TALES OF LOSSSSSSSSSSS AND FIREEEEEEEEE
wow i love mmorpgs and good conclusions to story arcs
Beautiful gowns
This review contains spoilers
None of these stars are story related. In fact, that missing star is straight up because of how bad, thoughtless, and insulting the story is written. If I jumped from ShB's quality of writing down to the level of storytelling Endwalker provided me with, I would shatter every fucking bone in my body. It does everything wrong that Stormblood did with it's structure and pacing (filling your quests with filler by an endless amount, yet when a story beat happens it manages to still rush it as if they had no time to develop anything) paired with it trying its best to outright copy and re-do many story beats that Shadowbringers did much, much better. What a disaster of a story. A horrible and badly made conclusion to a story over 10 years in the making. Instead of making this two separate expacs like originally planned, they mashed 2 whole storylines together and brought back Zenos for no reason. The Garlean storyline literally gets forced to end after building up a character that easily could have been BBV material, and instead makes him shoot himself after 20 minutes of meeting him. Then it introduces a whole new villain with a whole new power system in the last 3rd of the story out of NOWHERE and gives them no development until the LITERAL final fight in the form of 5 lines of dialogue. This is a terrible story, and it's only made worse by the fact that it came after the masterclass writing that was Shadowbringers. Insane how badly someone can fuck up an entire arc when the blueprint for doing such was right in front of them. They followed it, sure, but they did it while refusing to understand why the blueprint was made in the fashion it was in. So many fantastic ideas and themes are present, and not only does EW fail to deliver on those built-up promises, it outright refuses to at times. Then, it introduces the laziest and most insanely rushed FF4 reference as the plot for the postpatch, where it delivers a contrived remix of the Shadowbringers MSQ without understanding what made ShB so good. You can tell Ishikawa stepped down from Main Scenario Writer around 5.4 when Ardbert is literally dug out from his grave to give fanservice as he pet Seto. Such a bullshit scene that ruins a perfect ending for a perfect character, for a forced emotional beat. It marked the beginning of Endwalker and I mean that in every way possible.
The soundtrack, side-content, raids, V&C Dungeons, gameplay changes, mechanics, everything else that is NOT tied to MSQ specifically is so good that it redeems this expansion as worthwhile. All 4 stars are to those things alone, and the missing 5th star is how much of a tragedy this MSQ was.
I cannot imagine why anyone loves this story, genuinely, especially when it does EVERYTHING wrong that Stormblood did (which is disliked amongst many people who enjoy EW). EW is just Stormblood 2, and yet everyone acts as if this is the pinnacle of storytelling XIV has to offer. With my ShB review I mentioned how I went in expecting an 8 and was given something far beyond a 10. How my expectations were outperformed. Endwalker was something I expected to be on the level of Heavensward. Yes, a downgrade from ShB I had expected, but yet again my expectations were so undershot that I wound up shocked. This was a worse MSQ experience than Stormblood ever could hope to be. Not even ARR's postpatch left me more bored, jaded, disappointed, and discontent with it's direction like Endwalker did for me. SOMEONE in Square Enix needs to be demoted. This was made on purpose and greenlit with the intent to sell "as is." This was the intended product. It was meant to be this pile of garbage writing. And it was given the okay. Someone needs to be fucking kept away from that decision somewhere in the chain of command, because holy hell.
TL;DR - Endwalker is shortened to "EW" and it couldn't be more fitting for its MSQ. It is written the same way a CW show is written. At least Zenos became a character finally.... at the literal end. Meteion is NOT a real character by the way, I am begging the audience here to start watching some Kino, start studying literary devices in the Greek, Roman, and Victorian eras, and maybe... just maybe..... healers adjust. If ShB was Square Enix's MGS2, EW is Square Enix's MGSV.
The soundtrack, side-content, raids, V&C Dungeons, gameplay changes, mechanics, everything else that is NOT tied to MSQ specifically is so good that it redeems this expansion as worthwhile. All 4 stars are to those things alone, and the missing 5th star is how much of a tragedy this MSQ was.
