This is definitely my favourite expansion story so far. While I don't have total brainrot for it, the way others do it and I do other things, the character drama and plot mysteries are gripping. While Emet-Selch's foppery is mostly just kind of annoying, and Vauthry is a horrible trope incarnate, after my complaints about the villains of Stormblood I'm happy to say that I find the main antagonist much more compelling here, in terms of believable yet opposable motivation. Even where some twists were kind of easy to see coming, the fact I was engaged enough to try and predict them, and things were foreshadowed such that I could be correct, is a good sign.

I am not without complaints - the alternate universe aspect seems kind of half-baked. they give all of the races different names, but then just stop there. All sorts of other specific things like speech patterns and distance measurements are exactly the same. It comes off as shallow. Also, Y'shtola's blindness going from a secret she's hiding to something openly acknowledged without any reaction at all from other characters is a huge waste of potential character moments.

The new role quest system is kind of a mixed bag - I totally understand why they didn't want to have to keep writing questlines for every job, and the ability to tell more general stories that still reference your general abilities is really cool. I quite like the use of them to explore the backstories of the Warriors of Darkness. However, the lack of contextualisation for new class skills is a huge letdown. As a Summoner, everything leading up to learning how to summon Bahamut was a huge deal. Here, I just kind of suddenly get Phoenix after doing one too many dungeons, and the reaction is "oh ok cool i guess this is here now".

I wrote most of this review relatively early into the expansion, and as I continue to play I haven't felt much I wanted to add or change. I'm just having a mostly good time!

Don't mind the longer than usual playtime of this one, I stalled out finishing it to prepare for Dawntrail.