I am shocked to discover some of you know of or have potentially even played FFXIII. With the mother of one of the playable characters dying halfway through the intro I would have certainly written it off as too dark for the current FFXIV playerbase, who has been enthralled by the likes of Ameliance. Instead of dying in heroic sacrifice, she bibbity boppity boos an outfit for Alphinaud and Alisae and sticks around long enough for players to defile her by dressing her up in bikinis at best and the NieR outfit at worst.

Hope’s depiction of grappling with actual loss in that game was criticized at the time, but was still leagues better than the messaging of Endwalker which would’ve told him to get over it forge ahead without a care, forgiving Snow over burgers and doing away with most of his arc. Leaving nothing that could be called a compelling story left.