[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Yarathir]

It's just the opposite side of the spectrum as r/ffxiv.

I'm not even going to attempt to summarize all of the criticism, but the story not lining up with a subjective vision isn't even something I routinely see discussed. It's largely inconsistencies, contradictions, logical leaps, hypocrisy, etc.

Shit like complaining about time travel when the golden boy expansion Shadowbringers had time travel AND dimensional travel and the Exarch just going "haha guess I won't disappear because i carved a place for myself in history" because he was a fan favorite character?

[KrayZ33]

It's just the opposite side of the spectrum as r/ffxiv.

I'm not even going to attempt to summarize all of the criticism, but the story not lining up with a subjective vision isn't even something I routinely see discussed. It's largely inconsistencies, contradictions, logical leaps, hypocrisy, etc.

Meh, you could do the same thing with ShB. Most of the time people just chose to hate in EW instead of ShB. That is all.
It takes quite a bit of good will to make Emmet a working character in ShB after all, yet he is probably the main reason why the expansion was a hit considering the cult he created.

[Cthulhu 2020]

They exist in every fandom, yes, though there's arguably a lot more of their ilk when it comes to a game with a personality cult surrounding the lead developer. As for where it happens, it's often found on Twitter, Reddit and the official forums as well as sites such as Gamefaqs. Express the 'wrong' like or dislike where fictional characters are concerned and there's a good chance of some sort of meltdown or weird vendetta being formed.

By all means take it with a pinch of salt, though I've been posting across multiple sites and playing since the days of ARR's launch so I've had ample time to encounter such things on both a direct and indirect basis.

I've been around since ARR and I've not seen this at all until recently, and even then it's still stupid sparse. It's just... I never see it, but I'm also not a social media hopper, I'm a casual enjoyer that does it sometimes. So maybe my lack of digging just doesn't get me deep enough or niche enough to see this. Because overall, my experience has been hundreds of times better community wise than any MMO I've played. Yes, even early ones. And I'm not the only one who's had this experience. It's why FF has won multiple 'best community' awards.

All in all it really does feel like a deep, niche thing.

- - - Updated - - -

Shit like complaining about time travel when the golden boy expansion Shadowbringers had time travel AND dimensional travel and the Exarch just going "haha guess I won't disappear because i carved a place for myself in history" because he was a fan favorite character?

The most egregious example that I can possibly think of is how the time travel laws seem paradoxical. While the Exarch can apparently hop to an entirely different dimension (not his own), we apparently go to our own and we exist in a closed loop, whereas the Exarch exists in an open system? That's not just paradoxical, it has completely competing laws of the universe's physics. But I get the impression the people who complain about EW are the Shadowbringers cultists. And bringing up that the two forms of time travel have competing physics concepts to them would be a mark against Shadowbringers, so it can't be brought up. The only people I see going around crucifying EW are these Shadowbringers stans, so yeah, any point that also indicts Shadowbringers is always left alone.

If one ignores that huge paradox, the story itself in EW goes off onto a lot of great lines and ties up a lot of nice stories and characters.

[Merie]

EW didn't match the narrative heights that ShB did in my opinion, albeit for reasons different than those the EW apologists have hand waved away.

None of the main cast dies in either expansion, which may have undermined the central theme of EW more than it did ShB. The theme of ShB, sacrificing the new to bring back the seemingly better old was playing out before the players just as much as it was for Emet Selch. The possibility of sacrificing the inexperienced and seemingly inferior warrior Ryne to bring back Minfilia who we were already familiar with is a pretty big part of ShB and accepting Minfilia's passing and the new life that has been created to fill those shoes has the player characters standing on the opposite side of the same conundrum faced by Hades. Then comes Endwalker, abandoning the subtlety and the nuance of ShB's message, beating and bashing you over the head repeatedly on its theme over and over again of pushing forward through the loss and suffering when the main cast hasn't actually lost much of anything. We're onlookers, observing no name character's suffering, while the Scions haven't lost a core member since Heavenswards. How much more impactful would EW have been had it pierced our hearts by killing a fan favorite and leaving us to push forward with seemingly nothing to fill that empty void? All the more so had it happened while Zenos was possessing our body, giving him far more stake in the narrative.

