I agree - I absolutely loved Heavensward but didn't enjoy Stormblood that much. It felt like we were being dragged into something that shouldn't have been our fight, and I was never comfortable with it - doubly so with how we recruited the Xaela to our cause! ("Hi, we're here to invite ourselves into your ancient customs and get you to fight Round 2 of a war against a superior power that ended miserably for us last time.... oh good, you're happy to go along with that because you just like to fight anyway? Maybe we should have tried asking in the first place.")

And yes, the characters! Heavensward characters seem really memorable to me, and they have fairly well-defined personalities, while our companions in Stormblood don't feel like they do a lot except progress the plot. We just don't spend enough time with them where they're doing something other than telling us we need to go to X, or making plans for battles, or discussing the current situation.

(Meanwhile they just kept taunting us with Estinien hanging around in the distance, but never got the payoff of him actually joining us... I was so looking forward to that happening!)


On whether or not the Warrior of Light should have directly killed Zenos... that's tricky. Personally I feel like my character wouldn't do that - she's beaten him, he's weak, reinforcements will be arriving and will capture him. (But then I also tend to think we've been doing a lot less killing than the game-format portrays, anyway.) For me it would be jarring to see her kill him after the battle is already over.

Obviously you can't please everyone in a story format like this, but I think that's why they would tend towards taking a different option and not having your hero kill enemies outside of a direct battle.