erin plays a game

I tweeted doing tthis earlier so I figured I’d write it while i wait to log in. I figured it’d be nice to give one coherent summary of my thoughts i guess, because i feel like talking to friends makes us kind of piecemeal our opinions together and are something imprecise or vague about what specifically we enjoyed or not, so organizing my thoughts on the game so far might be nice.

First, i guess, aesthetic. I think it did great, i think it made zones that are interesting, easily navigated and most of all coherent. So many of Heavensward zones just had this slight incoherence to them that doesn’t make sense to me, as a natural or even semi-seamless part of a broader geographical area. Obviously the limitations of the game make it such that we only see a small part of these regions, but stormblood managed to make it feel like the zones captured a part of a broader picture that feels natural intertwined with the areas that aren’t shown as well as its neighboring regions. It takes care to be mindful of its geography, the paths and routes feel detailed enough to be realistic, but not so mcuh that they’re a chore to navigate. It deos a better job than heavensward in encouraging you to explore the regions, but it also has lots of areas to explore with nothing significant there. Little nooks and crannies with a suprising amount of detail put into them, but nothing of actual substance. EAch zone feels different and captures its feeling very well, so overall i love the experience it has, but not w/o some issue.

The new gear provided is a mixed bag. The new gear introduced is all gorgeous and detailed in subtle simple ways that doesn’t make it feel overly wrought or cluttered for the most part. The recycled models are unique ones that I enjoy seeing again, but some were used too much or without sufficient changes to the model or the class it was on. I think the 67 dungeon is the worst offender of this, bc it is slight recolors of doman gear without any departures from the blue gear models or associated classes. The first dungeon being dyeable, the i270 and i300 green weapons being the same model, as well as several grey gear repeated from HW grey gear is also a bit bland. That some of the high end glamor gear is also now gatherer/crafter gear feels weird, but not being able to glamor that unto combat gear changes that. Most of this is outweighed by the new gear looking absolutely gorgeous, but it feel like lost potential in some ways.

Second, i guess should be plot. I’ll do things I liked, then disliked, then things i’m optimistic and looking forward to.

I’ll begin by saying I loved the plot as a whole. It delivered more than i was expecting in being this exciting journey to the east kind of quest. It managed to tie this kind of fantasy theme with something more earthly by having the back drop being a campaign to liberate nations long occupied, and it managed to do it in a way that was reasonably well nuanced. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of how it talked about ideas like occupation, and liberty, and rule, and cooperation with one’s occupiers, but I think it mostly managed to delivery in these regards. I think the dialogue was mostly really good at a mix of banter and serious deliveries, and I think it did good at using both ends of conversation to give characterization to people in the quests as well as your own character. Its overall quality made me realize the chaff that heavensward still had, despite that itself being a great improvement over ARR. For the most part, it had likeable protagonists who showed human flaws, villains who played specific roles as villains and served that ends well, and companions who grew and explored the same world and struggles as you did as a player character. 

The things i didn’t like were mostly in a lack of conclusion, or willingness to come to certain conclusions and closure with the narrative and characterization given to the characters. Primarily, this is in characters like Yotsuyu and Zenos, but kinda sprinkled through out. The game is uncertain what it wants from these characters or what role they should play in the narrative, and sometimes feels like the ending is overly flattening or just a dramatic shift that weakens the impact of the personality cultivated over the course of the plot. 

In Yotsuyu’s case, she’s presented as this self-determined and violent pragmatist who begins to be given a sympathetic background, that’s ignored for a dramatic one-dimensional ending (yes, i know i know). That it fails to give her opportunity to explore and understand her in a way that makes her and her collaboration with the empire more sympathetic is a huge short coming, and makes it feel wasted as a time to develop as a character. 

Zenos is what i might see as a quinessential JRPG villain, with morbid and truly baseless, and irrational ideas of human violence and instinct, and in most cases this would just be boring, but his position and role makes this more interesting because of the power he commands and the influence he offers. How he manipulates and affects someone like Fordola and how he perceives his conflict with you is so out of touch with the reality of the rest of the narrative that it almost works because that divide is so clearly shown.... until the end, and you go to the menagerie, and he’s just... He monologues and becomes a dragon and you fight and none of what he did before make sense. His imperial position and rule and authority to command armies at his call are irrelevant, and his brutally primitive world view isn’t given a context except its own word. It becomes uninteresting to me, and never really gives a closure on why his view is wrong, only that in some ways he validates himself and dies.

In a similar vein, the game wants to make a parallel between Lyse and Fordola, as a characters who mirror each other, and all of the pieces are there, but the game doesn’t or isn’t interested in making something from it, but that may be somethin to be developed as more patches are released. But its also indicative as a whole where the game almost wants to say something or provide this kind of insight or even the vaguest of messages, and shirks away and fails to do so in any way, or with any substance. (This also brings up my disappointment in the Lakshmi detour, in that it is a regression in where the plot has gone with discussing the nature of primals and primal summoning, and the vaguest of messages that can be gleaned from the arc falls unto deaf ears of the main cast, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially in the context of Lakshmi being a real hindu goddess that’s depicted with an all too similar appearance. Even with that issue aside, it fails to do anything interesting or substantive, even though every piece is supplied and presented within the game).

For all those grievances, this also means i have a lot that I want out of the game and that I think it has the potential to deliver on. The end of the quest begins to raise more and more questions on the nature of leadership, or rule and authority, and what it takes to provide these things. They’re situated there both at the beginning and the ending, and I think it has a lot of promise both for an overarching story and post-game , as well as exploration through side quests and so on.