Just finished the 5.0 story, just some thoughts (POSSIBLE spoilers)

[Terin]

I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers, thought I suppose it's always possible to gleam information from comments, so consider this a possible SPOILER warning!

Honestly, this expansion COMPLETELY blew me away! Even though the environments weren't quite as "alien" as I had come to expect (Lakeland was the only one that stood out as truly otherworldly), the music once again delivered in a big, big way! I'm terrible with names, but the desert zone's music was unexpected but definitely my favorite track of this expansion!

The story goes exactly the directions I was hoping it would, while still throwing in some cool twists.

That said, I definitely had a few points that stood out to me:

- Minfilia has been gone for a while now, but never has her absence felt more poignant than here. When all the Scions gather, I really missed her bubbly, friendly personality. Shadowbringers is obviously a very serious expansion, but the Scions felt a little overbearing in that regard.

- Thancred, in particular, felt totally devoid of his usual charm and humor. Understandable, but I found it kind of a problem all the same. Without his constant flirtiness or ego, I honestly just kind of found him a bit annoying.

- Ran'jit suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. I think I'm in the minority, but I actually really enjoyed Zenos as a villain, and he felt worthy of being a "rival". Ran'jit, by contrast, completely sucked the excitement out of the game whenever he showed up. Nothing about him was interesting, and I honestly took some minor offense that HE, of all people, was able to defeat my character with such ease. If anything, he should have been STRICTLY a tactician, but making him some God-like combatant felt really out-of-place and unwelcome.

- In addition to wanting someone with a more upbeat personality, I also feel like the Scions could use a little VISUAL disparity, too. Way too many tall, thin, white-haired folks. I would LOVE a burly Roegadyn who is a more jolly, abrasive type. I feel like that would just really round out the team, even though no one specific really springs to mind. I wouldn't mind Eynzahr Slafyrsyn (aka. "Merlvyb's second-in-command over the Maelstrom) join the Scions in some capacity.

- I'm not quite sure what to think of Runas. The implied romance between him and Y'shtola seems sort of weird to me? If anything, I'd almost thought the Exarch would be a pretty fitting coupling. Something about full-on cat-people romancing part-cat-people seems strange.

- All of the Ascian stuff was AMAZING. I already praised the game up above, but this just REALLY needed to be said!

- The dungeons in Shadowbringers felt RIDICULOUSLY hard. Like... not even enjoyably so. The last dungeon, in particular, my group literally almost timed-out because we kept wiping on that last boss. Conversely, most of the Trials were fun, although I found the first one to also have been overly difficult.

- I will say that Dohn Mheg is hands-down, without contest, my favorite "zone" in the game. I *LOVE* the whole vibe of that place, particularly the first area. Creepy context aside, I would adore a Housing area with that sort of "Alice in Wonderland" vibe, wherever it might be.

- Despite being the "Warrior of Darkness", I'll say that I'm a little bummed that my character never felt truly worthy of the title. In fact, I'd say as much as I loved this expansion, it's also the first one my character never felt like a "badass". And certainly no "darker" than he was in previous adventures. Before Shadowbringers' end, I'd like to see my character actually live up to the title, a Warrior of Darkness to actually inspire fear in his enemies.

I'm honestly pretty excited to see where the story continues to go. I've been on a rampage trying to complete 5.0 before 5.3 launched, and while I missed my mark by a day, it was still an amazing ride! I'm definitely in need of a small break now, though.

Anyways, just my personal take on the story thus far for Shadowbringers' core MSQ!

[Canada_bangs]

The title WOD is literally there because you're killing light monsters and literally bringing back nightfall. You are living up to the name in the most literal sense. What people thought was " OMG I get to be evil" But come on. Anyone with half a brain knew that was never going to be the case. I'm not saying you're stupid but I think you fell too hard on what you thought WOD meant. Soon as you saw the first movie ingame about there never being darkness or nightfall in over a 100 years you should've caught on to what WOD literally meant. Just because a title has the word -dark- in it doesn't mean you're going to be evil. Though this is not your fault... I blame media - western- media for this. That and SE wasn't gonna let you play an evil character.

