GW2

Guild Wars 2

So. Guild Wars 2, like all MMOs, is a bit of a weird one. It’s easy to try out, but the content that’s freely available is the worst content in the game (and not indicative of the game proper either). Honestly, considering you can skip ahead and back at will, if you want to know you like the game I’d recommend buying Path of Fire first and poking at that. If you do, feel free to rewind and try out the story in order. But I strongly recommend skipping Icebrood Saga and, honestly, I’d skip Secrets of the Obscure as well unless you’re really into it.

Total Story Score: +252
Total Gameplay Score: +18
Platinum Number: 283.11
Vanilla Bronze Number: -284.17
Heart of Thorns Bronze Number: 102.23
Path of Fire Bronze Number: 343.9
Icebrood Saga Bronze Number: -62.52
End of Dragons Bronze Number: 280.01
Secrets of the Obscure Bronze Number: -26.07
Janthir Wilds Bronze Number: 18.9
Cheats: Nope
Total Play Time: 21 Days // 158.31 Hours
Time Reviewed: 3-25-2025

Spoiler Story Positives+

Story Positives:

Integration: Co-Op! Yes, several missions in the game actually have custom ‘vehicles’ and modes for co-op, allowing players to keep the narrative of being there alone in lore, but group with friends in gameplay

Background Lore: So as we learn more about how the Elder Dragons actually work we see that a lot of them do what they do basically as a hobby. Their main purpose is consuming magic, the rest is just bonus points. This also extends to their Lieutenants and Champions

Storytelling Mechanic: They don’t show up until Season 1, but the indicators of NPCs having bonus dialogue (and it going away once you’ve talked to them, BUT allowing you to still re-talk to them if you want) is a nice touch

Visual Storytelling: Load screens! Some lovely (if occasionally inaccurate or misrepresentative) artwork for them

Cutscene: The stylized painting brushes cutscenes, even in vanilla, are actually pretty solid

Spritework: Playables. They do a pretty good job with the Asurans, Charr, and Sylvari to the point where they deserve their own positives…

Spritework: …so earn that…

Spritework: …triple

Spritework: So, there’s a lot of ‘side’ races. Like, a lot a lot. They’re all visually distinct and well designed, for how little screen time they get, and deserve recognition

MSQ: Vanilla Sylvari. Unlike Asurans this starts off with surprisingly good, quiet foreshadowing (for both Mordremoth and Orr) and serves as a good hook

Brickwork: Sylvari wilds. Pretty much the entire Tarnished Coast and lead up to Kryta. Green, beach, wilds, woods. This bleeds a bit into Kryta proper which is your typical green fields

Brickwork: Hoelbrak and the Shiverpeaks. Snow, huts, and brutal mountainsides

MSQ: Yes we actually have an honest to goodness story positive for the Whispers choice for the Sylvari MSQ. Hallucinations, silliness, and all kinds of other fun stuff

Brickwork: Divinity’s Reach! This gigantic city of doom has a lot going on and…

Doodads: …has really solid doodad design to boot…

Doodads: …mostly from sheer quantity. It’s also one of the only early cities to have…

NPC Set Dressing: …honest to God NPC Set Dressing

Storytelling Mechanic: The Story Diary in general is a great feature. Good, in-character summarization of all the main story beats of the MSQ

Brickwork: Rata Sum. Love the uniquely alien Asuran architecture, as well as the obvious dichotomy of nature interwoven with very unnatural terrain…

Brickwork: …easy double

Doodads: Rata Sum also gets bonus points for its doodad design

MSQ: Asura vanilla campaign. This is one hell of an aggregate, because it’s for the entire campaign up to the Order choice, but there’s still juuust enough intrigue and decency here to qualify. The dabbling in politics, the cultural stuff establishing how Krewes work and the Asurans in general, and some mildly entertaining side characters

Brickwork: Black Citadel. Big, brutalist, looks like a half completed chunk of metal bolted onto more metal. I love it

MSQ: …Charr! Yes, really. It’s honestly the best of the racial campaigns. Still pretty dull (one positive for 30 levels of quests is not great) but they do SOMEthing with it. We learn a bit about the Ascalonians, why the Charr are the way they are, and bypass most of the aggravating crap of the other races

Visual Storytelling: The Brand. It barely intersects the main story, but it’s almost impossible to miss on the map, and you can go there and see its impact across multiple zones

Character: Tybalt. I’m honestly shocked, a legitimately good character in vanilla, but he’s really good and actually has good acting

MSQ: Whispers 40 quests are weirdly good. Tybalt helps of course but the quests themselves are ultimately decent, and have some honest to God humor in them

Atmosphere: Quaggan are just so coot

Internal Continuity: The nature of Orr attacks across the zones

Internal Continuity: Racial stories coming together in the formation of the Pact

MSQ: Trahearne’s exposition walk through Orr isn’t terrible. It does a good job of getting players up to date on a fairly large amount of relevant history from both games and doesn’t have the usual cutscene issues most of vanilla has

Character: Several supporting cast members during the Pact quests. Notable mention to Tonn and his general jovial demeanor and willingness to do what was needed to be done

Cutscene: My goodness a good cutscene in Vanilla. I’m shocked. Marjory’s first noir cutscene with Thackeray is just the right brand of cheese to work

Character: Scarlet. Even early on there’s hints that there’s more going on with her than just cackling evil

Foreshadowing: Season 1. Lots and lots of little details leading into Heart of Thorns

Cutscene: The destruction of the Nightmare Tower is, like most later cutscenes, pretty well done

MSQ: The spectacle of the Marionette fight

Moment: The lull after the Evacuation of Lion’s Arch is filled with some great personal moments

Voice Acting: Season 2 finally brings in actually decent voice acting

MSQ: Season 2, in general, has some decent follow through of Season 1 and actual development towards Heart of Thorns

Moment: Okay so for all the nonsense with the sudden death of Belinda, Kasmeer and Marjory really sell the impact of it

MSQ: Party Politics. This is easily the best quest as of this point in the MSQ. The entire sequence is well written, engaging, good for world building and character building. It’s also our first real showcasing of Canach…

MSQ: …easy double

Character: Countess Anise is more or less immediately interesting. Playful, intelligent, and dangerous

Character: Taimi! Yes even in Season 2 she’s already an interesting character. A vulnerable but very intelligent child who’s honestly swinging way above her weight class

Background Lore: Season 2 has some nice little side stories in the background that I rather enjoy

Brickwork: Silverwastes and, more importantly, Camp Resolve. You really feel the forward outpost vibe

Brickwork: Glint’s Lair. It looks wonderfully crystalline and magical

MSQ: Caithe’s memories of the ‘secondborn’ and the intricacies of dealing with younger members of a very young race. It’s also good world building for the Asura, the Sylvari, and a few individuals in particular (we even see Scarlet in the background, already tinkering)

MSQ: We also see Vorpp back in the day in the followup quest and how they were capturing and experimenting on Sylvari when they first awoke

