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

[aveyond-dreams]

The two characters are practically mirror images of each other, only Larsa is twelve. I don't understand your preoccupation with one and dismissiveness towards another.

I agree the previous senate shouldn't be responsible for the new Garlemald either - by all accounts what we've heard about them is little better than what we've seen so far from its rulers - but I don't really have an answer to your claim that Garlemald without a monarchy is automatically boring. To each their own, I suppose? I hope XVI gives you what you're looking for.

Perhaps because one is more intelligent and less preachy than the other? Larsa's ultimate goal was peace. Not regime change. Instead of toppling enemy leaders left and right he worked together with people like Princess Ashe, both of which later became leaders of their respective nations. It made for a far more palatable story than having nation after nation bend over backwards in order to conform to real world ideals - for which Alphinaud is the mouthpiece.

So far FFXVI does indeed seem to be what I am looking for, a fantasy story with mature elements that respects the player's intelligence. A revenge plot driven by a protagonist who doesn't have the haircut of a schoolgirl, set in a world with a complex political situation like in Ivalice. Needless to say there is a sector of FFXIV fans who will find that the story goes over their heads, seeing as how there are unlikely to be any Uber Eats scenes or college living moments.

Hopefully now that the writing for FFXVI is done, some of them can rejoin the FFXIV team and save the plot from the current direction it's spiralling down into. A playerbase that needs so many breaks in the tension and action of the plot maybe just maybe would be better off playing a Persona game instead of a Final Fantasy game? Over there they can date and hang out with friends to their hearts' content and those of us who were sold on the premise that this game would be more than just an anime visual novel will find that we have something to actually look forward to again.

[Theodric]

Perhaps because one is more intelligent and less preachy than the other? Larsa's ultimate goal was peace. Not regime change. Instead of toppling enemy leaders left and right he worked together with people like Princess Ashe, both of which later became leaders of their respective nations. It made for a far more palatable story than having nation after nation bend over backwards in order to conform to real world ideals - for which Alphinaud is the mouthpiece.

So far FFXVI does indeed seem to be what I am looking for, a fantasy story with mature elements that respects the player's intelligence. A revenge plot driven by a protagonist who doesn't have the haircut of a schoolgirl, set in a world with a complex political situation like in Ivalice. Needless to say there is a sector of FFXIV fans who will find that the story goes over their heads, seeing as how there are unlikely to be any Uber Eats scenes or college living moments.

Hopefully now that the writing for FFXVI is done, some of them can rejoin the FFXIV team and save the plot from the current direction it's spiralling down into. A playerbase that needs so many breaks in the tension and action of the plot maybe just maybe would be better off playing a Persona game instead of a Final Fantasy game? Over there they can date and hang out with friends to their hearts' content and those of us who were sold on the premise that this game would be more than just an anime visual novel will find that we have something to actually look forward to again.

Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic when it comes to FFXVI. FFXV wasn't free of development issues but it didn't lack for consequences, Ardyn proved to be a fascinating character and the playable characters were likeable enough. I'm also eagerly awaiting FFVII: Rebirth as well as Dragon's Dogma 2. I have a strong hunch that they'll follow the trend of creating immersive game worlds with consistent world building and a healthy balance of grit and lighter notes.

I think Elden Ring and Stranger of Paradise have also shown that there's still plenty of people who like a bit of grit and edge to their games. The fact that even Estinien of all characters has been reduced largely to 'comic relief' is bitterly disappointing and almost makes me glad that so many interesting characters in this game have essentially been hidden away in side quests or forgotten entirely.

[Brinne]

As I've said a few times in relation to Hydaelyn, "but this was the best/only way" and "we had no choice" are the go-to moves that are almost always used when it comes to making apologisms for committing atrocities. That applies equally to the atrocities committed by Venat and the atrocities committed by Garlemald.

When it comes to character construction in fiction, allowances for sympathy can be made based on an individual's psychology or emotional circumstances. But as far as I can tell, Varis's primary psychological motivation - Varis who grew up within a palace as royalty - was having a massive chip on his shoulder because of the lingering complex about the grandfather who made him feel inadequate, and wanting to legitimize the nationalistic, persecution-complex propaganda he grew up with that he's fully aware was actually the deliberate product of a malicious Ascian.

Which I think is great. I love Varis's sheer pettiness and singlemindedness about spiting his grandpa for the sake of spiting his grandpa because he hates him that much. It's grade-A black comedy and makes his ultimate fate at his own son's hands sort of poetic, after a fashion.

[tokinokanatae]

Which I think is great. I love Varis's sheer pettiness and singlemindedness about spiting his grandpa for the sake of spiting his grandpa because he hates him that much. It's grade-A black comedy and makes his ultimate fate at his own son's hands sort of poetic, after a fashion.

