PROS
+ Varied themed dungeons with fashionable loot & sweet collectibles
+ Challenging trials with amazing setpieces and great soundtracks
+ Cool beast tribes with worthwhile and cool rewards
+ Samurai and Red Mage as new classes
+ The Far East offers a beautiful new big city and great areas: fun to traverse, explore & look at (A step up from HW!)
+ Sadu & Cirina
TO BE EXPLORED (Will be updated at a later date)
+ Raids & alliance raids
+ Eureka
CONS
+ Quick time events: When they first appeared in a trial (!), I was pretty shook. I find them annoying and repetitive. Nevermind the accessibility issues they are connected to. Wish they'd just add a button to click and fill those gauges as an option.
+ Its politics: I'm not even gonna start. This wouldn't even be such a big deal if the game wasn't perpetually trying to make itself look smart when it presents you with the most terrible political opinions. Like when it keeps on trying to sit down and compromise with fascists. You're better off skipping every singular political talk cutscene in this game. There's one good moment when you're in Gyr Abania for the 2nd time, but it is only a moment
+ MSQ: The more-cohesive and focused approach of HW is gone. In SB we're presented with 2 different big places for the story and it makes sure to start you off with the worse one: Gyr Abania. If you remember the Camp Drybone/Ala Mhigo arcs on ARR it should give you an idea, just imagine a big focus on overlong instances as the cherry on top. I genuinely shelved the MSQ multiple times before I made it over this hump because not only was it annoying, it was incredibly boring. The big villain we're presented with here is probably one of the most laughable and worst villains in fiction: Zenos. He's the one you're gonna encounter multiple times, and everytime it's a completely ridiculous, overlong instance where you're trapped in a state of extreme boredom as all you have to do is dodge his spells in a circle for what feels like eternity. Ugh. I've seen people defend this as a build-up with future pay-off, but especially since having finished the expansion... No. To me, this reads as cheap playtime-padding when you consider how unclear duties can be with direction, points of failure, how you can't start them in 'Very Easy' (only if you've died in them once) and and how long they generally take in SB. And the worst part is: even when you've finished those, Zenos will pull something out of his magician's hat and keep on living and haunting you in future instances. It's incredibly annoying, unrewarding, boring and even worse for a game that already struggles at achieving a modicum of decent pacing with it's MSQ. If that wasn't enough, the Gyr Abania/Ala Mhigo is one of the worst written stories you can find here, too. And the maps are a pain to maneuver and dull to look at. An all-around awful time.
On the flipside, we have The Far East where we have a way more engaging and decently-paced story. It still suffers from overall instance overuse (seriously, who's idea was it to put MORE solo instances into an MMORPG?) and not every red thread leads to a satisfying end, but it's overall a good time. The environments are pretty to look at and fresh, we get chances to play with the new diving ability and it definitely has not only way more breathing room between instances, but they're also not drawn-out ridiculous and pointless instances like the ones vs. Zenos. We learn more about the Far East, the tribes who inhabit it and the conflicts while spending a lot of time with certain Scions and if you like them, you're pretty safely going to have a decent time. When we hit the post-SB content, we get to where the story really shines, with the Asahi arc being one of my favourites in the entire game!!! Here, we have interesting villains, actual stakes and turns at play and a satisfying conclusion to round it all off.
All in all, Stormblood, whilst not as overall lackluster and unengaging as ARR in terms of the MSQ and pacing, has some really rough and terrible spots (namely pretty much all of Gyr Abania, which you'll visit twice). If you can make it through the bad parts and reach the Far East areas, it should give you enough engaging and interesting scenery and challenges to rejuvenate your interest in the expansion and make you able to power through the rest. Some of the things you have to look forward to: Kugane is a blast to hang out in and traverse. The Namazu are hilarious and the Kojin are cool as heck. The Anantas are badass. The trials really push you and contain the most amazing setpieces and fights the game has offered yet and I can't wait to play them on Extreme. The story has some really sweet highlights and a satisfying ending. All I wish is that the good stuff wasn't so wrapped up and gated by some of the worst pacing, blatant playtime-padding and unengaging writing in video games I've ever witnessed.
