We were so sure thats like Zelda Skyward sword, where the endboss tried to break his seal a few times and we pushed him back... not for... the actual think already lol
i still remember my exact thought from this moment. "wait we're doing this now?? but if we're dealing with zodiark now then... *what the hell is the rest of this expansion going to be??* "
Always a delight to see someone's reaction to the first trial. It definitely shows the XIV team's confidence in making this fight happen so early in the expansion, and that they still have more stories to tell afterwards.
The genius of Fandaniel's plot is that he alredy won the moment he took control of Zodiark Either he wins and destroys everything with the power of a god, especially with Hydaelin to weak to stop him again, or he loses and the apocalypse Zodiark was holding back unfolds as it should have. Its sad really, Zodiark is the representation of the Ascians' hope, their final bid for survival , and Fandaniel used him as a glorified weapon.
the best part is there's a pre-made answer for why we haven't seen Fandaniel in action before this guy is on the back-bench! Emet, Lahabrea, and Elidibus can easily agree he is not stable and should be prevented from implementing any of his plans! they, and him, are dumb and self-destructive! but for all that his plans are dumb and self destructive, he IS an ascian, and it has been millenia since the last time they let him do a goddamned thing, and so now that noones around to stop him, he gets to try all of them. at once.
I really liked the simplicity of his plan. Here I was, trying to figure out what 5D genius plan he was trying to pull off after we defeated him, only to then realize that we had already lost the moment he had jumped into the pit.
the entire scene with the dark, the masks, then the Azem Incantation, into the music drop with Zodiark revealed, is pure art, pure fucking amazing art, Hollywood studios pay millions of dollars and come up short to this level of art.
I'm honestly surprised how many people, especially people who have been playing catch-up, have quickly forgotten why we DON'T want Zodiark dead. Like, half the plot of Shadowbringers is explaining why that's a really bad idea
@@antarath517 I assumed that as well. Without any context for who that voice belongs to _(and any new Endwalkers will have zero context; there isn't even the slightest hint of her before the 5th zone),_ it can easily sound as if Hydaelyn has dropped her usual formal/proper manner of speech and revealed herself to be evil.
i mean, even if you've somehow forgotten that bit of plot, hydaelyn LITERALLY SAYS *five minutes earlier* "zodiark must remain bound," so it's like. they genuinely get too hyped up in the concept of hydaelyn being evil that they just immediately wipe all evidence to the contrary from their minds, lol
Well, idk if it's as easy as "just go to the moon lol". An allagan genius with the soul of an ancient literally enslaved a nation and transformed its former leader into a primal in order to build and power this tower.
Pint, when you get the chance go back to the Steppes and talk to Sadu there now that you've passed this part of the game. Her dialogue talks about what happened to her after Garlemald before she left to go back home and I think you'll enjoy it.
I was sad that we never really interacted with Zodiarc himsefl, but i realized that we did. The souls of the aincents and the masks before Zodiarc shows up IS Zodiarc. The souls were combined in will to create him. So I imagine that Zodiarc would have been saying things like what the ancient souls were.
@@adrianomoraesesilva6177 Yes, but that's a little different, because he is one peice and has his individual persona. I was more talking about the ancients that were sacrificed as a whole, which is Zodiarc. Elidibus is not Zodiarc, even if he is the heart. For example, Elidibus helped us go to past, meaning that he made the decision in helping our fight, which he knows in part is to stop Zodiarc. So he is the heart, but he isn't Zodiarc. The collective of ancients that we saw on the moon, THEY are Zodiarc.That was Zodiarc talking to us as Fandanial was taking control of his body, and it sounded like a cry for help. Weirdly enough, Hythlodaeus also had his mind in tact and not really part of the hivemind of the sacrificed ancients.
@@F34RDSoldier805 As the game tell us: the souls were sacrificed to imbue Zodiarc with power. As Fandeniel explicitly said in the cinematic the moment he frees Zodiarc. "without Elidibus, Zodiarc was a primitive beast looking for guidance". The reason Hythlodeus appears to be different is that he is the only character we know that servers the narrative, but all the other ancient souls we saw wandering the moon were thinking as individuals as well. The moment Fandeniel takes Elidbus place as the heart, the souls were powerless to do anything against his will to control Zodiarc. The same applies to Hidalyn. Venat is the heart of the primal, which also was built from the sacrifice of many ancient souls, the exact same way as Elidbus. The only diference is that Elidbus withdrew from Zodiarc. Elidbus helps us because "Zodiarc was no more" ( his words in the game). If you accept that Venat is Hidalyn, then the same happens to Elidbus. Witch is incredibly awesome to realize we were talking directly with our opponent since the beginning.