The narrative lacking the punch from us being mere onlookers to loss aside, the finale basically felt like a copy and paste of ShB. You have this final dungeon with the villain talking to us, exploring a recreation of some long destroyed super advance civilization. You have Zenos filling in for Ardbert, etc. It was still enjoyable of course. But it felt less impactful the second time than it did the first. And Metion is no emet selch. I get what they were going for, but the execution wasn't quite there. It seems the fans agree, because in the post EW fan poll even with Metion fresh in everyone's minds, she got completely destroyed by Emet Selch getting less than a third of the votes.

Don't get me wrong, I don't HATE EW, it's good. I just didn't find it to be as-good as ShB was.

[KrayZ33]

And Metion is no emet selch. I get what they were going for, but the execution wasn't quite there. It seems the fans agree, because in the post EW fan poll even with Metion fresh in everyone's minds, she got completely destroyed by Emet Selch getting less than a third of the votes.

?

They were trying to make Metion the second Elmet Selch?
I doubt that very much.

Or are these sentences unrelated.
I don't understand what the vote is supposed to mean in that regard then though.

Metion was surely no Elemet Selch.

Not in character, not in terms of "evil", not even in terms of calamity. She didn't even get remotely the same amount of exposure either.
In my opinion, they are less "related" to each other than you think they are.
The setup doesn't even allow me to compare them, honestly.


As for myself, if I had to place "blame" on a character that made EW worse than it could be, it would be Zenos, who felt like he was just kicked in to find closure to his arc.
Such an unnecessary character post Stormblood with every fiber of his fictional being.
But maybe I just don't understand what he is supposed to represent or do to this story - for a moment, I actually thought he would turn into a friendly character after the twins scolded the shit out of him. (that would've killed EW for me)

[Yarathir]

The most egregious example that I can possibly think of is how the time travel laws seem paradoxical. While the Exarch can apparently hop to an entirely different dimension (not his own), we apparently go to our own and we exist in a closed loop, whereas the Exarch exists in an open system? That's not just paradoxical, it has completely competing laws of the universe's physics. But I get the impression the people who complain about EW are the Shadowbringers cultists. And bringing up that the two forms of time travel have competing physics concepts to them would be a mark against Shadowbringers, so it can't be brought up. The only people I see going around crucifying EW are these Shadowbringers stans, so yeah, any point that also indicts Shadowbringers is always left alone.

If one ignores that huge paradox, the story itself in EW goes off onto a lot of great lines and ties up a lot of nice stories and characters.

Yeah, I rarely see overt Endwalker haters (the type that will pop up whenever anyone has anything to say or ask about the Endwalker MSQ to remind them that they personally thought it was bad, maybe the worst expansion of them all!) show themselves to be anything but sour grapes Zodiark/Emet stans. This is a gross conflation of groups, I'm sure, but I'm talking about my personal experiences, which is, to say, I'm not even remotely going to be ashamed of saying that I've seen a concerted effort by people who were simply unhappy that Endwalker wasn't what they personally wanted/headcanoned and now they feel like they need to mention how bad it was at any juncture.

Personally speaking? I liked Endwalker a lot, but I don't think it's devoid of flaws either. Nor, however, am I going to pretend that it's somehow not okay that it has flaws that are overlooked in other expansions. Oh yeah, Ran'jit and his Gukumatz bullshit were just absolutely riveting and sensible. Turning into a dragon reaper with no explanation? Fine. Time and dimension traveling several times? Amazing, not a bad word to say about it. Y'shtola lifestreaming herself (as she tends to by instinct nowadays, lol) and just being casually snapped back because? 10/10. The player spending more than an hour in the latter part of Amh Araeng just to get a trolley going and then they just so conveniently happen to get ahold of the knocker that snatched the one huge piece of leonine that Magnus' dead wife left for him? Beautiful. The people of Eulmore just having a quick and complete change of heart after one of their number had dumped people off there to their deaths not even a week before they realize they did the bad? Well, I love the big cat lady, so that's absolutely a masterstroke of writing!

