PROS
+ Varied themed dungeons with fashionable loot & sweet collectibles
+ Challenging trials with amazing setpieces and great soundtracks
+ Cool beast tribes with worthwhile and cool rewards
+ Samurai and Red Mage as new classes
+ The Far East offers a beautiful new big city and great areas: fun to traverse, explore & look at (A step up from HW!)
+ Sadu & Cirina

TO BE EXPLORED (Will be updated at a later date)
+ Raids & alliance raids
+ Eureka

CONS
+ Quick time events: When they first appeared in a trial (!), I was pretty shook. I find them annoying and repetitive. Nevermind the accessibility issues they are connected to. Wish they'd just add a button to click and fill those gauges as an option.
+ Its politics: I'm not even gonna start. This wouldn't even be such a big deal if the game wasn't perpetually trying to make itself look smart when it presents you with the most terrible political opinions. Like when it keeps on trying to sit down and compromise with fascists. You're better off skipping every singular political talk cutscene in this game. There's one good moment when you're in Gyr Abania for the 2nd time, but it is only a moment
+ MSQ: The more-cohesive and focused approach of HW is gone. In SB we're presented with 2 different big places for the story and it makes sure to start you off with the worse one: Gyr Abania. If you remember the Camp Drybone/Ala Mhigo arcs on ARR it should give you an idea, just imagine a big focus on overlong instances as the cherry on top. I genuinely shelved the MSQ multiple times before I made it over this hump because not only was it annoying, it was incredibly boring. The big villain we're presented with here is probably one of the most laughable and worst villains in fiction: Zenos. He's the one you're gonna encounter multiple times, and everytime it's a completely ridiculous, overlong instance where you're trapped in a state of extreme boredom as all you have to do is dodge his spells in a circle for what feels like eternity. Ugh. I've seen people defend this as a build-up with future pay-off, but especially since having finished the expansion... No. To me, this reads as cheap playtime-padding when you consider how unclear duties can be with direction, points of failure, how you can't start them in 'Very Easy' (only if you've died in them once) and and how long they generally take in SB. And the worst part is: even when you've finished those, Zenos will pull something out of his magician's hat and keep on living and haunting you in future instances. It's incredibly annoying, unrewarding, boring and even worse for a game that already struggles at achieving a modicum of decent pacing with it's MSQ. If that wasn't enough, the Gyr Abania/Ala Mhigo is one of the worst written stories you can find here, too. And the maps are a pain to maneuver and dull to look at. An all-around awful time.
On the flipside, we have The Far East where we have a way more engaging and decently-paced story. It still suffers from overall instance overuse (seriously, who's idea was it to put MORE solo instances into an MMORPG?) and not every red thread leads to a satisfying end, but it's overall a good time. The environments are pretty to look at and fresh, we get chances to play with the new diving ability and it definitely has not only way more breathing room between instances, but they're also not drawn-out ridiculous and pointless instances like the ones vs. Zenos. We learn more about the Far East, the tribes who inhabit it and the conflicts while spending a lot of time with certain Scions and if you like them, you're pretty safely going to have a decent time. When we hit the post-SB content, we get to where the story really shines, with the Asahi arc being one of my favourites in the entire game!!! Here, we have interesting villains, actual stakes and turns at play and a satisfying conclusion to round it all off.

All in all, Stormblood, whilst not as overall lackluster and unengaging as ARR in terms of the MSQ and pacing, has some really rough and terrible spots (namely pretty much all of Gyr Abania, which you'll visit twice). If you can make it through the bad parts and reach the Far East areas, it should give you enough engaging and interesting scenery and challenges to rejuvenate your interest in the expansion and make you able to power through the rest. Some of the things you have to look forward to: Kugane is a blast to hang out in and traverse. The Namazu are hilarious and the Kojin are cool as heck. The Anantas are badass. The trials really push you and contain the most amazing setpieces and fights the game has offered yet and I can't wait to play them on Extreme. The story has some really sweet highlights and a satisfying ending. All I wish is that the good stuff wasn't so wrapped up and gated by some of the worst pacing, blatant playtime-padding and unengaging writing in video games I've ever witnessed.

