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

[Atelier-Bagur]

We are talking about MSQ, not side quests/stories/content. About Gulool Ja Ja, we already have mamool ja and a two-headed mamool ja in Wanderer's Palace (Hard), its really not a big deal that they use a name of all things again. Should we start complaining about that they use morbols from FF2, Goblins from FF1, so on and so forth? Every FF uses monsters, and names from previous games, thats not something unique to FFXIV.

The reason the current patch's story is so bad, is because it really is a retelling. The moment Golbez was shown armor and all, you knew it was going to go. The Four Fiends, Shadow Dragon, maybe even Zeromus, just from seeing him. More importantly, that he would be redeemed.

Yeah I remember that classic FFIV scene where Tellah managed to talk through to Golbez rather than him being mind controlled by Zeromus and then getting killed for it.

Or who could ever forget that 2nd half arc in FFIV, where Cecil was BFFs with Golbez the whole time and he was actually also a knight of Baron that tried to save their home from invading crystal juiced warriors.

Ahh.. good times.

The only predictable thing was us fighting the Four Fiends and that Golbez was a good guy. Everything else was fair game to be reimagined or altered to fit into FFXIV's world which was the entire point of them making these callbacks just like how theyve done it with the rest of the game.

Games been unoriginal from the start. Quit pretending that most of the arcs were all completely brand new with no use heavy use of old FF callbacks.

[KenZentra]

Quit pretending that most of the arcs were all completely brand new with no use heavy use of old FF callbacks.

Like what from the MSQ?

[Vyrerus]

Like what from the MSQ?

Pirates in Sastasha = Pirates in Pravoka from FF1 we just don't get a ship out of it. FF1 callback achieved!

Tam Tara Deepcroft = Marsh Cave equivalent (final boss is even a Soulflayer), helping elves in the forest... FF1 callback achieved!

Ifrit through Shiva = Ye Olde Eidolon fight callbacks. FFV callback achieved! (and many such cases through other entries as well)

Garuda exists = FF3 callback achieved!

Crystal Tower, however retroactively added to the MSQ is still the MSQ, FF3 callback achieved!

The OG races before Au Ra, Hrothgar, and Viera = races lifted directly from XI. FFXI callback achieved!

Story specifics wise in the long haul: The Ascians are analogous to the Zilart from FFXI in the overarching brush strokes and plot direction. A goddess split The Crystal so that she and Promathia could give birth to mortalkind, so that Promathia could achieve his own death. The Zilart were once godlike and lived in paradise, and the mothercrystals granted their prince a vision, which he shared telepathically with all other Zilart, excluding their fellow Kuluu who lost that ability but were still people. If they achieved paradise, it would destroy the now imperfect Vana'diel, so the Kuluu rebelled and fought them, irradiating the planet with a magical crystal line meltdown. The Kuluu were mutated into Tonberries, and the Zilart who survived did so in stasis slumber for 10000 years, re-emerging by the events of the game to continue their rejoin the crystals to achieve Paradise plan. Sound familiar?

The smaller storylines do have more originality, the journey to how we connect the dots of this overarching long haul, but I could go on listing callbacks and plot referentials all throughout every expansion. I just don't have the time.

[Nebelheim]

Pirates in Sastasha = Pirates in Pravoka from FF1 we just don't get a ship out of it. FF1 callback achieved!

Tam Tara Deepcroft = Marsh Cave equivalent (final boss is even a Soulflayer), helping elves in the forest... FF1 callback achieved!

Ifrit through Shiva = Ye Olde Eidolon fight callbacks. FFV callback achieved! (and many such cases through other entries as well)

Garuda exists = FF3 callback achieved!

Crystal Tower, however retroactively added to the MSQ is still the MSQ, FF3 callback achieved!

The OG races before Au Ra, Hrothgar, and Viera = races lifted directly from XI. FFXI callback achieved!