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As for myself, if I had to place "blame" on a character that made EW worse than it could be, it would be Zenos, who felt like he was just kicked in to find closure to his arc.
Such an unnecessary character post Stormblood with every fiber of his fictional being.
But maybe I just don't understand what he is supposed to represent or do to this story - for a moment, I actually thought he would turn into a friendly character after the twins scolded the shit out of him. (that would've killed EW for me)

Honestly, that felt totally intentional. Him literally floundering and just do random shit for most of the expansion to show, in no uncertain terms, how devoid of meaning his life really is. Here he is, just going around barely being a presence for a majority of Endwalker, and every time you do see him, all he really has to say is "Hey WoL. Fight?" Any other time, he's just waxing poetic about the meaninglessness of life and how he finds joy only in combat.

He's a character who lacked any real drive and I felt like his narrative in Endwalker was there to deliberately reinforce this.

For the love of God, don't fucking bring him back, though.

[Ghost of Cow]

Yeah, I rarely see overt Endwalker haters (the type that will pop up whenever anyone has anything to say or ask about the Endwalker MSQ to remind them that they personally thought it was bad, maybe the worst expansion of them all!) show themselves to be anything but sour grapes Zodiark/Emet stans.

Well that's not true because we've discussed it here many times and I'm not an "Emet Stan". :P

Personally speaking? I liked Endwalker a lot, but I don't think it's devoid of flaws either. Nor, however, am I going to pretend that it's somehow not okay that it has flaws that are overlooked in other expansions. Oh yeah, Ran'jit and his Gukumatz bullshit were just absolutely riveting and sensible. Turning into a dragon reaper with no explanation? Fine. Time and dimension traveling several times? Amazing, not a bad word to say about it. Y'shtola lifestreaming herself (as she tends to by instinct nowadays, lol) and just being casually snapped back because? 10/10. The player spending more than an hour in the latter part of Amh Araeng just to get a trolley going and then they just so conveniently happen to get ahold of the knocker that snatched the one huge piece of leonine that Magnus' dead wife left for him? Beautiful. The people of Eulmore just having a quick and complete change of heart after one of their number had dumped people off there to their deaths not even a week before they realize they did the bad? Well, I love the big cat lady, so that's absolutely a masterstroke of writing!

Hey, I agree with most (all?) of that. I'm not some "ShB did no wrong" person, either. I just think that EW was much worse is all.

Honestly, that felt totally intentional. Him literally floundering and just do random shit for most of the expansion to show, in no uncertain terms, how devoid of meaning his life really is. Here he is, just going around barely being a presence for a majority of Endwalker, and every time you do see him, all he really has to say is "Hey WoL. Fight?" Any other time, he's just waxing poetic about the meaninglessness of life and how he finds joy only in combat.

He's a character who lacked any real drive and I felt like his narrative in Endwalker was there to deliberately reinforce this.

For the love of God, don't fucking bring him back, though.

Zenos really feels like a deconstruction of the old trope of someone who just lives their lives roaming the world looking for battle. Characters like Akuma in SF, or the whole "wandering ronin" thing.

Usually in media, that character is made to look super cool. They're just so powerful and so awesome and they're not afraid of anything and they just live this life free of burdens. But in reality - when you show that character in the other 95% of their life where they're not fighting - it might actually be really pathetic and sad. Which is what we started to see in Zenos.

[Yarathir]

Well that's not true because we've discussed it here many times and I'm not an "Emet Stan". :P



Hey, I agree with most (all?) of that. I'm not some "ShB did no wrong" person, either. I just think that EW was much worse is all.

Honestly, I'm going by what I've seen all over the place, really. Usually, when somebody is really vehemently against EW, to the point that they mention how much they disliked it (or even hated it) at the slightest inclination, they end up just being real sour grapes about particular stuff. Not all, and I'm not saying you are. But god have I found myself in plenty of arguments about Endwalker, only for it to boil down to "Yeah? Well. I didn't like it because it didn't go the way I wanted it to." Which is also fine, of course? But not really an objective criticism against the story.

I think I've mentioned my gripes with EW a few times. Mostly to do with pacing and structure more than anything. Labyrinthos was, for me, a senseless hellscape that I could barely bring myself to enjoy. Mare Lamentorum was wasted potential if there ever was any. That zone just crashed the moment Zodiark went poof. I also didn't think Meteion was a worthy cause for the Final Days. If you consider how much was brought about just because of her and her sisters, it's just.. not enough. Not nearly enough. She might have been better as a hint of what might be the cause, not the cause itself.