PROS
+ Primals
+ Dungeons and alliance raids
+ Select cutscenes were really great and powerful
+ A few great, fun and lovable characters
+ Character customization features (glamours, dyes)
+ Collectibles (minions, mounts)
+ Emotes and the general virtual social atmosphere
+ The Golden Saucer

OK
o Voice acting is hit or miss - both in quality and how interesting the parts that are voiced are; most of the time it's not even available which is fine because things aren't important but then there are a handful of really cool moments towards the tail end of ARR that aren't voiced? Oddly inconsistent.

CONS
- High amount of filler in form of fetch quests such as having to go back and forth between places multiple times or collecting 2 animal skins and what have you.
- Lots of cutscenes. They get better in the later part of the game (Lv 45+) but for the most part, you're better off skim-reading or skipping them entirely because it's really not interesting and will burn you out.
- Gating of unlocking mechanics and classes via progress with the Main Story Quest // I really wanted to take a step back from it every now and then and play some other fun-looking classes but they were locked behind finishing ARR, so that made things more annoying as well. It gates people dedicated to crafting classes as well, so keep in mind you'll have to progress with it if you plan on getting to the higher levels of crafting.
- The monetization. Playing as a free trial account means you're severely inhibited (no party creation, joining Free Company or accessing the market), therefore requiring you to have friends with full accounts to make parties. Once you've bought the game, you won't have those problems anymore but there's still a monthly sub fee AND a cash shop. Yikes.

----

I reached the end of ARR with 4 days 5 hours and 11 minutes of playtime, which of course included some idling, job quests and playing around in the Golden Saucer to a certain extent but is still a considerable amount of time to get through this seeing as I mainly powered through the MSQ. It would've taken even longer if I didn't have friends who had full accounts either to make parties with as the Free Trial is so limited that you can't make parties, join Free Companies or use the market. Definitely don't start this game alone because chances are you're gonna burn out hard and preferably bring along friends who have already bought-in or are willing to buy in to actually make it possible for y'all to play together. I do recommend anyone getting it to push through with the Free Trial as long as they can before buying in. My personal breaking point was Lv 52.

Looking back with the knowledge and the experience I had, I would've opted to buy an ARR story completion for $10 and then looked through the important cutscenes myself as the MSQ, despite some great moments, wasn't really a great experience as a whole.
All that being said, while I cannot endorse ARR and think it is overbearingly a slog, I do really love a lot of things about this game and consider myself quite hooked - which should tell you how strong the game is in other aspects. Looking forward to experiencing Heavensward, which is a highly-praised expansion in comparison, and having a better time story-wise.

First Playthrough of 2020 - USA States Redux Mod

Background - I eagerly wish all Americans a pleasant societal and institutional collapse from the safety of my home in the Mediterranean. I will be playing this Mod because I'd like to participate in it, in my own little way.

State Choice - Texas. I'm sorry to say that in my country, we only know of the people of Texas. Until I understand more about America and manage to learn how to stop stereotyping them, I will play with the cowboy people.

Objectives - Establish Communism in the American South, as Texas, yee haw.

Day 1 - Picked Texas and immediately followed the communism focus, completely crippled my political power and weakened me for the rest of the game.

Day 2 - Many of the States of the South also willingly converted to communism, establishing the biggest American faction, that of the USSSA. Tennesse, the home of Hannah Montana, is not in Texas. Montana, the namesake of Hannah Montana, is also a state.

Day 3 - Texas is completely dominant by navy and industry. I discovered this after Florida, which became Fascist ( A whole 80 years early, give or take), decided to go to war with the USSSA. Florida's Allies were all on my borders, at which point I puppetted them. Florida Occupied the Communist State of Georgia and Alabama, and Allied with Fascist Mississippi, lines were drawn on the Mississippi River and no side could cross.

Day 4 - It is at this point that my mistakes in the early game caught up to me, and it has made the game more trouble than it's worth to play, I have brought communism to most of the American South, bar Florida and Mississippi.

I will retire this first playthrough so I can try a real one with another American State, probably Kansas.