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.
Originally Posted by Kozh
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