The ending to Stormblood...

[Andevom]

Pretty underwhelming for me as well, considering Shadowbringers' premise made it sound like we were going to be in a much more dire situation than what we're left with.

Positives:

-The solo instance was fun, with a good sense of tension since they could've easily offed someone at the end of the storyline.
-Estinien confirms DRGs are best heroes.
-No Elezen deaths.
-Making Crystal Tower relevant again, this time in the MSQ.
-My DPS is at least better than Hien's.

Negatives

-Pre-credits ending with the Emperor's face suggests...nothing other than the Emperor can make a creepy face when told about manufacturing death gas.
-We're left with "we'll look for the thing the mysterious guy told you about" instead of looking for and finding it, a process that has no reason to take long.
-The issues going on with the The First seem to be detached from the Empire. So we built up all this tension with the Ascian + Empire connection, only to be sidetracked because someone wants to make use of us out of nowhere for reasons he won't divulge. Aymeric all but says "Let the NPCs take care of the Empire while you do your thing." I'm sure it won't hold, but it sounds like there's gonna be one hell of a detour before we get to any semblance of a conclusion there.
-No Gaius anywhere to be seen.
-Zenos bodyswaps with an Elezen, so when we eventually kill him, the Elezen death count will climb yet again.
-Ultimately, whole thing felt like just another patch rather than a conclusion to a storyline.

[Bright-Flower]

Sooo....mixed bag for me.

I didn't hate any of the individual plot points except for the Voice guy being annoyingly vague and unhelpful. You can't spare two minutes to give me the cliffnotes version of what's going on here? Because the pitch you're giving me isn't very convincing.

But there was no big moment. Then again maybe that's for the best. 2.X ended with the Ul'dah situation blowing up. 3.0 quickly reigned the status quo back in and it ultimately just resulted in the scions being put on a bus for a while to focus on HW characters and Alph. 3.X ended with Shinryu's summoning and us risking activating Omega to deal with it. But at the end of 4.0 we just uncerimoniously kill Shinryu as if it were any other primal.

So maybe it's for the best they don't pull out some big shocking thing for 5.0 to deflate like an old balloon. But I do wish we knew more. I want to know how many people will be able to travel between the Source and the First. Will it ultimately be viable to visit the First in RP? Or having a new character born on the First come to the Source? I'll have to wait for 5.0 to see if the lore allows for people to travel or if it'll just be the special WoL who gets to.

The benefit to this is it might allow for 5.0 to start off with a bang. 3.0 and 4.0 kind of started off slowly with us chilling in Ishgard for a while before heading out and then getting a tour of the Fringes with Lyse in 4.0. It took a while for things to get moving. So maybe this will leave room for 5.0 to start off with more of a punch to it.

[Conquistadork]

I do felt the ending was kinda "meh" not bad but not awesome either, but I loved...

That they let you play with some of the characters that have been with you so far, the fight with Hien was simple but fun. It was interesting seeing the point of view of your friends while you are on your way to the fight.

The credits scene with the art of some of the characters was really good, whish they let us use some of them as wallpapers, loved the Gosestu and Yotsuyu art, Yugiri was really good too.

And the free outfit was a nice addition too.

Still, wish they gave us more insight of what's going to happen in SHB.

[Nashred]

There was no ending!
left pretty much everything open..
Shadowbringers is Stormblood part 2

[Sassychan]

My theory on the guy in the Ala Mhigan soldier gear:

He's the real Zenos and the Zenos you faced since the beginning of the expansion was fake.

[Kuroka]

My theory on the guy in the Ala Mhigan soldier gear:

He's the real Zenos and the Zenos you faced since the beginning of the expansion was fake.

This cant be as he mentions when we see him for the first time, how he remembers being beaten by us and ending his life, but waking up in this body. Elezenos is the Zenos we killed.

[Sesera]

My theory on the guy in the Ala Mhigan soldier gear:

He's the real Zenos and the Zenos you faced since the beginning of the expansion was fake.

The Zenos in Ala Mhigan gear is the real Zenos we fought until the MSQ quest Stormblood. Then Elidibus took his place as he was supposed to be dead but in the end Zenos survived and left his grave. There is a quest about people wandering near Zenos grave and when you investigate its empty.

At least that's how I see it.

[Iscah]

The Zenos in Ala Mhigan gear is the real Zenos we fought until the MSQ quest Stormblood. Then Elidibus took his place as he was supposed to be dead but in the end Zenos survived and left his grave. There is a quest about people wandering near Zenos grave and when you investigate its empty.

At least that's how I see it.

Almost, but not quite.

The 'real' Zenos died - he killed himself at the end of Stormblood - and yet since then we have had "two Zenoses":

1. ELIDIBUS, who possessed Zenos's corpse and has been posing as him since he was shown to have "miraculously survived" in the patch stories.

2. The KATANA-WIELDING SOLDIER, the real Zenos's soul who - rather than doing whatever souls are supposed to do after the body's death - has somehow survived and transferred into the body of the Elezen soldier. It's likely related to Zenos's artificial Echo, which in the recent patch was confirmed to have transferred to his new body (indicated by the briefly glowing red eyes), but I've also see it suggested that it's something to do with the Ame-no-Habakiri katana which was suggested to have some kind of significance, but hasn't been elaborated on.

[Fangorn]

The most unpredictable twist were credits after seemingly nothing. My face was like:"whaaaat? thats it?"

[Evogolist]

I agree with everyone else. This patch's MSQ was heavily underwhelming. The MSQ itself, ended on such a lighthearted note, that I don't even feel the need for us to become the Warrior of Darkness. Idk, maybe there's something that's going to take place during the opening of ShadowBringers that's going to explain why, but this definitely wasn't it. The battle again Zenos was okay, but compared to ARR and HW, I would've preferred a trial against that Angel thing from the ShB trailer after we supposedly defeated Ascian-Zenos.