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I got 650 hours in and I’m only about halfway through the MSQ.
I just can’t anymore.
It’s too much.
If you’re halfway through the MSQ then you’re already well into the parts people widely regard as good. If you’re not having a good time yet you probably never will.
I'd go as far to say Heavensward may be the benchmark for whether people will enjoy the rest of the game. It's where the voice acting and general presentation upgrades to a level that, to me, remained consistent throughout the rest of the MSQ.
Most importantly, at least to me, you get new plot twists to some earlier events which tells you A LOT about the narrative structure going forward. There's a reveal during the middle of Heavensward that basically killed narrative tension for me throughout the rest of the MSQ.
It's not that their direction there is bad, I had just gotten swept up in the "omg it gets so DARK" hype so I was dissapointed when it consistently walked back major events. It took me until the middle of Endwalker to realise "oh, right, that's not the kind of story and experience they want to tell".
Heavensward is definitely the part where I said "ok maybe all that was worth it". Specifically, the Amphitheatre.
What part, if I may ask? Unless it's in Endwalker, then don't tell me.
Keeping details minimal because I can't for the life of me get spoiler tags to work on kbin:
In the middle of Heavensward we learn that a very dramatic death sequence that led to some major events was a ruse. The character is alive and things will quickly return to normal.
I get what they wanted, but big fakeouts like that are not my thing. It felt like the consequences were walked back so I could never take the rest of the story seriously. Anything bad that happens could just be reverted.
Endwalker has a point after a lot of stuff goes down where I was thinking "Yeah this is edgy and all, but they really held back from doing anything actually substantial" then we get introduced to a bunch of cuteness and silly things. It took until then to really settle with me that they mostly want to tell fun and uplifting stories, so making stuff look dark and dramatic but keeping the lasting impact down is more of an objective of theirs than a narrative flaw.
I can appreciate that, and a lot of other things about the game and its story, but that in particular is just not for me.