Cutscene: The spectacle of the final Shadow of the Dragon fight

Moment: The massive fleet charging into the forest… only to be absolutely bodied by it. Between Sylvari being mind controlled and Mordremoth’s massive body (which is the entire forest), there was never any chance. And so we lose again

Visual Storytelling: The slow expansion of the Verdant Brink

Visual Storytelling: Before I forget, those lovely load screens are back and just as awesome as before

Brickwork: Verdant Brink! Or more accurately, the entire jungle really since it’s all the same tileset, but it really is a very overgrown and wild jungle…

Brickwork: …earning a double positive

Doodads: Verdant Brink. Special mention to the Hylek village

Plot: The twist of the Sylvari is an interesting one. It adds to the dynamic of the type of threat Mordremoth is. Unlike Zhaitan, who has to kill us first, Mordremoth can just flip a switch… but it can be resisted, and it only works on Sylvari

MSQ: Dragon’s Stand is a suitably epic and fantastical spectacle of a fight against Mordremoth’s body

Theme: The change of war doctrine that Heart of Thorns brings. The Pact is shifting to the back, into more of a support role, while most of the heavy lifting is being done by small elite squads (meaning parties, including us). This is actually a consistent shift across the game and they do some great things with it

Cutscene: Faolin betraying the person who literally just saved her life is so in character for her… something she IMMEDIATELY suffers for…

Moment: …but it does lead to the death of Eir. She saw it coming, and the game to its credit does some good with it. Even Braham (of all people) carries the weight of it with his voice acting

MSQ: The egg chooses its Champion (us), Caithe is confronted with what’s left of Faolin, and the plot really starts to kick into high gear

Background Lore: Glint. She is a near constant presence in the plot, though she’s been dead for years, and the way they weave this into the narrative is great

Brickwork: Auric Basin! Mostly thanks to the ruins and of course…

Brickwork: …Tarir itself

Music Direction: General. It’s just so much better in HoT it’s not even funny

Cutscene: The first vision of what Mordremoth wants with the egg and the jungle is wonderfully horrifying. The final shot of the mass of brambles, his eyes barely visible in them, spreading across the plains, is haunting

Moment: Losing Scruffy was actually pretty well done for what it was. And Taimi’s actress really sells it

Music Direction: Mordremoth’s fight has a near perfect song for it. Slow, wild, jungle beat covered in melancholy… until it escalates into a horrifying race

Cutscene: The spectacle of the Mordremoth fight is fantastic. The mindscape, the vines, the thorns

Dialogue: Season 3 just has noticeably improved dialogue

Foreshadowing: Season 3 and the build up to both reveals

Visual Storytelling: Bloodstone Fen. This place looks exactly as horrifying as it should, with floating ruins, upwards bloodstone, and arcs of magic everywhere

Brickwork: The whole place looks fantastic and awful

MSQ: I do like the moment with Caithe. It’s open and honest and tries to push past the drama as fast as possible

MSQ: I absolutely love Canach and how he handles Caudecus. And Caudecus just blithely stumbles forward, thinking he’s the big fish here… and he is not. Literally his second scene has him immediately being upstaged by Lazarus

Moment: Okay, I love the banana monkey in the simulation

Banter: Season 3 and the new writers finally nail the dynamic between characters and they start to feel like actual characters

Plot: The dragon’s magic spectrum thing is a great plot beat. Each Elder Dragon killed spreads their magic to the survivors, making them stronger. This also coincides with increased quality in…

World Building: …the setting construction. The rules are starting to be established and developed in Season 3

Brickwork: The Fire Islands and subsequent lava and ash

Voice Acting: Braham. Yeah I know, but it’s hard to say his acting isn’t on point

Voice Acting: Also special mention to the main character…

Voice Acting: …all…

Voice Acting: …10 of them

Voice Acting: Taimi’s voice actress is probably the overall best of the bunch. She manages pacing, nuance, and tone near perfectly and gets a lot of time to shine…

Voice Acting: …for a double

Voice Acting: Rytlock is only around for a bit but Blum finally shows why he’s so sought after with some proper voice direction

Voice Acting: Special mention for Canach. Dude really nails the snark perfectly

Voice Acting: General voice acting positives for all the supporting cast

Voice Direction: Amazingly and noticeably improved, you can tell an actual director told the actors context and nuance

Character: The Commander! Yes we actually develop an actual personality in HoT, and it’s awesome

Character: Taimi continues to be the best character in the game, but given the new quality of staff and direction you can really start to see it shine

Character: Rytlock really starts to find himself here too

Character: Though we don’t see too much of him after this point, Canach is awesome. Fantastic wit and great delivery

Character: General supporting cast…

Character: …quite a few, and quite good

Character: Kasmeer and Marjory dynamic. These two play off each other so well

MSQ: A Meeting of Ministers is a delightful little side tidbit leading into the White Mantle finale, with some good dialogue, background lore, humor…

Moment: …and a few great moments, like Jennah finally getting to flex a bit

Moment: While a bit telegraphed, the loss of Demmi is very well acted… and a nice moment for Valette

Moment: I love how our characters almost immediately figure out the significance of Caudecus’ treachery towards the White Mantle and Lazarus

Moment: The reveal of Balthazar is a fantastic moment. It makes perfect sense in hindsight, but still manages to come out of nowhere. It also serves as a more personal stake than the elder dragons

MSQ: I also love this entire sequence. Shuffling Phlunt out, Balthazar trapping us in, Kasmeer’s reaction to the reveal and her just peacing out as her entire worldview is completely shattered

Brickwork: Draconis Mons is a gorgeous, wild land inside the volcano

Consequence Storytelling: Taimi, dragons, and sleep deprivation

Brickwork: The Heart of the Volcano is… amazingly terrifying. You really feel how ludicrously hot this area is

Plot: I do love the overall progression of the plot. We defeated Zhaitan because we had no real choice, and Mordremoth pulled us into another conflict before we could think about the consequences of that. By the time we realize what we’ve been doing it’s too late, the dominos are already falling

Dialogue: PC banter in particular is very well written and acted

Visual Storytelling: As usual, wonderful artwork for the Path of Fire…

Visual Storytelling: …honestly some of the best so far

MSQ: Sparking the Flame sets the tone and stakes immediately (while also doing some great foreshadowing and world building)…

MSQ: …easy double

Spritework: Mounts! We can finally discuss mounts. We’ll ignore cosmetics for the sake of this discussion but the basic mounts are brilliantly presented and animated

Brickwork: Amnoon. The last oasis in the north, with some lovely architecture… or what’s left of it

Visual Storytelling: Amnoon also has some fantastic visual storytelling. You can really tell this used to be a much more prosperous place, rather than functionally a ruin surviving on its docks and remaining water supplies and farmlands

Doodads: Amnoon, again. This is starting to push the doodad design up from older stuff…

