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Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker in review: a slow but promising start

After a crazy summer witnessed Final Fantasy XIVIts player base expands considerably during what is supposed to be a quiet period, so it’s no surprise that anyone wants to join in. Endwalker Expansion has a lot of queuing to do. But if you can stand the two hour wait and the dreaded 2002 bug then you’re on to a great adventure, if a little slow to start.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is the final chapter in the saga of the war gods Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and sees you adventure around the world to make new friends, battle old enemies, and gain a new one. Space travel under your belt. It is very large. So big that it will take a few more weeks to soak it all up and do full review justice. Between the queuing times and the sheer scale and finality of the story, Endwalker is a stretch.

To their credit, Square Enix has been extremely outspoken about congestion problem and what they are trying to do to reduce them. Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do right now – everything is at full capacity, and due to global supply issues, they can’t get the servers they need to scale it all. It’s annoying when you’re excitedly waiting for Endwalker to drop, but you can’t really blame the developers for that – it’s far beyond what anyone could have imagined and they’ve compensated everyone equal to one free game time of the week decorate it.

Anyone who skips the hundreds of hours of story so far to get to the Endwalker will be completely lost. You need to know everything that happened before to make the most of this.

The starting point feels a bit mellow compared to previous expansions – you don’t quite get over the rift in Shadowbringersor drag your weary body over an icy bridge into Heavensward, but that feels appropriate to your current predicament. With no real new leads on the ghastly towers that are swooning thousands of people around the world and essentially turning them into zombies, you arrive in Sharlyan – the former home of Alphinaud’s companions and Alisae – to the pursuit of knowledge. There was a lot of politics involved early on. Like, very much. For story and world building fanatics, it’s great to see the grit behind some of the characters’ motivations and how far they’ve come back, but it’s pretty tough work and anyone who has skipped any of the stories in the hundreds of hours so far for Reaching Endwalker will be completely lost. You need to know everything that happened before to make the most of this.


Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker

It’s impressive how the world thinks and connects to previous events – it makes Hydaelyn (which is the name of the planet as well as the Primordial god) feel like an incredibly rich and complex place to live. in. Square Enix has done a great job of making even the supporting characters feel like they’re living their own lives, each part of something bigger. We’ll see often-mentioned but never-before-seen locations and lingering questions from previous expansions finally answered. So much to go through so setting up all these important story rhythms took a bit of a stretch, but it’s great to see so many faces back to help me on my journey and I can’t wait See where they take me.

The southern island of Thavnair is my favorite by far, full of temples and alchemy – its culture is fully formed and distinct from any other place in the game. Inspired by South Asia, it is filled with impressively detailed colors and patterns. Meanwhile Labaryinthos – a completely hidden underground bunker designed to look like the outside world – has a mildly threatening feel despite its beauty. Maybe it’s the rigid, forced artificiality of everything man-made. Garlemald, once the headquarters of the empire that has stuck with you in every previous expansion, is cold and disheartening – suitable for an area abandoned by the passionate Telophoroi. Although it does have a musical trick that I love for its twisted somberness but don’t want to spoil. The game’s composer Masayoshi Soken proves once again he’s a master of Final Fantasy music.


Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker

Before Endwalker, I was worried that the new big bad Fandaniel would be too hard to come up with a convincing villain for such an important ending chapter, but he’s been a better match for the dramatics so far. As a result of the previous patches, with some revelations being made I’m really excited about where the story might go. While the seasons started off with a bit of a tagline, I was also struck by a ‘Oh damn it!’ (no spoilers) bad team timing so far and if it continues like that for the rest of the expansion then it will safely make up for the initial stumbles.

I haven’t had a chance to see the new one yet Reaper and Sage classes, but I’ll be in my final review. The main story added some cute new mechanics though to keep things fresh, including one that allows characters to follow you around and comment on anything you pass. It helps to feel better when traveling together. However, it’s also a source of frustration – once I followed someone else, they walked at an annoying pace slower than your own character’s walking animation.


Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker
I’m not sure if that’s the iffy way of doing it or the hat on the chocobo gave me the go…

The game has also committed the crime of having stealth parts in a game that isn’t about stealth. I understand they’re trying to do something a little different to incorporate the mechanics, but the sneaky parts that get you back to the start of a road if you’re discovered are never interesting. Seriously, why do games keep doing this to themselves? I really hope it’s not used too often as it’s annoying and very outdated.

While I’ve loved my time with Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker so far (when I managed to break through that queue), it’s hard to recommend right now unless you’re a die-hard fan – in which case then you’ I’ll admire it despite its flaws and happily dig into fictional international politics while defying the wait just to get another taste of the impressive world that Square Enix has build here. For everyone else, you should definitely try it, but maybe wait a few more weeks until the queue becomes a little more bearable. Although it’s been slow so far, I can see the groundwork being laid for a hopefully fitting ending to a story over ten years in the making.

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