This game hits very close to home. It tells a story about an oppressive regime. About normal people forced to take up arms to defend their homes. About normal people being treated lesser, as if they were roaches meant to be stomped on. When I think of Ala Mhigo or Doma, I can't help but see the parallels between it and modern day Palestine. Unlike what TLOU2 tried to showcase through its two warring factions, this isn't a cycle of violence. There is a side that has power and there is a side who's being stripped of their power. To view it as any other would be disrespectful to the real life victims of colonialism and apartheid. I'm thankful that this game did not two side this story.
OK... what about the game? Oh fuck man, its kinoooooo. Well actually I think the pacing wasn't very good for most of the game. The game generally felt longer than it should have been, with quests falling into a bit of the mundane side. Gaining the trust of a settlement for the 10th time, walking halfway across the map to give someone a letter, finding a talking catfish. Perhaps these issues would've been alot easier to bear with if the base mount speed was a lot faster when you first explore a new region. Or honestly maybe I should just learn to be more patient. Like using the time in-between quest steps to play some music and chill.
In terms of dungeons and trials, the stormblood ones are simply fantastic. They've gotten alot more experimental in designing these new encounters or perhaps the right word is braver. Dungeons bosses have more mechanics you need to be aware of when fighting them. But, because of the design language brought to us by heavansward, the mechanics are easy to understand. None of them will catch you by surprise and leaving you confused on what to do (given you understand that language heavansward established). In short, I just think they're pretty fun and cool.
Also one last thing, I think it's pretty cool that they've made changes to the single instance encounters. Character portraits show up right next to dialogue boxes. Their complexity is slowly rising. I don't know what else to say except that stormblood took what heavansward improved on from ARR and further refined it. The thing holding it back is that pacing issue I mentioned.
At the time of writing this, I've only completed the main stormblood campaign and I'll probably wait until I finish the patch quests before claiming that it's better or worse than heavansward. But so far, I think heavanward has the edge on stormblood despite its gameplay improvements.
OK... what about the game? Oh fuck man, its kinoooooo. Well actually I think the pacing wasn't very good for most of the game. The game generally felt longer than it should have been, with quests falling into a bit of the mundane side. Gaining the trust of a settlement for the 10th time, walking halfway across the map to give someone a letter, finding a talking catfish. Perhaps these issues would've been alot easier to bear with if the base mount speed was a lot faster when you first explore a new region. Or honestly maybe I should just learn to be more patient. Like using the time in-between quest steps to play some music and chill.
In terms of dungeons and trials, the stormblood ones are simply fantastic. They've gotten alot more experimental in designing these new encounters or perhaps the right word is braver. Dungeons bosses have more mechanics you need to be aware of when fighting them. But, because of the design language brought to us by heavansward, the mechanics are easy to understand. None of them will catch you by surprise and leaving you confused on what to do (given you understand that language heavansward established). In short, I just think they're pretty fun and cool.
Also one last thing, I think it's pretty cool that they've made changes to the single instance encounters. Character portraits show up right next to dialogue boxes. Their complexity is slowly rising. I don't know what else to say except that stormblood took what heavansward improved on from ARR and further refined it. The thing holding it back is that pacing issue I mentioned.
At the time of writing this, I've only completed the main stormblood campaign and I'll probably wait until I finish the patch quests before claiming that it's better or worse than heavansward. But so far, I think heavanward has the edge on stormblood despite its gameplay improvements.