After playing through Heavensward and this, my enjoyment with this game is starting to wane a little...
To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.
In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.
And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.
Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.
I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅
To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.
In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.
And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.
Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.
I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