Doodads: …really laying it on well

Cutscene: Zalambur’s introduction, followed immediately by an introduction to what the Mordent Crescent are, is such a great establisher for the setting and what we’ll be dealing with. It’s also a great followthrough on the brief mention of Joko earlier

Doodads: Crystal Oasis, temples and the like

Brickwork: Crystal Oasis, general. This is a gorgeous desert, with oases, small towns, and just generally great design…

Brickwork: …easy double

Moment: “Kill my god. Please!” Seriously, it’s a terrifying line that does a lot to characterize both her and Balthazar

Cutscene: So we finally learn what happened with Rytlock in the Mists… and it directly ties in to current events. And not in a good way

Brickwork: Desert Highlands is another gorgeous desert… but what really makes it distinct is the large swath of Brand across it

Doodads: And the usual high quality doodad work

MSQ: Vlast’s final words. Well acted, well written, and a lot of implication for a character with almost no screen time

MSQ: It would be so easy to drift into fake drama with Rytlock and destroying the spear. They don’t. Instead this is a great moment for Rytlock and his friendship with the Commander

MSQ: Meeting the Primeval Kings is typical… if not for Rytlock and Canach, who bring some much needed reality to the situation

MSQ: The meeting with the gods (that is to say… just Kormir) is well presented. The absence of music, the vast plain, the arches, the well acted and presented lore dump from Kormir. It’s a solid moment

MSQ: The Way Forward. There’s some really adorable character moments here, like the kids playing Ascension, or the unaware researcher

MSQ: While I think it’s overly padded, I do actually like the afterlife section of The Departing. The nature of the afterlife, the introduction (finally) of Palawa Joko, and the nature of having to fight our way back to life

Brickwork: Elon Riverlands. Same general desert, but still some nice… uh, riverlands here

Brickwork: The Desolation. This place is wonderfully horrible. The sulfur, the bone palace, the chasms…

Brickwork: …absolutely horrible

Dialogue: This is as good of a time as any to mention that the dialogue absolutely pops in Path. Easily the best writing so far…

Dialogue: …for a solid…

Dialogue: …triple

Banter: Continued amazing banter too

MSQ: The finale leading up to Balthazar is really friggin’ good

Cutscene: The spectacle of the big fight against Balthazar is easily the best spectacle in the game to date…

Cutscene: …between him, Kralkatorrik, Aurene, and the giant mech fight…

Cutscene: …easily a triple

Moment: Balthazar’s death is honestly amazing, top to bottom

MSQ: The Path of Fire epilogue is good stuff. The choice of speech you can give, and both serious and silly responses to that, along with custom music depending is a nice touch

External Continuity: I’ve been chewing on this for a bit. A lot of the references to GW1 were just that, but I think Path of Fire finally actually uses the events of Nightfall and develops them

MSQ: The entire lead up to Taimi being captured by Joko is brilliant…

Moment: …but I have to give tons of positives for how they handle the moment itself. The sheer terror in Taimi’s voice, the panic in ours…

Moment: …and Joko’s horrifying menace

MSQ: The entire Scruffy 2.0 fight is exactly as tense and panicky as it should be. Both in her voice acting, the calm recitation of the oxygen being removed, the cold personal cruelty of Joko, and the frenetic music

MSQ: Bug in the System has some rather amusing horror about the Inquest…

Atmosphere: …followed by some ACTUAL horror in the sanitized disinterest with which they perform their experiments. “Notify management that new janitorial staff will be required after today’s resignations.” Yeesh

Plot: I like the slow exposition on what a Champion is and what it entails, seen through our eyes as bit by bit we reveal more of our connection to Aurene

MSQ: The introduction of Blish and Gorrik (despite Gorrik’s irritations) and Joko escalating but still not fully taking us seriously

Cutscene: I love the spectacle of the Lonai fight. Bouncing around the world in portals as we slowly bring her down…

Moment: …leading to an absolutely wonderful moment. We’re lost deep in the Mists, the music stops, the noise stops. We grant Lonai a moment of peace before waiting for the end

Moment: Taimi’s reaction to Blish is perfect for her. The cripple who’s dying because of her own body seeing the man who abandoned it for a golem shell

Moment: The small moment with Blish and his horror at being ‘shut off’ is really properly horrifying

Humor: I’m sorry, Joko alone deserves this

MSQ: I love the infiltration then epic army charge into Joko’s domain

Visual Storytelling: I forgot to mention this earlier but I love the Tar. It’s never explicitly stated but it’s everywhere that Joko’s Awakened are and it’s clear it’s part of the ritual that mass produces them

MSQ: There’s a four-part step where we help out the locals of Kourna. There’s good stuff throughout, especially the town where the local is just too propagandized to do anything but follow Joko

MSQ: Be My Guest is a wonderfully horrible bit of presentation and characterization for Joko

MSQ: The final battle with Joko is absolutely amazing…

Cutscene: …but Joko’s final speech to us is, legit, the best cutscene in the game to this point in time. The speech, the storyboarding as he puts himself together, the acting, and of course the timing on Aurene’s interruption…

Cutscene: …so that’s a solid…

Cutscene: …triple

Moment: And for literally the first time, Braham is amusing and awesome. “Dinner” is a great line, and so is him spelling epidemic. Kabraham!

MSQ: Great writing in the meeting. The seemingly obstinate bureaucrat is actually just posturing and posing to keep a foot in the door out of fear and respect (and acknowledgement of his own weak position). The idiot who thought he had strength tried to kill everyone and died for his troubles

Moment: The Commander on shrooms

Moment: Gorrik overhearing the Chak

Moment: Aurene’s multiple visions of the future, of all the ways we could fight Kralkatorrik… all ending in her death

MSQ: I do like the small side story of Zafirah and showing the consequences of knocking over a deity, though it has a bit of a problem with peeking in and immediately peacing out

MSQ: The frenetic fight inside the Mists, the last ditch effort by Blish to arm the device, the oncoming hurricane, and Blish’s final words

Voice Direction: Taimi absolutely breaking down over Blish’s loss is heart rending. And Gorrik desperately trying to talk over us because he already knows, and you can hear it in his voice

Moment: “I am not him”

Writing: The Commander isn’t the main character in the usual sense, Aurene is… and the story writes around that dynamic very well

MSQ: The build-up to The Crystal Dragon. The charr and the sunspear, the Awakened and the Vigil, and our speech to troops and to Aurene

Cutscene: The spectacle of the Kralkatorrik fight is, of course, fantastic (if a bit confusing at times)

Moment: We finally bring down Kralkatorrik… only for him to get up again and blast everything. We black out, and slowly walk forwards, across a corridor of crystal…

Moment: …and around the corner is Aurene’s corpse, in exactly the same pose she envisioned, dead. Caithe is devastated, Taimi is sobbing, and when asked what to do next the Commander can only say one thing

Moment: “I don’t know”

MSQ: The voice acting, the movement, the lack of music, it all hits like a goddamned truck, but I have to make special mention to (of all people)…

