Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

[HyoMinPark]

I’ve spent a while trying to compile my full thoughts on Endwalker’s story—and after thinking about it, I can’t rank it above Shadowbringers, personally.

There were some really good moments that I enjoyed in the MSQ—I liked Garlemald (minus the body-swapping part); I liked Elpis; I loved Ultima Thule—but there were others that just dragged on unnecessarily. The Moon, for example. I was super excited when we reached it (even though I thought it was a little bit early—I had expected it to be one of the later zones, though not the final zone)—and I thought it was relatively good up until we met the Loporitts. Then it just…dragged. On and on and on. By the time my friend and I finished, we were ready to get off the Moon and never return. In general, I was disappointed in the Loporitts; they seemed to overstay their welcome for me. And the writers tried to use them as comic relief during the really heavy moments that I found to be in bad taste. Like the “Puddingway zombie walk searching for pudding” crap that happened during our return to Garlemald. We’re having a very serious moment, and then that happened. Really jerked me out of the scene/mood; and I disliked it immensely.

I also really hate the insinuation that the bunnies and Omicrons are going to turn Nekropolis into a cafe. Like, seriously? I think that’s a zone that could just be left as is: a tribute to the dead world. Never mind the logistics of having a cafe at the edge of the universe that the general populace would not be privy to, but whatever. It just felt as if they were making too light of a very emotionally heavy thing, and I’m not really a fan of that kind of writing.

Perhaps I’m biased because I thought our time in Nekropolis was extremely heavy and emotional for our character—from the arrival to Alphinaud and Alisaie’s “sacrifice” to our walk listening to the voices from our past (I really enjoyed that—I had a lot of fun picking out the people that spoke to us there). I think it should be left as-is, and not turned into some cafe or whatever the heck.

Other points of the story grinding to a snail’s pace was the second half of Labyrinthos and the first time we visited Thavnair. I was to the point of skimming with those because they just felt like they went on for too long. There were also some things that they added into the story that made no sense to me… like after the 89 dungeon where we’re talking to Amon, and he starts having this sort of crisis with his beliefs and if the answer to his question of the meaning of existence is the one he really wanted…and then Asahi just comes out of nowhere and is like “bruh you hijacked my body AND USED IT AGAINST ZENOS SAMA HOW DARE YOU INTO THE DEPTHS OF OBLIVION AND DESPAIR YOU GO”. That scene literally made no sense to me when he showed up, and I just kind sat there afterwards like “….dafuq just happened…?”

Overall, there were a lot of pacing issues and questionable moments with Endwalker’s story. And the use of comic relief was not well placed, in my opinion. I honestly don’t mind stories that are on the darker side—and I feel like it would have made a lot of sense for this expansion, given the plot of the story. That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the light-heartedness in Elpis—our endgame was never really far from our minds while we were there. But I didn’t like the random pieces like the Puddingway example I mentioned above. Way to ruin a scene. That’s just too jarring, and it almost implies that the writers thought their audience wouldn’t be able to handle all the “seriousness”, so they threw that in there “to make them feel better”. I don’t know—I think there are better ways to cut into the Doom and Gloom.

I think the Final Days were also underused. It affected two zones and…that was it. I really would have liked to have seen it in all the zones. Kind of like the Everlasting Light, and maybe it gets extinguished after we succeed in Ultima Thule. But, nope. It was kind of one-two-done thing. Disappointing. The writers even threw in two scenes of people being affected in Ala Mhigo and Ishgard by the despair that turns them into blasphemies….and then nothing became of that. It wasn’t mentioned or revisited. It felt almost as if something was planned for the other regions/city-states, and then cut.

I was disappointed with the direction they went with making Hydaelyn all good—despite knowing that that was likely where the writers would go with her. I preferred the more morally gray aspect, and appreciated that we could tell Venat on the ship to Sharlayan that we didn’t trust her. But that was all kind of thrown out the window—and kind of undermined Shadowbringers in a way. I liked Venat’s character—I feel like my bias there was the only saving grace for the cop out with Hydaelyn.

I didn’t like that none of the Scions died during our time in the Final Zone. It really diminished their “sacrifices” in Ultima Thule when Y’shtola was basically like “Yeah you can summon us back with Azem’s crystal, but don’t do that!” I knew then that none of them were really dead; and, quite frankly, it irritated me. I’m tired of the cop outs with them—Y’shtola “dies” literally every expansion, and then comes back a few quests later. It just cheap feeling. And this is supposed to be a high-stakes game, but none of the main band of heroes paid any high-stakes costs. Idk.

