So overall, I very much enjoyed Endwalker. For as much crap as I talk here on the forum, and as combative as I can be about certain characters and plot points and philosophical conundrums brought about by them, I'm not hard to please. The action, excitment, MUSIC, misdirection, and unique tomfoolery was all very much enjoyed. Even if some bits of it(stealth missions) caused veins to bulge in my temples and forehead.
That said, there was a constant feeling where it felt as though the writers themselves were slapping me in the face sort of like, "Yeah, it's happening like this. Deal with it." Elements most strong in this feeling were the almost immediate conflation with the Blessing of Light and the Echo. I guess it was supposed to draw our attention to the fact that we have it, but it seemed to just say that the cast of Scions still don't distinguish between it and the Echo/Resonance... they referred to Fordola and Arenvald as having it when as far as we know, they don't. The time travel for fan service. The nothingburger fake drama that turned out to be every arc in Sharlayan. I could go further into this, but idk, it'll become way too much of a tangent.
Endwalker's misdirection certainly worked on me. By letting me actually be pointed towards Venat on the boat right away, I was primed to think that they might actually go with, "Hydaelyn Bad." Then there was the female voice on the moon after killing Zodiark and Fandaniel(which turned out to be Meteion). So when they brought it back around to the way they decided to portray her, I definitely got some mental whiplash that I'm not quite over. Mainly I guess because they didn't go with, "Hydaelyn Good." They went with, "Hydaelyn is Self-Righteous, but she's also like, 110% RIGHT. Hand wave all your doubts now, feeble willed perfection seeker." Of course, they didn't do that with her character alone, they did it by proxy with the Scions and the theming in Ultima Thule and The Dead Ends. First you get the Scions, namely Y'shtola, saying that, "Well I know Hydaelyn herself said that what she did wasn't right, just necessary, but it's serving noble ends, so she was right." basically. Then you get everything else.
The idea presented half a dozen times that the pursuit of perfection always leads to a dead end or bad end or desire for the end. Of course, the crucial missing piece to counterbalance that is the fact that you could learn more than, "Don't pursue perfection." You could instead learn, "Watch out for these pitfalls." Of course, that would be a much harder story for the writers to tell, because they'd actually have to envision a world that's perfect and then articulate it, and we being imperfect as we are, wouldn't be able to digest it, even if they could write it. So instead they opt to say that what Hydaelyn did was a bold move, directing the course of her entire planet, forcing her personal belief onto everyone via painful soul dispersion. Leaving it to us to question it outside of and beyond the narrative if that's actually bold at all, since it essentially robs the people of their will to choose for themselves their own outcome. I'm sure they're at least aware that she eventually became for the Sundered what Zodiark was for the Unsundered. A font of inspiration and belief, a being to stake your life on. The more she tried to be different, the more she proved herself the same.
Winding back a bit, the intro split session that was expected came to pass typically for Thavnair with a little Fandaniel twist. I like what they did with him. For Sharlayan... I can say I got jebaited yet again. Them laying Labyrinthos out as a big deal but not like... actually a big deal right away really sent me spinning. I still held onto the idea that Hydaelyn was lying in their basement, and that sorta worked out to be true-ish. I wasn't sure if it was going to be the 87~89 arc or the 89~90 arc after we got our wrist slap from the fake drama Forum. Ameliance's segment was welcome. Try as they might to paint Fourchenault as a good dad who just wants what's best for his kids while letting them live their lives didn't land with me. He just felt entirely inconsistent as a character to me. Just a mouthpiece for minor/fake drama.
The Garlemald contingent was pretty dang cool. I was surprised they went with so many side quest characters that have more or less been collecting dust on the shelf. In some ways it was a great idea, because they could have literally done anything they wanted to with those characters, since there's not a lot of strong attachment to them. On the other hand it was bad, because there was little to no attachment to them. Garlemald itself was appropriately bleak, and many of the sidequests and MSQs there presented me with ideas I've seen espoused on our forum come to life. The prideful suicide seemed more or less appropriate for that character. The new model radios preventing Tempering had my head spinning with an idea of an AU where the Garleans form a Scion-like organization and combat primals in teams with their radios. I'm sure the Garlean roleplayers got so much meat this expansion that they were quite happy for the possibilities while simultaneously being appalled at only getting ruins. Babil was cool, and Anima was kind of epic for a dungeon boss. We got more FFIV references. I also certainly would have never predicted that Fandaniel's plan was literally to charge a super laser and shoot Zodiark's prison with it. Also every time Hydaelyn piloted Krile, it made me wonder why she didn't pilot us instead.