As far as Zenos and Ranjit? they are the same character mechcanially. - spelling?- Plotwise no but all they were are level checkers. Ranjit is better in a sense because you don't see his level. ( I think... if you do then he fails just as hard as Zenos does. ) I enjoyed Ranjit a bit better also because he's gone. He isn't over staying his welcome. He came he was OP because plot said so and died all in one patch. Zenos is still sitting around after he got his butt kicked twice like the loser his is and the plot is trying to make me respect his OP skills or whatever. Look game. If you want me to care about pretty boy Zenos then showing him sitting on a chair M.Bison like over a pile of dead mooks isn't the way to do it. As far as I know my body count ingame is way more dense then his. Killing some NPC mooks that I've killed over and over and over and over isn't going to impress me. Want to impress me? Be a better character instead of someone girls wack it too because " oooh so sexy" :/

[LaylaTsarra]

- Thancred, in particular, felt totally devoid of his usual charm and humor. Understandable, but I found it kind of a problem all the same. Without his constant flirtiness or ego, I honestly just kind of found him a bit annoying.

I actually found the ladies man Thancred to be annoying. I much preferred how he developed in this xpac. He seemed to be a lot more responsible and I enjoyed his character quite a bit.

[MsMisato]

I'm honestly pretty excited to see where the story continues to go. I've been on a rampage trying to complete 5.0 before 5.3 launched, and while I missed my mark by a day, it was still an amazing ride! I'm definitely in need of a small break now, though.

Anyways, just my personal take on the story thus far for Shadowbringers' core MSQ!

Glad you had a great journey through the core of 5.0. It was a great story. I hope you enjoy the rest up till 5.3!

[Terin]

See, I honestly dig Zenos. Not that he's some *amazing* character or anything, but I kind of like the budding rivalry between him and us. It feels fairly organic, and I feel like I could see it going any number of ways (maybe he gets in over his head, or maybe he somehow tries to become Zodiark's champion, or hell, maybe he even winds up sacrificing himself for us one day because he admires our strength).

Also, I realize that a "Warrior of Darkness" was never going to present us as "evil'. I had certainly hoped, though, they might give us a *bit* more of an edge. I really hoped they would be treated more like the Dark Knight; kind of a harbinger of justice, more than a "knight in shining armor", which ironically enough feels like all we are.

Basically, we've spent enough time playing Superman, I was kind of hoping this time we would get to play Batman.

[Canada_bangs]

See, I honestly dig Zenos. Not that he's some *amazing* character or anything, but I kind of like the budding rivalry between him and us. It feels fairly organic, and I feel like I could see it going any number of ways (maybe he gets in over his head, or maybe he somehow tries to become Zodiark's champion, or hell, maybe he even winds up sacrificing himself for us one day because he admires our strength).

Also, I realize that a "Warrior of Darkness" was never going to present us as "evil'. I had certainly hoped, though, they might give us a *bit* more of an edge. I really hoped they would be treated more like the Dark Knight; kind of a harbinger of justice, more than a "knight in shining armor", which ironically enough feels like all we are.

Basically, we've spent enough time playing Superman, I was kind of hoping this time we would get to play Batman.

Batman is overrated. Heck I'd say we're not even superman really. We're OP but that isn't superman's only thing. I see what you mean, but I honestly don't know how people got the thought we'll be switching to Mr. Z-man's group when that's never been SE direction. But I also never looked at it from a classic good is white and black is evil thing. I always saw it as a major different point of view mostly because we don't have all the information and 20 bucks says we fight both of them anyway somewhere down the line. But yeah if Square was trying to fool people into thinking we were going to the dark side they need to try harder to fool me. I played too many video games made in japan to be fooled. I think they are setting us up to fight -FATE- itself and break all bonds from team light or team dark honestly.

Far as Zenos that's fair to a point. I never saw it as a rivaly sense to me all of it felt forced. It's like they wanted this Shadow to our sonic but didn't spent enough time to build it. Least in my opinion. so while he was suppose to be our shadow he just ended up being Eggmoblie 2.0 right before fighting the real boss of Eggman in his Eggdragoon. But maybe it's just me as I really get bored of the " I'm too cool or skilled to live life so I'm super bored until the main character comes and saves me from my boring life of being plot op" type of character. give me more Sonics and shadows and less Batmans and Sephys from FF7 please. T.T