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

[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.

[Boblawblah]

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.

Agree to disagree. I personally didn't feel like I was playing FFVI in any sense when I played through Stormblood, but everyone is different, maybe I'm in the minority there.
Take care.

[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.

[Nebelheim]

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.

Now that you mentioned this Ishgard has a lot of san'doria vibes even down to being exclusively inhabited by elezen only and both cities having semi similar styles of music. I never thought about it until now even hilda looks pretty similar to Lilisette and referencing her as there both hald hyur and elezen.

[KenZentra]

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.

Im really not about to say that a big, technologically advanced, evil empire invading lands beyond is a stolen idea from anything when that is a plot point for so many different stories and real life events. If I did I'd have to say it was an idea stolen from the British Empire. Again though, if we are going to say Magitek Armor is a stolen storyline, we might as say Morbols from FF2- actually, all monsters, names and items from other games are just copy-pasted story ideas from other FF games. Which again, every FF games does.

[MikkoAkure]

I personally didn't feel like I was playing FFVI in any sense when I played through Stormblood, but everyone is different, maybe I'm in the minority there.

Cyan is reused as Hien's dad (Kaien is his name in Japanese version of FF6) and Hien/Doma reuses Cyan's theme song which was also the song for Doma in FF6. Hien also has a 2nd name, Shun, which is the name of Cyan/Kaien's kid in the Japanese version. Doma's plot in FF14 is pretty dang close to what happened in FF6 as well minus the poison.

The magitek designs switched from Amano's design for magitek armor to in-game version used in FF6. The Magitek Factory from FF6 (can't remember the actual name) was reused as Castrum Abania and reused the exact same bosses and some of the same enemies.

And the whole plot of Stormblood revolves around fighting a magitek-based empire and specifically the 2nd in command of the empire, who is an insanely powerful psychopathic manchild.

Im really not about to say that a big, technologically advanced, evil empire invading lands beyond is a stolen idea from anything when that is a plot point for so many different stories and real life events. If I did I'd have to say it was an idea stolen from the British Empire. Again though, if we are going to say Magitek Armor is a stolen storyline, we might as say Morbols from FF2- actually, all monsters, names and items from other games are just copy-pasted story ideas from other FF games. Which again, every FF games does.

It kinda is a thing when the technologically advanced, evil empire is not only using the exact same machinery as previous technologically advanced evil empires but even invades the same exact cities. Doma and Dalmsaca being invaded were brought up in the MSQ all the way back in ARR and both were places invaded by technologically advanced evil empires in other FF games. The reaper even uses Terra's Theme from FF6 when you jump in it. And the artbook mentions that characters like Gaius were designed specifically to evoke the Gestahlian Empire from FF6.

[Vyrerus]

psychopathic manchild

Hey, hey now. Kefka is not a manchild. Just a psychopath. I often wonder how he was prior to being the first Magitek infused human in the Gestahlian Empire. There's no mention of how he was before then. Also no mention on if it was done to him as a baby, like it was to Celes.

If only they'd stop perpetually adding to FFVII's world and remaking it, and get on the stick and add to VI's.

[Volgia]

Still sad Athena didn't scream "Ungahhh" at the end of her being defeated to reference the emperor.

[Vyrerus]

Why would they make Athena reference the emperor of anything? o.o?

[Reap00]

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.

I can do this too. 6.0 post patches were boring and I literally had zero interest in them. I was very happy to see it end. 6.0 by comparison was amazing. La la la