I cannot imagine why anyone loves this story, genuinely, especially when it does EVERYTHING wrong that Stormblood did (which is disliked amongst many people who enjoy EW). EW is just Stormblood 2, and yet everyone acts as if this is the pinnacle of storytelling XIV has to offer. With my ShB review I mentioned how I went in expecting an 8 and was given something far beyond a 10. How my expectations were outperformed. Endwalker was something I expected to be on the level of Heavensward. Yes, a downgrade from ShB I had expected, but yet again my expectations were so undershot that I wound up shocked. This was a worse MSQ experience than Stormblood ever could hope to be. Not even ARR's postpatch left me more bored, jaded, disappointed, and discontent with it's direction like Endwalker did for me. SOMEONE in Square Enix needs to be demoted. This was made on purpose and greenlit with the intent to sell "as is." This was the intended product. It was meant to be this pile of garbage writing. And it was given the okay. Someone needs to be fucking kept away from that decision somewhere in the chain of command, because holy hell.
TL;DR - Endwalker is shortened to "EW" and it couldn't be more fitting for its MSQ. It is written the same way a CW show is written. At least Zenos became a character finally.... at the literal end. Meteion is NOT a real character by the way, I am begging the audience here to start watching some Kino, start studying literary devices in the Greek, Roman, and Victorian eras, and maybe... just maybe..... healers adjust. If ShB was Square Enix's MGS2, EW is Square Enix's MGSV.
Not as tightly perfect as Shadowbringers but brought it all to a close. The writing team gives you insane FF plot but with english localization and dialog writing that feel natural.
Good ending to the story that kept me subbed for longer than I care to admit. Garlemald Empire being reduced to a single area is unfortunate, but the Trials and the ending make this one a must play for anyone who ever tried XIV.
Great conclusion to this storyline even if I haven't played in a while.
I cried.
I cried.
So overall i dont think it is better than shadowbringers especially cause its beggining takes quite a bit to get it truly going but man this story dungeons and trials available here are some of the most fun in the whole game i cant wait to go trough all of patch
msq through the trip to the moon: hell yeah. i love this game. i love my boys. i love rabbits.
msq after they send you to a place called "el piss": i see why they called it that
msq after they send you to a place called "el piss": i see why they called it that
definitive the most in depth expansion to current date.
I have gripes with the extension of certain parts, including that of lopporits, but other than that, it honestly is a hard battle between this and shadowbringers for the best expansion.
but hey. we still got dawntrail coming out! cant wait.
I have gripes with the extension of certain parts, including that of lopporits, but other than that, it honestly is a hard battle between this and shadowbringers for the best expansion.
but hey. we still got dawntrail coming out! cant wait.
Playing through the Endwalker main story content really reminded me how strong and deep of a story this world has to offer. Multiple times I found myself tearing up in moments of friendship, loss, or empathy for foes. I started out with the goal of getting through as much side content as possible as I progressed through the main story. However, about 2/3 of the way through the MSQ, I began to find the side content a little too boring/inconsequential for my taste and with the stakes of the main quest so high, I opted to finish it out. Patch content was a little slow, but it had its moments. Loved the content at the end with Golbez and Zero, but it still felt like more of a drag than the main expansion. However, I'm glad I finished it out before bailing because now when Dawntrail comes out I can jump straight into the main content without wrapping up the previous patch content. I'm excited to see what they do next with the upcoming expansion, but I'll definitely need some time away from the game for a while, I'm all cutscened out.
my thoughts on endwalker are quite complex. For one, I think the launch of this expansion was PEAK fiction. It was what I needed at the time to keep myself going through a very dark time. On the other hand, I think the state of the game throughout the patches specifically story wise was quite weak and did not hook me as well as other patches in the past did. Overall, an expansion with very amazing highs that is bogged down by meh midpoints and ending.
amazing.
