First reactions to Dead Ends & Endsinger FFXIV: Endwalker finale
NEXT➡️: COMING SOON
PREVIOUS⬅️: https://youtu.be/77xueDAAjVk
*** Obviously contains SPOILERS for Endwalker! ***
So sorry for the delay on this one, fam! Our editor was caught in the hurricane in Florida last week, all while in the middle of a sudden apartment hunt so he’s had his hands full to say the least!
The next (and final) portion will be out tomorrow! As a certain song says though, ‘our journey will never end’ and we’ll have plenty more patch story content coming between other uploads after our finale reactions.
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00:00 – Intro
04:57 – Dead Ends
35:10 – Post-Dungeon CS
55:09 – Endsinger Pt.1
1:06:49 – Endsinger Pt.2
1:12:43 – Comforting Meteion
1:21:54 – Zenos’ Duel
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Man, been waiting for this one with anticipation. I think I said this last video you uploaded, but you're just as much vivaciously emotional as I am so watching these reactions of you really takes me back to when I played through it.
Rook: "Is this our friends trying to break through?"
Me: "Well it is A Friend!"
Yeah, I was also greatly disappointed with the zenos choices.
just in case you did not catch it. Our Limit Breaks are Dynamis
I still interpret Flow as being only from Venat, but I feel like Meteion is a being that Venat feels similarly towards as she does the rest of us. Notice what she says to us after her trial. She doesn't tell us to go kill Meteion. She doesn't even say to stop her. She says to teach her a better way. Meteion was a child in need of support and guidance, and I think in passing the torch to us Venat understood that the best way forward was for us to stop the song, yes, but to reach out our hand to baby bird and show her the answers she missed.
Endwalker, for me, ended beautifully and in ways I was truly satisfied with.
This journey has been good, Venat…it has been worthwhile! ;w;
From the moment Xenos answers your dialogue choice and rises to charge, Soken just pops the F off and keeps it at 15/10 until the trial is over. Soken LB5.
The prayers of the Scions protecting you and then dropping Maker's Ruin into the score – YOUR boss music – gave me uncontrollable chills while playing this the first time.
EDIT: I love the meta approach to dueling Zenos, to call out to talk to the thing that makes a gamer, a gamer. To try again, to Try Hard, to get better, to prove out. To clear the level, to max your parse, to reach the kill screen. And for the WoL I love that they set up this moment perfectly as the moment when you had no more responsibility to do something for the world, for anyone else – you could do this for yourself, for the satisfaction of it. That's why I love that smirk. Let's leave it all out here at the end of the universe, Zenos.
Personally I had wanted a rematch with him from Rhaelgr's Reach on, and never felt like fighting him in duty or as a dragon "counted". Dragoning is cheating.
I like to think that the song is from Venat, and that she "taught" it to us, and we brought it to Meteion. And we sung it together, at the edge of the universe.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Another step in the journey! <3 We have loved every step of the way with you. So happy to see this on my feed today. I needed it <3
Me to Rook at the end of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J28GDeGOpUs
I was very curious what the reaction to Zenos was going to be. He's very interesting from a thematic point of view but it definitely doesn't hit for everyone. The thing to understand about Zenos in EW is that he represents a polar opposite to Meteion and her nihilism. He lives a life full of personal purpose and passionate focus to the point he disregards empathy of all others.
@Rookuri Love your channel, thanks for your hard work, excellent playthroughs, and deep emotional insight. As for Meteion, my question is, was she even capable of acting beyond her "programing?" I know a lot of players blame her, but I'm definitely not part of that view. To me Meteion is a consequence of the hubris of the entire Ancients civilisation, as is Hermes. He certainly had more agency than I believe Meteion, and therefore is substantively more responsible for his acts. However even then, see how closeted he had to be about his unipolar depression? This is a society that didn't own those who didn't fit their utopia, for Hermes his civilisation was in very practical terms, a dystopia. I believe this is emphasised when Venat challenges the very basis for their society just before she sunders the world. I was laughing so hard at your Zenos reaction, thanks once again! He's not my type of character, but I did love fighting on his back.