Zenos really feels like a deconstruction of the old trope of someone who just lives their lives roaming the world looking for battle. Characters like Akuma in SF, or the whole "wandering ronin" thing.

Usually in media, that character is made to look super cool. They're just so powerful and so awesome and they're not afraid of anything and they just live this life free of burdens. But in reality - when you show that character in the other 95% of their life where they're not fighting - it might actually be really pathetic and sad. Which is what we started to see in Zenos.

Honestly? Not wrong. It was almost comical for me whenever Zenos showed up. "Wow, I wonder what he's gonna do next." Still, as much as I do not hate Zenos (I'm okay with him) I would really prefer he just stays dead now. If they bring him back, it's going to be really annoying. Worse yet: if they try to force him into a Scion role because Ishikawa likes him or he has some fans? Then I've no idea what to think. That's Blizzard-tier.

[Wrecktangle]

When someone is asking whether they should play something or not, and it's an incredibly and almost universally loved game, coming along and saying "You can play it but it sucks royally, barely has any content, has an awful story" etc. is just a hilariously bad look.

People are free to express their opinions whenever and wherever they like. It's just a cringe look when someone tries to turn someone away from a hugely beloved game because they have some kind of vendetta with how the story was handled.

While I do agree that being contrarian for the sake of it is a bad look, I don't think having a hot take (something wildly different than the mainstream opinion) is a bad look.

People praise FFX up and down and I'm an avid SE fanboy/JRPG gamer and I think it's one of the worst JRPGs I've ever played with some of the worst characters, and stories I've ever experienced. Other than being the ultimate rendition of the ATB battle system at the time and having good GFX I can't think of a single redeeming quality. I couldn't even finish the game it was so boring the first time and when they released the HD remaster I gave it a second try and regretted it completely. It was still just as bad as I remember.

I enjoyed Endwalker, and I legit think certain parts were better than ShB; but there were plenty of parts I didn't care for.

[Yarathir]

I enjoyed Endwalker, and I legit think certain parts were better than ShB; but there were plenty of parts I didn't care for.

Funny enough, this is similar to how I feel. I think ShB and EW both had really high highs and some in EW are better than some in ShB and vice versa. They also had fairly similar lows tbh in terms of floundering at times and then going at lightspeed other times.

My main example is always the stuff leading to Innocence and Vauthry's death and the stuff leading to the Mothercrystal Trial and Hydaelyn's death. Do I consider the two equal? No, lol. The latter hits way harder for me in every way (although both have their weak parts in between what with Labyrinthos and Kholusia floundering between the major parts)

On a similar note, I wouldn't even dare compare Ultima Thule and Endsinger to Amaurot and Hades. Everything to do with Amaurot's reveal up until the 5.0 finale is some of the best stuff XIV has to offer whereas Endwalker felt like it hit its emotional peak after the Mothercrystal trial. Sure, the story wasn't finished, but my mood re Ultima Thule was: "Okay sure, let's get this over with. I have felt all my feelings." Though of course Ultima Thule still offered some nice moments towards the end.

[Poppincaps]

While I do agree that being contrarian for the sake of it is a bad look, I don't think having a hot take (something wildly different than the mainstream opinion) is a bad look.

People praise FFX up and down and I'm an avid SE fanboy/JRPG gamer and I think it's one of the worst JRPGs I've ever played with some of the worst characters, and stories I've ever experienced. Other than being the ultimate rendition of the ATB battle system at the time and having good GFX I can't think of a single redeeming quality. I couldn't even finish the game it was so boring the first time and when they released the HD remaster I gave it a second try and regretted it completely. It was still just as bad as I remember.

I enjoyed Endwalker, and I legit think certain parts were better than ShB; but there were plenty of parts I didn't care for.

FFX is just regular turn based, not ATB. Are you thinking of another game?

[Ghost of Cow]

FFX is just regular turn based, not ATB. Are you thinking of another game?

FFX wasn't ATB but it used it's own (CTB?) system that wasn't just purely turn-based.

[Wrecktangle]

FFX is just regular turn based, not ATB. Are you thinking of another game?

Nah I meant FFX, I just don't know what to call it's battle system other than the evolution of ATB. It's better than all the previous ones, but inferior to a lot of other JRPG's turn based systems. Rendition wasn't the right word, my bad brains still not working today haha.

