenly happening now. Ultros, Gilgamesh, Yojimbo, Cloud of Darkness, Cait Sith, Diabolos, Anima, every single boss from Omega's raid, and a number of the FFXII cast have all been pulled right out of their FF games, appearance and sometimes even personalities intact. The 5 original races are pulled directly out of FFXI with the serial numbers scratched off. Viera are directly from FFTA/FFXII with the same exact lore per the creator of the Viera, and Hrothgar can be made to look exactly like the Ronso (with back problems) from FFX. Gunbreaker uses FFVIII gunblades specifically because Yoshi-P thinks that Garlean gunblades that are just swords that shoot bullets aren't cool.

The Magus Sisters in XIV are primal summons, which like every other primal summon in the game, have a presence in other FF games as summons or enemies and look nearly exactly the same each time. Even the Garlean Empire is heavily based on the Gestahl Empire, and a bunch of magitek comes straight from FFVI with the same appearance.

Yoshi-P specifically said before ARR was released that the game was going to be a "Final Fantasy theme park", so this isn't a surprise and it's a part of the DNA of the game as fanservice for players of the series as a whole.

[Adamantini]

They've been pushing nostalgia and old FF characters since ARR, this isn't something that's suddenly happening now. Ultros, Gilgamesh, Yojimbo, Cloud of Darkness, Cait Sith, Diabolos, Anima, every single boss from Omega's raid, and a number of the FFXII cast have all been pulled right out of their FF games, appearance and sometimes even personalities intact. The 5 original races are pulled directly out of FFXI with the serial numbers scratched off. Viera are directly from FFTA/FFXII with the same exact lore per the creator of the Viera, and Hrothgar can be made to look exactly like the Ronso (with back problems) from FFX. Gunbreaker uses FFVIII gunblades specifically because Yoshi-P thinks that Garlean gunblades that are just swords that shoot bullets aren't cool.

The Magus Sisters in XIV are primal summons, which like every other primal summon in the game, have a presence in other FF games as summons or enemies and look nearly exactly the same each time. Even the Garlean Empire is heavily based on the Gestahl Empire, and a bunch of magitek comes straight from FFVI with the same appearance.

Yoshi-P specifically said before ARR was released that the game was going to be a "Final Fantasy theme park", so this isn't a surprise and it's a part of the DNA of the game as fanservice for players of the series as a whole.

the difference was that before I felt that there was a reason for these characters to be there, and what I feel today is more an appeal to nostalgia. As I said, what was the full involvement of the Magus? Okay they are primals, so what? They barely appear, they're gone so that you can't even remember that they ever existed. I don't doubt that the same thing will happen with these 4 bootlickers from Golbez, where in a few months we won't even remember they existed anymore

As for how often this happens, I can't say, because for me they're all new characters, since I haven't played any games

Edit: What I mean is that I'm seeing very often people see some beloved character from some other FF, and they get a lot of hype about it. My friend himself was excited about the Magus, he told me they were his favorite characters. At the end of the dungeon he himself was left with the taste of "is that it?"

As soon as the new patch came out, it didn't take long for posts to appear from people saying that Golbez's lords were killed quickly and rushed.

To me who've never seen them before, they look like just any NPC without deep development. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

[RyuDragnier]

the difference was that before I felt that there was a reason for these characters to be there, and what I feel today is more an appeal to nostalgia. As I said, what was the full involvement of the Magus? Okay they are primals, so what? They barely appear, they're gone so that you can't even remember that they ever existed. I don't doubt that the same thing will happen with these 4 bootlickers from Golbez, where in a few months we won't even remember they existed anymore

As for how often this happens, I can't say, because for me they're all new characters, since I haven't played any games

It's actually really really common. You can list almost anything in this game, and it will have links to previous titles. The Legatus/Tribunus armor is pretty much a variant of the FF12 Judge armor.

[MikkoAkure]

What I mean is that I'm seeing very often people see some beloved character from some other FF, and they get a lot of hype about it. My friend himself was excited about the Magus, he told me they were his favorite characters. At the end of the dungeon he himself was left with the taste of "is that it?"