Congratulations on your 5K! Just followed ^_^
Personally I actually kind of love how Zenos is simple and doesn’t change. Villains we grow to understand and that grow are great obviously, but it’s weirdly refreshing to have a simple character in a world where everyone else grows and changes so much. He realized his purpose early and no one in the universe could change it no matter the circumstances
Is it every reactor/youtuber that at the end of the second boss, never looks up to see the devastation wrought by the global citizen?
Well well well. Zenos turning into a dragon really woke something in you huh 🧐
I really wish at the end we could just not turn around and just leave him there. I didn't want to give that creepy stalker the satisfaction of fighting him.
Also my distaste for Zenos really caused me to struggle with the ending. It felt tarnished.
Zenos looking at Endsinger like "Shut up, I'm making my own purpose and right now it's killing you."
Oh shite! That's me. This was so long ago I did not remember we did this. -SK
Did she ever learn you can angle the camera up and down with Ctrl + up or down arrows? She loves the arenas and details but can't see much with her camera angle at the floor so much
Seems like a lot of streamers miss the cinematic after 2nd midboss fight.
Camera angle miss! Missed the bombs going off on the Judgment Day part of the dungeon, after the boss! Just leaving comments as I watch. Haven't seen the rest yet, but will comment about that stuff too!
"Our friends trying to breakthrough from the outside?"
No, our best friend breaking through from the outside. 🤣
It’s nice to have everything so neatly tied together. I love that Venat’s words as Hydaelyn that were meme’d on and still are “hear…feel…think” actually had some meaning to them after all these years. Meteion wanted to “hear you words, share your feelings, and know your thoughts.” Even thought it may have not been planned all the way back in ARR our very first cutscene hinted at our final encounter with Meteion. 🙂
I loved what you said to your party mates after the trial. Such a wonderful soul you are, Rook. <3
Just a suggestion, Rook. When you play/record the next chapter, let the credits roll at the end.
Zenos is an easier pill once you figure out his mentality. He is much like that last world in the dead ends. He is someone for whom life held no struggle. He was born genetically superior to most men and provided the finest training and technology of the most advanced empire in the world. Protected from his sins by it's political influence. He experienced a life with no limitations. Nothing to strive for and so quickly became bored of everything. That's why he's so fixated on you. You're the first person to give them what they truly needed. Perhaps defeat .. perhaps merely something to strive for.
Rook; “these remnants!”
Me, pointing: SHE SAID THE JAPNESE NAME OF THE DUNGEON
'They couldn't come up with Video games?'
Nope: That's a form of 'Strife.' And that was something they purged from themselves. As such, they knew nothing to live for. The struggles let you know what it's all worth, what you stand to really lose, and how you can grow. Growth, it seems, is painful, in all of its forms.
Also, It's not your fault that you missed it, but it is frustrating to see a persons first time in the dungeon and see that they MISSED that bombing scene by the global citizen at the end of the second part, after the Peacekeeper.
The Zenos reveal has been one of the best things about watching this expansion streamed, every single time. It has ranged from 'best fren!' to 'gtfo!'
Endsinger's phase 2 is gift of visual and auditory story telling.
Not just the light vs her dark but the meme is it's our boss music, but given when Maker's Ruin plays it's not all that far from the truth. Not to mention in phase 2 Endsinger is panicked, all her mechanics stop and she can do nothing but wildly flail at you.
There is so many connections between Meteion and Venat, and I'm not sure why. This song, the fact that they both, repeatedly, say the line "hear, feel, think" in various ways, etc. I think it's answers. One has them, one is searching for them. One tells us to "hear, feel, think", the other asks us to.
I think Zenos is talking to YOU the player, not your character before the duel. He very specifically calls you "adventurer", in italicised characters, the same way Yoshi-P's avatar calls YOU the player "adventurer" in the yearly Rising event, and in recent blogposts in real life. He's talking about you levelling up and taking on stronger and stronger challenges in the game because you enjoy doing it. That's my take on it.
The sad part about the later half of the trial, at least for me, is realizing new players will not experience it like this. As everyone gets higher ilevels, it will end before you hear the lyrics. You can only experience this during the first few months of the expansion. Sometimes I hate the powercreep in this game
Aw, you didn't look at the massive explosion in the distance after beating the Peacekeeper.
Get into this dungeon more, and you get a bird minion. Meteion bird. I kinda forgot what was that called? Starlight?