Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Anonymoose]

For years now, our tradition has been to have a "Revelations from Patch X.Y" thread, but an occasion this heavy calls for a distributed load.

Tonight, we enter into the final chapter of the first great saga of Final Fantasy XIV. Now, Yoshida-san has labored so hard to make this point that I think it bears repeating here: This is not the end of XIV's story. This is not the end of the "main" story or the "real" story or the "story that matters". This is the end of the first, longest, and grandest-of-scale saga, but there will be more to come.

The threshold we cross in the coming days and weeks has been traveled towards over a ten-year journey. We've seen the destruction of the original game and storyline, and their rebirth in a new form. We've seen retelling, revision, reimagining, and even retcon meticulously and pain-stakingly disguised as intended all along by a dedicated team of writers who, at the start, had no idea that we would all end up here. A Realm Reborn threw out plot hooks by the handful just hoping enough would snag to win back the world's interest. Heavensward raced to the top of that shifting pile of ideas to prove this foundation could yet be built upon. Stormblood held fast in the face of the necessary growing pains required to chart this ship's course for true, and Shadowbringers bought the time needed to bring all those threads to heel, all to bear us towards this moment: catharsis for the insurmountable pile of shifting unknowns we've grappled with from the start.

Moreover, we enter this expansion on the heels of one of, in one lowly Moose's opinion, one of the greater stories in the history of not just this game, but the franchise at large. I cannot imagine the pressure the team has been under to deliver not only a worthy follow-up to Shadowbringers, but a satisfying ending to a story whose very coherency took all the time and talent they had to give for a decade.

No matter how this story ends - regardless of whether if confirms your predictions or validates your headcanons or even suits your preferences, this has been one hell of a journey we've been on together, and there can be no doubt the dev. team have given it their all.

With that said, I also think we can (mostly) dispense with the usual spoiler blocks since we will only be discussing the MSQ here, and...
LET'S FF-ING GOOOOO

Edit(s) incoming.

LV80 Content

The replication of the 1.0 Limsa Lominsa intro at the between the "review the status quo" scene and starting the journey in Sharlayan was aces. What a way to make it feel like this was all tied together. "Why doesn't Hydaelyn sing anymore?" is a joke Rocl and I have made a lot, so this throwback landed right on target for me.

I chose the "investigate the Forum" fork first because I figured Sharlayan -> Thavnair felt like a more natural progression. I was surprised to find that most of the populace knew all about Labyrinthos, and that it was regarded as little more than a glorified storeroom. Rather, it appears to be being converted into the doomsday bunker I thought it was in real time. Fourchenault and Ameliance are following through with the roles I hoped for as well; he thinks he's in the right and is trying to do his duty, she's independent-minded and will flick him his no0se if she thinks it'll be the right thing for the family in the end.

Thavnair is gorgeous, and splitting the sidequest between history / present situation with the tower / a story involving a Xaela of the Steppe felt like a really nice balance. (Though the 2nd round of side-quests hit me off-guard, lol.) Seeing aetherial sickness on screen was, for me, a throwback straight to the 1.18 Dzemael Darkhold, where the symptoms were explained to us but we never had to confront them directly. And there was a lot packed into that interaction; using comic relief to show simultaneously that Thavnair has fallen on hard times due to the tower and Estinien is so bad at people that he's easier to swindle out of coin than Alphinaud. Lot of lifting for one seemingly-less-important scene.

I had few expectations for what to expect in Radz-at-Han so I did not see Vrtra being the Wizard of Oz coming, but I liked it. It feels like something a great wyrm would do, and one could use it to weave headcanons for why Radz-at-Han hasn't played a more "human" role in our story despite their being a world trade hub and us having several connections and opportunities to try to convince them Garlemald is an unstable neighbor and thereby gain some advantage.

Fandaniel declaring himself "me" over really being "Fandaniel" was fascinating; I spent the lead-up fixated on two things. One: We have no reason to assume any of the sundered are not tempered. Two: When Gaia accepted she was Loghrif, it appeared as though her tempering was restored. Ergo, most of my theories start and end with Fandaniel being pro-Zodiark or ways he can get out of that. Thus, in this cutscene, I was now wondering: If Fandaniel does not truly accept himself as Fandaniel...can he do whatever he wants? Or is that why there are two voice actors for this one character?

But when he declared himself Amon, that I was impressed by. I follow precedent; I archive. When things are written to surprise, I tend not to see them coming. But also I tend to see the strings, and I get a little frustrated at the shenanigans required to make it work. This was not that. The writers made the bold move to ignore that Amon had been in the tower for 5,000 years and force it to make sense. It was always possible clones were involved but to lean into it - now, in this way - was unexpected (and awesome). Amon never quite fit perfectly into the story; everyone expected him to be important as more than just "the guy who resurrected Xande" and it didn't come up. Fandaniel also fits awkwardly into the Ascian / Zodiark story that Emet-Selch was the crowning achievement of in Shadowbringers. To speculate about this possibility weeks ago, there would have been reasons this theory would seem very unlikely, but by forcing it to make sense, the overall story of FFXIV is improved. This was the best kind of addition-retcon. Bravo.

Great Oschon's raven that was LONG. Will try to compile thoughts from the VODs here as I can, but tl;dr that was the most Final Fantasy game to have ever Final Fantasied, lmao.

[RyuDragnier]

I'll come into here after I'm fully done with MSQ to avoid unnecessary spoilers on my part. Something out of the ordinary for me tbh, as normally they don't bother me. But considering this is the grand finale of a story that has been ongoing for almost a decade, I am NOT ruining surprises.

