just to make it clear, this is a review for the whole game, not just endwalker
I was never an mmo person and going into this I had my doubts about many things, mainly how the gameplay and the story were going to interact and potentially clash in an mmo framework and just the gameplay itself really and if it's gonna be any fun
I was proven both right and wrong on many accounts

A REALM REBORN

since I have very little to say about the actual story and gameplay of arr considering almost all of it is just dreadfully boring I will instead touch on more general stuff
the character customisation is somewhat of a letdown, for a game that's been going this long you'd expect something better than just selecting from a select set of faces and haircuts and whatever but I guess not every mmo can be black desert in this regard, the actual glamour system is good and fun to play around with and does soften the issue quite a bit, classes feel incredibly samey and basic and boring at lower levels because none of their special sauce gets introduced until like, level 30, and even then it's a long way before dungeons and trials and etc become all that interesting and start actually demanding you to know how to play, the music in this game can be very good and I always enjoy videogame music with lyrics that relate to and enhance the story but at times it suffers from overusing its motifs in my opinion, it's neat to connect the dots yourself but when you hear the same melody over and over again throughout the whole expansion it can feel like all it has is just one song which can get a bit grating
arr good moments include: fighting Gaius and that whole dungeon/trial, and when it ends (bloody banquet)

HEAVENSWARD

this was unfortunately one of the few times in my life where I caught myself saying "this is good but I don't like it" more than I'd like, and for a lot of this expansion I have no idea why, I can recognise that Ysayle's arc is well written but during her scenes my face was blank almost the entire time, I couldn't bring myself to care all that much about Haurchefant even though his death scene was admittedly well done, and that just kind of extends all over this expansion
the bloody banquet scene at the end of arr is somewhat undremined by the rushed and unsatisfying conclusion to the whole Uldah business, honestly the fact that you can even visit that city during the start of Heavensward is just not great in general it really takes you out and is a prime example of the mmo framework getting in the way of the story, because well, you have to be able to visit one of the starting cities right?
I liked Estinien a lot and his whole journey of through this game of getting over his anger and finding his own place in the world makes him one of my favourite characters, Aymeric grew on me a lot and by the end I loved the fact that he actually succeeded in bringing major positive reforms to his country despite all the difficulties, it's unfortunate that the villains standing in the way were somewhat dull but at least they served as decent contrast to two of these characters
it definitely has been a while since I've done any of the dungeons or trials for this one and I barely remember any of them, but anything that had to do with Nidhogg was cool and Ascian Prime was a good final boss for the main expansion if I pretend like Thordan's fight didn't exist
it's definitely not a bad expansion but I wish I didn't feel as numb about most of it as I do

STORMBLOOD

I personally didn't feel like the Doma arc was all that much better than the Ala Mhigo one, like sure it gets more focus but it also gets its fair share of annoyances like ruby sea traversal being a huge pain in the ass and the steppe arc going on for super long
stormblood has some great characters like Fordola, Gosetsu, Hien and I even thought Zenos was a pretty entertaining villain with some great lines and cool solo instances but what stops it from being good is the fact that it lacks focus and tries to do too much, like it has to flesh out two big regions of the world and show you how big of a threat the empire is all while you're accompanied by goddamn...Lyse, a character who not only comes out of nowhere but also undermines her own arc somewhat by the end lol
the dungeons and trials were pretty forgettable for the most part, oh this is also where the motif problem was at its worst in my opinion
best part was the finale with Zenos and the patch quests where all the leaders talk to Varis and you see scions collapsing so the atmosphere leading up to shadowbringers was super tense

