What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Kaurhz]

I can strongly agree with you on that lol. Part of me wonders if it was that way due to the expansion change thing although, it just seems like they had so many revisions done to the story. We know that Eden was originally supposed to be the final boss of ShB…so how would that have affected 5.3+? Would emet have been the 5.3 boss and Elidibus the main focus of 6.0? Is that why he feels so shafted. And if so i wonder how all of that would’ve affected what is now Endwalker. We also know they had thought about doing a partial rejoining on the first…So many revisions and changes.

The problem is from the initial inception of the game right up until now they're still bound by many of those narrations set earlier in the game. That includes the whole light vs dark, or Hydaelyn good Zodiark bad nonsense. It's difficult to get around stuff like that. Personally, I'd have been happy with us not facing Emet-Selch whatsoever but instead having him as the guide or sorts on our journey and acting as a true sacrificial lamb towards the end. Continually deciding our worth. To be frank I think he thought we were 'worthy' pretty early on, with the missive comment he made of our soul and all. But just carrying on his condescending attitude. Equally I've said many times that I personally think Endwalker needed to be longer (I like the world building and I don't want that sacrificed), at least given how post-shadowbringers was handled. To be frank I think Post-Shadowbringers had a lot of consequences on how Endwalker was told. It left a few questions which ultimately should not have been left unanswered.

I'd have been happy if our budget Emet-Selch (Fandaniel) never existed to begin with. Or at least have him introduced in Endwalker and then left post-Shadowbringers dedicated almost entirely to flushing out Elidibus. Speaking of Fandaniel; I don't think we ever found out more about the telophoroi.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The problem is from the initial inception of the game right up until now they're still bound by many of those narrations set earlier in the game. That includes the whole light vs dark, or Hydaelyn good Zodiark bad nonsense. It's difficult to get around stuff like that. Personally, I'd have been happy with us not facing Emet-Selch whatsoever but instead having him as the guide or sorts on our journey and acting as a true sacrificial lamb towards the end. Continually deciding our worth. To be frank I think he thought we were 'worthy' pretty early on, with the missive comment he made of our soul and all. But just carrying on his condescending attitude. Equally I've said many times that I personally think Endwalker needed to be longer (I like the world building and I don't want that sacrificed), at least given how post-shadowbringers was handled. To be frank I think Post-Shadowbringers had a lot of consequences on how Endwalker was told. It left a few questions which ultimately should not have been left unanswered.

I'd have been happy if our budget Emet-Selch (Fandaniel) never existed to begin with. Or at least have him introduced in Endwalker and then left post-Shadowbringers dedicated almost entirely to flushing out Elidibus. Speaking of Fandaniel; I don't think we ever found out more about the telophoroi.

Yep i agree with all of these points. As much as i love Shadowbringers, just like other people have stated they really wrote themselves into a corner. I think a lot of it has to do with a trend i’ve pointed out with Ishikawa in making everyone and everything sympathetic. It leaves very little room for just plain and simple evil. It also leaves very little room to explore nuance and all that. Fandaniel was a wasted opportunity imo. I get the whole subverting expectations with having him die off early but…i hardly felt anything for it because we didn’t know much about him to begin with until later. We didn’t learn more about the teliphoroi, we didn’t learn more about zenos’ memories of the final days nor did fandaniel even elaborate on the whole “did emet selch find a way?”

This may be my bias showing(totally is), but i think it would’ve been extremely more interesting if say, like you said Emet had been our guide on our journey to dictate our worth, and they went back to Elidibus’ whole shtick on balance, him keeping the peace on both sides and them eventually both hydaelyn and zodiark having to work together to combat some immensely greater threat. I think it at the very least would’ve worked better than the convoluted time mess we got and the unanswered questions, and at least would’ve done a better job keeping everything neutral.

[OhNooo]

This may be my bias showing(totally is), but i think it would’ve been extremely more interesting if say, like you said Emet had been our guide on our journey to dictate our worth, and they went back to Elidibus’ whole shtick on balance, him keeping the peace on both sides and them eventually both hydaelyn and zodiark having to work together to combat some immensely greater threat. I think it at the very least would’ve worked better than the convoluted time mess we got and the unanswered questions, and at least would’ve done a better job keeping everything neutral.

Yes I would've loved something like this. At this point I'm tired of just killing everything instead of trying to form mutually beneficial alliances. One of the things I loved about HW was teaming up with Hraesvelgr and Ysale and lately it just seems like we've killed everything until nothing's left to form any opposition. If we could've somehow formed an alliance with at least one of the unsundered, I think that would've taken the story in a very interesting direction.

[Theodric]

Yes I would've loved something like this. At this point I'm tired of just killing everything instead of trying to form mutually beneficial alliances. One of the things I loved about HW was teaming up with Hraesvelgr and Ysale and lately it just seems like we've killed everything until nothing's left to form any opposition. If we could've somehow formed an alliance with at least one of the unsundered, I think that would've taken the story in a very interesting direction.

Yeah, it's odd. JRPG's have never shied away from having sympathetic antagonists team up with the protagonists in order to combat a greater threat. Many Final Fantasy games have themselves done as much.

Incidentally, it's also why FFVIIR and FFIX stand higher in my list of favourite FF games than FFXIV. The Scions are very dry and inoffensive in my view, with few or no meaningful quirks. They never really disagree with each other in any meaningful capacity and I can practically see the drool leaking out of the corners of their mouths each time they decide that, once again, they're going to start working towards a 'better tomorrow'!

[Kaurhz]

Yep i agree with all of these points. As much as i love Shadowbringers, just like other people have stated they really wrote themselves into a corner. I think a lot of it has to do with a trend i’ve pointed out with Ishikawa in making everyone and everything sympathetic. It leaves very little room for just plain and simple evil. It also leaves very little room to explore nuance and all that. Fandaniel was a wasted opportunity imo. I get the whole subverting expectations with having him die off early but…i hardly felt anything for it because we didn’t know much about him to begin with until later. We didn’t learn more about the teliphoroi, we didn’t learn more about zenos’ memories of the final days nor did fandaniel even elaborate on the whole “did emet selch find a way?”

This may be my bias showing(totally is), but i think it would’ve been extremely more interesting if say, like you said Emet had been our guide on our journey to dictate our worth, and they went back to Elidibus’ whole shtick on balance, him keeping the peace on both sides and them eventually both hydaelyn and zodiark having to work together to combat some immensely greater threat. I think it at the very least would’ve worked better than the convoluted time mess we got and the unanswered questions, and at least would’ve done a better job keeping everything neutral.

You see the irony is in the fact that many of these questions should have reasonably been answered in Shadowbringers, and arguably in the case of Zenos; he should have been addressed in Stormblood. Ultimately some of their rushed areas in previous expansions just left slim chances of everything actually being addressed promptly. In fact, arguably Meteion as a character should really have been teased in Shadowbringers too. It'd actually elude more to what the issues were, seeing as the 'sound' was introduced in the base MSQ of ShB.

I would say that'd have been a better approach since it keeps to the confines of maintaining the balance with Elidibus and then whole Emet-Selch judging our worth. But not only that it'd have been a real nice send-off to the ancients themselves if they could actually see what was causing their downfall. I don't think the primals themselves should have been the ones to work together, but rather us with the unsundered. Back to the previous paragraph really, many of the questions that were left unanswered should have been addressed in previous expansions.