[WhiteArchmage]

Staking a flag here before the Apocalypse. Unlike previous expansion I'm actually jumping straight into MSQ. Heavenspeed, everyone.

Edit the first, I guess... up to lvl 85 MSQ? And I really mean lvl 85, thou have been warned.

So most was as I expected. Fandaniel wasn't JUST insane for the sake of it, and him struggling with being a sort of... amalgamation between his previous life as Amon and his previous life as Fandaniel, makes him compelling. Though then he just keeps being cartoonish and it loses some of the gravitas it could have added to his story. We had somewhat seen that with Gaia, whose story was a struggle of identity, just flipped: Gaia has NO memories so her identity as Loghrif is alien to her, while Fandaniel has too many memories. In a sense it also mirrors G'raha, as G'raha is basically struggling with the person he became after 100+ years on the First, with the person he was in the Source; Fandaniel KEPT his memories as Amon along with Fandaniel's but neither of them feels like "him".

Him HIJACKING MOTHER<kupo!>ING ZODIARK I did not see coming. I'd say more but I am leaving speculation out of this, I want to keep that to myself until I actually finish the MSQ. Also, I don't know if it was specifically the Viera model but my character gave Zenos THE best "Are you <kupo!>ing me right now, I don't have time for you" face. My main thoughts on the trial was "Wait, THIS early?!" especially since Anima was a glorified dungeon boss (a very good one, though, so props for that). Which-since I'm talking of said dungeon. I actually leapt out with an "I KNEW IT" when they said the name of that dungeon. The second the media tour came out and we knew the "Tower of Zot" was the first dungeon I KNEW we'd have to get either the Tower or the Giant of Bab-il.

Also on that section, Zenos hijacking THE WOL's BODY. That solo duty was insane, would have "remembered" Fandaniel right there and then.

Side note: got a bit of a giggle when most of us where thinking "Anima is Zenos' mother" and the game bamboozled us with "nah fam, he's Zenos' FATHER" Oh, Varis, even in death you get chumped by Ascians.

Vrtra is now my favorite of the first brood, he's just so earnest about keeping HIS people safe and happy. While at the same time giving us an in-universe reason for him to ignore Nidhogg's call when he's technically so close. How could he follow his brother's bloodlust against the spoken, when Vrtra loves people that much?

There's a lot more but if I let my ADHD brain loose I won't make any points (it's currently admiring how well my character portrait looks now). Basically, story's pretty interesting so far, want to see how it goes in the next 5 levels.

[Veloran]

Just want to say that I called absolutely everything, even if a few of the other more wild and unfounded shots were off the mark. And all of the even more wild and impossible to foresee stuff. But I guess you miss all the shots that you could never have known to take.

[Cilia]

I don't plan on picking up one of the new classes before diving into the MSQ this time.

Unfortunately I have work Saturday for the first time all year, so I can't properly enjoy Early Access. Poo.

[Iscah]

Could we stick to spoiler boxes on this first page at least as a sort of "safe journaling zone" before we start discussing it with other people later in the thread?

---

Journalling time – I'll sometimes be throwing new comments into older sections too if I forget to write down thoughts Could we stick to spoiler boxes on this first page at least as a sort of "safe journaling zone" before we start discussing it with other people later in the thread?

---

Journalling time – I'll sometimes be throwing new comments into older sections too if I forget to write down thoughts at the time but remember later.

Day 1 – Sharlayan

Got to Sharlayan, arrived at the Annex

I thought I should do it right and play with voices on for once, and I really don't like voice acting in this game. Everyone sounds wrong, and I especially cannot stand Emet as narrator (or in person, for that matter). His delivery ruins every single line.

I'm on the verge of turning it off again but I can see they throw in extra lines sometimes that don't get subtitles.

But anyway.

So Hydaelyn Herself has come to speak to us because she no longer has the power to call us to the rift. We'd assumed it was "Venat" but I suppose they're one and the same now, unlike Elidibus who separated himself from Zodiark. (...or did he? If Elidibus as we know him is a primal, did he actually come out of Zodiark or did the others unwittingly call forth a copy?)

Estinien's hesitance when asked for his occupation was odd. Surely mercenary is good enough? He's been a wandering hunter for hire inbetween getting roped into Scion jobs. At least we have a proper surname for him now.

It's nice to have the other characters able to walk with you rather than always be "we'll meet you at the other end".

Sharlayan background music reminds me of the Tempest.

Raha admitting he based the Crystarium architecture on Sharlayan was cute.

It's kind of odd that we're all "keep our true reason for being here a secret and pretend we were hired by the Students" when all their identities are known anyway. Either it's a very thin excuse or we're walking into a trap.

Day 2 – Level 80

Voices are switched off again. I wish I didn't feel like this, and it's not like I watch everything else on mute with subtitles, but it just doesn't work for me in this game at all.
(Late edit: I did switch them back on. Off for dungeons though. Battle grunts are annoying and trusts are way too limited and repetitive.)


Sharlayan sidequesting

Digging through the levequest descriptions – I'm far enough into FFIV to catch "Kokkol's Forge" is a reference and it's doubly neat that what was originally a dwarf name works entirely well for a Lalafell.

Book deliveries – a nod to the AST quests.

Finding the girl's doll ended with an unexpected kick in the feels when she started talking about dear "Moony"...

The usual sightseeing log unlock is a funny thing when the explorers noting them down for you have no possible way of getting to the places they're noting down for you.


