It's difficult to put into words not just what FFXIV means to me, but also just how transcendent the experience has been as a whole. Despite that I've been meaning to try to write down my thoughts on it ever since I finished the game at the start of this year.
To be honest I don't know if I'll ever be able to truly convey just how special this is; I've wrote countless pages at this point, but none of it truly reaches the essence of what exactly endeared FFXIV to me.
Anyway, here's a go at it for this year, I think I'll revisit this every once in awhile and see if I can improve upon it in any way.
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FFXIV never turns away from all the sorrow and pain in our world, instead choosing to face it all head on-- there is so much suffering in this world, and amidst it all we cannot help but cry out for an answer: "Tell us why, given life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?"

But it is not a question so easily answered, and as we live our individual lives, our worldview is shaped by all the things and people we encounter, all the little pieces we pick up. An answer that is yours and yours alone.

Through all this darkness, bearing the sorrow of a thousand thousand worlds, we walk on. Gathering fragile yet precious pieces of happiness from the lives we have touched, slowly but surely, over and over again. Each and every one of them bears a different answer, yet it is their own all the same. We continue to grasp that hope.

It's a story that recognizes all the darkness in our life, but declares that through knowing that darkness, we come to know hope as well. It's a story that has so much faith in humanity, in our ability to forge ahead through all this pain, that we might grow from it, that we might become better versions of ourselves. It's a story that bursts with hope.

And what's so incredibly special is that this is all so organically communicated from the very start, from the moment we begin our journey in a realm reborn. That through the long journey that has brought us here to Endwalker, we have come to know so much sorrow and so much pain, but also the joyful moments and the hope we have grasped along the way.

It's been an especially tough year for me, at times I've felt like I didn't want to see tomorrow when it seemed to only hold suffering, at times I really just wanted it all to end. I'm really fortunate to have picked up Endwalker when I did.
Every once in awhile I'll encounter an experience like this, reminding me just how special and how powerful stories can be.
I'm glad I haven't yet given up. That even now, I'm living, holding onto those pieces of happiness I've picked up along the way.

My journey has been good. It has been worthwhile.
And it hasn't ended just yet-- it will continue on, ever onward.

Endwalker's message may seem overly optimistic, it may seem incredibly saccharine. But it has every right to be what it is. It can believe so much in people, because time and time again we have proven that through it all, we continue to live, we continue to hope.

"After all, miracles happen every day, do they not?"

So to get this out of the way, this is the best gameplay of all time. A large issue for me with a majority of video games is that games don't often take advantage of the mechanics available to an extent I would consider far. It's why I've always preferred games with simpler kits that take advantage of it well like the Mario platformers or Chrono Trigger. But this game is mechanically complex and has the best set of stupid hard complex challenges to back those mechanics up, leading to an ocean of depth.

As for the story, I don't think it's quite on the level of Bloodborne or DS1 but it is still top notch. A story focused on Buddhist ideas of karma/balance and how that applies to cycles of power and the human spirit. The more evil one does, the harder it is to find the right path and vice versa. What will Wolf choose?