I dunno; I have to agree that for as long as both Zodiark and Hydaelyn had been built-up, it was really kind of a bummer for them to have been relatively unimportant characters to the story. As I've said other places, I don't necessarily hate what they did with the story, so much as I feel like it was rushed to the point, it feels like we "skipped" an entire expansion's worth of storytelling. I really wanted to get to know Zodiark as a character, maybe finding out he isn't so much "evil" as being too forceful in trying to protect those who summoned him.

Like, maybe he began "reshaping" the remaining peoples' bodies to be made more for warfare, while Hydaelyn fought against him trying to preserve their humanity, thus giving shape to the actual player-races (a result of both Zodiark's strength and Hydaelyn's beauty, thus making us "better" than the Ancients, who are effectively super tall Garleans; perhaps ALSO explaining why they're the one race without an affinity towards Aether?).

I dunno. This expansion feels like kind of a mixed-bag for me. I wasn't really feeling Ultima Thule, personally, and yeah, felt like we REALLY sped past Zodiark and the Moon.