THAVNAIR

I spent a fair bit of this confused whether we're supposed to find the alchemists at the Great Work concerning or not after that bizarre introduction. I wish they'd keep the Hildibrand-style theatrics and sound effects out of it though. It makes it very hard to work out where it shifts from silly to serious.

And it turns out that we got it all backwards thinking Amon was really an Ascian... well he was, in a way, but his mad-scientist villainy was entirely before he ascended to that state. Working with Xande explains where he got the idea of annihilating everything from, but the question is still whether it's genuine or an inspired performance.

Also somewhat of a neat (possibly coincidental) nod to FFIII that the Amon in the tower is only a clone – the one fought in the tower in the original game being just a reused boss model of a villain earlier in the game who actually was the "corrupting evil advisor to the king" archetype.

Varshahn has me thinking, with his dragon-red eyes, whether there might be any significance to the Allagan Royal Eye being the same colour.

Also wondering how much power Varshahn is able to channel – is Vrtra able to act with half his power directly through Varshahn, or is it inert and vulnerable if, say, a villain got in mind to acquire a dragon's eye without having to deal with the dragon?

Got to: Thavnair arc complete and returned to the Annex.

Day 3 – level 80-81

Here we all were thinking Labyrinthos was itself the well-kept secret, and then the Scions are suddenly all "oh, our amazing artificial countryside inside the mountain? Yeah that's a thing."

Some untangling of Miqo'te origins being from Meracydia vs Ilsabard – now we know they were brought to Ilsabard as Allagan slaves (from Meracydia or Eorzea?) and were trying to make their way back. Also that Raha was sent to Sharlayan because his tribe was – I'm not sure if renouncing or concealing – their involvement in the secrets of Allag. Speculatory noting that I had previously thought surely in a tribe passing down this important hereditary trait, Raha would have been tagged as nunh of the tribe to pass it along, not be allowed to go gallivanting off to wherever. So that seems to make more sense now.

Hydaelyn says that she brought the souls of Minfilia and "another" back to the Source... Emet or Elidibus? Perhaps more likely Emet as a free drifting soul, though Elidibus could also still have a part to play as directly connected to Zodiark... assuming again that he actually came out of Zodiark and/or the copy has a soul... but perhaps not.

An interesting detail talking to Alphinaud at the Annex when he's just received his sage weapons: he says he needs to imbue them with the same aether he used to form his carbuncles, and it will help to think of them as the same thing in a new form.


THE TOWER OF ZOT

"Destroy the core and the tower ceases to be, liberating the captives..." other than the fact that they're now floating in midair. That was my immediate thought when the plan was explained, and that's exactly what happened. :/

(And somehow Urianger thought this was a theory not to be brought up until the last second. Did the heat melt your brain or what?)

RADZ-AT-HAN

While the game-playing half of me set off to explore all the nooks and crannies, the story-minded half could only wonder what Estinien was making of this as he followed along. "They said to go the other way, you know... why are you jumping up on carts and roofs? Why are we weaving in and out of chicken coops?"

I don't see why the Radz-at-Han aetheryte needs to be disabled for now... unless there's some kind of plot incident there later that means we can't be allowed to teleport freely into it (and most likely arriving into the field version rather than their prepared instance).
(Next day: come to think of it, there was something in the early releases about Thavnair on fire...? Probably that, then. No sneaking into it through the back door!)

Also confirmation from Vrtra that Midgardsormr arrived across the "expanse" of space, distinct from the rift.

Day 4 – speculating

Adulting is hard and also time-consuming, so no game progress today. Also trying to progress FFIV at the same time. So let's play "map the plot" instead of... well, playing it.

(I swore I wasn't going to do this and just take the game as it comes, but now game progress is idling and my brain is not.)

82-83 I gather is Garlemald, probably involving some kind of dungeon (probably the Tower of Obvious Doom) and concluding with the trial against Anima.
84
85
86
87 – someone will probably have something horrible happen to them after the dungeon.
Radz-at-Han becomes accessible somewhere around here.
88 – I can see FATEs of this level in southwestern Labyrinthos, so that.
89 – final zone(?)
90 – definitely final zone

So I assume the Moon is 84-85 to give it a good chunk of time. Additionally that would place it analogous to the Ravel where the plot started speeding up. There are two dungeons here in FFIV: the Lair of the Father (out of context but convenient to mean Zodiark here) and the I-assume-final dungeon where the evil being sealed in the moon is held.

Alternately we go to the mysterious floating islands after Garlemald to acquire our spaceship. But they seem a bit more ethereal than that. I suppose the Garleans might have fixed up an Allagan relic or two.

It's hard to guess where we might have major setpiece duties. Shadowbringers focused around Lakeland mostly, but we don't have an equivalent hub zone. We'll probably have one on the Moon, and Thavnair might be one. (But then I've seen people in those nice Thavnairian sashed tops so I assume that's dungeon gear. 87?

We also need to go deeper into Thavnair so that might be around 86-87 leading into the city becoming accessible.

I'm going to take a slightly wild guess and predict that the depths of Labyrinthos lead down into the final zone in the aetherial sea.

Though we still need to make it to the "rift betwixt worlds" as indicated by one very reliable minstrel, and... well, the story is still a bit vague on all these layers of reality, and I don't think the sea is the same thing as the rift. But then again, if Hydaelyn has the power to transfer souls between the Source and First then it must be between the worlds but it seems like it would be more of a meeting point than a rift to be crossed.

The floating islands could also be FFIV's Feymarch, accessed through tunnels deep in the underworld and actually looking rather Amaurotine minus the skyscrapers, at least in the DS version I'm playing.

