Quote Originally Posted by MistakeNot View Post
If people dislike the MSQ for the first 50 levels that much, they won't like the rest either.
Sure, the storytelling is a bit more focused in HW, but it is not all that different.
Actually, I detested the MSQ of ARR so much that I quit the game for 2 years shortly after finishing it the first time - despairing of the game ever being more than this wooden vehicle for bad storytelling. It's only because I'm a bored MMORPGer who occasionally revisits stuff that I came back.

HW and ShB might be slower than some stories, but they at least have the same level of depth and character development that you see in other Final Fantasy RPGs, replete with some really interesting plot twists and turns. ARR is almost devoid of any of these things - the only time the story really pays off is the banquet sequence, and I imagine that most people who were unmoved by the narrative (or not at least stubborn enough to finish in spite of it) didn't get even half that far.