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I'm halfway through SB and it's by far the worst story telling so far imo. 2.0 and Heavensward were WAY better. I'm actually starting to question if this is even the same team responsible for previous writing and quest design. At this point, I'm just clicking through all the dialog and skipping the cutscens and I've NEVER done that in a Final Fantasy game before!
Despised SB story soley for continuing the unnecessary Y'shtola violence and replacing Yda with the complete annoying trainwreck that is Lyse.
I think overall, I liked Heavensward more, but I definitely enjoyed Stormblood, as well.
Thordan was definitely a much better villain than Xenos. Thordan's motivations were very complicated, and I enjoyed learning about how he was weighed down by the decision to perpetuate the millennium-old lie in order to save his people from despair. His efforts to find an alternative solution that would preserve the pride of his people were interesting, if ultimately very misguided.
Xenos, on the other hand, was so flat and uninteresting. There was nothing to his character aside from bloodlust and the search for a worthy foe. He spared us TWICE, and as much as admitted that he didn't care one whit about the Garlean cause apart from the fact that maybe, just maybe he'd get to fight somebody strong someday. I was also kind of annoyed at how easy he was to beat in Ala Mihgo, given how invincible he was in earlier encounters. At the very least, during the second encounter he should have taken a lot more damage to show that we've "improved". Instead, he was just about as untouchable then as he was during the first fight. I guess he was sort of comparable to Nidhogg; more a force of nature than a person. Nidhogg, though, was more than a psychopath.
I've heard people complain about how scatterbrained Lyse was, but for me it was a comfort. I was afraid that they'd totally turn her personality around when she renounced the Yda persona, but it's good to see that the Yda we've known throughout the game is still there in Lyse. Admittedly, Yda annoyed me, too, and I find Lyse annoying as well - but I'm still glad that they didn't give her some kind of inexplicable transformation.
I liked Yotsuyu's character, but was disappointed that her motivations were so... generic. While her tragic backstory certainly supported her bitter worldview, it didn't really explain why she was so focused on tormenting DOMANS in particular. I'm not sure there's been many cases in fiction or in real life when a battered woman searching for a scapegoat for her pain chooses a nationality for that scapegoat (usually it winds up being something like "I hate nobles!" or "I hate men!"). It seemed kind of a jarring stretch, to me. I was definitely hoping to see a more clear link, like abuse at the hands of a samurai who got away with the act due to being cozy with the Doman elite. Something like that would have made it easier to see the "I hate Domans!" connection.
I liked the zones much better in Stormblood than in Heavensward. I never much liked the floating-island zones (and there were THREE of them!), and the Steppes in particular is a gorgeous area.
I'm definitely curious to see where the storyline goes from here. I wasn't really expecting to see outright victories in both Doma and Ala Mihgo in the very first patch, but that's what we got. Maybe we'll be seeing the empire pushing back? Probably going to be some more mad science antics, as well...
Hated the SB story. The characters were just lame. So much concentration on Lyse, who is just a selfish little brat and never actually becomes anything special even after we win. So many moments where either the villain was so strong that we couldn't possibly conquer it, and then a few quests down the line so weak for no reason that we destroy them. There is a term for this in writing, but it escapes me at the moment... It's just cheap because those moments only exist to create the story, there is no logical reason ever given for any of it. So much build up to Hien and then he is basically forgotten 30 seconds after we meet him. And then Shinryu... Ugh... Seriously we had to activate the most dangerous weapon in the universe to defeat him and then in the end we walk all over him even after he merges with Zenos who laughed off our attacks the whole time like we were attacking him with feather dusters? Obviously there was no need for Omega, or for Papylymo to die... The SB story is just a bunch of bad writing thrown together randomly.
And seriously... if the empire is so easy to beat and Ala Mhigo was so easy to take back, why did we wait so long?!?
3.0 had a superior plot.
4.0 had better character development, storytelling, and not as much pointless filler (Churning Mists I am looking at you..).
Though the scene at the end of Doma Castle was very poorly written (at least the EN version).
A guy had the weight of the world on his shoulders and everyone is just standing around chatting to him all calmly and brewing a pot of tea.
The characters during that scene expressed about as much emotion as a rock.
It was pacing. We just had too much to do in this expansion to let us linger and take in who we're traveling with and why we're doing these things. It should've been Ala Mhigo OR Doma, not both.
Yeah, SB's story suffers from having far too much happen in a short amount of time. The villains were pretty great, but allies barely got any development. I would imagine future patches would rectify the latter during the reconstruction efforts, though. The developers likely went in this direction because they wanted to avoid a repeat of one of the major criticisms of the HW patch cycle - the fact that we knew about almost everything that was going to happen in future patches ahead of time (which made the patch cycle seem even more boring than it actually was), be it Nidhogg possessing Estinien's body which meant that a confrontation was inevitable, or the Warring Triad in general.
This time, the SB story has actually given us a blank slate moving forward. We only know that there are going to be reconstruction efforts, but we don't know exactly how the Garleans may respond, we have zero idea what future bosses we may end up fighting, and the very zone design itself leaves a lot of tantalizing details that are obviously going to be used for future content (which is MILES ahead of HW, which had big spaces of nothing that's ever used, especially in Coerthas Western and Azys Lla). Gotetsu and the viceroy are still alive, but we don't know how they'll even be reintroduced back into the story. And the whole thing with the Resonant has far more implications on the lore than anything HW ever did (which was essentially one single plot device - Nidhogg's eyes - dragged out way too long to highly predictable effect).
It's too early for me to completely judge SB as of yet, but for now I personally enjoyed the HW storyline; it was very emotional.