Day 5 – a little progress, ready for a big leap

Finished FFIV so I'm set to catch any references.

Attended an aetherology lesson that I'm sure we'll be reviewing in future, and preparing for the invasion of Garlemald.

The alliance* member reveal was neat. Like a get-together of most of my favourite job quest people... and Emmanellain. I think my character's bewildered face summed that up quite well. Poor Emm keeps getting almost-chances to find his place – first it was why he was taking up command of Camp Dragonhead, then the Firmament quests seemed to be retconning him into the actually really good position of... I forget the details, but sort of low-key information gathering by being a social butterfly? And now he seems to have been snapped out of that plot too. I hope this one serves him well.

* my brain wants to finish off "alliance" with "raid" and I think there actually were enough named characters there to form a full 24-man party.

That general degree of supporting characters turning up with their relevant armies is something I was hoping for more of back at the Ghimlyt Dark, too. I'm glad they've done it this time.

Also, Alisaie making a specific point of her red mage mentor being absent, so another point towards me pre-existing theory that he's going to turn up somewhere here. Though now I'm wondering if they'll find somewhere to fit in a nod to every job story somewhere or other.

I left off my game in Ala Mhigo with the "solo instance starting gate" lit up.

Day 6 (of play) – level 82

Why are we exploding perfectly good magitek units instead of stealing them and blowing up the empty base?

After Raha was worrying earlier about his ears getting cold, I am disappointed he is not wearing some kind of slightly dorky hat.

It's nice seeing all the job quest characters around the camp. And seeing what alternate outfits everyone gets.

Hints that Varis may be not quite dead yet. If so, I called it. If not... there are rumblings again of people expressing "faith" in him, which is a red flag that's been on our plot point bingo cards for a while now.

So our options would be:
1. Varis was spirited away by loyal soldiers and is semi-secretly rallying the survivors.
2. Varis survived and is still at the palace as a tempered thrall being used to manipulate the survivors somehow.
3. "Varis" is a primal simulacrum who may have been conjured up by either side, but more likely (and perhaps unwittingly) the survivors desperate for a saviour. Depending how effective the wishful-thinking summoning is, he might even think he's the real one.
4. All in at once (*adjusts tinfoil hat*), Fandaniel manipulated the survivors into summoning a primal Varis who appears to be assisting them but is actually playing into the doomsday plan somehow.

Also, the big tower of doom is the Tower of Babil. I feel like this should have been obvious if I'd thought about it.

Left off just after meeting Quintus.

At this point I got a late game spoiler...

Someone said not to look up weapons because there's one that drops from Final Boss EX.

Which would be all well and good to know in itself, except I couldn't help noticing someone in a dungeon today that seemed to be a Hydaelyn-themed-looking weapon that I figured I was better off not inspecting more closely, but still.

Well, if it's Her, it's not exactly a surprise and there's a hundred permutations of why.

Though on further thought (and after reaching the level 83 trial) it's possible they were mistaken. We normally only get the two levelling trials as EX fights to begin with, with the first trial dropping weapons, and Zodiark weapons could certainly be misconstrued as a spoiler before you get there.

Late edit: okay, nope, I forgot that I shouldn't browse what equipment people are wearing until I finish MSQ.

Edit edit: level 89 trial. That makes more sense.

Day 7 – level 83

FAR OUT THAT SOLO DUTY.

And Varis IS Anima. Did anyone have that on the bingo card or were we all too distracted by the precedent of it being Seymour's mother?

Well, I knew his death was too anticlimactic for that to be the end of it, at any rate.


"Destroy Anima and we destroy the towers!" ...please tell me we've organised people who can cast Float at each destination then. :/


To the moon! The Watcher has Fusoya's robe colours. And the real Hythlodaeus is here! I did wonder if it could be him when Hydaelyn said there was an ally waiting for us.


It's 5:20 AM and I'm queuing for the Dark Inside instead of going to bed... nice of Zodiark to just sit there watching me summon my friends for the next five minutes though.


Aaaaand the stuff has really hit the fan now.

It's one thing to know it isn't a good thing to unseal Zodiark, but the importance of him being sealed and not defeated hadn't quite sunk in.

Logging off before I review the Watcher's memories (and/or fall asleep IRL).

---


Something tangential that has bothered me a few times in this game (here with Quintus, previously with Conrad and maybe others): talking about someone's "remains" when they just mean a body. Remains implies something far less intact to me, and a less personal, detached way of speaking about them. It's the language of police and forensics, not someone grieving or consoling over a death.

I'm disappointed to find that I'm not enjoying red mage at the moment, because I really liked it before. Now it's feeling like there's less melee, which might be helped by the newly upgraded Aero/Thunder spells, but that's no help if I'm synched down to anything. And the new spell animations are horrible. What does that weird light array have to do with lightning? Just give me a lightning bolt, or let me revert to the earlier animations.

Summoner is feeling better though. Nice if I can continue on with it as my character's canon AND played job, though I was anticipating formally switching jobs at the end of MSQ. Cycling through the carbuncle summons feels clunky though.

The cars in Garlemald bug me. For a start it just feels unimaginative to give them cars just because it's a modern city, especially when they're nothing like the other vehicles we've seen them use. And the actual car designs are so plain and boxy, like a child's drawing, not consistent with how the Garleans build anything.

Day 8 – level 84

It didn't quite sink in yesterday. We killed Zodiark. All this time and leadup and he's gone just like that.

FFIV music references and Namingway names ahoy. The battle music seems strangely muddy though. Also, Campingway still owes me a pile of tents in an alternate universe.

