Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
It really feels like they're trying to recapture what Shadowbringers did well, but every time they try again they do it weirdly, and it just retrospectively dilutes the potency of the one time they did it well.
Ironic, because this works better than the Shadowbringers equivalent for me. And I think it's because the voices being prioritized are the actual people of this false city. Fake Amaurot's citizens weren't really citizens, they were apparitions made by Emet-Selch--an extension of his voice, rather than additional ones. (And yes, that includes Fake Hythlodaeus.) As a result Fake Amaurot never rang to me as anything but the sob story of one man I was already sick of.

They could've done that with Living Memory, making everything we meet an extension of Sphene--just spitballing how, perhaps you'd place Sphene as the 'central program' for a simulation of Alexandria at its prime, and therefore everyone we meet is both a reflection of her and a reflection of the world she left behind. But that's not what they do: what they do is have Sphene sit the zone out entirely, fill it full of the memories of actual people, and give the microphone to them instead, giving us a much deeper view of that world than Shadowbringers ever gave us of Amaurot. In fact, we might have a more detailed view of Alexandria than both Shadowbringers and Endwalker combined gave us of Amaurot, but that's sorta beside the point at that stage.