And, once again, Zenos did jack all for not the first time. Fandaniel/Hermès and Meteion/Endsinger made for far more interesting and worthy villains (I mean, all Zenos could do when Fandaniel fell into Zodiark’s aether pit was the Surprise Pikachu emote). His involvement at the end with Endsinger was too deus ex machina for me—I’m not really a fan of that kind of plot device. While it was kind of cool to be fighting on his back and I appreciated the scene of my character jumping onto his back, he just kind of butted in—and then hung around and completely ruined the emotional catharsis of Meteion’s rebirth/redemption/whatever you want to call it with his “So, uh…wanna fight now?” crap. The only redeeming quality of that was seeing my character haymaker him right in his stupid face (even if it would have been WAY out of character for her). But even so, I disliked the illusion of “you can say no!”, but the game literally doesn’t let you. If it had been up to me, I would have left his butt there for all of eternity; and he could continue his brooding.

Though, I was also disappointed that Zodiark mostly ended up being a chump after we spent so much time building him up as this Big Bad. Just another disappointment and lost potential in the story.



All in all, I wouldn’t say that I hated Endwalker; but it’s not my favorite expansion. I can’t definitively rank it above Shadowbringers, which effectively had me hooked the entire way through. Endwalker had too many points were I felt it was just time to move on, but nope! Gotta do just a few more pointless quests! It gave the impression that things weren’t entirely flushed out—and I wonder if that’s the produce of the developers wanting this storyline wrapped up in 6.0 versus 6.3, or even 7.0.

My expansion rankings in terms of story are:

Shadowbringers
Heavensward
Endwalker (only slightly below HW)
Stormblood
A Realm Reborn

All of the above are reasons why I couldn’t give Endwalker a higher ranking—even if I had been rooting for it to surpass Shadowbringers the entire time. I will eagerly await the 6.x patches; I’m interested to know where the writers will take the story from here. I’m also excited to see what the Pandaemonium story will bring. So maybe it will rise when that’s all said and done.

[Coronal]

EW disappointed me. I honestly felt that there was a directive somewhere saying 'pad the time as much as you can. Small maps, long tireless walks/talk quests that were entirely unnecessary.

The last zone if you didn't do the cutscenes ( I did them on my main but not on my 3 alts so I went through the MSQ 4 times) was less than 20 mins long IF you don't count that horrible 6-7 min walk before the end.

I'm a crafter/gatherer and I just got my main gathering skills up to 90. I was going to get the blue scrip gear to replace Landkings and now there are 3 sets, one for each. There are different sets for each craft profession.

[Tsukino]

I think the Final Days were also underused. It affected two zones and…that was it. I really would have liked to have seen it in all the zones. Kind of like the Everlasting Light, and maybe it gets extinguished after we succeed in Ultima Thule. But, nope. It was kind of one-two-done thing. Disappointing. The writers even threw in two scenes of people being affected in Ala Mhigo and Ishgard by the despair that turns them into blasphemies….and then nothing became of that. It wasn’t mentioned or revisited. It felt almost as if something was planned for the other regions/city-states, and then cut.

Do the role quests, they follow up on this happening in both of those places as well as Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Doma. I totally disagree with everyone saying the "Final Days" weren't there for long enough though, when we had one of only six dungeons devoted to it (two would have been horrible, especially considering we already did Amaurot) and the part that I thought dragged on the second most (next to Labyrinthos) in Thavnair chasing Matsya around for like an hour. It more than served its purpose of saying "it's going down right now, so make some decisions" in the scheme of the story.

Though, I was also disappointed that Zodiark mostly ended up being a chump after we spent so much time building him up as this Big Bad. Just another disappointment and lost potential in the story.

I also don't get this one at all. Zodiark is only half complete. All the ascians who really cared about bringing him back and were capable of doing so are already gone. Fandaniel's entire plan is to have Zodiark be destroyed to resume the calamity. None of this leads to Zodiark as the final boss; that ship sailed during Shadowbringers quite obviously.


I mostly agree with the rest that I didn't quote though. Pacing wasn't any worse than any of the other expansions (why does no one remember how awful the miners in Shadowbringers were, at the exact same point in the story as Labyrinthos no less?) but it's definitely not ideal either. Zenos sucks and contributes nothing to the story as usual. I don't hate the Scions' sacrifice scenes for the same reason as everyone else, but it definitely feels like they've gone through all the development they need and those scenes makes it obvious. And yeah, their sense of comedic timing overall is not great, though it did make a Hythlodaeus line particularly funny by accident; I'd prefer if they just kept that stuff to big side stories like Hildebrand/Gilgamesh/etc.

Heavensward sucked though, I will never understand how anyone rates it higher than anything.

