The best and worst of Endwalker MSQ

[EliaStormblade]

Did you miss the part where Alphinaud went "lol jk" in the narration not a moment after announcing the Scions' "split"? It was a farce used so they could go back to acting independently of the Alliance.

A lot of people who harp on about this Scion disbandment "bait" just really read what they want to read. It wasn't just hinted, it was outright stated that the Scions didn't split at all. Only in an official public capacity as an organization. I wonder what other gripes with the story are born from reading smack dab right past what is in front of their noses.

[Carin-Eri]

Best: The music. Gods the music was/is amazing. Say what you will about the story, but they absolutely nailed the music
(in fact, although it doesn't really count since it isn't really part of the MSQ, I still think the 'Footfalls' cinematic is superb. I didn't get to see it pre-release as didn't start playing FFXIV until late December 2021 but I did resist watching it until I finished Shadowbringers and it absolutely blew me away)

Worst: The overuse of the 'follow' mechanic. Also playing as NPCs. I absolutely hate playing as another character

[Turnintino]

A lot of people who harp on about this Scion disbandment "bait" just really read what they want to read. It wasn't just hinted, it was outright stated that the Scions didn't split at all. Only in an official public capacity as an organization. I wonder what other gripes with the story are born from reading smack dab right past what is in front of their noses.

It's pretty staggering, right? It's what makes me leery of some of the folk who criticize localization choices, when many of the examples they site really just boil down to poor reading comprehension on the critic's part. Like, I sympathize with struggling to parse some of the archaic dialect, but ask yourself, "is this actually different, or do I just not understand the wording?" The latter is grounds for valid criticism (accessibility is important!), the former is disingenuous at best (in most cases).

And re: the Scion issue, it'd be one thing if the complaint was that they felt teased by the ploy -- that they wish they had genuinely disbanded, or that at least the WoL had gone their separate way. But don't act like we were deceived lol.

[SomeGuy22]

Best:
- Most of Garlemald's 1st part.
- The moon (up to Zodiark).
- Thavnair's 2nd part. Does a fantastic job of making the final days feel as hopeless as they should, and have also most of my favorite character interactions in the expansion (Estinien and Vtra's dynamic, G'raha tapping into his Exarch persona to get some semblance of order back in Radz, Matsya's baby run, etc).
- Urianger's talk with Moebryda's parents.

Worst:
- Labyrinthos' 2nd part.
- The Final Days in practice. Felt less like a cataclysm looming over the world and more that Thavnair and Garlemald were having a really bad day.
- Time travel.
- The fakeout deaths in Ultima Thule. We had at least one fakeout death in almost every expansion, man. I'm not advocating for the Scions to die for shock value (or dying at all, for that matter), but there's just so many times you can show me Y'Shtola or Thancred sacrificing themselves and get an honest emotional reaction out of me.

Imo EW is the kind of story that is good on your first go through, but loses a lot of its luster on rewatch/replay. Most of the surprises I got at EW's launch that made me think that the MSQ was pulling out all the stops ("I fight Anima here?"; "I fight Zodiark NOW?!") in hindsight were because it wanted to get the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc out of the way at once. I didn't think the story was bad bad, but it could've been way stronger than what we got.

[Shougun]

I really liked Garlemald and Ultima Thule (The bird girl was great in that zone, didn't really care for her until that zone but the horror element was really fun, also as an aside I particularly like the beast tribe in Ultima Thule, it's just really connecting with me), I would say one of the negatives would be it feels they tried to achieve a lot in the expansion. Zeal like place like Elpis is awesome, I love the zone, but it feels like Garlemald, the moon, and Elpis fought for space. The moon was neat but, imo, felt like they really wanted to go to the moon and so they added it, but then realized they had other things they also need to go / do. Also WHERE IS MY MOON GRAVITY!? /tableflip lol.

On Ultima Thule.. would have been nice if the deaths were taken more seriously by the cast and perhaps one remained dead in order to will the others back. When the first person died and people were like "o.. oh no.. that's a bummer... aww shucks" I actually laughed a little. I imagined they would be full on crying, giving up, etc. If someone also had to stay dead to bring them back would have also added an impact.

I still enjoyed the expansion but my feedback for improvement would be to watch taking major elements and compressing them too hard.

[EliaStormblade]

I get that people will have their opinions on it all the same, but the stuff in Ultima Thule really wasn't death fakeouts. Maybe one cannot be blamed for thinking so at first, when Thancred is gone, but it very quickly becomes clear nobody is going to be gone forever. It's not meant to be a "SHOCKER! THE SCIONS ARE DEAD!? WILL THEY COME BACK!?" but more a "The Scions trust you, the player character so much, that they're willing to let themselves be unraveled in order to pave the way for you to make it to the end because they know you will be able to succeed and summon them back in the end." Was it clear that we would succeed at that? Of course- of course the player would succeed, but in-universe, they're still rolling the dice on whether you can actually overcome the outright absurd circumstances of Ultima Thule and the negative dynamis harnessed by the Meteia.

If it wasn't clear by the time Estinien disappears, then Y'shtola literally spells it out right afterward. The only thing I found silly is that Y'shtola alone was going to suffice in the case of the Ea, but then Urianger goes "actually I'm going to die for a bit too because I can " That was kind of weak, and just imagine if the WoL had needed one more step to get to the end, but they couldn't make it because Urianger wantonly skipped into the proverbial pyre for laughs.