In SB so far, I feel like we liberated both Doma and Ala Mhigo rather so quickly and it was just too easy, I have this feeling that something way worse is coming and it's going to be so chaotic and difficult for the WoL and the characters involved in the tale.
That's all I can say atm.
Heavensward
Pros:
- Better companion, Ysayle and Estenien were one the better written characters.
- Alphinaud transformed from brat to bro.
- The pacing for the story was very good. HW story realy ended in 3.3.
- Music for primals (Ravana and Thordan) is probably one of the best theme songs.
Cons:
- Weak Villian, Thordan was boring and Nidhogg did not have alot of dialogue with the WoL and friends.
- Zone music was not good.
- Dungeon music was not good.
Stormblood
Pros:
- Companions were very likable, but unlike the HW (aside from Lyse) they did not experience alot of growth.
- Alisae <3, she finaly took the spotlight and it was awsome.
- Zone music is very good, the music for the zones are better then ARR and HW.
- Dungeon music is very good, Doma Castle and Ala Mhigo nailed it.
- Both villians were well written, I wanted to like and hate them.
- Everything in Azime Steppe.
Cons:
- Primal theme was not bad, but I did not like it as much as the ARR and HW primal theme songs.
- Storyline felt rushed.
- Unlike HW, I felt that instead of character growth, SE focused more on plot.
- Introduced to many characters, but did not invest in them (this can change, since 4.1-4.5 is still left.)
Considering just the 3.0 vs 4.0 MSQ, Heavensward beats the bejesus out of Stormblood. A lot of points have already been touched on, but the things that really stand out the most to me are
-The villains: Zenos and his cyborg lackey have zero depth. "I want to fight strong things and collect swords :^)" is a horrible motivation, but then again every Garlean villain has been a huge letdown, so it makes sense that an expansion focused on one would not be that great. Yotsuyu had potential, but ended up being a cliche stock character whose only redeeming trait was a hamfisted tragic backstory. Fordola is the best of the villains and should have been the main antagonist (even with Zenos as the big boss, she should have been the one hounding you the whole time), however she is horribly underused. She should have gotten her powerup much earlier in the story and would have been a good way to present the perspective of those who had lived under Imperial rule practically their whole lives. The cyborg Roegadyn was a bad joke.
In HW, we had Nidhogg, who was admittedly little more than a force of nature that needed to be overcome. However, Thordan actually had proper motivation for his actions and he managed to outsmart the Ascians, unlike Gaius. Thordan, like Fordola, was willing to do whatever it took to protect his people. It just so happened that because his actions were morally wrong, he needed to be WoL'd.
-The heroes: Estinien, Ysayle, and Alphinaud as main cast members and Haurchefant/Aymeric/Lucia as supporting cast were all great. Estinien and Ysayle actually changed throughout the story and because of the good characters the deaths actually landed. I didn't really care at all about Moenbryda's death, but Haurchefant/Ysayle actually worked and Estinien's capture actually made me hope it was possible to save him.
In Stormblood, the only characters that really worked for me were Alisaie and Yugiri. I didn't really see any point in the Yda/Lyse ruse other than they wanted her to be younger. I might be mistaken about this, but it also felt like the cast was rotating a lot. IIRC in Heavensward we had Alphinaud the whole time, were joined by Ysayle and Estinien fairly early, and then pretty much kept them until Azys Lla where we added on a couple of Scions. I really think for SB they should have gone with a similar dynamic to the anti-Nidhogg party. Since Zenos is pretty much a monster, have a Garlean officer defect on the grounds that Zenos' actions are too dishonorable and he needs to be put down. Other characters would be suspicious of him and he'd eventually prove himself or whatever. Do that, and have a mostly static party of WoL/Alisaie (neutral), Lyse/Yugiri (anti-empire), and the new character (pro-empire, anti-Zenos), and suddenly you have a five man party with some room for growth and conflct.
Finally, just the presentation of the two stories: In HW, we were actually fighting for the guys who started the whole conflict. Our goal wasn't annihilation of the enemy, but to end a long, Israel-Palestine style conflict peacefully. To that end, we had to remove the radical elements of both sides and it actually felt like we were doing that. The assault on the Vault feels enough like a chase to work for me, and the knights' transformations (and the ones that happen earlier in the story) properly foreshadow the KotR fight, which is a great finale. Nidhogg's confrontation was a little weaker, but he's not actually properly dealt with until later anyway. Also, the Empire actually managed to kill someone we liked, and our first encounter with Regula didn't end with him dead on the floor (like it did with Gaius' crew other than Nero).
In Stormblood we're supposed to be fighting an all-out war. The problem with this is that the Imperial presence is basically Zenos and about 150 grunts. It felt like if Zenos didn't exist then we would have been able to send the WoL and three of their adventurer buddies to end the entire occupation of Ala Mhigo by themselves. It also seems that there's not really that many Ala Mhigans around, so I'm not sure whose freedom we're actually fighting for. In Doma it's even worse - Kugane is free territory for some reason and we only see two occupied villages, populated by like 12 people each. I guess the Azim Steppe people are supposed to be oppressed or something? Was there even any Garlean presence there? Basically the scale was all off. It felt like it would have been more efficient to just move every person under Garlean rule to Revenant's Toll. If the Empire actually felt like a threat (higher numbers, more dangerous, more popular with the occupied people) and we had to pull some morally questionable stuff to weaken them, I think it would have been better.
Now, Stormblood does potential in 4.1-4.5, because HW's story was pretty bad after 3.0. Omega is already far better than Alexander, and Yotsuyu/Fordola hanging around seem way better than the let down that was the Warriors of Darkness. There's also some interesting stuff that was brought up in the MSQ that, if expanded upon, could make some really cool stories - specifically talking about giving Garleans the Fake Echo and controlling primals. Hopefully they capitalize on this stuff.