The ending to Stormblood...

[Iscah]

We are going along with him because for all we know he has our Scion buddies. That being said, I'd also like to slap some common sense into the guy. His sense of timing and ability to compose short and meaningful messages clearly could use some improvement...

It seemed to me that he might not have meant to summon us right at that moment? Or perhaps he had no choice but to do it right then. Whatever the exact reason, when we are first transported to that place, he says "this is not where I had intended to meet" - suggesting that he didn't deliberately call us there and then.

More like holding them hostage! In classic trope fashion we have just met the xpac´s true final boss.....

We don't know he's holding them hostage - for that matter we don't actually know if he has them at all!

He didn't say anything about them, and our character apparently didn't think to ask about it - which seems a bit odd, really.

Who knows, maybe once we get a chance for a longer talk with him, we'll ask what he's done to our friends and he'll say "wait, what? I was only trying to contact you! Don't tell me all those failed incantations were pulling other people halfway here...!"

[TaleraRistain]

I was completely underwhelmed. But I wasn't surprised. We've always had some manner of copy and paste development in this game, but we're getting more and more things that feel like they're cutting corners. I remember a question on their survey about whether I would play another Final Fantasy based MMO and I'm starting to wonder if they're already diverting resources toward that from this game.

[Phileas]

The stormblood story i felt ended with the tsukuyomi arc. Everything else is build up for shadowbringers along with the rather cliff hangery ending. I felt like with battle with zenos was like ‘oh we need at least some kind of duty to finish on.’

Heavensward felt more complete with the end of nidhogg and the build up to Stormblood i felt was better handled with baelsars wall and the teaser of shinryuu.

[Violet_Galaxy]

Very lukewarm in my opinion and honestly fell a bit flat to me which is really concerning. Why did that Zenos encounter feel so last minute tacked on for the sake of content?? Why were there so many loose ends in this expansion not properly tied up? I'm just curious about whether the devs ran out of time and/or resources and decided to split this story in two. SB did A LOT of things right over HW (Trials, dungeons and solo instances) but I feel as a whole, HW remains the better expansion. Hopefully our questions are answered in ShB!

[Ssmiley_Bjakkzz]

Helluuuuuuuuuuu

[Hyperia]

No, we didn't kill him. The fight in the Throne room was simply exited by a bored Zenos, and Shinryu we could only beat because of the Echo as advantage against Primals. Zenos decided to take his own life, then. Basically, we never won against/defeated Zenos so far.

Zenos died because he was trying to echo jump into the warrior of lights body. It was not possible because our echo is original and stronger than his. The crystals of light probably provided additional protection from echo jump body stealing.

[Iscah]

Zenos died because he was trying to echo jump into the warrior of lights body. It was not possible because our echo is original and stronger than his. The crystals of light probably provided additional protection from echo jump body stealing.

That's an interesting take on what Zenos was trying to achieve by killing himself, which might fit with whatever he said at the time (I can't go and check right now, though I remember there was some kind of theatrical metaphor to it) but definitely doesn't line up with what he says in 4.3.

KATANA-WIELDING SOLDIER
There upon the stage I stood, prepared to take my final bow, only to find that the finale was but an intermission...

He thought it was the end, and that he was "leaving the stage" on his own terms - only to find that it wasn't over at all.

My own best guess is that he had every intent and expectation of death at that point, only to find himself a still-conscious soul trapped inside a physically dead body, most likely due to some effect of his artificial Echo.

An alternate suggestion I've seen is that it's something to do with the katana he picked up from the Kojin, which seems to be some kind of magical relic but it never gets expanded upon within the game so far. Possibly that his soul might be trapped in the sword (via some kind of inadvertent blood ritual by killing himself with it) and then the unfortunate Elezen soldier comes along and picks it up...

[MrThinker]

That's an interesting take on what Zenos was trying to achieve by killing himself, which might fit with whatever he said at the time (I can't go and check right now, though I remember there was some kind of theatrical metaphor to it) but definitely doesn't line up with what he says in 4.3.



He thought it was the end, and that he was "leaving the stage" on his own terms - only to find that it wasn't over at all.

My own best guess is that he had every intent and expectation of death at that point, only to find himself a still-conscious soul trapped inside a physically dead body, most likely due to some effect of his artificial Echo.

An alternate suggestion I've seen is that it's something to do with the katana he picked up from the Kojin, which seems to be some kind of magical relic but it never gets expanded upon within the game so far. Possibly that his soul might be trapped in the sword (via some kind of inadvertent blood ritual by killing himself with it) and then the unfortunate Elezen soldier comes along and picks it up...

Reminds me of Zantetsuken in a way. But just so we are clear, Ame-no-Habakiri (iirc) is buried alongsides Zenos's body and is subsequently taken by Elidibus when he possess it.

[Damona]

SB's ending was nothing compared to HW's and I am still confused by it. I am not sure why I should care about SHB at all, but I still hope that they'll turn it into an amazing story.

[Annah]

The end of StormBlood's MSQ was the most dissapointing MSQ ending in any expansion. The ending of MSQ in ARR was REALLY good. The ending of the MSQ in Heavensward really wrapped things up and the Warrior of Light was ready for the Rebellion.

This MSQ ending was poor.

On a rating scale of MSQ (from worse to best):
1. StormBlood
2. A Realm Reborn
3. HeavensWard


They took one normal patch and broke it into 2 itty bitty patches with minimal content. Absolutely no wrapping up of the MSQ.

We started off this expansion with Raubahn Extreme and ended this expansion with some lil person doing your work looking for something