Amazing
the most tears I shed in a video game
the most tears I shed in a video game
I'd give the at-launch main body of Endwalker a near perfect score. It's a huge emotional climax to the story told throughout the previous expansions that manages to take you to new, surprising places while still feeling like a satisfying conclusion. The boss fights are fantastic, the characters are great, the soundtrack delivers hit after hit. There are a couple of minor annoyances - some elements feel rushed or incomplete, like Garlemald, the longtime antagonistic nation, here reduced to a speedbump on the way to bigger conflicts. As with Stormblood, since the zones are all spread out and discobobulated the sense of place and connection is weaker, and why large chunks of the story take place in Thavnair I'm still not really sure. These come out in the wash though. The whole of the MSQ is stronger than the sum of its parts.
The same, I'm afraid, cannot be said for the patch content. Shadowbringers delivered, in my opinion, some of the greatest hits in the entire game with Ishgard Restoration & Bozja. These were meaty, community oriented projects that would allow players to sink hundreds of hours into them, or much less and still have fun. There's no comparable content in Endwalker. Island Sanctuary is an absolute bust, a single player idle game that consists of alternatively right clicking rocks or showing up once a week to collect rent. Variant & Criterion dungeons are hits, and I do like having a hard-as-nails 4 player content, but they don't fill the void left by the bigger group activities. Manderville Weapons are deeply underwhelming.
Most disappointing is the post-game story. We knew going into Endwalker that the typical format established in Heavensward wouldn't apply here - Endwalker's story climaxed in 6.0, not 6.3. What we didn't know was that the next expansion storyline wouldn't start until 6.55, meaning the entirety of the 6.X MSQ is an overblown filler arc. I was so disappointed when I realised the standout new character Zero was disappearing like a movie-only anime character when the story came to a close (and worse still, trading in her cool Scythe for a boring Sword!) Maybe it'll all come to bear in a future Bozja-style Void content, one can only hope.
I am sympathetic to the developers, who pushed hard to get the base game out, and struggled on working through the pandemic. I hope that the content drought in the post game is the after effects of the pandemic finally appearing out of the pipeline, and that Dawntrail will be a return to form. Fingers crossed.
The same, I'm afraid, cannot be said for the patch content. Shadowbringers delivered, in my opinion, some of the greatest hits in the entire game with Ishgard Restoration & Bozja. These were meaty, community oriented projects that would allow players to sink hundreds of hours into them, or much less and still have fun. There's no comparable content in Endwalker. Island Sanctuary is an absolute bust, a single player idle game that consists of alternatively right clicking rocks or showing up once a week to collect rent. Variant & Criterion dungeons are hits, and I do like having a hard-as-nails 4 player content, but they don't fill the void left by the bigger group activities. Manderville Weapons are deeply underwhelming.
Most disappointing is the post-game story. We knew going into Endwalker that the typical format established in Heavensward wouldn't apply here - Endwalker's story climaxed in 6.0, not 6.3. What we didn't know was that the next expansion storyline wouldn't start until 6.55, meaning the entirety of the 6.X MSQ is an overblown filler arc. I was so disappointed when I realised the standout new character Zero was disappearing like a movie-only anime character when the story came to a close (and worse still, trading in her cool Scythe for a boring Sword!) Maybe it'll all come to bear in a future Bozja-style Void content, one can only hope.
I am sympathetic to the developers, who pushed hard to get the base game out, and struggled on working through the pandemic. I hope that the content drought in the post game is the after effects of the pandemic finally appearing out of the pipeline, and that Dawntrail will be a return to form. Fingers crossed.
Expansão mais fraca do jogo
Made me tear up
If you manage to walk all the way to the end you will be rewarded. Its the culmination of everything you've fought for and it delivers.
This review contains spoilers
ok i didn't give this an actual review so im gonna pour some of my thoughts out now
endwalker is beautiful. it's interesting, its funny, its gorgeous, its tragic, i can't think of a single bad thing to say about this expansion
the elpis arc is my favorite. in a large part due to it featuring meteion, my favorite endwalker character, but it also had a lot of things to say.
one moment that stuck out to me was when you're showing hermes that you also have struggles and problems, that he's not alone. there was a dialogue option where you could say something along the lines of "i could tell you about so many issues" and i chose that because it was silly, but then hermes hit me with "despite all your struggles, you're still here." and that almost made me cry
there was another line that venat said, "we too, are miracles" and that also stuck with me
also hythlodaeus and emet are absolutely delightful i love unsundered yaoi
the garlemald arc was another one that stuck with me, especially jullus (jullus my beloved!!!)
