Keeping details minimal because I can’t for the life of me get spoiler tags to work on kbin:

In the middle of Heavensward we learn that a very dramatic death sequence that led to some major events was a ruse. The character is alive and things will quickly return to normal.

I get what they wanted, but big fakeouts like that are not my thing. It felt like the consequences were walked back so I could never take the rest of the story seriously. Anything bad that happens could just be reverted.

Endwalker has a point after a lot of stuff goes down where I was thinking “Yeah this is edgy and all, but they really held back from doing anything actually substantial” then we get introduced to a bunch of cuteness and silly things. It took until then to really settle with me that they mostly want to tell fun and uplifting stories, so making stuff look dark and dramatic but keeping the lasting impact down is more of an objective of theirs than a narrative flaw.

I can appreciate that, and a lot of other things about the game and its story, but that in particular is just not for me.