Quote Originally Posted by StealthPaladin View Post
It was sold to us as a fun, chill, vacation with new modes of storytelling.
No it wasn't... it was sold to us as a "Summer Vacation". Yoshi-P was constantly hinting that things were going to get kinda dark at every fanfest. That was never hidden. If you didn't pick up on that, then I would suggest working on recognizing subtle hints, because Yoshi-P's hints weren't even subtle...

Dawntrail lived up to the "Summer Vacation" advertisement in every sense of the phrase:

1: We went to a tropical island nation where we engaged with the locals in entertainment.

2: We had a much lighter story than the previous 4 expansions.

3: Our characters took a "Summer Vacation" from being the main character of the story.

Have buyer's remorse all you like, but don't try to play it off like they advertised something different than what we got.

Now, even as one who enjoyed Dawntrail, I will agree that it was probably the weakest showing of story-telling that the CBU3 team has put forth for us. I chalk that up to partial expectation bias, but also to the fact that this expansion is DEFINITELY the beginnings of setup for a new over-arching plot like the Hydaelyn/Zodiark plot. That requires a certain level of world building that comes across badly at first until you see the payoff. The bigger the eventual payoff, the more world building that's necessary. While I think this was a weak expansion story-wise, I have faith in the CBU3 team to build this story into something grand akin to what they've already given us in the past.