I leveled my samurai from 50-64 through Heavensward main story quests, so it's very fresh in my memory. It felt like the Skyrim of xpacs, environment-wise. Similar to others my pros are:
+ the music, especially the Alexander raids and Foundation nighttime
+ dragons & their tragic thousand-year history
+ making you care about Aymeric and co.
+ adventurer squadrons: yes it's more FIFA management-style bullshit, but it lays the foundation for something more involved, a la Valkyria Chronicles / XCOM. Would also very much like to replace my pocket chocobo healer companion with an actual soldier I trained
Missed opportunities were:
- underusing the Knights of the Round. All we get to see of them are a couple of instanced duties where they're just dicks. Would've been more impactful to have some of them befriend you, be involved in quests, be morally ambiguous but ultimately beholden to the archbishop
- underusing the other noble houses. It's just all House Fortemps all Count Edmont all the time, and you're just told that the other houses are occasionally being dicks. In general, telling instead of showing is a problem at certain points in the story
- relegating some of the most interesting concepts (sky pirates, warring triad primal fights) to post-story side content instead of part of the MSQs. Sophia/Sephirot/Zurvan should've been the MSQ story trials for another solid FF6 callback, with Ravana/Bismarck as the optionals.
- Why are airships only for exploratory missions? Why can't I live in sky pirate airship housing instead of buying an apartment or plot of land?
+ the music, especially the Alexander raids and Foundation nighttime
+ dragons & their tragic thousand-year history
+ making you care about Aymeric and co.
+ adventurer squadrons: yes it's more FIFA management-style bullshit, but it lays the foundation for something more involved, a la Valkyria Chronicles / XCOM. Would also very much like to replace my pocket chocobo healer companion with an actual soldier I trained
Missed opportunities were:
- underusing the Knights of the Round. All we get to see of them are a couple of instanced duties where they're just dicks. Would've been more impactful to have some of them befriend you, be involved in quests, be morally ambiguous but ultimately beholden to the archbishop
- underusing the other noble houses. It's just all House Fortemps all Count Edmont all the time, and you're just told that the other houses are occasionally being dicks. In general, telling instead of showing is a problem at certain points in the story
- relegating some of the most interesting concepts (sky pirates, warring triad primal fights) to post-story side content instead of part of the MSQs. Sophia/Sephirot/Zurvan should've been the MSQ story trials for another solid FF6 callback, with Ravana/Bismarck as the optionals.
- Why are airships only for exploratory missions? Why can't I live in sky pirate airship housing instead of buying an apartment or plot of land?
![[Image: Pi2KNMr.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Pi2KNMr.jpg)