it just had so much...despair
the two sisters running away and you finding their bodies in the snow, the general taking his own life after accepting help from the eorzeans, how these both get across in the worst possible way: we'd rather die than trust you
but what stuck with me the most was jullus showing you his home. revealing the place where he killed his tempered family. the thing that fucks me up most is that he didn't have to do that. we had a cure, we could have saved them, but he had no idea. once you're tempered, you're tempered for life, and there was only one thing jullus could do. i don't think i'll ever forget that as long as i live.
also FUCK zenos for trying to kill the scions with MY body >:(
at the end of all things, i don't hate meteion. i could never hate meteion. she didn't mean for all of this to happen, she quite literally did nothing wrong.
at the end, when i got teleported back to the ship and zenos got left behind, i felt bad for him. i mean i hated him since the body-swap fuckery but after that battle, i only feel...pity, i guess? i mean, i had people who were waiting for me to come back, but he had no one. iirc, the only mention of him afterwards is when krile is like "ahh im so sorry for sending him after you"
but maybe this is what he wanted. he got his ultimate battle, so maybe now he can rest in peace.
ffxiv has come a long way from a realm reborn, and i'm so glad that it ended off the whole hydaleyn/zodiark off with a fucking masterpiece. i can say with complete confidence that this is my favorite expansion (and one of my favorite games) by a landslide.
(also i am patiently waiting for that ishgard trip iykyk)
endwalker is beautiful. it's interesting, its funny, its gorgeous, its tragic, i can't think of a single bad thing to say about this expansion
the elpis arc is my favorite. in a large part due to it featuring meteion, my favorite endwalker character, but it also had a lot of things to say.
one moment that stuck out to me was when you're showing hermes that you also have struggles and problems, that he's not alone. there was a dialogue option where you could say something along the lines of "i could tell you about so many issues" and i chose that because it was silly, but then hermes hit me with "despite all your struggles, you're still here." and that almost made me cry
there was another line that venat said, "we too, are miracles" and that also stuck with me
also hythlodaeus and emet are absolutely delightful i love unsundered yaoi
the garlemald arc was another one that stuck with me, especially jullus (jullus my beloved!!!)
it just had so much...despair
the two sisters running away and you finding their bodies in the snow, the general taking his own life after accepting help from the eorzeans, how these both get across in the worst possible way: we'd rather die than trust you
but what stuck with me the most was jullus showing you his home. revealing the place where he killed his tempered family. the thing that fucks me up most is that he didn't have to do that. we had a cure, we could have saved them, but he had no idea. once you're tempered, you're tempered for life, and there was only one thing jullus could do. i don't think i'll ever forget that as long as i live.
also FUCK zenos for trying to kill the scions with MY body >:(
at the end of all things, i don't hate meteion. i could never hate meteion. she didn't mean for all of this to happen, she quite literally did nothing wrong.
at the end, when i got teleported back to the ship and zenos got left behind, i felt bad for him. i mean i hated him since the body-swap fuckery but after that battle, i only feel...pity, i guess? i mean, i had people who were waiting for me to come back, but he had no one. iirc, the only mention of him afterwards is when krile is like "ahh im so sorry for sending him after you"
but maybe this is what he wanted. he got his ultimate battle, so maybe now he can rest in peace.
ffxiv has come a long way from a realm reborn, and i'm so glad that it ended off the whole hydaleyn/zodiark off with a fucking masterpiece. i can say with complete confidence that this is my favorite expansion (and one of my favorite games) by a landslide.
(also i am patiently waiting for that ishgard trip iykyk)
Cannot wait
Sim, conseguiram.
Quando terminei a Shadowbringers e vendo o rumo que a história estava levando, já apostava que dificilmente veria algo tão épico e maravilhoso quanto a expansão foi. E incrivelmente, os caras ainda conseguem nos surpreender, Endwalker é ainda melhor que Shadowbringers e a conclusão de arco perfeita.