Oh, Varis is absolutely wonderful in his sort of petulant, Hermes-esque fashion as the sort of person that made the bulk of his own problems. As a character--taking his family situation into consideration--I find him fascinating, but the guy couldn't rule his way out of a paper bag.

[Lunaxia]

Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, Eulmore, and now Garlemald. One after the other bending to modern day moral frameworks, shattering the fantasy with Alphinaud as the spokesperson for it all. The person preaching constantly about the virtues of freedom and democracy is always him. It's gotten tiresome. Each time sucking more and more of the fantasy out of FFXIV's world.

Technically, we were the ones who defeated three of those four, because two of them wanted to maintain a status quo or else instill a new kind that would bring about an apocalypse, another was forcibly ruling against the people's will, while the latter collapsed in on itself due to ongoing power struggles and Ascian influence. They were all later free to choose their own style of governance, Alphinaud had next to no influence on those matters. I don't see what fantasy that's shattering, other than that of living under tyranny. They were hardly sustainable forms of leadership, expect perhaps the theocracy in Ishgard before Thordan jumped off the deep end.

Eulmore's resolution was lackluster after having gone through 2 versions of the same tired plot, because by that point my patience was exhausted. I had hoped Garlemald would have been handled better. And then it wasn't.

Eulmore's resolution was incredibly boring though, I will give you that. I don't know if it was because the end of 5.0 was so spectacular or if 5.1 was handled that poorly, but I slept through most of it. They have developed a bad habit of going to all the trouble of setting up the stories of these various places and then promptly shoo-ing them off stage when it's time to move onto something else.

Which I think is great. I love Varis's sheer pettiness and singlemindedness about spiting his grandpa for the sake of spiting his grandpa because he hates him that much. It's grade-A black comedy and makes his ultimate fate at his own son's hands sort of poetic, after a fashion.

There's something very satisfying about when a game delves into the deeper psychologies behind its characters, and I think it's part of the reason Emet-Selch is so popular. They really dove right into what's going on behind the mask, and it made him that much more fascinating and complex to the extent many found him to be relatable, which is quite tremendous when you think about what he actually did post-sundering, even just during his tenure as Solus. We're shaped by such trivial things as our family, our childhood and our upbringing, even the big bads and seemingly all powerful rulers ever-present in these fantasy games, and I always enjoy when they remind us of that.

As another example, I appreciated how they frequently hint at Aymeric being deeply affected by the relationship he had with his father and how he still struggles with it. It's very subtle, yet I felt it really added a lot to his character.

[Brinne]

There's something very satisfying about when a game delves into the deeper psychologies behind its characters, and I think it's part of the reason Emet-Selch is so popular. They really dove right into what's going on behind the mask, and it made him that much more fascinating and complex to the extent many found him to be relatable, which is quite tremendous when you think about what he actually did post-sundering, even just during his tenure as Solus. We're shaped by such trivial things as our family, our childhood and our upbringing, even the big bads and seemingly all powerful rulers ever-present in these fantasy games, and I always enjoy when they remind us of that.

As another example, I appreciated how they frequently hint at Aymeric being deeply affected by the relationship he had with his father and how he still struggles with it. It's very subtle, yet I felt it really added a lot to his character.

The emphasis and depth given to exploring his emotional state and internal conflict is absolutely a huge part of the reason Emet-Selch is often considered a cut above the rest in terms of characters. The gaps within the contradictions between what we say, what we do, what we think and what we feel are largely what makes us messy, human, and worth exploring - and with Emet-Selch, you can talk at length about every single one of those aspects within him and how they work with and then clash with the rest of him, creating a character who often technically acts illogically, yet consistently once you grasp him on an emotional level. It rules.

With Varis, he certainly presents himself and says the words that may reflect an unflappable, dedicated leader of an empire at initial blush--but dive just beneath the surface and you'll still find the angry, insecure teenager seething from the hurt of his idolized grandfather not caring enough about him. There's a reason the first scene we ever see of Varis - his establishing scene - is him spitting on Solus's coffin. In that respect, I think Varis is a delight.

Aymeric was actually probably my favorite character in the HW era because I noticed that it felt like he had some neat layers to his character that were woven in just for the sake of rounding out his character; there was a consistent undercurrent of low self-worth and self-depreciation to a lot of his dialogue and scenes that wasn't strictly in service to the plot itself that I found really interesting.

If you're interested in narratives that revolve around exploring motivations and psychologies in messy, but authentic feeling ways, read umineko praise yasuda wait wait don't look up any details about either though for the love of god wait what? Not sure what happened there!