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

[Powercow]

Again, though, Alphinaud was stumped by the legates’ question of why didn’t you accept peace when the Garleans offered it - how is what the Eorzean alliance doing any different than what Garlemald tried to do?

Well, let’s see. Sure, the Garleans may have been persecuted a long time ago; as a result of that, and to compensate for their inability to use magic, they came up with magitech… which they eventually used to basically pull a Nazi Germany and invade the rest of Eorzea, killing those of different faiths (i.e., the beast tribes). As I mentioned above, we literally had the WoL there and could’ve subjugated them then and there if that is what our plan was. Alphinaud being unable to raise any of the law counter arguments to the legatus was weak.

Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

[KatsuraJun]

Do you think Alphinaud should have brought up that they had the definitive upper hand in these negotiations?

What you might think he sounds like: "If we wanted to invade and use violence, we could have, and the fact we haven't is testament to our intentions."

What the Legatus will hear: "If we wanted to, the Warrior of Light here could kill you, your guards, and every man, woman, and child in a ten mile radius without breaking a sweat. Now, do what we say before we unchain this savage monster on you all."

Your average Garlean citizen is, as Alphinaud learned earlier when three malnourished men stabbed him behind the shed so a defenseless woman can drag her sick sister across monster-infested frozen wastelands just to get some physical distance from us, pretty untrusting of Eorzeans. What do you think a Legatus -- especially the one who was fanatically serving the Empire after the Emperor's demise -- would think?

It's amazing how many people think that Alphinaud should have just said the equivalent of "But GARLEMALD BAD!" and think that would accomplish literally anything in that situation.

You might as well just force them into compliance and kill the resistors if that's how you want to go about it. Yes, Garlemald is a messed up empire. No, if you're trying to actually fix things and coexist, that's not a great approach, especially when the reason they're a nation-building state going around slapping other nations is because other nation-building states did it to them first. You can list off their crimes all day, and they'll just do the same back to you, and in the end, someone's going to have to be beaten into submission, which is exactly what they're trying to avoid.

Literally, this approach was attempted only last expac with Varis and people with goldfish memories apparently forgot how that diplomatic meeting went.

[JanVanding]

On one of your points. Specifically Doom and Gloom.

We are facing the Final Days, the end of all existence and the main villain of the expansion is basically Owlman whom has Anti Monitor already at the end of the universe wrecking stuff, of course it's going to be a very dark, existential crisis style setting.

There were always going to be deep moral quandries and heavy philosophical questions to answer, things that make you think and that to me makes this one of the more mature and well handled usages of this setting I've seen.

We can agree to disagree on other points, I get the escort quests aren't liked by a lot, but the Doom and Gloom point ....if you were looking for a more light handed handling, you would be asking for them to try to gloss over the theme of the expansion and that would not have done it justice.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

But why are you in a rush to beat it?

[Reap00]

Endwalker is phenomenal. There is no better story told in any video game or most media for that matter. Thanks for your opinon though OP.

[Emtron]

Endwalker is phenomenal. There is no better story told in any video game or most media for that matter. Thanks for your opinon though OP.

Well now, that's a spicy take most media huh that's a heck of a hill to wanna be on.

[Flay_wind]

Knowing the origins of your boring generic doomsday villain does not make it any less of a boring generic doomsday villain.

[Thoosa]

I felt that Garlemald was a wasted opportunity - it would have been nice to see how the city was before it was bombed out - to see the parks and buildings and civilian technology (cars, etc), even if it was in some cutscenes, but no, we get coerthas 2.0 except with some railways.

The first half of the Garlean quests felt hollow and unsatisfying - everyone saying they hate you and they felt like filler without much depth. The themes of liberators being seen as conquerors and the propaganda elements were quite good though. The second half picked up nicely with the mindjack solo duty and was fun to do.

I enjoyed the moon piece much more and the Loporitts had a really fun story and at this point to me it was starting to get really good. The fact Fandaniel tricked us into killing Zodiark to trigger the end of days was a nice trick. Even the acknowledgment from Y’shtola that the moon evacuation wouldn’t likely be the best course of action, I felt was nice. At this point Zenos felt redundant.