Moment: …Braham. “Go be with your loved ones” “We are.” DAMN

Moment: So, Aurene self rezzes. This is actually wonderfully built up to and presented. The sheer relief in everyone’s voices, the sudden excitement, the new plan…

Moment: …this is unabashedly one of my favorite plot beats in the story…

Moment: …and earns a triple

Cutscene: The sheer spectacle of fighting Kralkatorrik as Aurene in the Mists…

Cutscene: …is completely badass

Brickwork: Dragonfall. It’s Kralkatorrik’s body smothered in chunks of the Mists, what do you want from me

MSQ: The spectacle of the Dragonfall Meta is, as usual, fantastic

MSQ: Okay so, where to even begin. The lead up to the inside of Kralkatorrik…

MSQ: …the internal war between Kralkatorrik’s Torment and his mind…

Background Lore: …the implications of Kralkatorrik being trapped inside his own body…

MSQ: …Aurene finally absorbing the magic and properly distributing it, turning into the first Prismatic Dragon

Voice Acting: Main characters continue to be great…

Voice Acting: …for a triple…

Voice Acting: …positive, but hang on…

Voice Acting: The Asuran female deserves her own positive

Voice Acting: The Charr male does too…

Voice Acting: …in fact he gets two

Voice Acting: And Sylvari female absolutely nails it…

Voice Acting: …for a full…

Voice Acting: …triple

Voice Acting: Kasmeer continues to be good

Voice Acting: In fact all the voice acting is good

Voice Acting: Balthazar absolutely nails his pathetic petulence

Voice Acting: Also Palawa Joki (Nolan North) completely nails it…

Voice Acting: …easy double

Voice Acting: Taimi continues to be top tier…

Voice Acting: …another double

Voice Acting: Gorrik manages a lot in a short period of time

Voice Acting: And I can’t even believe this but Braham continues to be awesomely voice acted

Character: So hey, the main character is a character! And in fact…

Character: …is an awesome character, with relationships, personality, emotional hits, highs, lows

Character: Kasmeer of course

Character: Amnoon NPCs (special mention to Zalambur)

Character: Joko’s Awakened NPCs

Character: General NPCs afterwards

Character: Balthazar is a fantastic villain. So petulant, so small, and ultimately so stupid, but with just enough know-how and charisma to do a ton of damage…

Character: …he even dies pathetically, I love it

Character: Taimi continues to be amazing (though there’s an asterisk in that later)

Character: Blish kind of nailed it for how little screen time he had. Big impact, and a lasting effect on several other characters (including Gorrik and Taimi)

Character: Palawa Ignacious Joko. Good lord this guy is absolutely fantastic. Intelligent, charismatic, weak but strong at the same time, vicious but entertaining, he walks a tightrope and ends up being (honestly) the best villain in the entire game…

Character: …easy…

Character: …triple

Consequence Storytelling: Almost everything in Path is build up and pay off of consequences

Foreshadowing: Quite a bit, but everything to do with Aurene especially qualifies as well set up

Music Direction: General, but especially the big moments…

Music Direction: …with Aurene and Kralkatorrik

World Building: Charr. They really (finally) flesh out the Charr, both in general and in specific. How they celebrate, how they view the world around them, and how Flame operates…

World Building: …easy double territory

Brickwork: Grothmar Valley. It’s a nice valley in general, very autumn like most Charr lands, but I’m especially fond of Aurene’s branding

Cutscene: Rytlock vs. Bangar. Bangar knew exactly how to push his buttons, and exactly how to get him to back down

Plot: Bangar the fascist. His push for nationalism, focusing on several ‘others’, but what’s fascinating is they try to portray him in… not so much sympathetic as understandable

MSQ: I know it sounds weird but Bangar’s overall plan is honestly great in how understandable and stupid it is. He really does think he can do this and he really is incredibly wrong

Storytelling Mechanic: Jormag’s whispers are exactly as creepy and wonderful as they should be. It’s a great way to convey how they operate

Atmosphere: Okay I’ll give you this, Jormag and the north are properly horrifying

Cutscene: Jormag finally reveals themselves to us, treating with us. And it is wonderfully creepy, as they claim their minion’s body to speak through them

MSQ: So, as usual, Jormag is the most interesting thing in any scene in Icebrood. Them trying to convince us that there’s a more peaceful route is actually intelligent (unlike the rest of their approach)

MSQ: Ryland slowly realizing how bad things are, Bangar showing just how far gone he is, his grief at killing Almorra (and Ryland’s refusal to), and burying her with honors

Visual Storytelling: Load screens, as usual

Humor: How in the world is there just suddenly great lines during the Eagle Spirit trial

Moment: I do love the irony of Jormag shackling Bangar’s voice (his one talent) and slaving him to being her voice

Voice Acting: The Main Characters continue to nail it…

Voice Acting: …for the same…

Voice Acting: …triple. Only a triple this time though (we actually don’t talk a lot in Icebrood)

Voice Acting: Of course Rytlock is still amazing

Voice Acting: Bangar does a wonderful job with his role, adds a lot of nuance to the character

Voice Acting: General good voice acting of course

Voice Acting: Special mention to Debra Wilson as Jormag, who really makes them sound exactly as horrifying as they need to be

Character: Bangar. The man is an interesting take on a fascist; He’s actually scared, and legitimately believes in the cause, but ultimately he just isn’t smart enough to follow through and he has no idea what he’s doing. Lost in the past and surrounded by fear, the only voice he’s willing to listen to is his own

Character: Jormag is one of the more interesting Elder Dragons. Horrifying, reasonable, and totally alien…

Character: …great stuff

Outro: For all it does wrong, Ryland’s final confrontation with his parents is VERY powerful. He’s hurt, broken, and lost. They’re disgusted, ashamed, and wounded. And they yell at each other, scream at each other, until finally Ryland makes his last choice…

Outro: Moment: …and Rytlock, without even hesitating, saves Crecia by gutting Ryland… all the while telling him he’s sorry

Visual Storytelling: Of course the loading screens continue to be amazing

MSQ: Ankka’s introduction is basically perfect. She’s clearly the one actually calling the shots, Mai Trinn is barely keeping up, and all the while we’re just chipper shredding our way through their forces

Moment: This leads to the crash landing on Cantha

Foreshadowing: A lot, actually, regarding Ankka

Cutscene: Gorrik freaking out over prison right before being released is perfect (and hilarious)

Brickwork: Seitung Province. The town, the forest, the beach, this is the best looking zone to-date and it shows…

Brickwork: …easy…

Brickwork: …triple

Doodads: Seitung Province also has the best doodad design to-date. The detailing on the shops and township area are…

Doodads: …absolutely amazing

MSQ: Feeding fish to Aurene is weirdly wholesome

MSQ: I actually rather like the politics of the open court, and the smooth exposition of the politics on display, the familiar internecine fighting, the perspectives of Joon and her position (financial and technological) versus Li (traditionalist and honestly blunt). This whole sequence is fantastic…