Óbvio, fazendo as devidas comparações, analisando as expansões base sem seus patches consecutivos. A nova expansão não só oferece 30% mais de história e conteúdo em relação à expansão anterior, mas é uma experiência melhor como um todo. Desenvolve melhor os personagens e ambientações em um pacing muito mais interessante e agradável, temas bem mais destrinchados, com momentos épicos e emocionantes bem melhor distribuídos e escalonados. É uma aventura que vira de ponta cabeça tudo o que você conhecia até então.
O que mais me chamou a atenção é que Endwalker não só revela uma nova história, sendo agora de conclusão, mas como complementa e adiciona novas camadas de profundidade que melhora a própria Shadowbringers. É como se a escrita de ambas tivessem sido feitas simultaneamente e que no final formam um conjunto só.
Por fim, já achava Final Fantasy XIV maravilhoso e incrível, de longe o melhor MMO já feito, mas agora já me questiono se talvez não é o melhor jogo da franquia. Que jornada.
Quando terminei a Shadowbringers e vendo o rumo que a história estava levando, já apostava que dificilmente veria algo tão épico e maravilhoso quanto a expansão foi. E incrivelmente, os caras ainda conseguem nos surpreender, Endwalker é ainda melhor que Shadowbringers e a conclusão de arco perfeita.
Óbvio, fazendo as devidas comparações, analisando as expansões base sem seus patches consecutivos. A nova expansão não só oferece 30% mais de história e conteúdo em relação à expansão anterior, mas é uma experiência melhor como um todo. Desenvolve melhor os personagens e ambientações em um pacing muito mais interessante e agradável, temas bem mais destrinchados, com momentos épicos e emocionantes bem melhor distribuídos e escalonados. É uma aventura que vira de ponta cabeça tudo o que você conhecia até então.
O que mais me chamou a atenção é que Endwalker não só revela uma nova história, sendo agora de conclusão, mas como complementa e adiciona novas camadas de profundidade que melhora a própria Shadowbringers. É como se a escrita de ambas tivessem sido feitas simultaneamente e que no final formam um conjunto só.
Por fim, já achava Final Fantasy XIV maravilhoso e incrível, de longe o melhor MMO já feito, mas agora já me questiono se talvez não é o melhor jogo da franquia. Que jornada.
i have. so many hours in this fucking game. currently sitting pretty at 5,420 hours played (nice). this game changed my life, it is so beautiful to me. i will play it until the end of time, the soundtrack's a banger, and the story makes me cry :]
Bu oyunu oynayıp hayatı değişmeyen hiç kimseyi görmedim. Expansion'ın son 2 saatlik, 89-90 levellık kısımları hayatımda yaşadığım en iyi tecrübe. Oyun deneyimini falan demiyorum bakın, hayatımdaki EN İYİ tecrübe, nokta.
Yüzlerce saatlik hikâyeye o kadar iyi ve tatmin edici bir şekilde noktayı koyuyor ki sonunda salya sümük ağlamamanız pek mümkün değil. Verdiği mesaj, müzikler, karakterler... hiçbir konuda bu oyundan daha iyisi yok.
"Why, given life, are they meant to suffer? To die?"
Yüzlerce saatlik hikâyeye o kadar iyi ve tatmin edici bir şekilde noktayı koyuyor ki sonunda salya sümük ağlamamanız pek mümkün değil. Verdiği mesaj, müzikler, karakterler... hiçbir konuda bu oyundan daha iyisi yok.
"Why, given life, are they meant to suffer? To die?"
THEY FUCKED SAMURAI AND GARLEMALD SUCKS TRASH rest is peak! rip gaius
pacing was soooo bad… 6.0 ending was great tho
This review contains spoilers
Amazing, but not as good as Shadowbringers, and it has a couple of parts in the MSQ that are an absolute slog to get through. 80-82 is a pain in the ass and i do not care at all for the loporrit section, but god damn it has the best final area and ending of anything ever
Great but patches were mid
Peak to meh
Ese hogar donde volver.
My brave little spark ❤️