[eschatological]

This is why I thought Stormblood was good, hearing some of these arguments above. Grounded, full of flawed characters. Lost Papalymo in the run up so Lyse had to grow up, which she did pretty badly. Real, human stakes for folks like Raubahn. The Sultana having to grow up. Fordola and her arc. Zenos as a villain (in that expansion) being terrifying but also fairly real.

In the run up to ShB, Zenos got ressurected, and that's when I felt shit jumped the shark for me. I didn't care for ShB at all. I couldn't care for this random shard other than to get my friends the fuck outta there, none of whom we lost cause I'm so goddamn awesome. Eulmore was like, "fuck these people, let's burn this place to the ground." The Exarch, and his character in general, annoy the ever living fuck out of me - but I'm also a person who can't stand the twins, or Y'shtola's sassy bitch writing, and I prefer the father-daughter dynamic of Thancred/Ryne, or Urangier and his practicality, even if it means concealing things from others. Sin eaters in general were...who the fuck cares. In fact, the whole rise of Zodiark storyline was eyerolling. All of this continued in EW and was just exhausting. I never understood why people suddenly liked Ascians just because of Emet's quirky line delivery. The dude was a monster. Zodiark's cultists were monsters, as were Hydelyn's. Both of those expansions ultimately felt like me (the player) being the adult in the room and having to sort out the shit the tantruming kids (every other character including my own, the WoL) fucked up by being childish. Like, what the fuck was Hermes thinking?

Give me the real stakes of Hien/Gosetsu/Raubahn/Lyse/M'naago any day of the week. Like, holy shit. The Fall of the Empire? Yes please. In fact, the best parts of EW for me was clearing up the remnants of the Empire in Garlemald.

[Ghost of Cow]

This is why I thought Stormblood was good, hearing some of these arguments above. Grounded, full of flawed characters. Lost Papalymo in the run up so Lyse had to grow up, which she did pretty badly. Real, human stakes for folks like Raubahn. The Sultana having to grow up. Fordola and her arc. Zenos as a villain (in that expansion) being terrifying but also fairly real.

Honestly, the more you go into detail on it, the more I have to agree that I really like the "real, grounded" stories in Stormblood. I really need to go back and reassess exactly why I considered it so low on my expansion tier list. Maybe just because it was sitting there between Heavensward and Shadowbringers.

I did say during another EW discussion that I always felt like XIV was the strongest when the stories were real, relatable, grounded, personal. Shadowbringers did start to head over that shark for me a bit, but they did a decent job making certain things so personal and emotional that I gave it a pass. But Endwalker took the jump so high that it both literally and metaphorically flew off into space, and the other elements just weren't strong enough for me to excuse it.

[StrawberryZebra]

And Metion is no emet selch. I get what they were going for, but the execution wasn't quite there. It seems the fans agree, because in the post EW fan poll even with Metion fresh in everyone's minds, she got completely destroyed by Emet Selch getting less than a third of the votes.

But remember that Emet Selch also featured heavilly in the Endwalker story and played a major part in the overall stories inciting incident with Metion. It's not all down to just what he did in Shadowbringers and he's arguably just as fresh in peoples minds but far more familiar.

Zenos really feels like a deconstruction of the old trope of someone who just lives their lives roaming the world looking for battle. Characters like Akuma in SF, or the whole "wandering ronin" thing.

Akuma actually feels like a genuine threat. He shows up, one shots M Bison then gives you one hell of a boss fight. He's often a hidden boss or intended as an extreme challenge. He's also got personal stakes wrapped up with Ryu, who is the closest thing SF has to a protagonist, and gives us one example of how Ryu might end up in the future. More broadly, the villains of the series want Akuma's power for their own ends and the heroes want to stop him because of the threat he poses.

Akuma creates conflict with both characters on all sids of the spectrum in the SF universe, and that gives him a lot of presence in the story in everything from a showdown with Ryu in a stormy field right the way through to throwing down at a train station in London with Birdie.

Zenos never feels threatening to the player. He doesn't create any conflict, he merely allows Fandaniel to do whatever he wants. The subplot about him trying to provoke the player into a fight doesn't go anywhere and is interrupted by rabbits. Zenos is almost entirely passive in the story, he allows things to happen but doesn't ever instigate events for himself. He has the goal of wanting to relive that ultimate showdown with the player, but never does anything to force it.