MSQ: …and earns an easy double

Animation: Also I have to give special praise to the animation quality in cutscenes which is a noticeable step up (though this was in Icebrood as well so…)

Animation: …here’s another plus for Icebrood

Atmosphere: I love the positioning and structure of the plot. We’re a big deal, but not arrogant about it. We have a rep, connections, and the stick to back it, so it’s completely normal and natural that we personally visit with the Empress and can gatekeep on interactions with an elder dragon

Music Direction: Also all of End of Dragons just has some amazing music direction, lovely stuff

Background Lore: Lots. Fun little side tidbits fleshing out side characters and world beats, like logs or news reports

MSQ: I like Mai Trin’s whole progression. We spend all this time reaching her, and she’s… drunk. REALLY drunk. Then she fights us so she’ll die by cop, then she completely loses control to Scarlet, and finally breaks down in desperation, leading to her pledging to help us against Ankka

Brickwork: New Kaineng is one of the most brilliant looking places in the entire game. While it struggles a bit (see the negatives later), it’s still amazing…

Brickwork: …and deserves…

Brickwork: …a triple

Doodads: Also the docks are bonkers good with details and ships and detailing

Visual Storytelling: Even implications and world building in the visuals

Foreshadowing: Lots, really, about the primary focus of the plot and how it’s going to get worse and worse over time

Brickwork: The underwater reactor is brilliant

MSQ: The entire presentation of Ankka’s terrorist attack on the reactor is brilliant, and the absolutely chilling presentation of Ankka helps, but I have to give mention to Mai Trin finally making something of herself

Moment: Special mention to Mai Trin’s final moments, and how totally detached Ankka is the entire scene

MSQ: The sushi dinner is already a great sequence, the special toxic food is even better

Brickwork: Echovald Forest, of course…

Doodads: …but the doodads (especially of the village) really makes it pop

Brickwork: Arborstone. Lovely place, just the right amount of ruins and overgrowth

Moment: Ankka’s death is perfect. Empty until the last

MSQ: I love the escalation of Li and the dynamic between him and Rama

MSQ: And there’s too many small lines and moments to mention individually but a lot about this just kind of nails it

MSQ: The entire Mansion section is a good presentation of the problems Joon and Cantha are facing

Pacing: I really, really like End of Dragons’ pacing. It’s not too rushed (and still has beats and breather sections) but a lot is happening very rapidly. It really adds to the vibe of the finale, which is appropriate… because it is. Thus earning…

Pacing: …a solid…

Pacing: …triple

Moment: The war room, Marjory and Kasmeer… “Side by side, every step of the way”

Brickwork: The Jade Sea is absolutely beautiful. The islands that used to be mostly underwater, the jade quarries, the frozen waves…

Brickwork: …absolutely brilliant stuff

Moment: Worldwide impacts of the Void

Moment: Scion and Champion

Cutscene: The absolutely bonkers spectacle of the final boss is above and beyond what the entire rest of the game has managed, and that’s impressive in a game all about spectacle…

Cutscene: …an easy…

Cutscene: …triple

Music Direction: And of course the different songs per different dragon

Moment: Soo Won’s final sendoff

Outro: Lots and lots of nice little moments with the characters in the epilogue sequence

MSQ: The Dragon’s End event is, of course, interesting (it’s actually three separate mini stories)

Cutscene: The Dragon’s End spectacle is, of course, fantastic

Outro: Kasmeer and Marjory’s wedding proposal scene is exactly as heartwarming and cheesy as it should be

Character: The main character is, as usual, a great character here

Character: Gorrik. He’s fully out of his ‘irritating’ phase and fully into his ‘I’m a total geek’ phase and I love it

Character: Rama. The put-upon good cop who just wants help

Character: Ankka. The broken shell of a person, ruined by the mass murder and the realization of her own insignificance

Character: Li. The completely ordinary man who is a racist, bigoted, close-minded monster

Character: Mai Trin. The ex-pirate and proven murderer trying everything in her power to be better

Character: Ivan. The one loyal crewman who really wants to do something with his life

Character: Ayumi. The adorable tengu, insight into their people, and perspective character

Character: Joon. The big fish in a small pond who can’t handle bigger fish or bigger ponds

Voice Acting: MC, as usual…

Voice Acting: …gets…

Voice Acting: …three

Voice Acting: Plus bonuses…

Voice Acting: …for the really good ones

Voice Acting: Ankka does a really, really good job with her particular tone of detached psychopathy

Voice Acting: Gorrik, of course

Voice Acting: Taimi, as usual

Voice Acting: Rama really nails that ‘bored bureaucrat’ tone really well

Voice Acting: Mai Trin sounds so conflicted

Voice Acting: Ivan showing Steve Blum can act outside of his typecasting

Voice Acting: General. Lots of the same actors, but really good usage and direction thereof…

Voice Acting: …for an easy double

Voice Direction: Really, really good direction top to bottom…

Voice Direction: …easy…

Voice Direction: …triple

Consequence Storytelling: Quite a bit, as per GW2’s norm, as things keep escalating up to the big finale

Dialogue: There’s that wonderful dialogue writing again…

Dialogue: …great stuff

External Continuity: Obvious connections to GW1, but some of the better uses of it in the game…

External Continuity: …for a double

Humor: Plenty of nice tidbits keeping things light

Internal Continuity: This is kind of a bonus for the whole game, but it’s worth noting that End of Dragons nails the internal continuity better than everything else prior to it. This really is the culmination of everything from Vanilla onwards…

Internal Continuity: …earning a solid…

Internal Continuity: …triple

Spritework: Some really great stuff here. Special mention to everything to do with the dragons

Story Sequencing: Really solid construction throughout

World Building: I love the construction of Cantha. A society simultaneously traditionalist and absolutely stuck in the past, bloated with paperwork and procedures, but dragged into technological advancement

Brickwork: Gyala Delve. This is a proper look at the jade quarry…

Brickwork: …and a really well done visualization of an underwater cave (even though the water was frozen into jade)

MSQ: It is pretty logical that the Commander would be as affected by the Oni more so than the others, and the main character does a really solid job of selling how much it’s bothering them

Moment: The Recollector! TAA. DAA.