[HyoMinPark]

Do the role quests, they follow up on this happening in both of those places as well as Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Doma. I totally disagree with everyone saying the "Final Days" weren't there for long enough though, when we had one of only six dungeons devoted to it (two would have been horrible, especially considering we already did Amaurot) and the part that I thought dragged on the second most (next to Labyrinthos) in Thavnair chasing Matsya around for like an hour. It more than served its purpose of saying "it's going down right now, so make some decisions" in the scheme of the story.

Somehow I doubt the role quests will really fulfill what I was talking about here: the Final Days were built up through 5.4 and 5.5, through all the trailers, the PLLs—there was a lot of build up for something that, honestly, occurred fairly late in the story (level 84/85), and only affected two zones DESPITE the writers deliberately showing its effects in both Ishgard and Ala Mhigo. But the latter two locations were just completely dropped in terms of MSQ—and, as I said, it gave me the impression that more had been planned for the Final Days than what actually made the final cut.

If you want to bring up dungeons, though—compare to Shadowbringers: we had 5 dungeons that existed to purge the Everlasting Light from Norvrandt. 5 that existed to deal with sin eaters and Lightwardens. We get one in Endwalker to deal with the end of our world. As I said, feels like more was planned and then dropped for the sake of completing the story by the end of 6.0. And that just added to why I said it felt rushed and underused.

I also don't get this one at all. Zodiark is only half complete. All the ascians who really cared about bringing him back and were capable of doing so are already gone. Fandaniel's entire plan is to have Zodiark be destroyed to resume the calamity. None of this leads to Zodiark as the final boss; that ship sailed during Shadowbringers quite obviously.

I never said I expected him to be the final boss. That doesn’t mean I wanted him to be forgettable though—because, quite frankly, he is. We’ve spent years hearing about the guy, and incomplete or no, we whack at him for a few minutes and then he poofs. And we basically just move on and barely discuss him from that point.

Heavensward sucked though, I will never understand how anyone rates it higher than anything.

I mean, you’re entitled to your opinion—though I’d definitely say you’re in a minority here with it. But I fail to see what this little quip has to do with the rest of my post.

[Tsukino]

Somehow I doubt the role quests will really fulfill what I was talking about here: the Final Days were built up through 5.4 and 5.5, through all the trailers, the PLLs—there was a lot of build up for something that, honestly, occurred fairly late in the story (level 84/85), and only affected two zones DESPITE the writers deliberately showing its effects in both Ishgard and Ala Mhigo. But the latter two locations were just completely dropped—and, as I said, it gave me the impression that more had been planned for the Final Days that what actually made the final cut.

Oh, no, they won't change your mind, I don't think they're very good really. I was just pointing out that the ones in Ala Mhigo and Ishgard aren't dropped, they're in the role quests. I didn't mean to suggest that those role quests are good.

As for Zodiark, that's fair, I just don't know what they could have done with him so weakened and devoid of ascian support as he was at this point. Like I said above, hopefully more information on Elidibus might give more insight into Zodiark than the story allowed for.

The thing about Heavensward was just my not-funny way of finalizing all the things I listed about your full opinion, it doesn't mean anything except I thought Heavensward was dumb.

[HyoMinPark]

Oh, no, they won't change your mind, I don't think they're very good really. I was just pointing out that the ones in Ala Mhigo and Ishgard aren't dropped, they're in the role quests. I didn't mean to suggest that those role quests are good.

I elaborated a bit more to mention how they were kind of dropped out of the MSQ. Idk. I guess it was meant to be a role quest teaser, but it felt a bit hollow. Tbh, I forgot about the role quests since they were also brought up so late. Kind of also seemed like an afterthought, but maybe because they’re less integrated in the backstory compared to the ones in ShB with the Cardinal Virtues.

As for Zodiark, that's fair, I just don't know what they could have done with him so weakened and devoid of ascian support as he was at this point. Like I said above, hopefully more information on Elidibus might give more insight into Zodiark than the story allowed for.

I do hope we get more, since I feel like we were more so fighting Fandaniel during the trial versus Zodiark himself. And I just didn’t like how forgettable he ended up feeling, being that he was built up for so long as a main antagonist to our character and their cause. I’d like him to have more to him, so maybe I’ll get that from Pandaemonium.

The thing about Heavensward was just my not-funny way of finalizing all the things I listed about your full opinion, it doesn't mean anything except I thought Heavensward was dumb.

Ah. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that, since I really enjoyed Heavensward and the Dragonsong War. It may also be because of when I started playing and nostalgia blah blah, but I’ve always enjoyed the story. To be honest, the only main story I can give a below average rating to is ARR—if only because it is so full of filler, even after the condensing. Some filler is fine and necessary to an extent, but ARR tests my patience a lot lol.