Me fighting the Magus Sisters in a dungeon: Okay, so Anima will be the trial. Me fighting Anima in a dungeon: Okay who the hell will be the trial boss then? Me fighthing Zodiark before the halfway mark: Wait, shenme the fuck?
@Absollum [ spoilerish ] . . . . . . This was me. I was expecting the Trials to go: Hydaelyn -> Zodiark -> (Big Bad) Hydaelyn first to unlock access to Zodiark. I think I prefer the direction they went with it over my initial guessing at the plot.
@@jmstover Same. Spoilerish: I figured we'd fight Hydaelyn as a test of strength, and I'm glad it wasn't for Zodiark. I think the scenario they came up with is a thousand times better.
I always love people's reactions to the first trial and their confusion to what could possibly come next. I was so confused and convinced that voice as the world darkened to be hydalyn. Intresting to see people immediately assume she is still good and it must be someone else because I had long distrusted her and assumed it was her. I'm looking forward to your reactions when you discover for a fact if it is or isn't her.
I'm surprised people thought she was evil. She spends most of her power keeping Zodiac sealed and allows you to trash talk her even though people thought we were tempered by her.
@@absollum I totally thought that the two balanced each other out(which is technically true) where one kept the other from tilting too far to the side.
I never really distrusted Hydaelyn tbh. We have a multi-universal genocidal maniac a chance and listened to their plight, and ended up with Shadowbringers. It would be very hypocritic of us to not extend that same ear to Venat.
yeah, it kinda falls in with how easy it is to forget that a lot of the strife on the Source are directly brought about by the Ascians in general and (Zodiark-tempered) Emet-Selch in particular - the Allagan genocidal empire, Garlean genocidal empire, the calamities, the flawed tempering-causing summoning that stoked the racial distrust between the tribes and the "human" races, Bahamut, etc. All directly and intentionally done by the Ascian paragons, especially Emet-Selch. And then he hits us with "Would half of your people have given your lives to save the rest?" Probably not, but maybe if you hadn't spent literally ten thousand years fomenting discord and hatred between us.
Long time before the fall of FF14 vanilla, super excited to see your adventure through endwalker. Going through your videos right now. You've been warned!
Huh, my parents didn't tell me not to buy swords, they bought me my first one as a graduation gift ( replica of Duncan's katana from one of the Highlander movies....looks good, definitely only wall ornament quality. Sure it would hurt if you got hit by it, but it's heavy and would likely shatter easy ). Also, by 13:40 before Y'shtola stepped in, I figured we were gonna get some cliche anime/hentai 3 way going on. The UST was that strong
I was just about hyperventillating when I came out of that post-trial cutscene. How could it have gone so horribly wrong?? HOW WAS THIS THE FIRST FUCKING TRIAL???? WHAT HAPPENS NOW??? WTF WAS THAT VOICE?!??!?!?!??! From that point on I had no idea what to expect and it was amazing.
1:10:00 There's actually only, like, 3 Sundered Ascians left at this point (the rest either died offscreen, like the two that were responsible for what happened in The First, or are part of side content like Eden), and since their whole entire purpose as thralls of Zodiark's Primal energy is to cause the Rejoining, with him dead and gone forever, they don't really have much to do. They aren't dead, probably; they're just kind of around, with no goal, so who knows what they're gonna get up to?
"how do you up from that??" And somehow the fuckers managed lol. This was only lvl73 and I was SO NOT READY for what was going to happen during the rest of the MSQ.
the Anima fight is one of the few places where you can feel stormblood pacing problems hit endwalker, but in reverse, kind of. the Garlemald plot points absolutely could have been stretched out over multiple zones, and then have Anima as a an Innocence-type fake-final boss, but they wanted to get to the Final Days chop-chop.
Well, to be fair, the Final Days was supposed to be part of the story. We were always supposed to fight that actual event off. It honestly wasn't really rushed, ShB even pointed out Zodiark protected from the Final Days as a whole. Zodiark's (and much of the events of our visit) death as a whole was part of Fandaniel's plan, and we were only there just to stop the towers.
Actually the magus sisters and anima we’re literally there to show that primals had next to no more threat to us at that point in the story. Especially since being tempered is largely no longer an issue
@@Chihiro-Kikuchi even more so, since the tribes will no longer feel it necessary to summon said primals, barring being kidnapped and used as batteries for 5G towers of doom
I think it is funny that Pint started ffxiv a year after me and I somehow passed them in the msq lol Also I also like tab targeting combat, and hope they don't get rid of it, I just hope the targeting improves.