Cutscene: Rama’s second dinner date is delightful

MSQ: The reporter is mildly amusing, but the new comms feature is nice and cute

MSQ: Good intrigue and build up of Secrets. Legitimately, they start nice and low tier, we fight off some demons, get sucked into another dimension, and we find the dimensional cops. I have other issues with this, but this is still a well constructed mystery

Brickwork: The general Wizard aesthetic. Marble with gold veins and gold outlines highlighted with blue. Some really solid stuff here

Doodads: The Wizard’s Tower, of course

Moment: Zojja absolutely screaming at the demons for taking Mabon for her

Cutscene: And Zojja being devastated in the wake of everything, actually turning her into a character for the first time

MSQ: So, Zojja gets one last talk with Taimi in the background, and the next we see Zojja is dead. That’s… quietly dark

Voice Acting: MCs… are still good, but honestly we have so little dialogue I’m only giving it a solitary positive this time around

Voice Acting: General, as usual

Voice Acting: Mabon was great, as Liam always is

Voice Acting: I can’t believe it but Felicia Day really nails Zojja here. Lots of fantastic nuanced voice acting…

Voice Acting: …for a double

Voice Acting: Cerus, of course

Voice Acting: The kryptis in general. There’s… issues with it, but those issues are not the voice actors themselves

Character: Cerus was weirdly interesting

Character: And I do like what they did with Zojja

Voice Direction: General, but some solid stuff as per usual for modern Guild Wars 2

World Building: I do like what they do with the kryptis. Emotions, dreams, and a culture rotating around both

Brickwork: Inner Nayos is… fine. As with so much of the rest of the expansion there’s nothing overtly wrong with it, but it’s mostly just Maguuma with a reskin

Moment: Irja is… weirdly well characterized for having exactly three scenes. The desperate and the terrified in the realm of a dictator

Cutscene: I honestly really like the construction of the politics at the Tyrian Alliance. Each person sounds like they speak from a totally different culture in how they bring their concerns to the table…

Cutscene: …and a lot of this boils down to…

Dialogue: …some great dialogue

Brickwork: Lowland Shore is gorgeous. Flowing rivers, lush forests, wonderful cliffs…

Brickwork: …great zone

Doodads: Kodan townships also have some great detailing in the furniture, architecture, food…

Doodads: …love it

Moment: For what it’s worth, the reveal of the Titan is pretty solid

Moment: The big battle against Greer? No, the thing that works here is Poised Arrow and Waiting Sorrow’s very persona drama. Her deception, his uncertainty, and some very deep cultural grooves to overcome

Brickwork: Janthir Syntri. Lovely contrast of bloodstone and forestry

Cutscene: There’s a weirdly good scene between Waiting Sorrow and Poised Arrow. No drama, just two people who are hurt, confused, and care

MSQ: The usage of ghosts trapped in the Bloodstone to show different, horrible perspectives on what the Mursaat and Mantle were doing with the Bloodstones is probably one of the best ways to convey how this really was

MSQ: As usual, the personal drama with Waiting Sorrow and Stoic Alder is better acted and written than basically everything else going on

MSQ: The pre-battle feast. A terrible speech, a great speech, some good character moments, some good humor

MSQ: The insight into the horrors of the Mursaat. How they treated their servants, how they treated each other, and the victims of their depravities

External Continuity: Titans, White Mantle, and Mursaat. Pretty well utilized all things considered, and a nice connected point and capstone to those stories

Voice Acting: The Main Character… isn’t as great as usual, nor as common, but…

Voice Acting: …earns a double

Voice Acting: General, as usual

Voice Acting: Special mention for Poised Arrow. I know, it’s Braham’s actor, but his acting has never been the issue there

Character: Waiting Sorrow is a fascinating and well fleshed out character, someone who has a complex past and approaches it with nuance

Character: Stoic Alder is… weirdly good. Wise, long-term thinker, vulnerable and flawed but capable of adapting, he’s sort of…

Character: …one of the best characters to date

Character: Poised Arrow really is Better Braham. The youth finding himself in a much larger pond and struggling with that

Music Direction: General. Some nice music throughout

World Building: The Janthir Kodan. Roles, interactions, cultural stuff

Spoiler Story Negatives+

Cutscenes: So! Cutscenes in vanilla suck. What’s funny is everyone I’ve ever heard play this game says the same thing, but most people can’t put their finger on why (including me!). I spent some time really processing the problem. First, the format of the cutscenes is all wrong; You’re inherently limited to ‘two people talking to each other while idling, occasional emotes, and a panning background’. There’s nothing engaging about this visually. This could be bypassed with good voice acting and sound design but, uh…

Voice Direction: …the voice direction in Vanilla is legitimately terrible…

Voice Direction: …easily worthy…

Voice Direction: …of a triple across the whole expansion. But that’s okay! Surely if we have well designed dialogue it’ll crop up any holes. Well…

Dialogue: …the dialogue in Vanilla is legitimately terrible…

Dialogue: …easily worthy…

Dialogue: …of a triple. Across the whole expansion. But that’s okay! It’s terrible and badly constructed and unnatural but surely it’ll be made up with the animations. So, uh…

Animation: …this is the most obvious problem really (and technically part of the initial negative). There’s NOTHING going on here. If you look away from the screen you miss nothing, and that’s pretty friggin’ bad in a cutscene like this. Honestly they still probably could have salvaged this with creative usage of canned emotes (games like FFXIV, WoW, and Witcher 3 all do this) but instead we have… this nonsense. Just idle animating at each other idly…

Animation: …so this is technically a third animation negative. But never fear! The storyboarding will save us…

Storyboarding: …right, right. So, because of the format they used they can only have two entities on the screen at a time. This is obviously insanely limiting, but it gets worse because the only way to have more than two people talking is to have people fading in and out constantly and there’s no real thought into how they ‘pattern’ that to make sense. So yeah, cutscenes suck in vanilla

MSQ: Vanilla Asura. Boring, irritating, and the usual Vanilla issues

MSQ: Vanilla Human. Somehow even worse than Asuran. There’s just… nothing here. You’re generically heroic, rush to fight centaurs who are nonsensically attacking THE human capital, we’re just barely holding the line but then you rush in and save the day. Then everyone licks your boots and just… the whole thing is awful…

MSQ: …earning a solid double

MSQ: Sylvari step 2, the Green Knight of dumb. Everything about this is just eye rolling, I have nothing to add to this, sorry

Voice Direction: Sylvari, level 30 quests. The voice acting here is… really, really bad, worthy of its own negative. It’s… it’s so bad that I’m afraid, I’m so frightened

MSQ: Norn MSQ boredom. Honestly it’s pretty inoffensive, but it’s also completely unmemorable. It feels like 30 levels of spinning your wheels

MSQ: Human MSQ filler boredom bleh. There’s lots of potential here which goes absolutely nowhere

Internal Continuity: Racial arcs do not lead properly into the dungeon MSQ. To be clear; Every racial chain ends with the guest character (each a member of Destiny’s Edge) say that they’ve been helped by their experiences with us to learn that they need to put aside their differences and reunite with their old friends. Naturally almost the ENTIRE dungeon MSQ is focused on them all being babies whining at each other and refusing to unite. Speaking of which…

Cutscene: There’s a cutscene that plays before the actual dungeon MSQ branches off. And it is SO DAMNED BAD. Oh my God I hate to give individual cutscenes negatives but this is one of the worst in the frickin’ game

Dialogue: Vanilla dungeon MSQ dialogue is bad. Bad, bad, bad. I’m not even going into details, it hits all the hallmarks. Bad exposition, inaccurate responses, not-how-people-talk, the works…

