This is more like it
The writing is taken to greater lengths in this first expansion. No sentence is simple, no thought is poorly phrased, no feeling is described in few words. Everything is written.
The story is also a major step up. There is a sense of pacing, of an actual story being told instead of missions in between the chores. It is more intricate and detailed, although it still falls short for me on the emotional part. There are twists and turns and sacrifices and heroic charges and military campaigns and redemptions and all the good stuff, about deep stuff like the perpetual cycles of violence and the millennial lies to keep a nation going. But the flair for the dramatic is not quite there.
Except for the boss battles and dungeons.
Those battles are something truly astonishing. A visual display of a thousand suns and colours, more varied in the gameplay side (with different stages and strategies) and FASTER. I heard someone referring to battles on the shadowbringers expansion as "bullet hell on the ground". I won't be the one to share that sentiment yet, but I at least can see the reasoning after some of these boss battles. Good lord.
Soundtrack is superb as always, but some tracks are the best the franchise has ever gotten, even the overworld themes. "Painted Foothills" has to be one of the most evocative pieces of the medium. It plays for a wonderful sight: a land, far into the skies, where there are still dragons.
The writing is taken to greater lengths in this first expansion. No sentence is simple, no thought is poorly phrased, no feeling is described in few words. Everything is written.
The story is also a major step up. There is a sense of pacing, of an actual story being told instead of missions in between the chores. It is more intricate and detailed, although it still falls short for me on the emotional part. There are twists and turns and sacrifices and heroic charges and military campaigns and redemptions and all the good stuff, about deep stuff like the perpetual cycles of violence and the millennial lies to keep a nation going. But the flair for the dramatic is not quite there.
Except for the boss battles and dungeons.
Those battles are something truly astonishing. A visual display of a thousand suns and colours, more varied in the gameplay side (with different stages and strategies) and FASTER. I heard someone referring to battles on the shadowbringers expansion as "bullet hell on the ground". I won't be the one to share that sentiment yet, but I at least can see the reasoning after some of these boss battles. Good lord.
Soundtrack is superb as always, but some tracks are the best the franchise has ever gotten, even the overworld themes. "Painted Foothills" has to be one of the most evocative pieces of the medium. It plays for a wonderful sight: a land, far into the skies, where there are still dragons.