Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
(How does it actually force you to do the hard mode primals in post-ARR, by the way? I had already done them before I reached that point.)
You are unable to accept a quest from the 2.5 scenario without having completed the Hard mode trials. Even if you're caught up in quests, the quest will be red & locked until they are completed.
(I'm not sure if they ever went back and alleviated the restriction, so ymmv)