"i believe in going to another dimension more than going to the moon" i- yea okay sure tho i do admit it felt a little early getting to Mare so quick ALSO i feel like with everything that was going on, ppl dying around them, the fate of the world, and literally going to release the huge big bad that weve only read about in ancient tomes, i think there were a few more pressing matters at hand to deal with the idea of 'WE CAN GO TO THE MOON????' EDIT: "so everywhere is gonna suck expect for Thavnair" oh,,, oh boy.
49:30 I just realized they could've just teleported to the moon and Zenos destroy all the pillars manually without building that tower and causing all the havok... Why didn't they just teleport to the moon in the first place if they could do so...
Likely because zenos specifically wants to piss us off, and cause the most suffering intentionally. Same with fandaniel, it would've been far easier to summon zodiark to ethyris, since his goal was to get zodiark killed. We couldn't have gotten to the moon to fight zodiark if it weren't for the tower either.
@@PintVods You're right I didn't consider all the "make WoL angry". Without all that you would've never experienced the horrifying body-swap. I think they could've solved all that by mentioning as long as the whole seal is up you can't teleport to the moon.
Rewatching the Watcher's Talk with the Scions reminds me of just how much I hate Y'shtola's wannabe know it all attitude. She's always acting like she knows everything, but is constantly wrong. "Those Long Dead?" We literally JUST saw those souls STILL ALIVE in Zodiark until Fandaniel killed them (and himself) after we kicked Zodiark's sundered ass. All the Sundering and Hydaelyn's subsequent binding of Zodiark did was cause those poor souls to be locked in perpetual slavery on the moon, acting as a barrier to the Final Days, unable to wake from their nightmares.
1:07:12 I also just realized if every world has a moon with a splinter of Zodiark in it then there are still more Zodiarks out there. Zeros world probably had Golbez eat Zodiark to keep his people "(un)alive".. preventing a rejoining.. but could be lots since we saw the empty prison on their worlds moon.. Damn.. who would've thought that "Endwalker" is just the opening to a much grander universe..
1:38:40 yeah it prob is hythlo cuz he was not only sacrificed to become the will of zodiark as so many others have, but he was originally chosen to be Hades, not Emet. It was Hythlo that convinced the council to allow Emet to become Hades instead. So it makes sense why they share the same mask.
While I love the impact of the moon zone, I also think it's the weakest paced part, because you go from garlemald, to immediately fight zodiark, then it's loporit shenanigans which I feel really undercut the gravity of the situation. There's also no "Holy shit we're on the mooon" moment
from the death of the two girls in Garlemald through Zodiark Ishikawa has been treating your solar plexus as her personal punching bag. they gotta give you a minute to breathe and set up the next plot points
@@xalrath Also, like, while hydaelyn says "zodiark must remain bound," it still feels like a victory in the moment. It's a much better subversion of expectations as is, since we get the loporrit shenanigans as a seeming reward before shit really hits the fan. Imo people who think there's a pacing problem in ML are mostly people who are so deep in the MSQ Vampire youtube pipeline that they've become jaded and have forgotten what it was like when they played it themselves for the first time.
Pacing wise, I wish after the battle with Zodiark there was a feeling of the calm before the storm. You stopped one tragedy but can't help but feel like the job is half done. Then after meeting the Lopporits, the identity of the main antagonist is hinted and then ultimately full revealed when you reach the area accessed by the crystal tower later in the game.
@@xalrath He hit my "punching bag" so bad than for the whole first hour of dealing with loporits I REALLY thought they were actually evil plotting the destruction of the world. Me ACTUALLY seeing other players fighting loporits on their MSQ while I was advancing on mine didn't help much lol.
I like how Pint is over here trying to convince his mum that owning a sword is cool, meanwhile here in the God Blessed United States of America lil' Timmy just got an AR15 for Christmas.
Chainsawman is one of the few animes where you SHOULDN'T read the manga. It all goes downhill fast and now it's a completely different story from the beginning.
weird take imo, most mangas move on from whatever the first arc and overarching themes were in the beginning and have to build the next arc once the first one ends. yes there is a dip in quality, but that's to be expected when you're climaxing an arc and heading into a new one. The Chainsaw Man manga is good, wrapped up the Gun Devil arc nicely and is moving forward to the next thing. Gotta give it time.