No dungeon on the moon, it seems, so either (likely) it's the finale or maybe one of the post-game dungeons.

I picked Alphinaud for the late-night visitor – he seemed the right one for that point in the story. But then I went back and watched all the others too. I love how most of them came out of deep personal concern for us but Estinien is just "the twins decided to hang out in my room and I needed to escape".

I spy a certain Crimson Duelist in Ala Mhigo! And he's with Nashmeira from the dancer quests, who also has Scion ties and some knowledge in matters of despair manifesting as monsters.

And good work whoever picked up on probably-Zephirin still alive in Ishgard. I still find it dubious that any of the Heavens' Ward should have survived, but if that's the path they're going then yeah. I'm not sure who the other "dark burning" character was supposed to be though.

Level 85

Forgot to journal on the day.

So. Bizarre, non-aetherial... somethings.

Are souls actually aether?

Also an implication that the little black "weapon" monsters are in fact blasphemies and not... well, we didn't have a clear answer for what they were before anyway. But someone turned into one, so hmm.

Finished at being sent to the Crystarium.

Level 86-87

I feel a stable time loop coming on!!!

I burst out laughing when Hyth greeted us as his "new friend". It certainly explains how both versions of him thought to call us his new old friend.

Also, GLAMOUR.

Hallelujah, a mid-length skirt with pants that mages can equip. It's only taken us five expansions to get one.

I hope we get Meteion's outfit at some point. And make it unisex. It's cute. And all the hairstyles too – Hyth is pretty. (Emet, on the other hand, looks like a Kingdom Hearts reject. And still with the whiny voice.)

Axolotls are also cute, and I'm amused (in an "of course" way) that they're calling them by the scientific name. Perfect sense.

So Venat is an ex-Azem? I can see that seat of the Convocation having a rather high turnover and a lot of them sticking around afterwards...

Hyth and Venat are quickly working their way up the favourite characters list.

"Our journey will never end" says the lyrics of Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and it echoes to me as the others try to tell Venat she deserves to embark on her final journey.

Solo fight with Venat hurts.

"Let's warn the guy who is going to morph into a total madman so (assuming a stable loop) he does so with intent." Either that or we're going to end up using Chekhov's memory-wiping device on him. Or Emet. Or both.

Oh, and I'm going to have to rationalise that the Twinning doesn't happen until after this because Elidibus totally didn't invent a new Alexander-free time travel method. He did not. No thankyou.

If Hyth was ever going to turn out to be the original soul of anyone we knew, my money was on Raha – and while the revelation he was actually one of the sacrifices indicates that can't be the case, they seem rather similar. Archer/bard, self-deprecation up to eleven, would be front of the line to sacrifice himself for a noble cause. I think it might be the same voice actor too.

Level 87 final boss really hurts. I kept getting knocked into the deadly edges and has to redo it a few times.

And so. Memories wiped – of course they were – and the timeline is the way it always was. And they remembered us in those last moments at life's end.

Level 88-89

That scene with Moenbryda's parents was lovely.

Ready for Aitiascope (tissues on hand, hoping to see old allies) but also dreading it a little because Ishikawa has pulled this "fight ghosts of people you should feel bad about having killed" thing twice now and I've just been annoyed at the choices.

...okay, not terrible but also not that great. Disappointed by the floating weapons thing instead of actual spirits, and the (probably resulting) lack of Wilred helping us against Ilberd, which would have made a great deal more poetic sense than Louisoix. Plus it just leaves you squinting in the middle of battle trying to work out who this particular haze of light is supposed to belong to. I'm sure I failed to notice several of them.

Post-battle scene was thoroughly dragged down by Asahi interrupting it. Has he really done enough in the plot to upstage Fandaniel at this late point? I don't feel like he deserved it.

TRIAL WITH TRUSTS. At last!

...excitement somewhat tempered when I got her to like 15% health and then Alphinaud went and dropped an AOE on me. I was casting and there was clear space next to me that a human player would have moved into, but nope.

For some reason the trial location is classed as the "sea of stars", like the moon, and not the aetherial sea. I wonder if they'll fix that.

So. She is gone. And we are going to use the Mothercrystal itself as rocket fuel? I assume the planet is still going to be okay after all that?

Final thoughts before the finale:

For all that it's given us (retconned) insight into Hydaelyn's intention, we've learned nothing of why it seemed necessary at the time to create Her in opposition to Zodiark besides a very circular "because the visitor from the future said it would happen, and I need to close the loop".

It might have made more sense if Venat also got memory-wiped, independently came up with the idea of creating Hydaelyn for whatever necessary reason to combat an inherent flaw of Zodiark's design, and only upon her mortal death and transformation became re-aware of those memories.

The final scene of her walking through Amaurot and performing the Sundering must be non-literal because we have the scene of Hyth farewelling Hades (pass me the tissues please) alongside what seems to be preparations for the third wave of sacrifices that Hydaelyn was summoned to prevent, alongside Venat still apparently in mortal form. I'm really left more confused than enlightened by that part.

I'm still not feeling any sense of Hades as a friend. He's an amusing character with his snark and eternal frustration but he doesn't seem like someone I'd want to spend time with. I feel like there was a missed opportunity to show some other aspect of him. Perhaps at least more of a sense that he enjoys doing things like training the sanuwa once Hyth nudges/pushes him into it. (A bit like what Moenbryda's mother was talking about with her pushing Urianger out of his comfort zone.)

