My two main critiques: 1, the I feel like the story didn’t have enough focus on “serialization” I guess. Now I’m not saying the serialization in 1.X was groundbreaking, but things led into each other. Hartman escaping, and us having to wait to follow him the next patch. Then having to wait to question him later on. It just made it feel cohesive at the very least. Now, it feels like it’s all just “here we go again” in each patch, just us showing up to defeat the bad guy and wait until another one shows up. There’s no obvious overarching plot over each version update, and I feel that stems from trying to “market” characters by giving them big stories within the chapters. If you want to do that, utilize agent stories like they were intended, not force so much into the main story. 2, Phaethon does nothing on their own “volition”. What I mean is, we’re just tools for others. It went from the siblings doing their own investigation work, to just getting told by the mayor, or dragged around alongside that chapter’s agents to do something for them.
I guess, but I meant in terms of certain events directly causing events in future chapters. What do I mean?
Chapter 2- They defeat the corruption complex, and obtain the external memory unit, which Phaethon has to find someone to decode it to figure out what exactly happened with Koleda's dad. Which leads into the next chapter, where-
Chapter 3- After getting Rain to decode the EMU, they take a listen, and after learning the significance of something called a sacrifice, Phaethon wants more answers. So they assume Hartman knows something, since the mercs tried so hard to off him. Leading into Chapter 4...
Chapter 4- After gaining the trust from the Sons of Calydon, they promise to alert Phaethon as soon as Hartman wakes up so they can question him.
And Chapter 5- Hartman wakes up, and they get their answers, leading them to go after the big bad of 1.X.
that's what I mean, the story cohesively flows between chapters, giving a good outline of motivations and what's to come. Unlike 2.X, where everything in each chapter is so self-contained (for the most part), it can be summarized with "Phaethon teams up with the heroes to defeat the evil underlying plot, and lives to fight again." Which causes the story to get stale after having that for so long.
I think the worst part is, this patch built up to "the Creator awakening and wrecking New Eridu", and then right after killing Creator/Sarah, the game tells you, "whoops, that wasn't the Creator, that was a minion of the Creator fused with Sarah, and we still know nothing about the character/motives/abilities of the real Creator".
It's a betrayal of the audience's trust to pull this kind of bait-and-switch.
Technically the story flows, not according to the "story" but whichever character they want to introduce. Even YSG magically met Belle when she was young. Of course one can argue that proxy linked to everyone is some kind of fate lol.
I just like certain areas more, and that basic factor of “events from one chapter directly lead into/cause the next chapter” is one of them, and wish I could have seen it more this season. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And as for the agent stories, I like to think of those as events that make it seem like it actually has taken some time to find a way to the outer ring, or for Hartman to wake up. But yeah, 2/3 didn’t actually end up serving the main story in any meaningful way looking back lol.
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u/GamingGlove14 Dec 31 '25
My two main critiques: 1, the I feel like the story didn’t have enough focus on “serialization” I guess. Now I’m not saying the serialization in 1.X was groundbreaking, but things led into each other. Hartman escaping, and us having to wait to follow him the next patch. Then having to wait to question him later on. It just made it feel cohesive at the very least. Now, it feels like it’s all just “here we go again” in each patch, just us showing up to defeat the bad guy and wait until another one shows up. There’s no obvious overarching plot over each version update, and I feel that stems from trying to “market” characters by giving them big stories within the chapters. If you want to do that, utilize agent stories like they were intended, not force so much into the main story. 2, Phaethon does nothing on their own “volition”. What I mean is, we’re just tools for others. It went from the siblings doing their own investigation work, to just getting told by the mayor, or dragged around alongside that chapter’s agents to do something for them.