Originally Posted by
MoofiaBossVal
I liked the Crystal Exarch in 5.0. I dislike G'raha Tia after. There are too many different problems with G'raha Tia for me to like him, especially in 5.4 and 5.5. He is a redundant character who competes with Alphinaud to fulfill the same character archetype and role in the narrative as the nerdy best friend of the WoL, he casually abandons the people of the Crystarium and shoves his way into the WoL's life, the game hyped him up dying in 5.3... only for him to inexplicably survive, and he continues to haunt the game after having missed an opportune moment to exit the narrative on a good note. I don't vehemently hate the character, but I'll never enjoy him and think that I'd enjoy the game more if he had just gracefully bowed out in 5.3.
As for humor, I overall liked the comedy moments in ShB. I don't think they detract from the game. A game can have a serious story and still have moments of levity. The comedy moments up spruce up the moment and sometimes help endear me to the characters. FFXII has an interesting plot, but the party members were very boring to watch for most of the story (outside of a handful of really well directed scenes, like when they meet the Gran Kitias, or when Ashe meets the Occuria, or the climax atop the Pharos).
As someone mentioned before, there is a noticeable lack of consequences or loss for the main characters in FFXIV. The most that happens is that almost all of the fodder Scions are killed halfway through 2.0. After that, you have the Scion's being framed and becoming fugitives at the end of 2.55, but then it is nonchalantly washed away in 3.0. Only side characters get killed off. No main characters (Scions or nation leaders) bite the bullet. The heroes never fail or make mistakes, resulting in disastrous consequences. No city states get nuked. Etc. At most, the heroes are temporarily inconvenienced, such as the WoL getting bested by Zenos and then having to go level grind on the other side of the continent before coming back. If Y'shtola had actually bit it and the Alliance had to pull back out of Gyr Abania, it would have felt more impactful.