And I really do think they messed up on his character design compared to the others. Hyth and Venat look great; Hermes a bit generic but fine; Meteion gets "final boss design budget" attention probably... and then there's Hades with his scruffy hair that doesn't sit in any logical manner and can't decide whether it's parodying Xehanort or not. It's been too long since I played Kingdom Hearts to remember whether that's a character allusion worth making, but on its own merits it just looks bad (to me) in any case.

We are, of course, very very lucky that we didn't break anything by warning the others of the Final Days and everything that followed – because succeeding would at best create a split timeline we don't get to participate in once we leave Elpis, though we could carry some knowledge back to ours, but more likely we would create a split timeline and be stuck in it. The Scions would never see or hear from us again; at most Feo Ul might be able to tell them that we went into the portal and never came out. The world would be doomed and evacuated and if Meteion's distant influence pervades the great expanse then there may be no escape from it anywhere.

If I was in that situation, with Venat having undeniably deduced I was from her future, I might venture information about the Final Days and that I understand the people of this other time are about to be facing a similar threat but prevented it, so I've come back in hope of witnessing what happened at the beginning. That seems like it would establish the key facts of the matter and (if believed) make it clear that every new piece of information offered would increase the risk of causing a paradox. Ultimately it would be no less believable than the full version of the tale and give the others less reason to doubt it. (Case in point: Hades refusing to believe that he would act the way we described his future self acting.)

Also, it seems like we can't be dealing with Zenos unless we either somehow make an ally of him at this late stage, or he stows away on our starship. Either way it seems like there isn't room for it now, at least without him seriously upstaging Meteion.

And the context of the weird "sinking dream" thing has clicked (assuming I do have the voices right) – Hades has just settled in for his "nap" in the Lifestream and Hyth has promptly turned up and woken him again.

And one more thing: surely the neater solution to ferry everyone to the moon would be to make use of those conveniently paired aetherytes? We can uproot the Thavnairian one, move it to the moon, then carry around the earth-based one to different places so people can jump through. Or move the Thavnairian one to Garlemald instead and then use the lunar transmitter. Simple. Yes I'm sure they'd just concoct an excuse about it taking too long to calibrate or something, but anyway. They still should probably acknowledge it.

Maybe given another decade to work with, they would have had a whole array of paired aetherytes set up between Sharlayan and other countries ready to funnel everyone into the evacuation.

It occurs to me that the moon has been strangely under-utilised for being supposedly the feature point of the expansion. And I assume there's a fair chance the logo is going to turn out to actually resemble Meteion's nest and not be the moon at all?

Or maybe not the finale quite yet...

Final business in Sharlayan.

I'm kind of surprised they went there with "Ultima Thule" for the zone name. It wasn't that long ago that someone was saying they weren't allowed to use it as a character name.

Dinner with the Scions – dear Urianger claiming he's gotten quite good at passing for normal. You know you're odd in the best possible way. Don't ever change.

All round a bit too much "when this is over" talk. It's making me nervous.

Alphinaud and Estinien's scene was sweet.

Other characters sitting around town... worth noting that mini-Omega is indeed tagged as "Omega" and not "OMG". (Which reminds me we still apparently have to expect some kind of secondary Omega turning up.)

The list of things to happen seems to be getting long, though it is still another whole zone we need to get through... I hope I'm not going to have to scrape for EXP when the quest level goes up to 90, but we'll see.

I'm up to the day of departure but it's 5 AM so that's time to stop. Ojika Tsunjika won't let me back into the inn room so I thought I'd go sit down at the harbour to log out. (Actually I thought I'd sit with Alpha and Omega specifically, but they were gone.) At this point it occurred to me that there is a strange lack of seats around the harbour. You can't even sit on the bollards.

Final zone (part 1)

Not much time to play today, but enough.

I did not even consider that the destination might be a known place and not something entirely of Meteion's creation. We're on the Dragon Star. Wow.

I first clicked when Raha was saying the patterns on the fort looked familiar, and after a few guesses settled on it resembling Omega's carapace (though has to think longer about why Raha might know it – just from his General Allagan knowledge, probably... ah no, I say the next day, of course he's familiar with it from the Future Ironworks). Then I looked around and realised the planet has the same green jets as the O10 arena planet, even if the rest is prettymuch obliterated.

Also, Thancred can't be quite dead yet. His apparent demise was far too undramatic, and we still need him to be our second trust tank in the finale, right?

(That said, there's a non-zero chance that Hades is going to turn up again, in which case and as long as we don't lose Raha along the way we'd have two tanks without him, but still.


Side thought on primals to maybe be expanded later: do they have a consistent soul? (See: Garuda's indignance at doing what this incarnation of her was summoned to do.) Also was Ramuh there? I think I need to look at his prophecy stuff again...

Unto the end

So this is definitely one of those sacrifice gauntlet thingies where everyone turns out okay at the end, right? ...right?

I like how the background music picked up as the way forward opens.

I feel like this place should have just taken notes from Kingdom Hearts' "End of the World" and been called Terminus. That's what it feels like it should be called.

Also I think the devs have been playing Journey. It was already on my mind from the look of the kite-wisps over the final boss in Vanaspati, but now we have desert-dwelling robed creatures being all philosophical... if rather more grim about it.

Also, the Ea explaining Big Bang theory and the eventual heat death of the universe... only something to dread if you made yourselves immortal enough to still be around when it happens, really.

"Stigma" not Sigma? I bet the voice actor read it wrong and they had to "fix" it by changing all the text references.

Raha has read the reports of our fight with Omega so much he has it memorised... of course he has.

