Important aspects to the story that were just dropped

[NekoMataMata]

At this point I believe we can classify Garlemald itself as a dropped plot point. Their rather abrupt rush to conclude the current story arc appears to have been the driving force behind sweeping the Garleans from the board. A lot of story potential was lost with the cutting off of that "loose end."

I remember in the EW trailers how they made this massive deal over Garlemald and us going there. It's literally just one zone. I realize that considering the circumstances that everything would be in ruins, but I'm still in disbelief over how it's portrayed.

[Rufalus]

I don't know if it counts as a dropped plot but Zodiark showing up midway through the story and being controlled by that guy into a swift defeat was lame. There was like an 8 year wait in patch years since the first Zodiark name drop for it to turn out that way.

I would have made him special and titanic in size, so big you can see his movement from space. We would have to travel to different sites across the moon to battle his individual body parts that are trying to break their fetters. There would be multiple sections of him to target and probably adds.

When you've got primal Bahamut razing the realm as a precedent you can't just make the eldest, most powerful primal such a throwaway typical trial. I know he wasn't fully rejoined yet but the ascians were working on him for how many millennia only for it to be stamped out that way.

And yes Garlemald is another egregious example of Endwalker tossing out years of expectations, like 11 years in that case I guess since the empire was a 1.0 thing. Well time travel is a thing now so they could still make Garlemald's glory days into a zone if they really wanted to, just hand wave another explanation.

[NekoMataMata]

I don't know if it counts as a dropped plot but Zodiark showing up midway through the story and being controlled by that guy into a swift defeat was lame. There was like an 8 year wait in patch years since the first Zodiark name drop for it to turn out that way.

I would have made him special and titanic in size, so big you can see his movement from space. We would have to travel to different sites across the moon to battle his individual body parts that are trying to break their fetters. There would be multiple sections of him to target and probably adds.

When you've got primal Bahamut razing the realm as a precedent you can't just make the eldest, most powerful primal such a throwaway typical trial. I know he wasn't fully rejoined yet but the ascians were working on him for how many millennia only for it to be stamped out that way.

And yes Garlemald is another egregious example of Endwalker tossing out years of expectations, like 11 years in that case I guess since the empire was a 1.0 thing. Well time travel is a thing now so they could still make Garlemald's glory days into a zone if they really wanted to, just hand wave another explanation.

In the case of Zodiark a lot of people like to mention how he wasn't really the true final boss of the arc, that Meteion was the twist villain and thus the true final boss, but you're right that it still didn't receive as much attention as it deserved.

I feel like EW was really pushed together. Anima, the boss at the end of the Tower of Babil feels like it should've been a trial. Not necessarily as it is now, but simply because of how big Anima is. It's a primal made of Varis and I believe it's the first primal to not have its own trial(probably wrong here, but I do believe it's an outlier still). I don't believe we should have dismantled the empire as fast as we did.

[Xeronia]

So where are the other Ascians from that ARR cutscene where a ton of them show up and are named ARR cutscene? Pashtarot, Altima? I would think they might have a few things to say after Zodiark dying.

[Carin-Eri]

This:


It seemed like an important plot element at one point but it pretty much faded into insignificance. Did it serve the same function as the Mothercrystal? Was it some sort of powersource for Zodiark?
And whilst I realise that it did appear beneath the platform during the fight against not-quite-Zodiark they still failed to elaborate on it's purpose.

[Eisi]

A plot point from Echoes of a Fallen Star was that seeing the burning sky of the final days induces the Echo in some people.

Which didn't happen to anybody during the Final Days in Endwalker and was never even mentioned by any character. Even if there is an explanation (like they neccessarily become terminus beasts because of all the despair) the fact that nobody even thinks of it shows that the writers didn't either.




