Zepla reads Famitsu interview with Yoshi-P and Ishikawa 

Wow, thats deep somehow. Just get into Twitter recently and I know how Hermes feel. Destroy the world is the best course of action

That was slightly lost in translation. She is trying to say that it was hard, because her team basically wasted their time at the residential by just plainly listing out the remaining 20% of the plot and accepted that that's how they would do Endwalker, but only after they got back did she realize that it wouldn't cut it for a finale and had to rewrite the whole thing. The "completed 2 days before deadline" comment is meant to express that they barely made it in time, not that they had time to spare.

There's one from Japan that literally went depressed (I'm pretty sure it also went Hitler lover). This most likely is a more plausible inspiration.

She already is.

I fear she becomes a proper novel writer and leaves the video game industry, like what happened with the mass effect trilogy writer. And I fear it bcs I will have to learn japanese to purchase her books.

Imagine thinking it was emotionally heavy lol. Why? It fell flat on its face.

@@yoloparrot42 Why so confrontational? lmao I thought it was a great send-off of the arc. The central theme of defiant hope in the face of utter destruction was well-developed through every zone, the characters had satisfying stories that showed how much they had all grown, the 11th hour threat of Meteion is a classic Final Fantasy trope, and this game gave you a run up to it that I felt was impactful and thoughtful. I felt for Hermes and his plight while being horrified with what he did, and we finally got our final confrontation with our best friend Zenos. Fair if you didn’t like it, not everyone has to like everything I do. Shadowbringers is still my favourite, but I think Endwalker is a fantastic conclusion.

🥲 it really was an amazing scene.

I really enjoyed it because it also showed how much this character developed and shed more light on who he was in ARR. I've known many who dislike Urianger and I feel in EW they get that different perspective of him.

I was so burned out by the busy work of all the mind numbing filler quests leading up to it in labyrinthos that it did not have any emotional impact on me whatsoever.

I TOTALLY agree. For me its just like history I dont entireley understand fully.

You can watch it online. Basically the Hero of Light is erased from everyone's memories, which seems to be a major theme.

I had to read a handful of online articles about it to really appreciate the finer points of ARR. If I had that knowledge around that time, I think much of my frustration with ARR's storytelling wouldn't have been there.

Yup Hermes was a terrible person in every of it's incarnations

@@zehark To be accurate, he's a terrible scientist.

@@ChaldeaWarmaster I think everyone on Elpis is a terrible scientist. They make things just to make things or for fun rather than even considering the implications BEFORE creation. It would be like a chemist walking into a lab and mixing a bunch of crap together just to see what happens.

Even worse, Hermes was depressed, and decided to create an empath to hang out with him.

@@melissas4874 this is how I felt the entire time I was in elpis. Creating abominations and suffering just because they could. So many people I know said it was their favourite zone but I couldn't get out of it fast enough.

Same. I didn't really start paying attention to the unvoiced part of the story until Stormblood. It has some incredible gems of writing about democracy and struggle. Maybe people who didn't like it focused too much on the villains who, in that first iteration of SB, weren't very well developed. I also think there's some residual Asian hate with the reaction to SB. I've heard people call it "fan service" and what they mean by that is its setting appeals to the game's Asian audience. A similar reaction happened to WoW Mysts of Panderia and Guild Wars Factions. Other people who didn't have this opinion get some of the feedback from the disappointment of other players whose motive was more racial.

Agreed, it honestly wasn't until Stormblood when I truly got hooked on the story. While I see why most people praise Heavensward as an amazing story, for me it was good sure but nothing that really hooked and reeled me in.

I mean in FF III, the heroes fought the Clou of Darkness.

Not true though. It wasnpretty obviously a mess to tie together and IMO at least they utterly ruined the story with Endwalker.

@@yoloparrot42 if given the chance to rewrite Endwalker, how would you write it?

@@yoloparrot42 No

I see this dude everywhere convincing how EW is bad, he’s either never play the game, or just 4d chess want ppl to praise FFXIV in his stead.

