Quote Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur View Post
The only reason people excuse Crystal Exarch is just because he turned out to be Graha Tia, who eventually reverted back to his old goofy self and absolving of his previous character as the Exarch.

What sucks is that all these points that am Im making are all fine for me, I dont ultimately care because the way it was presented and the emotions worked for what they wanted to tell. But im forced to stoop into the same bs overly critical cynicism that aveyond and others give flack to EW because I feel like Im the only one who sees how this is just more of the same with how they handle characters and story beats just with different context. Yet people are acting like what EW did was too different or worse even though these characterizations ARE THE EXACT SAME AS HOW THEY WERE HANDLED IN PREVIOUS EXPANSIONS LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL F?
I just feel like the problems brought up in Shadowbringers were not major components of the story. Stuff that impacted the enjoyment at a macro-scale. Things that put everything else done so far in a different light. The issues people bring up with Endwalker, on the other hand, are major components that do impact the story so far. It gives you a different outlook on Hydaelyn and the Ascians. It recontextualizes a lot of things that happened because of the message Endwalker pushed. The Elpis episode recontextualizes all you've been given until then about the Ancients. And while Shadowbringers built Vauthry to be the end-goal, with Emet Selch as a potential sequel antagonist, it delivered, since Innocence happens way late into the game, and the only thing left after that is Amaurot. Fandaniel barely had any chance to explain his character past "deranged Asahi" before usurping the one boss that everyone wanted to see since A Realm Reborn.

I at least act like they're different and worse specifically because of how they impacted me as a player who was paying attention to the story overall. Even if I found Y'shtola's death irritating in SHB, she was just more of the same and I ignored it after it happened. Even if Ran'jit was bland, I ignored him and focused on the characters that weren't. Fandaniel becoming Zodiark came so out of left field I kept thinking about it even after it happened. Way later. And not only did it make me feel it didn't live up to the hype, I started comparing the rest of Endwalker to a possible "what if" based on whether Zodiark was alive or not.