Dialogue: …earning a bonus double

MSQ: Ascalonian Catacombs. Boring, phoned in nonsense and melodrama. Even the primary plot thread is just fake drama that is badly exposited

MSQ: Caudecus’ Manor. I’m sorry but wow this is just… bad. More fake drama, awful dialogue, terrible pacing, attempts at intrigue I can only refer to as baby’s first politics, and of course the second you ask the dude about a plot he tries to kill you

MSQ: Twilight Arbor. Rytlocke is a child, Logan is a baby, and Fake Drama abounds

MSQ: Also really dumb stuff with Faolin and Caithe

MSQ: Fake Drama of Sorrow’s Embrace… yet again

MSQ: Eir is… VERY stupid in Honor of the Waves, and then turns it around with absolutely no build up

MSQ: I’ve been chewing on this for a bit. The finale for Orr is just… boring. And while a LOT of vanilla’s MSQ is boring, the problem is this is the big charge into the final battle and it falls completely flat. There’s a gameplay problem here but I’ll talk about that later, so for this and for the colossal doldrums…

Padding: …for the padding…

Pacing: …and the awful pacing, I ding the finale for three negatives

MSQ: Commandeering the ships in Orr is weirdly awkward, with noteworthily bad dialogue and awful pacing

Internal Continuity: Choices and irrelevance thereof. Seriously, you make so many choices and NONE of them matter past the immediate branching quest

MSQ: The beachhead of Orr tries WAY too hard to be big and dramatic and emotional and it just falls completely flat

MSQ: Trahearne has finally completed his lifelong task! …okay? This scene sucks, and what’s worse is it’s kind of treated like the end of the MSQ

MSQ: Arah drama. Oh no, Logan’s dead! No just kidding he’s back

Character: I’ve been sitting on this for a bit. All the main characters in vanilla suck. Just…

Character: …all…

Character: …of them…

Character: But I want to give special props to a few. First, Logan, who is a pathetic human being who will not stop stirring the pot or being whiny in any scene he’s in

Character: Second is Zojja, who’s actually worse if you can believe it, as you take the above and combine it with pretentious haughtiness…

Character: …making her even worse

Character: Finally there’s Eir. She’s not as bad as the other two she’s just awful

Outro: Everything about the final battle against Zhaitan is just pathetic. He doesn’t talk (at all! Ever!) and you can just feel the weightless, pointlessness of the presentation. This is a colossal sea-change for the entire setting and it feels less impactful than defeating one of the lieutenants. This is just awful…

Outro: …and deserves…

Outro: …a full triple

Character: Braham. Even in vanilla (he’s introduced in Season 1) all the hallmarks of why he’s a terrible character are here. He’s magically right about everything even when he shouldn’t be, everybody loves him despite having no positive character traits, he never listens to reason or logic, and he never stops whining

Moment: So remember that character introduced literally two quests ago? Yeah she’s turbo dead

World Building: So it’s not all for nothing, but there’s a lot of lack of thought in world building in Vanilla. And a lot of it contradicts later, better world building…

World Building: …so screw all that

Padding: Season 2 isn’t as bad about it, but it still has some padding issues

Padding: Season 1 isn’t as bad as launch, but it still has…

Padding: …pretty bad padding

Padding: And then there’s Launch content. This is just a giant ball of fluff. Huge swaths of quests where almost nothing of note happens, trying desperately to keep you playing (and this isn’t even counting all the gameplay nonsense we’ll cover later)…

Padding: …so earn that…

Padding: …triple

Pacing: The pacing of so much of Vanilla is just off. This is functionally an aggregate but it doesn’t get better until Season 2…

Pacing: …so enjoy…

Pacing: …that triple

Music Direction: It’s not often, but several times the music just is not used well for the scene or fight or dungeon or whatever

Fake Drama: I forgot to give these negatives for all the bullcrap earlier with Destiny’s Edge but this shows up outside of that too, so let’s just call this…

Fake Drama: …a nice big…

Fake Drama: …triple

Fake Drama: One more for everything to do with Caithe. This is really unnecessary

Character: Braham and sulking. Seriously, he doesn’t even come across as if he’s grieving, he’s just sulking

Writing: They really build up this Caithe thing only to drop it immediately

MSQ: So this is kind of an aggregate. They bring up this idea that the Sylvari might die horribly with Mordremoth’s death aaand then do nothing with it. Then they kill off Trehearne for… basically no reason other than to remove him from the narrative. For all the epicness of the fight, the Mordremoth Outro kind of falls flat

Character: Braham doubles down on being a prat here in Season 3. I get what they’re going with but… honestly they’re doing this with an ALREADY irritating character, and he just comes across as this insufferable child

MSQ: Also the Commander clearly just plays into it because of the Mary Sue issues

Character: Braham naming his guild Destiny’s Edge (without consulting the existing, surviving members of Destiny’s Edge) is a bit much even for this asshole. Especially since the game treats this like it’s a respect thing

Padding: The Departing. Why in the world is this a massive recap of THE ENTIRE GAME up to this point? Some of this makes a little sense but they recap EVERYthing and take way too long doing it

Moment: Braham’s return is AWFUL. So let’s track this. First, we’re totally about to die from something completely avoidable, and Braham literally rushes in at the last second (with WINGS) and saves us all! Aaaand then he complains about it later in the most passive aggressive way possible

Moment: Aaaand Braham continues to be terrible later, in a really petty and pathetic way

Character: The exact moment Braham starts becoming more tolerable, Gorrik sort of steps in to take his place. Gorrik DOES get better, but he’s just an uppity prick to start

Writing: There’s a weird irritation where Braham drags attention away from more interesting story beats multiple times. Like Koss and his descendant, or the first (ever!) showcasing of Snaff in the entire game

Writing: So Icebrood has this… weird quality to it that requires a more detailed construction to really break down, but boils down to the story skipping beats to get on with it. Presumptions of things we know being things the characters know, inconsistencies in the timeline, stuff like that

MSQ: So… Braham is the main character. Honestly that’s fine, but what isn’t fine is he’s suddenly two roles he shouldn’t be; The smart one (the one putting things together) and the leader (giving everybody orders)

Writing: Polish… or lack thereof. There’s a weird lack of it in the MSQ in general

Character: So… Braham is the chosen one. No, seriously, he’s the Chosen One. It’s exactly as awful as it sounds

Plot: So then they do everything in their power to make the narrative support Braham The Main Character and the whole story just… tilts weirdly on prophecy and fate to support this

MSQ: I hate how much they lick Braham’s dick during Lost Spirits Found

Dialogue: I’m sorry but the dialogue in Icebrood is noticeably worse

MSQ: So, Jormag just… mind controls Rytlock and Crecia, effortlessly (and Braham!) and like… come on, at least make them actually persuasive. This actually ties back into the dialogue issue I just mentioned

