I did not enjoy Shadowbringer (SPOILERS)

[IckeDerTyp]

I called it was G'raha way before he revealed himself and I skip most cinematics!

How do I do it :x

[Skyborne]

I called it was G'raha way before he revealed himself and I skip most cinematics!

How do I do it :x

Some people were thrown off by the crystallization and lack of ears, but a lot nailed it because of the Crystal Tower association and Yoshi telling us to do the raid + there is absolutely no mistaking that distinctive catboy babyface.

And as far as things being explained, I thought they went into some length with the auracite and how it was only a temporary hold with the whole Moenbryda/Nabriales scene. Though the OP did say they took a long break...

[ProstheticSoul]

Wait, wait, wait...am I getting this correctly? This entire expansion revolved around an OPTIONAL raid? Was this Crystal Tower raid a part of the MSQ at any point? I honestly can't remember. Because if this was an optional raid that I somehow missed between beating Heavensward and my seven-year hiatus then I am afraid this only bolsters my original criticism of Shadowbringer. You cannot make an expansion that inexorably follows the MSQ to its conclusion that is heavily centered on optional content that the player can miss. This is quite possibly the first cardinal sin of video-game writing, and Yoshi P shamelessly broke it with a grin on his face.

It would be akin to Peter Jackson incorporating heavy elements from the Silmarillion in The Return of the King™ out of nowhere when the gist of the adaptation thus far was basically "Sauron is big bad, ring of power needs to be destroyed." It's just....no, please God, NO. Stop over-complicating things! If this is not the case then disregard. I really need to check this raid again to see if I did complete it and didn't just memory hole it somehow. Good heavens there is much more I missed in this seven years then I had originally imagined. It's making my head hurt.

As for the things I liked and loved about Shadowbringer...that's easy. Hades (can't even remember the guy's Garlean name, their names too make my head hurt). His presence during the second part was a breath of fresh air. Not completely villainous like Blonde Sephiroth, and he had so much empathy and pathos going for him. Freaking felt sorry for the guy by the time my character rent his torso asunder with that axe born of light. Was almost rooting for him to win and not the Scions at certain points. That is how much I enjoyed his character. The track that played during his fight was something to behold as well. Almost hit me the same way One-winged Angel did. Damn close.

But once again, my enjoyment of this very multidimensional, multifaceted villain is a bit marred by his convoluted origins that make very little sense to me. That whole plot line involving the Empire rolling out clones for him to continually possess had my face contort in ways I'd rather not go into detail here. I'm not sure I understood the point. Ascians are basically an immortal, almost demigod-like proto race that can possess bodies a la The Thing™, travel between worlds and so on and so forth. I get that. What I don't get is why a powerful exemplar of such a race would require a legion of clones to be able to live so long. At least, that's what I gathered with his interactions with his grandson. Unless I misconstrued that entire scene, which is entirely possible. Wouldn't it have been far simpler to just forego the dumb clones and state in a cutscene:

"Mwahaha, yes indeed! The founder of the empire was an Ascian all along! And I never died, I just changed form into an old man to make you think I withered away! But now I am young again because that's what we Ascians do! We're cool like that!"

[PawPaw]

The CT raids weren't always mandatory, but they have been made so now. I quit playing regularly after HW and would only come back for patch content and EPs so I was also in the boat of not having done CT since whenever it was released (2013?) And I wasn't aware that Yoshi had suggested that everyone refresh themselves on that content before going into ShB. As a result I had no idea who the Exarch was on my first time through and even when his face was revealed I was still lost because, yknow, it had been quite a few years for me. I loved ShB but I was bummed at the time that that moment didn't have as much impact as it could have had.

But with that being said, it is now part of the MSQ and is no longer optional content. So that shouldn't be an issue for newer players.

[Bad_Luck]

send the WoL on a bunch of fetch quests

Oh no fetch quests, that's so terrible

[SannaR]

Snips

He used clones because body hopping and altering them takes up energy. Emet doesn't enjoy using any of his aether/power if he doesn't need to. It's why he chose to live as the person he originally possssed until that body dies. Unlike Lahabreha and Elidibus who frequently body hop. To the point Lahabreha did it so much that he basically was burning the candle at both ends. They're only immortal due to the fact you can't easily kill such an aetherical dense person as an Ascian. Along with anyone who has the echo. Or at least that's what they hint at with Zenos since he didn't die and has a fake one. Though it could also be due to the fact Emet is his biological great grandfather.

As Pawpaw stated the Crystal Tower raids was optional and now is a road block soon after completing 2.0. When they made it mandatory due to how the MSQ unfolds if you hadn't done it by the start of 5.3 and you were at that point in the MSQ you'd have to go and unlock it.