So we go to the moon by the way of the Babil teleporter. A long awaited what-if I'd always thought since playing FFIV for the first time finally comes true "10" entries into the series later. Neat! The watcher or whatever on the moon was also not what I expected, nor did I expect the concept crystals he had to just be Zodiark containment logs. Fandaniel proves to be a delight again, fulfilling many a person's wish by fucking over Zenos. Seven times Rejoined Zodiark seemed pretty together, at least physically. I left that trial feeling like my mind was blown, and of course, there was the possibility of, "Hydaelyn Bad" looming form the female voicing, "Finally..."
The Loporrit section slowed things down waaaay too much, especially as someone doing side quests, and this was also when I had queue issues, so it took me an extra day just to get past all of that and move back onto Thavnair Part 2: Frenetic Boogaloo.
Thavnair Part 2 was where all of the feels really hit me. The people of Radz-at-Han fighting for survival, whole families being consumed by despair and turning into Blasphemies. Vrtra at first being unwilling to kill them letting them beat on him, bite him in Vanaspati. The scene at Maya's Well. The baby. I got choked up. This is the only actual part of Endwalker that has any teeth. Of course, sidequests here felt terrible with what had just happened. Doing them all while the sky was still blood red seemed very off for some of them, and I wish they'd let them not appear till post 6.0 final boss. I put off going to that dinner with the Scions for a long time... oh hey another chance to have a Cold One. Gonna need that stiff drink after watching that poor woman get her neck wrenched in the throw like that.
So onwards! Back to the past. Apparently. For Fan Service R Us. And godsdamned is it beautiful. Elpis is gorgeous, and the fan service was staggering. I know most folks are Emet-selch obsessed, but they really fed us a big heaping helping Venat Pie. I actually wasn't pleased to learn that our Azem was her protégé. Hand picked successor or whatever. When that happened, I knew they were going for a heavy handed layer up layer of just how good, right, and farsighted Hydaelyn was going to be. Course we got another yucky time loop, but honestly time travel doesn't bother me at all, so I didn't much care about that. I care more about why the hell didn't Hades summon his Grani and swing him and Hyth out with us. Yes, yes, narrative cohesion, but this "review" is somewhat talking outside of and beyond the narrative. As much as they tried to get away with this jaunt in the past it just begs so many questions. Such as, "If Hermes could create a fleet of Entelechies that could manipulate Dynamis, then why couldn't other Ancients create different Entelechies that could do the same, and then stop her?
Though my favorite thing is that the mystery emotion energy is Dynamis and it's not more powerful than aether, it's quantity over quality, making up 68.3% of the universe according to Hermes. But the fact that they chose the name Dynamis is hilarious to me, an FFXI vet, because that was the dark dream world of Raogrimm's soul, and it was often colloquially referred to as Die-namis by players, due to how easy it was to wipe even large 30+ people groups in its original iteration. So having the apocalypse fueled by it was like a great in joke for me.
Of course, the revelation of this big energy, and all of the plot aspects tied to it, stuff like, "Oh the Sundering was good actually because it lets us manipulate Dynamis unwittingly, and that's how we transcend our limits! -citation needed- causes all sorts of issues with gameplay vs. narrative but also like, narrative vs. narrative. Gameplay wise we never use any new skills that are explicitly Dynamis manipulation. Narrative wise a lot of people are harping on about how if we'd never been sundered then we couldn't manipulate it... but the Unsundered Hermes was able to manipulate it well enough along with creation magicks to create a cast of beings composed primarily of it that could manipulate it willingly and expertly so they could sustain themselves in the sea of stars. I think they didn't really think it through when they conceived it as a part of the story. Oh well, they tried I guess. An attempt was made, and I got a kick out of it.