+ Varied themed dungeons with fashionable loot & sweet collectibles
+ Challenging trials with amazing setpieces and great soundtracks
+ Cool beast tribes with worthwhile and cool rewards
+ Samurai and Red Mage as new classes
+ The Far East offers a beautiful new big city and great areas: fun to traverse, explore & look at (A step up from HW!)
+ Sadu & Cirina
TO BE EXPLORED (Will be updated at a later date)
+ Raids & alliance raids
+ Eureka
CONS
+ Quick time events: When they first appeared in a trial (!), I was pretty shook. I find them annoying and repetitive. Nevermind the accessibility issues they are connected to. Wish they'd just add a button to click and fill those gauges as an option.
+ Its politics: I'm not even gonna start. This wouldn't even be such a big deal if the game wasn't perpetually trying to make itself look smart when it presents you with the most terrible political opinions. Like when it keeps on trying to sit down and compromise with fascists. You're better off skipping every singular political talk cutscene in this game. There's one good moment when you're in Gyr Abania for the 2nd time, but it is only a moment
+ MSQ: The more-cohesive and focused approach of HW is gone. In SB we're presented with 2 different big places for the story and it makes sure to start you off with the worse one: Gyr Abania. If you remember the Camp Drybone/Ala Mhigo arcs on ARR it should give you an idea, just imagine a big focus on overlong instances as the cherry on top. I genuinely shelved the MSQ multiple times before I made it over this hump because not only was it annoying, it was incredibly boring. The big villain we're presented with here is probably one of the most laughable and worst villains in fiction: Zenos. He's the one you're gonna encounter multiple times, and everytime it's a completely ridiculous, overlong instance where you're trapped in a state of extreme boredom as all you have to do is dodge his spells in a circle for what feels like eternity. Ugh. I've seen people defend this as a build-up with future pay-off, but especially since having finished the expansion... No. To me, this reads as cheap playtime-padding when you consider how unclear duties can be with direction, points of failure, how you can't start them in 'Very Easy' (only if you've died in them once) and and how long they generally take in SB. And the worst part is: even when you've finished those, Zenos will pull something out of his magician's hat and keep on living and haunting you in future instances. It's incredibly annoying, unrewarding, boring and even worse for a game that already struggles at achieving a modicum of decent pacing with it's MSQ. If that wasn't enough, the Gyr Abania/Ala Mhigo is one of the worst written stories you can find here, too. And the maps are a pain to maneuver and dull to look at. An all-around awful time.
On the flipside, we have The Far East where we have a way more engaging and decently-paced story. It still suffers from overall instance overuse (seriously, who's idea was it to put MORE solo instances into an MMORPG?) and not every red thread leads to a satisfying end, but it's overall a good time. The environments are pretty to look at and fresh, we get chances to play with the new diving ability and it definitely has not only way more breathing room between instances, but they're also not drawn-out ridiculous and pointless instances like the ones vs. Zenos. We learn more about the Far East, the tribes who inhabit it and the conflicts while spending a lot of time with certain Scions and if you like them, you're pretty safely going to have a decent time. When we hit the post-SB content, we get to where the story really shines, with the Asahi arc being one of my favourites in the entire game!!! Here, we have interesting villains, actual stakes and turns at play and a satisfying conclusion to round it all off.
All in all, Stormblood, whilst not as overall lackluster and unengaging as ARR in terms of the MSQ and pacing, has some really rough and terrible spots (namely pretty much all of Gyr Abania, which you'll visit twice). If you can make it through the bad parts and reach the Far East areas, it should give you enough engaging and interesting scenery and challenges to rejuvenate your interest in the expansion and make you able to power through the rest. Some of the things you have to look forward to: Kugane is a blast to hang out in and traverse. The Namazu are hilarious and the Kojin are cool as heck. The Anantas are badass. The trials really push you and contain the most amazing setpieces and fights the game has offered yet and I can't wait to play them on Extreme. The story has some really sweet highlights and a satisfying ending. All I wish is that the good stuff wasn't so wrapped up and gated by some of the worst pacing, blatant playtime-padding and unengaging writing in video games I've ever witnessed.