It is definitely not easy though. That is why people shit on the jailer ending in WoW. I am glad that they say this, because I think a lot players who hate the storyline fail to see that it is super obvious some of the things are added in impromptu, despite the rationale being very logical. That doesn't mean the grand scheme of things are bad, they delivered a proper narrative without major plot holes (barring probably Estinien)

@@deltaoalice9281 Blizzard made the mistake of saying: "We are pulling together threads that existed since Warcraft 3"

I kind of liked Hermes for the same reasons Zepla did, but I also feel that he obviously wasn't chosen well for the job description if he could not handle destroying the beings he created. Also, he says who are we to decide the beings should die, but doesn't question why it maybe shouldn't be their decisions to just bring things into the world to serve as nothing but experiments and to be more responsible in their creations (because it didn't seem to me they were).

Most of the experiments being done in Elpis were unethical. Hermes flaw was in thinking he was better than the others, because he noticed enough to be sad about it. His hubris is pretty fitting for someone being constantly touted as the most brilliant of the bunch.

@@melissas4874 the way hermes sees the life created is like a mother and a child in some way. Unlike the others when he'd given birth to something he sees it as his reponsibility to make sure they live happily. And being forced to do the opposite hurts him.

@@melissas4874 Yeah you're right. It's like kids who want to do whatever they want, but don't want to deal with consequences.

@@thewittyusername Although you're right that all the experiments were ethically questionable, there was at least some kind of oversight and assessment process to determine the impact of new creations on the environment. Hermes is the chief of the facility and in his role he garantuees that processes are followed: Yet he himself circumvented the assessment process and released untested creation into the environment. In modern world, he would go to prison.

Hermes is someone that genuinely thinks Twitter is a viable place for discourse and gets caught off guard when all he finds is a raging cesspit of despair.

Hermes "I like waffles" Meteion and her sisters "why do you hate pancakes"

I Hate him so much i 100% know what he went through his head because the same thing is happening to me but to kill EVERYONE because you are depressed with you life? Who gave him the right to decide the fate of a whole universe

Yeah, the thing is Hermes did have a point. The ancient people were only content while they were in control of everything else in the world, essentially purging anything that would upset their peace. And because everyone else, for the sake of that peace, never even discussed the darker side of their existence, and treated it as if it didn't exist, Hermes felt extremely alone. He tried his best to figure out his place in the world and resolve his own misgivings through his experiment with Meteion, but when that started going wrong and he saw he would essentially be cornered by the convocation and he would be unable to continue living for himself, he basically snapped. He decided that he didn't want to give up his life or lose any more of his autonomy for the home he never felt was truly his, and so he saw flipping the table as the only recourse. Of course, from everyone else's perspective he's just wrong. It's not fair to doom all life in the universe solely for his sake but I don't think he was thinking about that when he did what he did. He just knew he didn't want to comply with the convocation, dug his heels in and damn the consequences. People do this all the time in real life. Sometimes they end up doing a lot of damage, but thankfully as humans do not have god-like powers, the amount of damage we can do to ourselves and others is limited. And ultimately the god-like powers ended up being the downfall of the ancients as a whole. Sure, everyone except Hermes seemed happy enough at first, but after the Final Days? Lots of people were ready to continue sacrificing more and more lives in an attempt to turn back time and end their own suffering, and the only thing that stopped them was the sundering. Hermes was the villain this time, but it could have just as easily been someone else. The root of the problem was an inability to withstand suffering without succumbing to the temptation of abusing their powers, and it always was. Hermes abused his powers to cause the Final Days, all the others abused their powers to tightly control other creations so they'd never have to face suffering. The survivors abused their powers to try to alleviate their suffering, once again at a great cost to others' lives.

