This character could have been main villain for an expansion

[BabySneed]

How many players do you guys think have 0 knowledge of Final Fantasy IV (or any of the saga in general)? I think they could've replicated the story 1:1 and the majority of the playerbase wouldn't have noticed it (I mean, they kinda did but not really).

I do remember seeing people criticizing the Endwalker patch quest story for being a "carbon copy of FFIV's story" which was an easy way to identify people who have never played FFIV because the Endwalker patch quest story has almost nothing to do with the story of FFIV outside of names, designs, and references. Endwalker Golbez's character has very little to do the character of FFIV Golbez (same with Zeromus), the story's premise revolves around FFXIV concepts not present in FFIV, none of the major twists/reveals present in FFIV were reused etc. You can say it leaned too much on FFIV references and fanservice which sure fair but the people saying it was unnecessary because we already have FFIV and that it was just the same thing again are clearly talking out of their asses
Though I do agree with the OP that Endwalker Golbez is still cooler than Speen

[LilimoLimomo]

Durante wasn't the worst FF14 villain, but he was a poorly constructed villain. Dude decided to try to commit genocide to get what he wanted, when literally all he would have had to do was ask nicely.

"Oh, y'all want to no longer live eternally and deathlessly in the Void? And to do that you need to die in the Source? Yeah, sure, come die here, it's no skin off our backs."

That fundamental oversight makes his character silly and hollow. There's nothing to explore or learn from this character because the entire conflict he heads can be resolved with a 5 minute conversation.

EDIT:
On reflection, I assume that the entire point of this thread was to encourage people to realize that at least Sphene wasn't as bad as Durante. And if that's indeed the case, well-played, and that's a reasonable point.

[ovIm]

NGL, i clicked this and expected Soreel Ja.

Golbez did not have enough meat on him in this incarnation, and the EW patch stories were not that exciting imho.

[CuteBucket]

Golbez was a boring villain who I didn't care about at all. Maybe if I'd played FFIV I would care, but I haven't. I don't want some villain from another game to just get copy pasted into XIV, at least not as MSQ. Side content is fine if they want to do obvious crossover events, but the MSQ has always been careful to only make allusions to previous games while never directly lifting characters and plots whole-cloth from them. Until 6.x patches. Don't lean on the plots and characters of old FF games as crutches. Use them to inspire something new that still feels like FF.

That said, I will give Golbez one thing: His motive, while simple and kind of stupid, had some amount of logic behind it. The 13th lost its aetherial sea, so there is no life, death, and rebirth there anymore. If there was a way to rejoin it with the Source without causing mass destruction, one could argue it would be a mercy to the people of the 13th to finally be able to return to the aetherial sea and no longer be monsters forced to cannibalize each other for aether. Golbez wanting to do something to save his world, even if it harmed the Source, is understandable. Maybe with more time and thought and an attempt to be more original, he could have been a lot more interesting.

[Akonyl]

Golbez was a boring villain who I didn't care about at all. Maybe if I'd played FFIV I would care, but I haven't.

Nah, tbh knowing FF4 made the patch content more boring to me because so much of it's taken from FF4 beats that it wasn't really that surprising/exciting.

[Zarkovitch]

Nah, Zenos Lopprit would be a menace.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Nah, Zenos Lopprit would be a menace.

Bunny Zenos

[Jojoya]

I don't know where you're finding any depth there.

Golbez was another Wuk Lamat. He just hid his inferiority complex better than Wuk does until after Zero beat him. Then it was constant "I'm not worthy, I was never worthy".

I found him equally annoying. I'd rather have Asahi back for an entire expansion than Golbez.

[Espon]

I didn't care too much for Golbez and the post-EW story. It mainly felt like "Here's some more FF4 stuff, isn't that cool?" and then hardly did its own thing with it, unlike previous FF references. Stuff like the Crystal Tower, Doma, Ivalice, and Omega all take their own spin on things where as Golbez's storyline was quite predictable if you've played FF4. Even the FF4 references in EW prior to the patches were much better woven into FF14's narrative.

I preferred a set of Trial sidequests with the four Archfiends, similar to what they did with the FF7 Weapons and FF6 Warring Triad.