Actually can't remember the order of events right off hand. Instanced battles as Alisaie and yourself in Garlemald trying to protect the Thavnairian refugees from Final Days phenomenon in front of Fourchenault with a little Zenos panache at the end was kinda cool. Instantly knew what Alisaie said bugged him.
Labyrinthos part 2 was pretty meh. And also riddled with side quests that also seemed to be out place and pace with the MSQ. Feels for Urianger and Moenbryda's parents, a tinge. It's hard to care about the parents of a minor character who was there for a patch and a half, and has been in the grave since 2015. They used her for Urianger character development. I guess that's one way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Oof.
Aetherial Sea dungeon was cool. The character call backs there were more welcome. The Garlean souls in there as the first two bosses were also a nice surprise. Freaking Shiva, wow! Asahi's bit? I don't think he deserved it, honestly.
Ok, so! An 8 player trial with Trusts! Interesting. Dynamic. Epic feeling but boring. I did it with Trusts just to see how it'd be. I lost one of my lives. I was on PLD. Also just weird that Hydaelyn kept a guesstimate epic level of power stored up just for that... which was supposedly a true test to see if we were strong enough to fight Meteion, but like... there's just several disconnects there. I thought the devs were on record saying that Zodiark was stronger than her. Supposedly she Sundered herself too, I thought? Idk. I feel like they really phoned it in with Hydaelyn and really really road the, "She was the better way, deal with it." high that they had built up to by this point and they road it hard. And they also copped out on Tempering. Just an Ascian machination. Not part of original summoning/creation at all. Huh. Then how did they make it be?
Epic spaceship ride quickly devolves into nightmare fuel. Thancred almost pulls off a meaningful sacrifice. My gut actually wrenched because I'd realized what had happened before the story spelled it out for me. But then no one in the story so much as batted an eye really, and Estinien "died" next almost immediately. So I wore a frowny face cause I knew it was about to be fake drama fake death procession for literally everyone, and then Y'shtola flipped me off by mentioning the Azem stone with Hydaelyn's charm which I'd already figured on. Ultima Thule was beautiful though. I enjoyed getting the ideas about trip to Dragonstar/Omega Star nixxed, but at least getting to see more about them. Side quests were more at pace with less of them.
The Ea were mildly interesting, and also made me think either the localizer or the writer for that section watched the episode of X-Files, "Eve." (Exsanguination is a key bead in its beginning).
Fan Service for flowers. It was ok I guess. At this point I was ready for anything, and expected more and more emotional window dressing. Kudos to Emet for calling Hydaelyn's magic filthy.
The real treat was the dungeon though. It had some pretty on the nose real world commentary with the first two sections. Blaming the plague victims for the plague itself etc. Two sides in a war referring to themselves as Freedom Fighters and Peacekeepers lol. The music in The Dead Ends is one of my favorite tracks in the game now. The final civ was more supposed to mirror our Ancients' civ. Tallish robed masked individuals just waiting to be extinguished because their lives were so perfect that existence become synonymous with insipid. A beast with a human face delivers the result. Oh look, it also has wings. *glares at Meteion* Hmmm. Theming.
Final fight, EPIC phew! Riding on Zenos-Ryu, YEEHAW! Dynamis commentary? Not necessarily about the Limit Break. Just might be about how we're opposing her at all. She's not only got like 108 dead planets' worth of info/knowledge/power, but has 12,000 years of torment etc. going on etc.
Final final fight? A TEST OF MY RELFEXES! Actually, stupid easy. I loved it though. It was anime as hell, and it's the truth that there is more to the WoL and the player than just saving the world and being a hero. It also had a smidge of commentary inherent in saying that point blank. Being more than just a hero and even being a hero comes with baggage, baggage like Zenos. He could be dead, but he's probably just having a nap.
10/10 would Endwalk again. My LP is proceeding apace, but limited due to queue issues still, life issues, and trying to get ready/geared up issues for raid issues. Also totally ready to argue ad infinitum about things I'm powerless to change within and beyond but related to the narrative.
引用元：Rosenstrauch
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