#she has more expansive lore than amanda

[meet-me-in-the-pouringrain]

what in the name of FUCK do you mean ANGELA GIARRATANA studied at UCLA (knew that) and FUCKING OXFORD

[astraldrake]

tfs thoughts beneath the readmore note: contains spoilers for the entire campaign

the opening vision we get when we enter the traveler... i ended up watching it multiple times (computer issues ;-;) but MAN was it cool the inside of the traveler in general looks super funky, im going to have to do a no hud run at some point just for screenshots. shoutout to bungie for giving us a sparkly pink rainbow subclass, just in time for pride month lol weapon unsunsetting means i get to pull all sorts of old friends out of the vault. (python, the vow, steelfeather repeater, perfect paradox, etc...) i'm pretty ambivalent abt cayde generally but they did a good job w/ his characterization. i was worried he'd end up being kind of grating but so far he's been okay i was (initially) delighted to see targe. i was not anticipating that they were introducing him just so they could kill him off 5 minutes later. i have mixed feelings on zavala's characterization but it's been a minute since i buried my face into the ishtar collective lore vault so maybe it's just my memory being unreliable. for him to just lose it and start acting irrationally like that felt odd. maybe it's bcs we havent seen him in a while? idk it just felt off. (tbf you could point out that it's probably a byproduct of being forced to relive one of the most unpleasant moments of his entire life so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ fear and desperation can make people do strange things) ikora was cool, idk she didn't read as ooc or anything to me, her reunion with cayde was very sweet, though in hindsight i wish they'd given her a little more to do. seasonal stuff has struggled to give consistency to crow but i appreciate this expansion's efforts to tie up some of those threads more neatly. (i lost it when he pulled out an iron battleaxe, i did not expect that plot point to get touched on!! also it was cool!) i am still irritated that they fridged amanda ( i ignored that part of canon so hard it kinda smacked me in the face when they mentioned her.) i love luzaku, and i would kill for luzaku. ( finally! friendly hive!) i did like the emphasis on ghost and guardian relationships throughout the expansion's story. (also ghost as the location vendor!!!! having regular chats with him while we go through the story!!! the fact he becomes increasingly damaged and wounded throughout the campaign giving me the distinct dread that he might die!!!)

the fact the traveler is letting out intermittent shrieks of pain... MAN... the return of the glowing bird as our guide! (also the fact that the grenade projectile for song of flame looks like a bird... i dont think they're actually connected but it is giving me Ideas.) speaking of song of flame, i kind of expected it to be more underwhelming than it is?? it's actually pretty fun! prismatic is a lot of fun to mess around with! nothing like throwing a storm grenade at an enemy to simultaneously proc devour and amplify. the speaker mask exotic is also giving me Ideas >:) i lost my shit when they mentioned Micah-10. she's one of the last lore characters i expected them to pull out of the hat but i am delighted to see her in game, and seemingly as more than just a cameo too, as far as i can tell. pretty ambivalent abt the whole "player character is the most powertful being in the universe and the chosen one" thing. it's kinda where i figured they'd take it and i dont hate the trope so eh whatever. im glad they actually gave me cover for some of these story missions. i did not super enjoy lightfall's strategy of throwing me in a room with one million guys and a few tiny scraps of cover. ( the radial mast double tank fight... *shudders* ) difficulty wise legendary wasn't all that painful, there were a few fights i struggled with, but a change of loadout, or a little trial and error was pretty much all i needed. i def understand why they've saved the witness fight for the raid, but if my raiding history is anything to got by im certainly not doing day one, but that doesn't mean ill never touch it. (ive missed most of the newer raids, im just not that much of a people person.) ill try and take some day 1 screenshots of the opening area at least. also wrt post campaign!! i loved playing projectile tennis with savathun. all the two queens stuff was great tbh sav is such a fun villian. like yes!! you do owe us nothing and are only going to swoop in to help us bcs we have a bigger threat to deal with!! we can go back to trying to outscheme eachother once this is over!! ( also hey, they brought back adventures! i thought they'd never do that!) also what ive played of the crode camping trip (i forgot the mission name) has been fun. just me and the bois, out exploding screebs. ( then the game crashed so i guess i gotta go play that again lmao) overall i think this expansion is pretty good! i havent even gotten to the seasonal stuff yet, much less some of the regular patrol stuff for the pale heart.

[sovpologist]

Lightfall Review: TLDR

Read my full review here!

Best parts of the story:

Zavala immediately squashing the "The Traveler tried to abandon us" hot take by explaining that it went to confront the Witness at the end of Seraph. Like I felt like this was obvious but some people want the Traveler to secretly be evil so badly they'll use anything as proof

Osiris launching himself in a Cabal drop pod

Nimbus and Osiris bickering

Caiatl coming to help us and Nimbus thinking she's hot

Calling down orbital strikes

Neomuna being an Ishtar Collective colony (science wives Maya Sundaresh and Chioma Esi were alive! And thriving!)

Osiris' theory that Light = material/physical and Dark = mental/immaterial

And how this would build/add onto Ikora's theories about pain, forgiveness, and memory and why the Light forgets but the Dark remembers

The Witness taking control of Ghost to get to the Veil

There's precedent for this in the Vow raid lore; plus the Witness/Darkness has influenced/taken control of Ghost before. It also always seemed too good to be true that Ghost and the guardian could spy on the Witness with no issue but that connection didn't go the other way around

Worst parts of the story:

Amanda being on the front lines of the battle despite being a civilian non guardian??? and later in defiant battlegrounds devrim even has a line about how he and amanda cant be on the front lines bc they dont have lives to space so why was she there in the first place?