...

And here I am queuing for the Final Day.

I am very disappointed that it is not a trust trial.

I am even more disappointed that I have freaking Zenos carrying me to battle and not my friends.

...

Gods be freaking good, Zenos. You did not deserve to be here now. You did not earn this.

And... a punching match? Is that really the best we could do to conclude this thing?

Aurelie has never rightly been the opponent that Zenos sees in the generic-WoL, and this was absolutely not her finale.

Everything up to confronting Meteion before the final dungeon was perfect, final dungeon was disjointed overall though the last zone was pretty, then it all went off the rails once we sent the Scions away. It shouldn't have happened. We were supposed to be there together.

I'm feeling cheated of a climax right now.



I'm glad everyone is in one piece though. Will do post-game dungeons tomorrow.

Starting to sift through discussions (just in FC Discord so far) and saw a suggestion that it was Elidibus in the Pandaemonium teaser? That would make sense. And more generally, Pandaemonium being located in Elpis explains a lot of the vagueness and mystery about how it could work – and how it could be involving Lahabrea again.

In light of this, I wonder if the half-sigil could could be the mark of a retired Convocation member? That was my own thought on the possible identity of the white-robed person. We're told that retired members wear white like Elidibus, so either is a candidate.

Misc non-spoilery thoughts:

The "escort missions" are fine but really should have had an active help pop-up at the first one explaining the mechanics, instead of three pages of instructions every time someone joins us. It makes it jarring instead of natural.

Attacks are feeling blindingly flashy at this point. I have party effects on "limited" and just my own summoning spells make the battle feel like a haze of light. But I don't want to turn it down to nothing.

The inn room just continues the main annex BGM instead of that dreadful twinkly inn room music. I wish they did this everywhere.

Then again, they just moved the twinkly music out into the field in Labyrinthos.

The battle music is very good though. I'm glad to be back away from vocal tracks for every boss fight, and the new midboss music is great.

---

And once more with clarity as I replay... though I forgot to take notes from the start.

Montechaigne specifically notes that it's unknown whether the memory loss in the Seventh Calamity was accidental or a deliberate act. Seems an odd thing to raise if not relevant. Could Louisoix have done it deliberately in the same vein as instructing us to keep the events at the Binding Coil secret?

Job quest characters in the Ilsabard Contingent don't get any lines if you haven't done the quests. They're there but you can't interact with them. Doubly odd then that Alberic seems to talk as if you don't know him... I thought a quest flag was missing and I was getting the "quest not done" script.

Alisaie is really emphasising the fact that X'rhun Tia isn't here, so in hindsight it's weird that he never turned up. I can only assume he's going to make an appearance in the patch quests at some point.

I find it incredibly hard to take Emmanellain seriously when voiced. Obviously he's not really serious to begin with, but he just sounds ridiculous and cartoonish even in a serious situation like battle.

It's noted that the ore in the anti-tempering radios comes from Corvos.

Even the "not tempered" people are praising the Emperor and calling for deliverance and the nation's reverse... still somewhat tempered, or just lifelong conditioning?

Jullus is kind of shouty, even in scenes where he should talk more softly.

What's with the cryptic "ask the iyl" instruction we pass to the soldiers? From the way they react it's like they're going to transform into monsters or something, not just prepare to fight.

"In From the Cold" is such a bizarre plot detour in hindsight. Adds nothing new except establishing Anima is Varis and giving Zenos a rant that could have happened elsewhere, and all the circumstances of the body switch reverse without a hint of consequence. Is it an orphaned plotline from some early draft that they'd already put work into? Or are they planning to bring the mind-switching tech back into the story somewhere later?

I think the music for the Zodiark fight is the first time we hear the "Song of Hope" leitmotif. Appropriate for Hermes.

The Watcher says that Hydaelyn sundered herself as well as Zodiark. That doesn't sound right. Or does that mean we can still track her down in the shards? That seems like a bit of a weak idea after this grand finale.

The Watcher also says he is "entrusted with the memories of an acquaintance long dead, but not forgotten". Surely that has to be a plot point somewhere. It might tie into Pandæmonium eventually.

[radhaz]

Moose-sensei, that opening post pretty much sums up my feelings for this game. It's history is like no other game ever.

[aveyond-dreams]

Please get rid of Thancred. That is all.

[Cleretic]

My prediction is that the general opinions about the expansion will include 'incorrect amount of Emet-Selch'.

I don't know if it's too much or too little Emet-Selch just yet, but I can guarantee that no matter how much Emet-Selch is in the story, it will be considered incorrect.

[Fenral]

Got 90k'd in the middle of a big scene but...

Holy mother of arc welding, Batman. Of all the people to bring back now. But now we know why Ishikawa kept G'raha around...

Level 82-3 zone:

This is the first we've heard of Corvos, right? G'raha's profile in EE1 just says southern Ilsabard, and this is also the first mention of his clan in relation to House Darnus, which feels like it should have been brought up back in 2.X when people where already drawing obvious connections.

But apparently to Garleans, said region is the promised land, and Sharlayan likes it enough to want to copy it's climate This would probably be more impactful if Ilsabard wasn't a giant cloud on official maps.

AND I'm really not sure how I feel about the G'raha backstory retcons overall. Right now it seems like he's being set up for (IMO) the worst possible resolution to his character, and Ishikawa doesn't work that way (or, hasn't since 2.5) so I'm holding out for a twist.

Level 83-4 Zone:

So, that was a thing that just happened. Expac is going off the rails!