Story specifics wise in the long haul: The Ascians are analogous to the Zilart from FFXI in the overarching brush strokes and plot direction. A goddess split The Crystal so that she and Promathia could give birth to mortalkind, so that Promathia could achieve his own death. The Zilart were once godlike and lived in paradise, and the mothercrystals granted their prince a vision, which he shared telepathically with all other Zilart, excluding their fellow Kuluu who lost that ability but were still people. If they achieved paradise, it would destroy the now imperfect Vana'diel, so the Kuluu rebelled and fought them, irradiating the planet with a magical crystal line meltdown. The Kuluu were mutated into Tonberries, and the Zilart who survived did so in stasis slumber for 10000 years, re-emerging by the events of the game to continue their rejoin the crystals to achieve Paradise plan. Sound familiar?

The smaller storylines do have more originality, the journey to how we connect the dots of this overarching long haul, but I could go on listing callbacks and plot referentials all throughout every expansion. I just don't have the time.

They will probably most likely still deny ff14 directly rips from other ff games and ask you to provide more evidence only to keep denying ff14 doesn't reuse story/ideas/themes from the other games in the main story. People seem to think ripping story/themes from other ff games and changing them slightly to fit ff14 somehow makes it a cool new unique enough idea that it somehow makes it not a rip from the game there ripping the ideas from

[MikkoAkure]

Like what from the MSQ?

The Garleans borrow HEAVILY from FF2, FF6, FF7, and FF12 to the point where you need to be blind or ignorant of the FF series as a whole to not notice. They reuse magitek models from FF6 and armor from FF12 and the only things original at all about the Garleans were assets introduced in 1.0. Almost everything relating to the plot that involves Garleans were already done similarly with evil empires/corporations in other FF games if they didn't just shamelessly rip them out from other games completely with a wink and a nod. Emet-Selch's personality and even his theme song hit really close to Ardyn from FF15.

Stormblood takes a lot of its plot points and even whole locations from FF6.

Then there's the whole thing about the entire story being kicked off by a character named Venat who comes from a race of higher beings and joins forces with the lower beings against her own people in order to change the status quo.

[Boblawblah]

The Garleans borrow HEAVILY from FF2, FF6, FF7, and FF12 to the point where you need to be blind or ignorant of the FF series as a whole to not notice. They reuse magitek models from FF6 and armor from FF12 and the only things original at all about the Garleans were assets introduced in 1.0. Almost everything relating to the plot that involves Garleans were already done similarly with evil empires/corporations in other FF games if they didn't just shamelessly rip them out from other games completely with a wink and a nod. Emet-Selch's personality and even his theme song hit really close to Ardyn from FF15.

Stormblood takes a lot of its plot points and even whole locations from FF6.

Then there's the whole thing about the entire story being kicked off by a character named Venat who comes from a race of higher beings and joins forces with the lower beings against her own people in order to change the status quo.

Can you show me what Final Fantasy game a group called the Garleans who are secretly created by another group called the Ascians is in?

Also, could you show me the Final Fantasy game where a villain by the name of Golbez has world domination plans and then is shown to be a fakeout for the real boss named Zeromus and Golbez is actually just a misunderstood good guy?

[Nebelheim]

Can you show me what Final Fantasy game a group called the Garleans who are secretly created by another group called the Ascians is in?

Also, could you show me the Final Fantasy game where a villain by the name of Golbez has world domination plans and then is shown to be a fakeout for the real boss named Zeromus and Golbez is actually just a misunderstood good guy?

The whole golbez arc is directly ripped from ff4 and he was a good guy in the sequel to ff4 but was a puppet to zeromus the entire game and fulfilling zeromus plans. The garleans are a reference to the gestalt/archadian empire from ff6 and 12 down to zenos essentially being just like kefka except zenos didn't become a god. The archadian empire if i remember was controlled by venat or some of the other higher beings which are similar in ff14.

[Boblawblah]

The whole golbez arc is directly ripped from ff4 and he was a good guy in the sequel to ff4 but was a puppet to zeromus the entire game and fulfilling zeromus plans. The garleans are a reference to the gestalt/archadian empire from ff6 and 12 down to zenos essentially being just like kefka except zenos didn't become a god. The archadian empire if i remember was controlled by venat or some of the other higher beings which are similar in ff14.

That's kind of my point. Golbez is ripped straight out of another game while the other references are at least borrowed at most, they're not just straight up copied. I can't see how anyone can pretend the 6.x story is anything but a filler arc that resembles an alliance raid story more than a proper MSQ plotline.