Osiris seeing the Witness touch the Traveler, leave, and immediately guessing that the Witness 1) saw the Veil 2) is going to get it right now

The Veil and the Radial Mast in general

Rohan's death being obvious from a mile away and him not getting enough screentime that wasn't draped in "I'm definitely going to die soon" red flags to actually be able to get attached to him

"Let's stand perfectly still in the dark!" -Mara, Zavala, Elsie, Ikora

Overall:

Story: 4/10

Pros:

Lots of mystery going into "Final Shape"

Strong aesthetics + vibe

Post-campaign content is largely better written and more engaging

Cons:

Breakneck pacing

Poor motivations

Lack of setup

Overutilization of MacGuffins

Rapid, jarring tonal shifts

Obvious, guessable deaths

Stakes are supposed to be high but feel low

No payoff

Bungie telling people who are confused or unsatisfied to buy the year's seasons and play them to get answers… Expansions should be mandatory to understand seasons. Seasons should not be mandatory to understand expansions.

Characters: 6/10

Pros:

Fun new characters

Interesting character interactions

Cons:

Underutilized existing characters

Gameplay: 8/10

Pros:

Difficult but not oppressive content

Strand is massively fun and engaging

Interesting, well-designed missions

Lots of opportunities to use/experiment with Strand during main campaign, meaning putting together a build post-campaign is easier

Strand is much easier to unlock than Stasis, which was a huge pain

Replayable activities in Neomuna

Cons:

Some of the "secrets" on Neomuna are not really secrets (Vex disruption, Cabal ammunition, disrupting transmission)

Post campaign content with great lore (yay) is largely patrol based (nay...)

Will need to see the longevity of Neomuna + how it shakes up in the long run; Savathun's throne world had some things to do for leveling/unique replayable missions right after the campaign but a season or two later they were essentially worthless, meaning there was no reason to go back

QOL Changes: 9/10

Pros:

Simplified mod system

Ada-1 sells shaders now!

Loadouts!!!

Mod building screen!!!!

Commendations are fun

Artifact mods are intrinsic

Artifact is free to reset

Power system less relevant

More ways to stun champions

Cons:

Guardian ranks system is underwhelming, just another list of tasks to check off

Lore being moved to triumphs is a bad design choice IMO; I much preferred being able to read it on the same screen I unlocked it 

[diana-3]

Beware: I got to thinking about missed storytelling opportunities with Destiny 2 and I go on a rant.

Tl;Dr: I'm just bitching because I'd went about it differently. I'm aware my version of things would tick off other players and Bungie needs to stretch the story to fill the rest of the seasons/expansions and that they want players reading the lore as much as playing the game.

Anyone else feel like Bungie totally ignores great story hooks or completely misses a mark storytelling wise?

I've felt this since Beyond Light came out. When Eruopa was introduced, we got Eramis as the main villain and since then not much to do with it.

CLOVIS BRAY AND BANSHEE LORE WAS RIGHT THERE.

Info about Exos, Clovis, Ana and Elsie's family, DER, the vex, The Whispers---all right there. But nah, let's bring back Variks and a one off villain to introduce darkness abilities, THROUGH THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF CLOVIS BRAY.

I feel like Europa was primed to be a huge lore dump about the Bray family, the Exos and the vex and they just...totally missed the broad side of the barn and hit the one tree in the field by introducing Eramis a little too soon.

Idk, I feel like the introduction of Europa could have felt more fulfilling if we'd centered on the exo/vex/Clovis lore and saved Eramis for later when she could have been built up better as a baddie and we knew what was hidden in Europa to begin with and then ending it with the Eramis arc, the darkness powers and the raid.

I also feel like they did it with this season and the Shadow keep expansion. The young wolf has been through so much shit--yet had absolutely no trauma to work through? REALLY? No nightmare to haunt them? We had just lost a good friend and gotten revenge for him by killing someone we'd known for years? We've seen guardians die, been too late to prevent disasters, the whole Gaul arc with losing our light and being vulnerable for the first time since our first rez?

And you really gonna tell me that the YW is just totally mentally healthy/stable/ a-oh-kay?

I call plot armor bullshit.

When Shadow keep came out, I was excited to see how they'd handle the young wolf, only to see the spotlight fully on Eris and her trauma over people I couldn't name aside from Toland. I felt very... disconnected from the story. Hell, I never even fully finished it because it just didn't call to me like others did.

I know I'd there'd been a common thread between Eris and the Young Wolf and the begining of truth shown about their trauma and what they'd been through, through the years--that I would have cared a bit more and finished it.

Also, I'm glad we got backstory on Caital and Zavala and that we got more Crow crumbs-- I devoured the season story in about 3 streams, about 4 hours each.

but Ikora's nightmare is cayde and it's just nodded to in lore tabs? We never actually get to see him haunting her in the tower or have a scene with her to help her heal like the others? To confront those still lingering feelings of regret, remorse, anger and sorrow? Nah, let's just have a few voice messages from Amanda Holiday dealin with it instead and act like the YW is just totally cool with everything going down around them.

The YW is just the driver and the one forcing everyone else to get fucking therapy while Eris is the witchy therapist 🤣

But seriously, we have the vanguard hunter stand in (Crow), vanguard leader (Zavala) and the Cabal Empress getting nightmare therapy but y'all just gonna leave ya girl hanging like that? Standin by herself at home? Being haunted by her lost friend / fire team member?

It's like they come up with all these amazing concepts and then only end up bouncing it off the backboard during the execution rather than a slam dunk by adjusting the main focus

Me lately: