LogFAQs > #944632044

Okay, finished Stormblood and a bit after that. Some thoughts:

Ala Mhigo area design sucked. All browns and rocks, nothing interesting, and some of the Currents were a pain to find. Kinda disappointing when the game has good area design in general. Doma was much more colorful and interesting. I especially liked the underwater areas. At first I thought swimming would be lame (as it is in most games), but they basically just used the flying mechanics, so it worked well. The underwater towns were especially good stuff. Unfortunately, Kugane kinda sucked. Worst of the five major cities so far IMO. Getting around feels like a pain, and the architecture is boring.

Storywise it felt consistently okay, but not very interesting. Zenos sucked as a villain, and they never really answered why he was so absurdly strong. Yotsuyu felt mostly one-dimensional, even though they tried to give her a tragic backstory later. Fordola's better, but she didn't really get her development until 4.1 anyway. The good cast wasn't much better. Lyse was a big step down from Yda, IMO. Yda was always the funniest Scion, but Lyse is super serious. I always thought Yugiri was fun as a concept, and she's good in the post-ARR stuff, but now that she's getting focus, there's not much to her. She doesn't have much of a personality. Gosetsu feels like he should be comic relief, but he's not that funny. Hien's pretty flat too.

I think one of the flaws with the main story is that there weren't many diversions. Earlier stuff would focus on main plot for a while, then there'd be an emergency somewhere else to deal with, but here, it was all Ala Mhigo, then all Doma. Felt too straightforward. Ala Mhigo's main plot was probably the more interesting part, but Doma had the highlight of the plot, which was the Azim Steppe stuff. The stuff with the Xaela was a bit silly, but it was also a lot of fun, and there were characters who were actually interesting. Cirina mix of being adorable and bloodthirsty was great, and Sadu was super entertaining whenever she was on screen. The Dotharl actually had some interesting traits too, unlike the Domans, which had nothing unique or interesting about them other than just being Japanese. The climaxes of the stories were better, just because they were well executed climaxes, so there was at least that. Also, the scene from the opening FMV was fantastic. Love when games do stuff like that.

I actually thought 4.1 was a lot better than the main Stormblood content. The story felt more complex, and Fordola's development here was awesome. Would be great to see her become a Scion - I love seeing villains join the good team. The story fight with Lakshmi was a real cool change of pace, too. 5.2 isn't as good, alas. Bringing Gosetsu and Yotsuyu back was stupid, and the amnesia thing is stupid too. Seeing them stuck on the island together could've been fun, but we don't see that. I also feel like Gosetsu losing his memory would've been more entertaining than Yotsuyu losing it. Oh well.
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