As soon as the new patch came out, it didn't take long for posts to appear from people saying that Golbez's lords were killed quickly and rushed.

To me who've never seen them before, they look like just any NPC without deep development. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

You could say the same thing about Calca, Brina, and Fenrir, who are also past FF characters that ended up just being dungeon bosses with no explanation. Unlike the Magus Sisters, who actually got a bit of lore and lead-up, these ones had nothing. Just because it's your friend's favorite doesn't mean they're owed a giant swath of story to concentrate directly on them. The Magus Sisters got about the same initial exposure as Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Leviathan, Bismark, and Ramuh. A lead-up where we know they're there and given some background, and then we fight them. The first 3 show up again for Ultima Weapon and Titan once more after that but that's it unless you count re-imaginings in Eden or SMN abilities.

Odin was a source of evil that gave his powers to the 3 main enemies of the OG MSQ and 2 separate expansions in FFXI, but in FFXIV he's just a special fate and a trial in a side quest, neither of which get much involved in the actual story.


Golbez and his archfiends are being introduced and dying fast because they're being presented in post-expansion patch content that isn't meant to go beyond patch 6.5. We only have 3 patches left of MSQ to finish the current void storyline and then set up 7.0 so they can't exactly dwell on the archfiends. It's probably going to go 6.3 = Cagnazzo & Rubicante, 6.4 = Golbez, 6.5 = whatever surprise Yoshi-P says we won't predict that will lead us into 7.0.

[Adamantini]

Well, in this case then, I take back what I said about the new characters. As explained to me, it seems that it is already a very old problem, and I barely knew that Fenrir, for example, was something in some other game in the franchise. I got carried away by the recent complaints I've seen, not just from my friend, but on the forum as well.

[aveyond-dreams]

Stop throwing away notable Final Fantasy characters for forgettable boss fights or passing references. Make some new characters and get creative.

[Kazhar]

Stop throwing away notable Final Fantasy characters for forgettable boss fights or passing references. Make some new characters and get creative.

With the notable exception of Ravana, Nidhogg, Titania, Innocence, Zodiark, Hydaelyn and Endsinger every single major boss in the series has been a reference to another game. So it's unlikely they'll ever stop, people just love their crossovers and references.
And for the most part I don't mind either since most of the references were throwaway boss characters in the first place. Nobody will say that FFVII Hades and FFVII Knights of the Round were more compelling than the ones we got in FFXIV.
What I do take issue is when they take established characters who had their own stories like Golbez and copy paste them entirely into the MSQ. I think it's a step too far and I'm not even saying this as someone who liked FFIV.

[Lustre]

They did Anima dirty. Nothing quite like seeing an attack that used to routinely break the damage limit in FFX hitting 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0.... 0! Because there's a scholar in the party.

We see it a lot, lots of build up for... very little pay-off. I spent most of the period before EW incredibly excited to see Anima again as it was without a doubt the coolest FFX summon (sorry bahamut). Then you do the Tower of Babil and it's like oh... ok. Then you teleport to the moon in an instant and the plot starts falling apart faster than a house of cards

[MikkoAkure]

What I do take issue is when they take established characters who had their own stories like Golbez and copy paste them entirely into the MSQ. I think it's a step too far and I'm not even saying this as someone who liked FFIV.

Considering Golbez is probably only going to be relevant as a villain in less than a handful of patches, I think it’s fine.

He has a different story and motivations than his original counterpart (so far as we know), and the plot doesn’t even concentrate on him as much as it does the original character Zero. It wouldn’t have made it that much better if we had the same character with a different name and minions and the community probably got more out of him from nostalgia and trying to figure out who he was before his name drop than he otherwise would have received as a minor villain in the grand scheme of things.


Zodiark and Nidhogg aren’t original characters either. Zodiark was a summon in FF Tactics and in FFXII he was a dark-aligned god whose power was limited by light-aligned powers who were fearful of him, just like in FFXIV. Nidhogg was an HNM (sort of like a world boss) giant dragon from FFXI. Killing him even got you the same title in FFXIV as killing him in FFXI did.