Lopoorits are the beast tribe of... Hydaelyn Herself? I don't think anyone would have put money on that.

There's probably no Hummingway because Nero killed him back in 2.0.

Level 85:

Things are getting very Berserk in here. This is basically Falconia, with the laws of reality going to s*kupo*t and strong leadership being the only salvation.

I had a feeling from it's last words that the Blasphemy was that merchant from the level 80 quests. Ouch.

And more Corvos mentions. If this isn't about to be a full zone, why do they keep mentioning it?

Level 85-6 zone:

Okay, I remembered the Zeal artwork was a zone we hadn't accounted for yet, but was not expecting actual Chrono Trigger. With Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus as our tagalong NPCs because why the hell not. That's some final season YOLO right there.

Meteion is... that female voice we heard along with the Sound after Zodiark bought it. Almost positive, but this is where I took a sleep break, so we'll see.

FINISHED! But I have been up for 24 hours and will need sleep to organize my thoughts. Leaving the above for now so people can follow my insanity.


87 dungeon:

First of all, being able to run a Trust dungeon with Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, and Hydaelyn is some A+ wish fulfillment. We had no reason to expect anything like it even in our most indulgent fantasies.

Second, as a fellow bleeding heart, I adore Hermes. Sure, he's a bit of a strawman at times, but the way he feels alienated by his grief, like's he's wrong for feeling sadness where others don't, really brings me back to my 2.5 self. I think he's the first antagonist we've gotten whose feelings felt like my own to such an extent, though his fall into despair is sad to watch.

Venat is fantastic. She addresses basically every criticism ever leveled at Hydaelyn, while also giving us insight into the seat of "Azem" without doing anything that might constrain the player's own understanding of their WoL and past self. Her monologue set to "Answers" was likewise chilling. As a main theme for the entire saga it's a bit grim (not like "Footsteps" is better), but contextualized as an anthem of Hydaelyn Herself, it's perfect.

Meteion is a tragic victim of conservation of detail, but I like how we're given the option to assume she's important ahead of any direct exposition. The WoL has played JRPGs before. Even though she comes out of left field (or FF11, to be more accurate), she's exactly the kind of omipotent avatar of nihilism that marks a Final Fantasy finale.

And the time loop. Pure insanity.

88-89 zone:

This is filler. Also a curtain call for basically everyone we've ever met, but it needed to happen.

Tataru crafting the AF gear this time around is great.

The final meetings with everyone as they discuss the future a death flag like it's going out of style. If G'raha absolutely must be paired off with someone because certain kinds of people don't like even the tiniest insinuation that he could see the WoL that way, I would still rather he get with Alisaie than some new random character or a catgirl harem, even though they are still 8 years apart. That said, the way basically every other sentence out of his mouth sounds like a thinly-veiled proposal continues to sustain me in these dark times. Companion romances when?

I'm glad Urianger finally got his closure on Moenbryda, even though there was quite a bit of meandering, and the search radius on the quest was entirely too big.

Level 90 zone:

Welp, Yoshida did it. He got me praying to Hydaelyn.

That dread from 2.5, that every single overlord kill after Nabriales would come at the cost of a companion's life, it finally came back in full force. That Thancred could just be gone, and for ever "victory" after to end with one more companion erased, was actually too much. Even thinking logically, like "what about the teleporters, or that crystal, or the Trusts for the 90 dungeon" stopped help as soon as Y'shtola told me that I couldn't use Hydaelyn's gift to bring them back. (Though it was nice that she finally grew a proper personality in her final moments.

And then it was G'raha's turn, and I started procrastinating. I wasn't sure if I was lying when I agreed to one more promise, because I needed it, too. And then it happened and I went completely numb. I needed to believe that Hydaelyn wouldn't have tested us all and given me that gift just so I could sacrifice my companions one last time for the "greater" good. So I prayed.

And guess what?

That really specifically useless detail from that early aetherophysics lecture was a plant. And the payoff was Emet-Selch doing what he always does, making everything better just by being there, and Hydaelyn's last gift could finally be used the way it needed to be used. But gods that hurt. That is something a story is allowed to do once and only once, and they pulled it off, but please, Yoshida, don't pull anything like that again.


And okay, who the hell decided to name that quest "You're Not Alone," after a certain song/moment from FFIX that is probably still one of the best low->high moments in the series? It's mean. Cruel and manipulative, I tell you. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be reassuring or ironic.

(I rewatched later, and the second option in G'raha's scene does kind of play Ishikawa's hand early, like, "no really, the writers wouldn't do that," but some masochistic part of me is still glad I chose to believe, even as it hurt more in the moment.)

Final dungeon and boss:

Even if it feels like a retread of Shadowbringers' final dungeon, these two are kind of a duology, so I'll allow it. (I got the minion on my story clear, so I guess that prayer was answered, too.)

The Endsinger is a great final boss design. I like how they've started leaning into that Yoshitaka Amano look for major bosses. The lead-in cutscene was intense, and in my pettiness I enjoyed the look on Alisaie's face as the teleporter button was pressed. Sacrificing myself for my companions (and having them hate it) is one more item off my FFXIV bucket list.

The Shinryu save didn't come completely out of nowhere, at least, but by the time it was happening, I was like "wait, this is what they wanted to do with Zenos?"

The post-boss grudge match was great. Really, the one thing I wanted from Zenos, and we got it.

And then the finale, the world is saved, and the Scions' go their separate ways, for now. Probably setting up a round of lower stakes, more intimate adventures following smaller groups of companions for a bit. If this is the new status quo that we'll return to after each new adventure, I can get behind that.