The best part of endwalker

[Ardeth]

Honestly the intro Garlemald stuff was the best part of the expansion. It goes downhill after that rather sharply. It picks back up again when the apocalypse kicks in. Though to me it's all rather meh outside of that beginning Garlemald arc. Hell Garlemald should've and could've been it's own expansion and I wouldn't have been mad.

[Izar_Chillen]

Blood Whetting


It unga's my bunga

[Carin-Eri]

I'm glad I am not the only one who had a racing heart in that scene! I was basically pleading to the screen all that time "Oh goddess no, not the child... no, not poor Matsya... no SE, please, don't.." Of course, cue the big hero moment from Vrtra and Estinien saving them, but up that point, I was basically despairing myself...

And before that, when the baby's mother was attacked by the blasphemy, seeing her struggle to hold onto her baby even as the monster snapped her neck and the life drained from her, and then threw them both into the pond.... I simply could not believe what I was seeing, I was basically in tears. I was glad the WoL dived into the pond in a flash without a second thought, but all the time Enki was diving desperately downwards, over and over in my mind, I was going "oh please be alright, please please!" - which sounded increasingly hollow with each passing moment. I knew the mother was already dead, but I was also sure the poor child had perished too.... of course infant immortality was in effect, but they really came close to averting that.

Utterly horrifying, and yet, an amazing scene that is one of my favourite parts of not just EW but the whole game.

Agreed!

I've watched numerous reaction videos and that part of the game seems to make even the most stoic 'reaction-ists' sit on the edge of their seats!

[Jennah]

Absolutely everything up until just before Kitsis Hyperborea was among the best games I've ever played. (As soon as Meteion changes colors, it feels like a different writing team took over, one completely unconcerned with basic logic or people acting in-character. Or possibly just one that was given one week to finish the game, since it was already delayed.)

I'd actually put Thavnair as the high point. The atmosphere, setting and music were amazing - I don't think I've ever seen fantasy India done this well, or really pretty much at all. And it managed to contain both the expansion's most humorous and most emotional moments.
Going to Garlemald with so many of our old friends was a close second, especially since I had done a complete New Game Plus in the final months of Shadowbringers. It wasn't the story I was expecting from there - we never got to see the Empire actually functioning, or to take Gaius, Cid or Nero there! - but it's probably the most memorable part of the expansion as a whole. Despite the immense hate it somehow got, Into The Cold was a definite high point.

Sharlayan and the Moon were pretty good too, don't get me wrong. And I might have even put the first 80% of Elpis at #1, if it didn't lead up to the entire story unraveling and leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

For the post-6.0 stuff, I'm really excited to go to the Void, and to see what the deal with the Golbez Guy is. (Zenos's avatar ... less so ...) And to see what the real deal with the Twelve is going to turn out to be!
Oh. And to be allowed, in the Omega questline, for my WoL to voice the apparently extremely controversial opinion that "Genocide is Always Wrong and Unforgivable", which she's been prevented from doing in-character an astounding number of times over the course of FF14.

So, yeah. I loved everything except for what was supposed to be the climax and point of the story, basically.

[Brinne]

For me, Endwalker has a lot of setpieces that are absolutely incredible on their own, but don't quite add up to a satisfying, cohesive picture when observed as a whole. One of my immediate impressions when finishing it was "welp, the whole sure is lesser than the sum of its parts." That being said, there was a lot in it that I did love:

- Garlemald was extremely well written, and very thoughtful, in portraying a complex situation where there is no easy solution and people are simultaneously victims and assailants. Propaganda and its effect on the human brain, and people hitching their horses onto Sunk Cost Fallacy, is a hell of a drug.

- In From The Cold was genuinely incredible through a "storytelling through gameplay" filter. I was genuinely anxious and in anguish through it, especially when the group of ordinary Garlemald soldiers are casually killed trying to help you after all of their determination and speeches. There was a boldness and bravery in the harshness of what it did (at least during the duty itself) that felt sort of reminiscent of Yoko Taro's work, actually - that I wish carried over through to other aspects of the story.

- Thavnair's section dealing with the Final Days was similarly incredibly tense and well-executed in the moment. I loved the flash of the Exarch returning from within G'raha Tia when he saw that it was needed, and how the realization and transition itself was done wordlessly and solely through visual storytelling. I also just enjoyed Thavnair and Vrtra in general and am really happy that so far the patch content is giving them more focus.