[Eisi]

I love when people shit on the 6.x story arc when it was legit better than 6.0. Is the main issue here really that the story and characters are ripped from FFIV? I didn't play that game, didn't get any of the references and liked it. Zero should have been better set up in 6.0 already though I can't fault the patch storyline for that. Her journey was cliché but fun and developed at a good pace.

It suffers (like all of the story really) from presentation issues and (and this is completely my own personal bias) the Japanese cultural influences that lead people to respect other's sometimes at least seemingly, sometimes definitely idiotic actions way beyond what I personally consider reasonable (see Lyse in Stormblood) without so much as even asking the (to a Westerner) neccessary and obvious questions that would lead to clarification and greater understanding in the future for the sheer fear of exposing one's or another's shortcomings and thus bringing shame upon them. Happens in the story all the time that someone does something questionable and it's just being respected instead of questioned and explored. It comes across as people not being genuinely interested in one another and potential plotpoints or even tension between characters not being exploited, when in reality these characters treat each other with a sort of reverence that's (generally speaking) foreign to people in the West. I can't really fault the story for that though so much as myself.

To give an example from the patch content, nobody bats an eye at Zero's decision not to involve herself in the fight against Scarmiglione, while when looking at it from her perspective that was perfectly serviceable aether on a silver platter for her, just taking into account the selfish aether-hungry point of view that she had demonstrated before, without doing us any favor. That's way before we learn that aether from other, especially powerful voidsent can corrupt and destroy one's identity - so it does get explained eventually, but I was confused as shit about it in the moment while the characters in the game were just fine with it, probably thinking to themselves that it's not becoming of them to ask why. Is that bad storytelling or is it just a cultural quirk? I think it's the latter. But it kinda throws me out sometimes cause I feel like I can't culturally relate to those characters, but then again I also feel richer for it and it gives the story an air of mystery that can work in it's favor as well.

Thinking back on Stormblood and Lyse I actually liked how especially Alisaie treated her with a sort of dignity, patience and warmth that is pretty uncommon to see when dealing with a character like her in the West.

[MikkoAkure]

Can you show me what Final Fantasy game a group called the Garleans who are secretly created by another group called the Ascians is in?

Also, could you show me the Final Fantasy game where a villain by the name of Golbez has world domination plans and then is shown to be a fakeout for the real boss named Zeromus and Golbez is actually just a misunderstood good guy?

FF2 had an emperor who hated humanity and saw himself above them, designed weapons of war, comes back after death, and we fight as a personification of death.

Just because the names aren't the same and they're taking from multiple sources to make one thing doesn't suddenly make it original. The villainous organizations of FF2, FF6, FF7, and FF12 were all thrown into the pot and melted together and the Garlean Empire came out with intact plot points and copy-pasted models. You're also out of your mind if you don't think the devs were playing FF6 when they were putting together Stormblood. Enemies, locations, characters, music, overall story all taken from FF6.

If by your measure "Garlean Empire doesn't count" then how does the void arc not count then? They took a lot from FF4 for that, but I don't remember Azdaja, Vrtra, Zero, or the whole setting of The Void being in FF4 and in FF14 Golbez wasn't hunting crystals and wasn't later revealed as being controlled by a being from the moon. If you strip down a lot of the game's story to 3 things like you did, it's going to look like a lot of the other FF games.


There's also still the whole thing I mentioned with Venat, which is closer to the core of the whole story of the game and ripped out of FF12.

And before the writers decided to write an actual backstory and motivations for the Ascians, Hydaelyn and Zodiark were basically just Altana and Promathia from FF11 with the serial numbers filed off and in some aspects, they still are. Speaking of FF11, Ishgard is San d'Oria from FF11 with just a few differences.


I don't think it's a bad thing that there are all of these call-backs or stolen characters and plot points because it's all still within the framework of what Yoshi-P said about the game being a FF theme park. It's not trying to be its own complete original thing and never was. FFXIV is all of the FF series thrown into one place and then a bit of writing to connect it together. Even the more original parts are inspired from elsewhere.