We go back to the second zone (from memory) and people start turning into monsters (which I found hilarious given that the monsters looked a bit like comedy muppets-like monsters) and never laughed so much in my life lol.

Now IMO I feel the story really becomes stupid - we end up going back in time (zzz) to Elpis which was an amazing zone but then we find out that Hermes creates a bunch of terminators who want to destroy the world because people must not be allowed to feel negative emotions and life as to be pure pleasure at all costs or it’s worthless living. I could handle the moon stuff, I could handle the monsters, but this was ridiculous.

It felt like the writers thought Fandaniel and Zenos were weak characters so they had to up the anti to a character we had no prior history with and something they just chucked in at the end, so for me no really big shock plot twist or surprise and it felt even beyond the realm of believability to Eorzea reality.

And as for that space ship…..

[Nataruma]

Snip

With the way the story unfolds and that this giant tower is erected in the middle of the city, while the populace is likely used as fodder for the machine, I think it made sense that we only see Garlemald as the broken husk it has become when we first go there. I also think Square wanted to punch home the post-war feeling, almost like a 1940's post-war depression era, especially with people huddled around radios and the like. I personally felt super invested since I'm a war survivor, it hit me hard and I connected with it a lot in the way they showed it.

You missed the point of Elpis if that's all you got out of it, it was basically tackling the views of nihilism and the topics of the value and meaning of life and living beings. Hermes didn't create Meteion with bad intentions, he wanted to feel like there was meaning to life and that all living beings were precious and deserved to have a place in existence, he also felt that 'returning to the star' i.e. dying was a waste of life (it upset him when it was brought up as a normal thing to happen). By sending Meteion and her sisters out to different planets he was hoping to get a positive confirmation of his beliefs, what he got instead was Meteion's inexperienced interpretation that life is without meaning or value and ends exclusively in suffering, pain, death and destruction and that all man wants is to destroy himself. It's not about life has to be pure in order to be worth living, it was that upon observing so many worlds that came to violent or 'meaningless' ends Meteion changed her ideas about life and decided to protect Hermes's emotions by getting rid of what would upset him; Eitherys and all life. Because according to Meteion, if nothing is alive Hermes can't be upset, neither can anyone else be upset or suffer if she snuffs everyone out prematurely. Granted her vision is flawed, but that is on purpose, since she's not a fully developed creature and has very elementary thought processes, almost like a child still learning things.

Fandaniel was just coocoo for Cocopuffs, but that has a lot to do with Amon's story so if you're not very familiar with it I can see how his part seems pretty small in the overall story, I also personally feel like he was added in too late in the overall FFXIV story as his final iteration.

I personally found Zenos a boring one-dimensional mwahaha villain from the very beginning when we first meet him in FFXIV and wasn't surprised he remained the same, they literally could have yeeted him out of the game and NOTHING would have been different. An unnecessary character that some people fangasm over for some weird ass reason, I mean, if you can see past the potato plastered to the centre of his face I suppose he might be somewhat attractive? Maybe? Nope, just don't see it personally. Anyhow his whole thing just... Falls flat for me.

[Accursed_Immortal]

Now IMO I feel the story really becomes stupid - we end up going back in time (zzz) to Elpis which was an amazing zone but then we find out that Hermes creates a bunch of terminators who want to destroy the world because people must not be allowed to feel negative emotions and life as to be pure pleasure at all costs or it’s worthless living. I could handle the moon stuff, I could handle the monsters, but this was ridiculous.

I understood Hermes when he thought life shouldn't be curated but left to a natural process. Even when he let Meteion go I was still on his side thinking, well maybe he wants to let his "daughters" live. But then Meteion went kind of bonkers saying all life is just suffering and it should end. I look towards Hermes thinking, "It's time to turn off the crazy and let her go... back to the aether." Nope he went full on koolaid and joined her.

The only reasonable explanation I could think of to make this story good, is that while the Ancient excelled in nearly everything, they simply haven't developed any form of psychiatric help. Hermes suffered from Major Depression.