He spends the vast majority of the story waiting for you to come to him and will blatently only fight you and you alone. That doesn't seem much like a trope deconstruction as it doesn't highlight any of the contractions or expose any of the underlying assumptions of the trope. It seems more like a character without any clear motiviations or purpose thats outlived his role in the story.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Yeah, I rarely see overt Endwalker haters (the type that will pop up whenever anyone has anything to say or ask about the Endwalker MSQ to remind them that they personally thought it was bad, maybe the worst expansion of them all!) show themselves to be anything but sour grapes Zodiark/Emet stans. This is a gross conflation of groups, I'm sure, but I'm talking about my personal experiences, which is, to say, I'm not even remotely going to be ashamed of saying that I've seen a concerted effort by people who were simply unhappy that Endwalker wasn't what they personally wanted/headcanoned and now they feel like they need to mention how bad it was at any juncture.

Personally speaking? I liked Endwalker a lot, but I don't think it's devoid of flaws either. Nor, however, am I going to pretend that it's somehow not okay that it has flaws that are overlooked in other expansions. Oh yeah, Ran'jit and his Gukumatz bullshit were just absolutely riveting and sensible. Turning into a dragon reaper with no explanation? Fine. Time and dimension traveling several times? Amazing, not a bad word to say about it. Y'shtola lifestreaming herself (as she tends to by instinct nowadays, lol) and just being casually snapped back because? 10/10. The player spending more than an hour in the latter part of Amh Araeng just to get a trolley going and then they just so conveniently happen to get ahold of the knocker that snatched the one huge piece of leonine that Magnus' dead wife left for him? Beautiful. The people of Eulmore just having a quick and complete change of heart after one of their number had dumped people off there to their deaths not even a week before they realize they did the bad? Well, I love the big cat lady, so that's absolutely a masterstroke of writing![/SIZE]

I'd be more appreciative of them jumping up to scream "Endwalker sucks!" if they'd just be honest about it and say they really liked Emet-Selch and the ascians and wished that had been a plot thread going forward, rather than one they tied up with a neat bow and sent out to pasture.

Instead they try to make up all this BS about "pacing" and "story jank" and "bad plot threads", every criticism they offer is precise and "smart sounding" enough that most people won't question it, and just vague enough that they don't actually have to provide any proof. And at the end, when you prove that all of their so-called criticism is just smoke and mirrors, they pull the "Well I'm entitled to my opinion and you're a terrible person for telling me I'm wrong!" when the entire discussion was them trying to claim Endwalker is OBJECTIVELY bad, and I think we all know what that word means.

As I said, I'd be far more at ease if they just admitted they were Ascian stans (or that the story didn't go the way they wanted it, or whatever the real reason is) rather than trying to throw in literary terms they know nothing about.

And no, Meteion is no Emet Selch. But FF has several different kinds of villains. The two most prominent are the madman and the force of nature. And for as much as people love Emet for being a sassy bitch, they tend to forget that not only is he a mass murderer, but he was also planning to sacrifice every life and every life on all reflections. Meteion was a child that effectively became a force of nature with a pseudo will.

Not to mention, I'm not going to set my entire impression of an expansion around the main villain. What I consider when rating a game is the entire experience. For me (and countless other people) Shadowbringers and Endwalker were very comparable experiences. Would it have been nice to do Endwalker over two expansions? Sure, but despite what some people claim was something that was meant to happen over two expansions, they did an incredibly good job. I get why some people might think this, because Endwalker does have two very distinct chapters. But I doubt SE kept it on the books for very long as two expansions, if they did it all, since there probably wouldn't be enough drive to create enough action and intrigue in part 1.

[Onikaroshi]

I'd be more appreciative of them jumping up to scream "Endwalker sucks!" if they'd just be honest about it and say they really liked Emet-Selch and the ascians and wished that had been a plot thread going forward, rather than one they tied up with a neat bow and sent out to pasture.

