Quote Originally Posted by Valence View Post
As someone that has got into the game initially for its world building and who now enjoys the story quite a bit (with all its faults), I do agree with this. The story is insanely verbose and beats around the bush for half the time either through chores or just endless talks with the scions to finally get the point in the last stretch of each section.
Comparing it to any of the games of the same franchise in its classic era, you'll quickly see what's the difference in terms of pacing, and actual substantive and colourful dialogue. The writing in XIV is very good grammatically, but is also extremely dry, speaks like an old book, and cannot actually focus on substance except during story climaxes or the rare good scene exposing strong themes.
It's deliberate to a degree, which is why the English dub's casting for HW through ShB focused on English actors with theater backgrounds, but there are always chunks(usually near the beginning and between the X3 trial and X5 dungeon) where you can tell that it's just padded to fill out a dead spot that the formula says must exist, very little happens, and very little is learned. There are sometimes good character moments or bits of foreshadowing and tension in that period, but they've gotten more rare.