[Enkidoh]

I'm curious about how many people are saying "worst: time travel", that exactly why they hate about it's appearence in EW. I mean, time travel has been a part of the FF series since the very first FF game, and even FFXIV's MMO predecessor FFXI featured it as both a story and gameplay element, so it's inclusion in FFXIV is nothing unexpected if you're reasonably familiar with the FF series' history. Was it how it was executed, and not just because it was added to the story? Personally I felt it was reasonably well done, and does fit, if you ignore it as a fixed time loop, (as ShB practically invalidates it as a time loop), then it does work narrative wise.

It's completely fine if you hate the time travel aspect of the story, I'm just intriguied by just how many hate it and am curious about the reasons for it.

[Eisi]

I'm curious about how many people are saying "worst: time travel", that exactly why they hate about it's appearence in EW. I mean, time travel has been a part of the FF series since the very first FF game, and even FFXIV's MMO predecessor FFXI featured it as both a story and gameplay element, so it's inclusion in FFXIV is nothing unexpected if you're reasonably familiar with the FF series' history. Was it how it was executed, and not just because it was added to the story? Personally I felt it was reasonably well done, and does fit, if you ignore it as a fixed time loop, (as ShB practically invalidates it as a time loop), then it does work narrative wise.

It's completely fine if you hate the time travel aspect of the story, I'm just intriguied by just how many hate it and am curious about the reasons for it.

Yeah it punishes you for paying attention. The explanation why the timelines merge instead of it working like it had previously in Shadowbringers is "well, uh, guess that happened!". So the reason why it's a timeloop is a meta reason, not because it makes sense in the story. They wanted you to already know Hydaelyn from the very beginning - the Hydaelyn, not an alternate version - and to have a bond that spans the ages and to have literally been there at the beginning and already have some sort of connection with the real final boss. That's also why there is no way for Venat to change the future with her knowledge and why Kairos is a thing. It's all so that the timeline roughly makes sense, because a timeloop had to happen. It's not that Kairos neccessitated a timeloop - in fact it didn't, even if the events of one timeline aligned with another timeline doesn't mean that they are one and the same, so Kairos is not an explanation, but an additional requirement for the timeloop, the real reason behind which we never got - the timeloop required everyone to lose their memory, so Kairos was invented by the writers. And nobody could question what had happened either, cause otherwise the timeloop could potentially not happen.

And players don't like it when you can see the writer's hand, the writer should stay invisible and let the story play out as it does. Because once you see that the writers don't care about what they had previously set up, you start to not care too. And the thing is a writer can do pretty much everything they want as long as they find good and interesting reasons. So contrivances like this usually happen when the writers have pretty much given up on their own story anyway.

[SomeGuy22]

(...)the stuff in Ultima Thule really wasn't death fakeouts.

Heavily disagree with you there, an obvious death fakeout is still a fakeout. Alphinaud still cries, Alisae still reaches out and so on, so the game clearly wants you to feel that the stakes are high and the outcome is uncertain.

(...)they're willing to let themselves be unraveled in order to pave the way for you to make it to the end because they know you will be able to succeed and summon them back in the end. (...)

Being summoned back was not on their mind, they mostly say that the rest is up to you or their part is done. The only Scions that mention being brought back later are G'raha (which, due to his wording, I read that more as being something that he needed to say to give himself the strength to bite the bullet, instead of something he actually expected to happen) and Y'shtola. And in her case...

(...) Y'shtola literally spells it out right afterward.

Y'shtola's very next sentence after mentioning Azem's crystal is akin to "but don't do it tho" because then Ultima Thule would become uninhabitable again. She literally says, in her own words, "This I only reveal so that you promise not to invoke the magick". She brings that hypotesis up only to disregard it right after. Again, trying to make it uncertain that they'll be back (even though they for sure will).
The only reason they return is because Emet and Hythlodaeus are busted and bail you out via creation magic.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

All the friends we did?

Nice.

New headcanon. The Scions are one beeg polycule. Except Tataru. And the twins. Because.... yeah.

The Best:

- Garlemald, obviously. Was nice to see the opposite perspective for once, wish we could've gotten more of it though. Screw you, viator Galvus
- Elpis brought me back to my Chrono Trigger days. It was ethereal and beautiful, but with lingering hints of shadow and ruin hidden in the bowels. I also rather enjoyed the embodied Amaurotines more than Emet's shades, seeing new kinds of people is always nice
- The sometimes heartwarming, sometimes way too damn sexy room scene. (Looking at you, Estinien! >xO)
- Venat was.... passable, I guess? I kinda found the FFXII one more compelling, this rendition was very similar yet far less scrutinized

The Worst:

- I liked the Towers, and was sad to see them go. I wanted more Bloodborne vibes!!!! T_T
- The revelation of Varis and the Emperor's ultimate fate. I almost felt as if the horrific nature of it was all but brushed past. Also the coffins in the Tower of Babil powering up Anima. Who were they? Could they have been Garlemald royals?
- In from the Cold, while a fun duty and a frightening plot beat resolved rather unsatisfactorily. While I didn't necessarily want someone to die, it was another horrific moment that didn't feel like they paid enough attention to
- Ultima Thule, obviously. I wish the devs would cease the constant fake-out deaths already. You want to saddle us with the Scions for another 10 years? Fine, but as a compromise would you please stop cheaply attempting to tug our heartstrings this way? All such things eventually fade and grow old and stale, they stop working. This one certainly has

The MVNPC:



This girl. Square knew what they were doing with your grey-haired Steppe Childe. The best girl of the entire game, right here. Sold the entire expansion and all previous content, all by herself. She's why it exists, practically.