Endwalker was shooting for too many stars. It is good to have a diverse expansion, but focus is important too. Those high concept ideas (the Final Days, Hydaelyn and Zodiark, time-loop with the Ancient's era, the Endsinger and the death of the universe, the fall of Garlemald) all individually need a lot of care to be put in to make them work. You can have them intertwined, but to try and resolve all of those in one expansion's worth of storytelling time is a fool's errand. I think they wanted to leave all of it behind and that was the main motivator to rush it the way they did with Endwalker.

[Rufalus]

I think the heart of sabik was going to be more of a thing before they lost interest then forgot. re: the other ascians xeronia mentioned, gaius had some masks as trophies but didn't get details of how that went down.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

So where are the other Ascians from that ARR cutscene where a ton of them show up and are named ARR cutscene? Pashtarot, Altima? I would think they might have a few things to say after Zodiark dying.

Don't forget Halmarut and Deudalaphon. And in Deudalaphon's case literally never being mentioned at all in the game not even being name dropped ever. You can't even ask Emet about Deudalaphon when you were able to ask him about the members of the convocation in Shadowbringers.

[Lauront]

I don't know if it counts as a dropped plot but Zodiark showing up midway through the story and being controlled by that guy into a swift defeat was lame. There was like an 8 year wait in patch years since the first Zodiark name drop for it to turn out that way.

I would have made him special and titanic in size, so big you can see his movement from space. We would have to travel to different sites across the moon to battle his individual body parts that are trying to break their fetters. There would be multiple sections of him to target and probably adds.

When you've got primal Bahamut razing the realm as a precedent you can't just make the eldest, most powerful primal such a throwaway typical trial. I know he wasn't fully rejoined yet but the ascians were working on him for how many millennia only for it to be stamped out that way.

And yes Garlemald is another egregious example of Endwalker tossing out years of expectations, like 11 years in that case I guess since the empire was a 1.0 thing. Well time travel is a thing now so they could still make Garlemald's glory days into a zone if they really wanted to, just hand wave another explanation.

And one other thing I would've liked with that trial, is to see the souls inside him assist the WOL in ousting Fandaniel, to make it more of a trial to win over control over the primal... then perhaps Fandaniel could crush his core in desperation, taking himself out with the primal, for good. Ideally I would've liked to have seen the remaining Convocation members assist in removing that stain of a creature from within him.

On the topic of dropped plot points - the High Seraph. Yeah they did deal with a cult to her in Bozja, but really, that's about it. Nothing further delving into its origin, or anything.

I think the heart of sabik was going to be more of a thing before they lost interest then forgot. re: the other ascians xeronia mentioned, gaius had some masks as trophies but didn't get details of how that went down.

They insinuated during the Q&A that he wouldn't know how to defeat them properly.

Generally, for me the issue is less what they dropped and more how poorly I consider them to have resolved multiple major plot elements. I don't think their world construction is a bit weak at times as well, e.g. the degree of differentiation between the shards should be greater. I'd like to learn why the Garlean Purebloods can't use aether but judging from Yoshi's Q&A answers... I doubt any answer on that will be well thought out or interesting. Not seeing the Sundering being depicted in EW, but instead being relegated to content in a NieR mobile crossover, was also criminal.

[Rufalus]

And one other thing I would've liked with that trial, is to see the souls inside him assist the WOL in ousting Fandaniel, to make it more of a trial to win over control over the primal... then perhaps Fandaniel could crush his core in desperation, taking himself out with the primal, for good. Ideally I would've liked to have seen the remaining Convocation members assist in removing that stain from within him.

Boom. Nice idea right there. yeeahh it took a while but I eventually realized that the ongoing story never measures up to the stuff we imagine. Charitably it can probably be blamed on time and budget constraints. I do have respect for the writers and all the staff. Their hands are probably tied in many instances, like the fights are already decided and they just gotta write around them. The lore / backstory sounded so amazing from the start; the stuff we get to witness first-hand and participate in can never measure up. The CGI intro movie to V1 with a bit of battle of silvertear lake is still one of my favorite things.