Quote Originally Posted by Solarra View Post
I found Hermes unlikeable and totally illogical and inconsistent in his motivations, which could have been the basis for a really great antagonist, except all of that was skated over and I felt we were expected to just accept his view of the world.
Similarly, Venat's motivations were never questioned and we are expected to simply approve her actions without reservation.
I felt the 'emotional' moments were rather manufactured. I have felt teary while playing through other expansions, but this is the first time I felt the game was really trying to manipulate the player's emotions in an almost cynical way, maybe it has just been overdone.
Fake deaths... again!... yawn.
After getting quite fond of the Scions and feeling like one of the team in Shb, I felt EW undid a lot of that good work and left me feeling rather fed up with them all. I was so happy they were going off to do their own things for a while and so disappointed that 10 mins later, we had to get the team back together.

I am hoping this is going to be like SB, a rather disappointing MSQ that was saved by the later patches. However, the story of 6.1 didn't shine at all. It was obvious who the Scions should have spoken to before going into that dungeon and just unbelievable that was the one person they decided not to let in on their little scheme.
G'raha turning from world leader to teenage fan-boy was disappointing too.
6.2 was better, but time will tell.

What's really lifted the expansion for me is the story behind the raids. That has been excellent so far and very enjoyable.
About Hermes... I'm not going to say Kefka, Sephiroth, Kuja or Yu Yevon are particularly outstanding or just good villains because that's beside the point. What made them ACCEPTABLE as antagonists is that they're built up along a long story and you have plenty of time to get to your own conclusion regarding each one as evil forces or just people (in case of the first three). Hermes and Meteion? They try to cram feels for them in one questline. Two for Meteion. Two questlines for what is supposed to be the final bad of 10 years of story. Most of which is just retcon/made on the spot.
And the best part of those aforementioned bads? They're planned from the beginning, it shows, and they don't even need that much screentime. Kuja isn't on screen longer than Hermes is, Sephiroth is on screen even less, we HEAR about him a lot but see very little of him in person (until the sequels, prequels, etc, pretty much shat all on that), and yet it works because like the other mentioned antagonists, they're still built through their actions and their consequences on the world or characters around you. The only reason you have to accept that Meteion and Hermes are why the final days happen is because 8+ years later they decided it would be so. And they try to explain all of it in less than 1/3 of a single expansion.