[SPOILERS] Stormblood Ending

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

So, first off, I’ll say that I like Stormblood just fine. The zones are wonderfully conceived and realized, sidequests breath even more life into them than they already have, the various instances and dungeons (especially Ala Mhigo!) are top-shelf stuff, the music is as excellent as ever – and yet, if we’re talking purely story, I think I'm giving the edge to Heavensward, here. That story wasn't perfect, but its foundation was strong enough for me to overlook its various minor writing gaffes. Stormblood, unfortunately, has three major issues that are impossible for me to ignore, and while they're not enough to outright ruin the story (much less the game), they do knock it down a few pegs. In no particular order:

(1) Lyse's Arc. This is the furthest-reaching issue, both in terms of presence and impact. I get what was being attempted with Lyse: the idea was supposed to be that, despite dedicating herself to the cause of the Resistance after Papalymo's death and her not-insignificant insurgent heritage, she doesn't quite have the experience or abilities to handle that role. So she travels to the east, where she helps the charismatic exiled leader of Doma liberate his people, thereby sharpening her skills, steeling her resolve, and showing her what real leadership looks like in practice. After coming back to the Resistance, she's able to put all this to practice, becoming not only a valuable insurgent but a leader worth following.

Unfotunately, we’re missing the entire setup for the arc of personal growth, and without that, the payoff feels cheap and arbitrary – like she was given leadership entirely because she’s a Main Character – and also makes it so that the idea of her undergoing some sort of Journey of Personal Growth is mostly lost. Compounding this is a complete absence of anything regarding her heritage, which should be an important part of her history with and role in the Resistance but instead is relegated to offhand references. In my mind, a competent version of the story I think they were trying to tell would look something like this:

Lyse takes you to Rhalgr's Reach. People like Conrad and M'Naago are fond of her, from her time previously spent there, her obvious sympathy with their cause, and her heritage, but more hardened members are barely able to humour her, especially when Conrad starts sending her out on missions (at her insistence). She bungles one of these - perhaps critically, perhaps not - and this causes one of these members to snap at her and compare her unfavorably to her father and sister. Then Zenos' attack happens, and Lyse decides to come along with us to Othard, hoping to learn something and become someone worthy of her legacy. During the trip, she takes pointers from Alisaie's unflinching bravery and Hien's leadership. Once she returns, we get payoff for the earlier quest, where Lyse is able to take charge during a semi-major operation, directly applying what she went through in Othard to great effect in rallying her people and succeeding a critical victory, probably alongside the Resistance member who previously took issue with her; she could also use what she learns to rally more to their cause. This is what leads to Conrad's consideration for her leadership - she has the blood, she has the ability, she can probably step up to the plate.

(2) Hien’s Arc. I found Hien dreadfully boring – not unlikable, exactly, but just very very bland. It took a bit for me to figure out why, exactly, but eventually I realized that it’s because he’s introduced after his entire struggle is solved for him.

My understanding was that Hien called Yugiri and Gosetsu back from Eorzea (remember, this is a thing that Gosetsu actually says to Yugiri in 3.56) because he was planning to put his Naadem Plot into motion and wanted his two most loyal friends present. As we help them search for him, we spend a lot of time getting to know the plight of the Domans and fixing their broken spirits to get them ready for the planned liberation.

There’s just one problem: why are we the ones doing this?

Seriously, why wasn’t Hien around for that!? If Hien had met Yugiri and Gosetsu in Kugane – with his introduction being, say, when we reunite with Gosetsu in the Sekiseigumi barracks – he could have played an active role in reigniting the fire in his nation. Have him come back to it, witness them broken and subservient, and then using his own skills as a leader to show them that he does not mean to abandon them, to build them up and make them into the sort of people that would charge down the Imperial Viceroy and his entourage before taking us to the Steppes to get his trump card. The fact that we do all of this for him not only gives him less to do from a narrative perspective (thus making him into the affable bore that we ended up with), it actively weakens Lyse’s arc even further, because now she’s not seeing good leadership in action – she’s just seeing a guy come back and stand at the head of an already-eager army.

This bugged me less than the Lyse thing; it was more isolated, and Hien’s presence also came with the otherwise-excellent Steppe portion, so it was a bit easier to overlook. But it’s still an issue, and an issue with a major (new!) character to boot.

(3) Ala Mhigo’s Liberation. This has been echoed before, and likely will be said many times, but the Ala Mhigan liberation itself was laughably easy. Rather than give the player a sense of what even localized conflict with a massive global empire means, they mostly came up with largely-arbitrary reasons why the enemy wasn't meeting us in the field or putting up much of a fight outside the actual city, and then had the balls to give big long speeches about "blood, smoke, screams, silence" (from Lyse, natch). Nothing felt earned. It was easy because "lolZENOS", not because of good coordination or planning on our or the Alliance’s part. And that’s a shame, because if the game told me that the Wall and a giant cannon were the primary methods of deterring a military approach, I’d totally buy it…if, once those options were bypassed, we started to see some panic. Or perhaps have had Zenos extend the invitation to us and only us, with the Eorzean Alliance finding it impossible to gain much ground within the Lochs due to the soldiers amassed there – something, ANYTHING to make it look like the end was an actual achievement.

The TL;DR version of my impressions is that while Stormblood starts stronger than HW and remains strong through its first half, it doesn't really manage to stick the landing.

I really hated this character, but not in a "I want to kill him" way. Comic relief villains feel like a huge step back after Heavensward, especially in an expansion where the stakes already feel low (the garrison at Doma Castle gets dealt with seemingly super easily and it only takes like 3 battles to retake Ala Mhigo entirely). I thought there were a lot of problems with the story, like how weak the party dynamic was, but Grynewaht was the worst. Should have been replaced with Fordola constantly chasing you (like a "hound" would) and having her slowly get cyborg'd up and then eventually getting the faux-echo. Maybe even have Fordola take out one of our allies during the assault on Doma and get a promotion for it or something to raise the stakes.

It didn't help that the main villain was "lol I love fighting and the WoL looks like a challenge :^)" so Grynewaht just feels like a stupider version of him.

While I don't disagree that taking Ala Mhigo felt far too easy, in Doma's case at least, I get it - most of the actual city was destroyed, its population shunted into a ghetto, and the castle retained just so the Garleans could have a token presence. I don't imagine there was much of an actual garrison present.

But I agree about Grynewaht. I hated him when he made his debut in 3.56, and 4.0 did little to redeem him (although I guess his boss fight was pretty solid). I remember wondering why Zenos kept him alive at all; he killed other commanders for less, after all, and I assumed that Grynewaht had gone AWOL after that first instance until he appeared again in Othard.