- Arriving at Elpis up until its conclusion was probably the most raw, giddy joy as a fan I've ever had playing this game. Yes, I have severe reservations about its overall outcome and impact on the greater plot, but almost all aspects of Elpis itself - Emet's characterization, Hythlodaeus's characterization, the Ancients' portrayal, the environment, the atmosphere, even Hermes - were absolutely wonderful. It's the narrative commentary and framing about them mostly after that fact where the dissonance starts, unfortunately.

- Ultima Thule's MSQ parts didn't land for me, but I loved its atmosphere, environment, and almost every sidequest in it, which were far more effective in connecting me to the attempted theme than the material involving the Scions, for better or worse.

- Zenos's arc was absolutely perfect in every way and skyrocketed him to one of my favorites, after he was mostly in a "entertaining, but not too interesting" lukewarm sort of category for me before. I could gush about how he was written in Endwalker for days. His story was the part of the expansion that made me go "ah, Ishikawa pulls it off again!" Bestie is, in fact, the best.

That's most of what I can think of off the top of my head!

[VelKallor]

Hell Garlemald should've and could've been it's own expansion and I wouldn't have been mad.

It has been hinted at, we DO NOT have any kind of real details, but it IS possible we may be going back to rebuild a la the Firmament. Again, I have zero to show other than a strong feeling that the devs have a few ideas..we will just need to wait.

Its a hunch, a guess..nothing more.

[Rulakir]

Well, I felt differently about some of these things:

1) I would've rather the orphan baby died than the boy who turned into a blasphemy and was then crushed underfoot while his father watched on in horror. I can begrudgingly get behind Vrtra showing up bringing a sense of calm and stability amidst the chaos (even though I still don't think that makes sense for an infant), but 'Exarch' G'raha's little pep talk didn't seem like it should've worked in any realistic scenario of a parent who just watched their child be gruesomely slain (I know I'm asking for a lot here).

2) I thought "In from the Cold" needed stakes. Given all of Zenos' "rage and rancor" speeches, he ultimately just ends up trolling the WoL. I was basically popcorn.gif through that entire sequence, but what a letdown the conclusion was.

3) The only Scion UT speeches I liked were Alisaie and G'raha, the latter mostly got me when he wanted to see Ishgard. Alisaie, true to form, shows she cares about the WoL, which I appreciate because I feel like those two are the only ones I'd consider more than colleagues. (Also fitting that they were the ones who met Zenos!WoL on the road.)

I'm still bummed we lost Zenos, I would've traded at least half the Scions for him. I already commented on Elpis. The icing on top (before everything went disastrously wrong) was having Emet and Hyth as trusts. <3

I also liked the room visits, but I wish they'd been more personal. It's the end of the world (as we know it), it's one-on-one alone time with the WoL, I felt like that was the time for heart-to-hearts that just didn't really seem to happen particularly from characters where I expected it would. I did thoroughly enjoy Estinien going from 0 to 100 though. :P

[TaleraRistain]

It has been hinted at, we DO NOT have any kind of real details, but it IS possible we may be going back to rebuild a la the Firmament. Again, I have zero to show other than a strong feeling that the devs have a few ideas..we will just need to wait.

Its a hunch, a guess..nothing more.

The whole thing with Garlemald could also be seen that they didn't just want to traverse the same old Stormblood story again. We kind of had our confrontation with our antagonist view of Garlemald with Shadowbringers by defeating Emet, since he had brought that all into being. Now we'll have a chance to meet the real Garlemald and maybe explore its history more.

[kaynide]

For me, the best was Garlemald (and really the entire expansion Pre-Moon). I wanted a gritty war story where everything sucks and the realities of dealing with the remnants who only know you as a weapon of mass destruction. Especially as they expanded on their justifications for war and how in some aspects, the alliance isn't necessarily the "good" guys. Delving more into Limsa's exploitation of the beastmen or Ul'dah's dark days would have been interesting.

Not to say we need to feel bad.. just that every country is not innocent.

I would have been all about an entire expansion even more focused on reconciliation between many factions.

[KageTokage]

I feel like an Ilsabard-based expansion focused on the Garleans might be more interesting in the aftermath of Endwalker as their situation is a lot more complicated now that the two places they considered home are in shambles and they're backed into a figurative corner with only the support of the Eorzean Alliance keeping them going.

Some were amenable to peaceful co-existence, but with a significant portion of their legions still unaccounted for it's anyone's guess how they'll choose to respond given the divisive attitudes we saw in both the role quest finale and the Omega quests.