[HyoMinPark]

What I don't get is why a powerful exemplar of such a race would require a legion of clones to be able to live so long. At least, that's what I gathered with his interactions with his grandson. Unless I misconstrued that entire scene, which is entirely possible. Wouldn't it have been far simpler to just forego the dumb clones and state in a cutscene:

"Mwahaha, yes indeed! The founder of the empire was an Ascian all along! And I never died, I just changed form into an old man to make you think I withered away! But now I am young again because that's what we Ascians do! We're cool like that!"

Though it has been a good minute since I went through the Shadowbringers MSQ, I am fairly certain that Emet-Selch mentioned at one point that he prefers possessing his own body versus the body of another. Hence the Garlean Empire manufacturing all the Younger Solus bodies.

(I also remember it being mentioned at a point that repeated possession has its own detrimental effects on Ascians. Lababrea was mentioned, and it was implied that the repeated possessions also made him a bit unstable. So they aren’t exactly infallible beings.)

[SannaR]

Snips

I wasn't saying that you didn't think that it wasn't well paced, but that if the OP felt that way about ShB that had imo better pacing that they then would think the same of Endwalker's story. Heck if we want to sort of over generalize EW with just the "busy work/chore" it has a lot of places and maybe more than Shadowbringers did. The pathway split at the start can feel like a huge chore if you choose a certain path instead of the other. So much so that it can make most of said path and the other one as a drag on point since we get the 1st dungeon carrot dangled in-front of us so early. You could see the whole lv33/34 as busy work excluding the dungeon and trial. Yes even a certain quest that either you hated the game play of it due to disliking that style or hating that there didn't feel as though there was any pay off. Or you could just hate the game play and what happens afterwards. Also yes I just called two whole zones busy work/a chore. I didn't see them as such, but I do know of people who saw one or the other as such. Lv 85 post dungeon could be seen as a drag as at one point even though I was enjoying it I just wanted them to twist the knife in my heart again already and get us to the npcs we were trying to get to. Then there's the lv 88 story bits where it really is just busy work.

The thing with Necron though is I don't think many people noticed the themes of the game or at least maybe not during their first play through. I was fine with who Endwalker's end boss was as I went wait is that why Omega and a few others have expressed confusion on as to why we were able to out perform what they thought was possible of us.

[Iscah]

You cannot make an expansion that inexorably follows the MSQ to its conclusion that is heavily centered on optional content that the player can miss.

As it was presented in 5.0, it was deliberately written so the story makes sense with or without completing the Crystal Tower storyline – making the assumption that if you have not completed it then in the other timeline that the Exarch comes from, those events happened and he experienced them even if you personally have not. Because of this, he knows you regardless of whether you know him.

The story carries more emotional weight if you know who he is, but the plot plays out the same either way.

[ProstheticSoul]

"It was deliberately written so the story makes sense with or without completing the Crystal Tower story line"

I deny this assertion with every fiber of my being. Flat out false. Full stop. I just checked my cut scene history, and apparently I had already beaten the Crystal Tower raids. However, let me be brutally candid here--Shadowbringer on the whole dd not make a lick of sense to me anyway, especially concerning the parts involving the Exarch. And if a player hadn't even touched the Crystal Tower sections beforehand the story would have had ZERO emotional weight. Not less--ZERO. Nada, nothing!

As an aside, turns out I did memory hole the entire Crystal Tower saga. That must been one of the sections I completed before the seven-year hiatus. And that would certainly go a long a way to explaining why the big hood reveal amounted to jack and squat with me. That's fair. I will own up to that. But I will stand by my other point concerning optional content. I would even go a step further and state it would be a lot better for everyone involved if Square-Enix would roll out a patch for Shadowbringer for any adventurer just starting the expansion.

Right before the first quest starts there would be a disclaimer that would appear on the screen in big bold letters that would state:
DUDE, IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE THE CRYSTAL TOWER QUEST LINE, THEN JUST DO IT. FOLLOW THAT MIQOTE ALREADY. AND IF YOU HAVE ALREADY FINISHED THE RAIDS, THEN REWATCH ALL OF THE CUT SCENES. YES, ALL OF THEM YOU BIG OAF. THANK ME LATER DUDES AND DUDETTES.
-Yoshi P.

I don't know why I made him talk like he's from Cali but whatever. Anywho, my point is I just got done rewatching all of the Crystal Tower cutscenes, and mostly everything involving the Exarch is NOW starting to line up. Finally. Should have done that ages ago.