He had a point but then completely destroyed his own point by being a massive hypocrite about it So he's got this problem with his society because they were Creating life in a spurious manner--which is a fair point. Things like the Hythlodaeus rant about the sharks show that there is a gap between their beliefs and their actions, that while the Ancients had like this ideal philosophy of Creation to improve the Star what it often worked out to was individuals enjoying the act of Creation and not really thinking through the consequences Hermes was unhappy about this gap and articulated his desire for people to think more about the lives that they were making, again a fair point But then... he Creates an entire species and launches them into space with all the care of a dandelion shedding its seeds into the wind He engaged in an act of even more spurious Creation than anyone else in his society (or at least that we know of from what we are shown in the story), and what's more he _knowingly_ took advantage of his position as Elpis chief, to evade the whole Elpis mechanism, which while imperfect was at least an attempt by the Ancients to minimize unintentional downstream effects of spurious Creation By his own philosophy he was the worst of anyone, when it came to this gap This isn't even speaking of any real downstream effects of Meteions doing their thing, btw. This is just a view of Hermes himself through the lens _of his own beliefs_ And depression has nothing to do with it. There's plenty of people who are depressed and aren't massive hypocrites like this

@@Zidana123 bets comment

On the topic of self destruction, there ARE people with the power to destroy the world right now as we know it. This makes it extra worrying tbh.

If you pay attention in ARR. They are clearly setting up a very different world and lore, and over the course of the expansions basically retconned much of 1.0 and 2.0 things.

Ishikawa made me cry yes. By ruining the entire games story with this awful crap. Worst FF of all time, Endwalker.

@@yoloparrot42 Whatever you say troll. You should really work on your technique. I can give you pointers some time if you like, but this is really low hanging fruit.

Well, after experiencing the quality of the writing, they could make a story about guard duty and I would still play the shit out of that

in other interviews they mentioned they do a writer's team retreat as part of the preproduction/initial work of each expansion.

You already have been spoiled it's too late.

Oh wow really good catch - makes a ton of sense!

Well damn, i have the same Icemugs at home.., have them stored int he freezer for those moments when i want a chill drink(optional: add ice)

Hermes is a goddamn idiot in all his incarnations, from chief of Elpis to heart-of-Zodiark Fandaniel. But I can understand why he lost his shit the way he did during that dungeon in Elpis. Hermes was a bleeding heart who cared enormously for all living things , both creations and his fellow ancients, and was shaken by how eager his peers were to discard life they deem purposeless (again, both that of their creations and their own once they "retired"). So he created the flock of Meteions and scattered them across the cosmos in hope to find kindred spirits that valued life as much as he did, but only found that life is as meaningless on other stars as it is on etheirys. Thus se said "Fuck it! If you all wanna die so bad and take everything else with you, I'll allow Meteion to take all you mofos out. If life in the universe truly deserves to persevere then you better find a way to shut her down!". I don't agree with his views, but I see how someone could have arrived at this conclusion given his personality, and I think he's an amazing character.

@@NerdishGeekish Yeah this is my take on him as well. I hate the guy but I understand where he's coming from. But also think that ending as the Ra-La guys... IS FINE. They were perfectly happy until Meteion asked the question. And it is no shame to fulfill your purpose and move on! Being able to look back and say: "I had a good run time to be done" can be a mark of maturity and wisdom. A way to make way for the next generation while passing with peace and dignity! So I guess I have some big philosophical differences with EW and the writing team.

@@specialnewb9821 they didn't look back with satisfaction, they were so bored with perfection that they wanted to no longer exist in order to make their boredom end.

No I don’t want there to be substantial lore outside of the game itself. It’d be cool to see more Msq plot or side quests though with full voice acting…. They’ve successfully gone back in time with shb and ew already, they can make it happen

@@lrdeldric I can see that I understand completely, especially when looking at how it's been dealt with in things like WoW. I guess I just loved the idea of seeing more from these side stories since it feels like there's so much story there that can be expanded upon. Would love if it happened in game too though =)

no, please not, keep in mind that while Yoshi P and Co are a godsend in game development since they respect the player base, they still work for corporate Square Enix, and SE is on par with Blizz or EA in greed, just don't have the same market presence. There is a video in youtube with all the cutscenes in 1.0, better watch that.

The problem is this is what WoW did and look at where their story is now. Be careful what you wish for.

@@coyote271280 yes great point. I feel like as far as the actual game goes, as long as Yoshi P is still involved he has enough pull/power with SE that corporate won't mess with the game too much without his approval. Can't say the same for books though, could see that getting out of hand.