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.