Instead they try to make up all this BS about "pacing" and "story jank" and "bad plot threads", every criticism they offer is precise and "smart sounding" enough that most people won't question it, and just vague enough that they don't actually have to provide any proof. And at the end, when you prove that all of their so-called criticism is just smoke and mirrors, they pull the "Well I'm entitled to my opinion and you're a terrible person for telling me I'm wrong!" when the entire discussion was them trying to claim Endwalker is OBJECTIVELY bad, and I think we all know what that word means.

As I said, I'd be far more at ease if they just admitted they were Ascian stans (or that the story didn't go the way they wanted it, or whatever the real reason is) rather than trying to throw in literary terms they know nothing about.

And no, Meteion is no Emet Selch. But FF has several different kinds of villains. The two most prominent are the madman and the force of nature. And for as much as people love Emet for being a sassy bitch, they tend to forget that not only is he a mass murderer, but he was also planning to sacrifice every life and every life on all reflections. Meteion was a child that effectively became a force of nature with a pseudo will.

Not to mention, I'm not going to set my entire impression of an expansion around the main villain. What I consider when rating a game is the entire experience. For me (and countless other people) Shadowbringers and Endwalker were very comparable experiences. Would it have been nice to do Endwalker over two expansions? Sure, but despite what some people claim was something that was meant to happen over two expansions, they did an incredibly good job. I get why some people might think this, because Endwalker does have two very distinct chapters. But I doubt SE kept it on the books for very long as two expansions, if they did it all, since there probably wouldn't be enough drive to create enough action and intrigue in part 1.

I mean, the pacing thing isn't bs. It's really good up through the initial "invasion" but then it somehow goes too fast and still makes you feel like there's no rush.

There's also a ton of filler quests that throw off the overall pacing imo. It's like they wanted it to be longer but instead of making the second half more exciting and playing with the "invasion" more, they filled it with time wasting quests.

[KrayZ33]

Honestly, that felt totally intentional. Him literally floundering and just do random shit for most of the expansion to show, in no uncertain terms, how devoid of meaning his life really is. Here he is, just going around barely being a presence for a majority of Endwalker, and every time you do see him, all he really has to say is "Hey WoL. Fight?" Any other time, he's just waxing poetic about the meaninglessness of life and how he finds joy only in combat.

He's a character who lacked any real drive and I felt like his narrative in Endwalker was there to deliberately reinforce this.

For the love of God, don't fucking bring him back, though.

I don't know, I don't think he deserved to come back to life and all that kind of stuff when that was the intention.
He had way too much screentime for something that simple. Not to mention all that super power stuff with the body switch and all that.
He is basically the reason why we didn't get a proper Garlemald conquest/liberation.
I can't even express myself properly as to why I don't like him or what kind of guy he is because he is so forgettable and unimportant to the whole story.
If your character ends up like that, it's better not to include him imho.

The important question is:
What did change compared to how it ended in Stormblood? Wasn't he basically "done" as a character back then?
I did actually even enjoy him because it was a "fresh" point of view.
No actual agenda, just driven by combat, a prince that has no real interest to lead a country, he'd even kill his father if he could fight strong opponents, and he actually did!

I don't think EW did add anything to him or that. The whole "I'm a reaper now" switcheroo was also kinda weird.
If they wanted a reaper to fit with the lore and Garlemald, they should've added a new character.

[Lane]

Yeah, I rarely see overt Endwalker haters (the type that will pop up whenever anyone has anything to say or ask about the Endwalker MSQ to remind them that they personally thought it was bad, maybe the worst expansion of them all!) show themselves to be anything but sour grapes Zodiark/Emet stans.

This subforum hasn't discussed anything relating to the story (that I've seen) for months. I don't care about housing, or end game content, PvP, job balance, etc. I still communicate via PMs with people here, so I peek in from time to time and happened to see the discussion. It wasn't my intention to hash out the story again, we did that back in Dec-Jan, only to note that not everyone loved it and for a variety of reasons. The implication that it's just because it didn't meet player headcanon I find rather disingenuous.

I still don't know how you can 'stan' Zodiark, but whatever. Emet is my favorite character, but that's common if you look at any popularity polls where he's consistently 2-3x more popular than anyone else, so dismissing opinions based on that criteria seems a bit convenient when it comes to filtering out feedback you don't like.

I've never thought EW was the worst, it's slightly above SB for me while behind HW and ShB.