SHADOWBRINGERS

this is where the game finally properly clicks for me and it's for a multitude of reasons
a huge problem with ff14's story in general is the fact that the protagonist, the warrior of light, due to this being an mmo, is forced to be a boring self insert that has no discerning character traits whom everybody loves
I'm someone who really values a good protagonist-antagonist dynamic in almost any story, as simple as it sounds if you fuck up the very central conflict of the story it can be very hard to be invested in it, because such a cruicial piece of what I often really enjoy in storytelling is just gone or isn't working properly, and in an mmo like ff14 where the protagonist is just this featureless avatar, it falls on the villain to do all the heavy lifting (this was one of my concerns relating to how well could a story in an mmo even work)
shadowbringers is the only time in the whole game they actually manage to make a villain good enough to make this work which is why it's easily my favourite
Emet-Selch aka Solus zos Galvus aka Hades is an absolute miracle of a character who brings what felt like should have been the main focus of the whole game in the first place finally into focus, ascians versus the scions of the seventh dawn, and flips that entire conflict on its head, actually tries to work with us to see if we truly can't find any common ground, as well as being basically just justified in his actions and saves what was previously a very lame villain faction and makes them compelling, he is a huge reason of why this expansion is as good as it is
though he's not the only one, The First is an interesting area with interesting lore being basically a world of a failed hero, (who himself is a cool character as well) the angel-inspired sin eaters are great enemies and I love how defeating the scariest ones brings back the night to the corresponding region, it's a cool way to tell a story while not getting in the way of the mmo experience, and the game actually finds another way to do this with its role-play solo instances that force you into a situation with a limited toolkit and make you figure out the solution, basically the game finally figures out how to use the fact that it's an mmo to improve its story, not to hinder it
along with the ascians the scions get a bunch of focus as well, most of them getting finally fleshed out and feeling like actual characters, which again, as is the case with ascians. is what should have been the case here all along
the dungeons and the trials are actually really good and this is the first time I found myself just genuienly enjoying them and even replaying them (the final showdowns with Vauthry and Emet and Elidibus do not dissapoint), though I found some patch quest dungeon bosses to get a bit too gimmicky sometimes
oh and finally getting payoff for arr forcing you to do the fucking crystal tower raids was great since Graha is good as the exarch and also turns into one of the best scions
I'm sure there's stuff I forgot to mention that I also like but only gripes with this one were the sometimes slow pacing and unfortunately some annoying mmoisms still remained
I find myself humming the lyrics to the main theme all the time :)

ENDWALKER

big huge salad of things that you're gonna enjoy the entirety of if you already love the game, and only parts of it if you're more mixed on it
to start off, it was painfully obvious that they weren't going to top Emet even if had they tried but the villanous forces of this expansion still sadden me nonetheless, Fandaniel is cringe and Meteion just doesn't work for me at all, her motivation being even more shallow and basic than that of Fanny Danny, and although they try to make it more interesting it just feels very forced, though I will say having to face the final days ourselves much like the ancients had to in their day is pretty cool
there's a lot of areas in this expansion, finally going to sharlayan is neat though it feels like nothing happens there at first (Fourchenault finally accepting his kids at the end is good though), thavnair is my favourite since it has a cohesive arc and you actually get to see it go through the final days and survive it, which is neat, next is garlemald and this is where the "this is good but I don't like it" problem comes back because the fact that the people living here are such miserable stuck-up believably-written fascism lovers is what makes me hate the arc cuz I've definitely had enough of dealing with that irl, going to the moon was alright but I almost forget we even went there, the unsudered world I'm kind of mixed on I do enjoy character interactions with the ancients but I also feel like demystifying the ascians was maybe not the right move, and then ultima thule is just garbage lol a rushed area where almost everything that happens feels super cheap
the messyness of endwalker is not always a negative but a few times I caught myself barely understanding what was happening or what the stakes even were, I can't deny there were some great moments in there, to name a few finally fighting Zodiark and Hydaelyn was great, basically all of Thavnair, a bunch of neat solo instances in Garlemald and the final face-off against Zenos was amazing and makes me less mad about him being shafted for almost the entire thing (but I can't help but wonder if making him more involved would have made this feel more personal like the previous expansion did)
mostly great dungeons and trials in here, so gameplay-wise I have few issues with this one

I'd say overall I enjoyed my time with this more than I didn't even if getting to the good stuff took a fucking while (but to be fair I knew that going in), I didn't even mention some of the notable side content like Hildibrand or class quests and raids and what have you but this review is bloated enough already, I doubt I will give any other mmo a try for the foreseeable future but I won't mind playing this one now and again and I'll especially be glad to come back for the next expansion whenever that comes out, despite the bumpy road that lead to it