Lurker > KanzarisKelshen

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

trdl23 posted...

Can't wait for the orchestrion roll to come out for the Victory Lap stage of the last trial.

It's out already! You just have to do 66 FATEs in the zone.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I would in fact say it's one of the worst zones in the game, from both an aesthetic and traversal standpoint!

Seconded. The Sea of Clouds is the easy worst navigationwise but it's a lot prettier visually at least.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

I can see that. Thordan as a representation of Ishgard's calcification and lies made manifest works pretty well. It's just a shame that's all he is. Shinryu is the same concept executed a lot nicer, imo.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Same. Thordan is a total whatever. If we're counting 'story continuation' patches Heavensward is a lot stronger, but I don't feel Azys Lla is a very good final zone at all. Amaurot and Ultima Thule are total masterpieces by contrast (and the Final Steps of Faith DO hold up as a story ending, it's just kinda cheating to force Endwalker to compare to an expac plus three patches)

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Wow, I could not care less about any of that.

And this is why the expac didn't land for you. That's OK. Not everybody's cut out for contemplating philosophy.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Also, to emphasize this: it's not insane that the species we see all end up experiencing suicidal ideation. They're all symbolic. Literally all of them. The fishes represent the existential dread of losing your life or your loved ones' to uncaring natural causes you can't control or overcome, the dragons represent depression from experiencing loss to the point you stop caring and let yourself die, the Ea represent the overwhelming horror at realizing there is an impending end to all you love and there is nothing you can do to stop it (the parallels to climate change IRL are very obvious here), the warring factions embody blind bellicism to the point of mutual annihilation (fear of nuclear death, among other things), the omicron embody abject fear of the unknown ruling your life and leading you to make hurtful decisions that destroy your chance at happiness, and the Ra-lans represent the gaping void we all feel when we accomplish what we set out to do and can't find a new thing to strive for and become despondent. As an existentialist, I was eating this shit up like popcorn because it was such an effective representation of it all. It was a stark contrast to Amaurot, where the apocalypse is factual and not symbolic, and all the better for it.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

So you love that you're not there to kill anyone but you also love killing Zenos? What?

And again, you do nothing to stop the suicidal ideations of countless alien races. It's insane to me that they all wish for oblivion with no exceptions other than Etheirys.

Yes, it makes perfect sense. We don't go to Ultima Thule to kill Meteion. From the get-go, the angle was to save her, because she was just an innocent little girl who was thrown out to the universe and forced to feel the pain and despair of untold millions of people. The MSQ delivers on that. Fighting Zenos to the death is likewise a way to give him salvation. He seeks happiness, no matter what it may cost him, and by agreeing to a match with him, we help him find his purpose and leave the world with no regrets. I feel like you have some trouble catching symbolism, maybe? It all pulls towards a central theme.

DoomTheGyarados posted...

Because it isn't true.

Meteion is an unreliable narrator, and the last zone is from her perspective, not what actually happened. Like the second part of the last dungeon happens because of Meteion (the journals mention her coming as what sparks it)

Basically she saw suffering for the first time being from paradise, freaked the fuck out, and caused a dynamis reaction over and over and over on different planets, her (and her sisters) horror turning every planet worse.

Basically Hermes alone being angry was enough to upset her. Now imagine going to Earth and seeing all of the suffering on Earth. Millions of people starving, at war, angry.

I'm actually not sure Meteion is the one that caused the disaster in the second section of the dungeon. IIRC, wayyyy back when you're in Elpis, she mentions a certain civilization destroyed itself upon being uplifted by alien visitors in a massive bloody war, and the log itself says 'visitors' and not 'visitor' too. She just witnessed the horror, and at most made it worse by acting as a force multiplier on the murderous rage, but she didn't cause it.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Yeah for all that Endwalker's start is super slow, the start IS the place to have slow pacing. ShB meanwhile has Il Mheg and the back half of Ahm Areng as zones that mostly don't matter (relatively speaking of course -- Magnus is super important because he manages to serve as a mirror to Thancred, Emet-Selch and the ascians in general all at the same time, super well used character), and Ran'jit stinking up the joint being a really bad knockoff Zenos. EW has no such weak spots.

Also GOD

I just ran the 90 trial in roulette again

Its back half truly just hits different. I'm sorry if this is a little personal guys, but I had to deal with such crippling depression when I was in high school I basically took an entire year off of living, really more a year and a half. I've talked to friends and helped them come down from suicidal ideations. I've seen people fall into tilt spirals, and stayed up til 5 AM just to make sure they were OK and knew what was wrong and that someone cared. To fight an enemy that is the living incarnation of depression, that screams and wails 'EVERYTHING IS WRONG! THERE IS NO MEANING! LIFE HAS NO VALUE! NO ONE SHOULD HOPE FOR BETTER!' and kick its face is always going to make me emotional, I think. It's all the sadness in the world, channeled through a little girl who's very scared to believe things can get better, and I...man...I'm so glad this game lets us Be There for someone like that. All that, and set to some of the rawest guitarwork I've ever heard. It's literally just chords, but it doesn't NEED to be anything more to carry the moment. It's perfect. Straight up perfect.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Finished the storyline last night. Easily the best expac of all time, and in turn, the best Final Fantasy. What can I even say about it? It makes me so happy that the storyline is a retelling of the parable of the bluebird of happiness, but with the twist of reinforcing that the bluebird could not be found because of existential dread. People are saying it wasn't as 'hype' as Shadowbringers, but I think they missed the point. We're not at Ultima Thule to kill anyone. We're there to prove that hope is greater than despair, and that even though the universe is a cold and uncaring place, our actions give it warmth and meaning. And everything, everything worked perfectly from that standpoint, as did who the final boss was. It's not Meteion -- she's 'defeated' before we even embark on the final dungeon, as the fact she turns back into a little blue bird proves. The final enemy is the sum of the universe's sorrow, suicidal ideations, depression and regret and it's incredible how we get to kick it in the fucking face. As a tank, the fact that we got the starring role by LB3ing in this of all duties couldn't make me happier.

AND THEN ZENOS DUDE. Can I say how much I fucking love what they did with him? There's technically three answers you can give him and I appreciate they let people have room to be boring but thematically speaking, why pick anything but the first one? It's so perfect! After denying despair, what else is there to do but live? And that's exactly what Zenos offers us there, genuinely and without catches or threats, a chance to push ourselves to the utmost and celebrate life by going to and beyond our limits. Saving the full version of the final theme for him was truly inspired. I didn't see it coming, and actually lost my shit when I got to mano a mano him. I want an EX of that solo duty so badly now, ughhhhhh

Just an absolutely perfect expac, top to bottom, with an incredibly humane and gentle message. I wasn't sure if they could better Endwalker but they exceeded all expectations. I'm so happy to have been a part of this community here, in this moment.

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Shine on, you crazy diamond.