Cutscene: So Bangar shows up to take credit. Cool! But then he Worfs us effortlessly and we nearly die. Uh. Really? But it’s even worse than that because this whole scene…

Moment: …is when Braham FINALLY manifests Wolf and manages to attack them

Moment: Also I’m sorry I really need to re-emphasize how stupid it is that we nearly DIED from Bangar with a bow

Padding: Everything to do with Forging Steel. This has nothing to do with anything

Pacing: So we go from Bangar taking credit for our kill to visions of the past to ‘the civil war is dragging on’ in the space of like 5 minutes. It’s very strange

Story Sequencing: Also the enemy is just… sweeping, to the point where it’s sort of silly. One renegade force is absolutely bulldozing three unified forces (who then have the backing of other powers too)

MSQ: So… the entire padded sequence with helping the war effort is already stupid…

MSQ: …but Smodur is just unnecessarily antagonistic the entire time, to the point of actually getting in the way of the narrative

Cutscene: So. Smodur kills what’sherface, killing any possibility of peace with Ryland. This could have worked but this is pure Idiot Ball as is. First, why is he even involved in this meeting that doesn’t… involve him? Especially given he’s been VERY vocal about his opinions on the matter

Cutscene: Second, why is he put into the room at all and, for that matter, IMMEDIATELY next to our hostage he’s openly threatened repeatedly? This is all stupid Because Plot

Cutscene Incompetence: Ssooo the charge into Jormag’s den is fine, but there is a LOT of cutscene incompetence in the immediate follow through

Character: Braham. Dude is actually at his absolute worst here, narratively. He’s literally the chosen savior of the Norn people, saves the entire world, is constantly Right, acts completely out of character, and the worst part is this all could have worked if this was done properly. But as with so much of Icebrood it was not, and thus…

Character: …he is the worst character…

Character: …in the game

Character: Ryland. This is another Braham situation. Could’ve been interesting and he… super isn’t. He’s just a whiny brat who people won’t shut up about how big his dick is…

Character: …and he screws everything over constantly

MSQ: The first Dragon Response mission is the actual worst “Braham Is Right” stuff in the entire game, and this doesn’t go away

MSQ: Pointless thematic repetition in DRMs

Plot: Failed attempt to make Primordus feel like a globl threat in the DRMs

Padding: The DRMs are also really really boring

Outro: MSQ: Jeez la friggin’ weez. This is bad in and of itself, even if Icebrood was it, but for the big climactic battle between Jormag and Primordus this is very, very dull. Two games of build up and this is just… nothing. They attack and kill each other, the end…

Outro: MSQ: …easy…

Outro: MSQ: …triple

Outro: Writing: OH MY GOD so Braham is… perfectly fine after being frickin’ killed AND having his dragon killed. This is absolutely terrible…

Outro: Writing: So Ryland is fine, and so is Braham, for… absolutely no explanation. We just needed them back that badly…

Outro: Writing: …I hate this…

Outro: Writing: …so much

External Continuity: This… really does not follow through on GW1 well. At all. On any level

Internal Continuity: General. This entire arc does not know how to follow its own continuity

World Building: So… fractals are canon, the multiverse exists. This is admittedly irritating to me but that’s not the source of the negative. The problem is twofold. First, this is a casual lore acknowledgement of the multiverse, which causes lots of problems, especially because…

Consequence Storytelling: …it means lots of things should have been happening that aren’t, and never will

Brickwork: I hate to call this out but the pop in and fog are just awful in New Kaineng, really diminishing the otherwise gorgeous scenery

NPC Set Dressing: Or lack thereof. This is, once again, worst around New Kaineng

Writing: So… why do we randomly lie about hearing voices repeatedly? Only to then immediately reveal it

Moment: Mabon’s death was… flat. Very very flat, especially for how much they both build up and pay it off

Writing: The escalation is… unnecessary, at best. Crossing into dimensional threats seems like a logical progression but it’s handled very clumsily and with…

Atmosphere: …this overall vibe. It’s a regular thing in a lot of fiction (usually in a Chosen One story) but everyone is constantly trying to talk up how biiig and myystical this all is and it just detracts from the atmosphere

Writing: Lots of really, really dry exposition

Dialogue: So this is a weird one. There’s this weird thing where, in addition to the ‘big mystical’ thing I just mentioned, people tend to just… have dialogue that does not fit the scene or the tone or the… anything, really. The whole thing feels like multiple people talking across each other rather than with

Writing: So there’s several tidbits periodically trying to artificially force the player to be pro Peitha artificially

Character: Eparch. Such a nothingburger that it totally diminishes any impact anything he ever does

Character: Isgarren. An asshole who just smarms his way all over everything

Voice Direction: The kryptis in general. I get the whispered thing but that only works if used carefully and precisely. These people have lots of lines, and a lot of it is dry exposition, which does NOT work when someone is speaking slowly and with heavy emphasis on the esses

Pacing: Sometimes things take entirely too long. Sometimes things just race by. It’s frustrating

Cutscene: What in the world is with this Nephus scene? “I’ll never join you, but also I join you unconditionally”… …what?!

Cutscene: Also it’s all people talking too slowly about boring stuff

Cutscene: Eparch is here. And his dick, you have no idea, it’s SO big

Writing: Also we’re… such a backseat here. There is NO reason for us to even be in this story at all, and at a certain point we literally just get stunned so the cutscene can progress without us

Moment: There’s a point where our upper echelons are arguing about what to do, and we’re there, and Peitha shows up, and we say and I QUOTE, “Good, perhaps YOU can help me here” as if we have no idea how to… command. As if we need her to wrangle these people. US. Jesus Christ…

Internal Continuity: …I’m doubling down on this negative, screw this

Cutscene: The big confrontation with Eparch is really dumb. The dialogue isn’t (as in it’s LITERAL nonsense) and then there’s the boring rehashing of what we already knew

Moment: THEN asshole shows up to save the day because we’re just too powerless before his big dick

Writing: There are several early examples of weird, fake drama that happen. People yelling at each other just to make Isgarren look better,

Plot: So this is a weird one but the way the game handles (or mishandles) the reveal of the Titans isn’t great. First they just… casually give it away during the ‘do Rifts’ step of the MSQ. Then when they finally reveal the sucker they… don’t say what it is, which is fine, until the next scene when they just start casually chatting about Titans

Cutscene Incompetence: This is related to another issue I’ll mention in a second but… why do we just sort of let the Titan go without comment or incident as they stand there taunting us, when we have just beat her ass?

Writing: This isn’t as bad as it was back in Secrets but once again… why are we here? We are relevant in the politics scenes (which is nice) but past that we have no real presence in the story. As usual I’m not asking for us to be the main character (weird as that may sound) just that we have some relevance to the story we are physically present for. Aurene was the main character back in the day, we still mattered then. The scene I just gave a negative to up there is a great example of what I’m talking about; The reason we flee Decima is because HE’S injured, not us. So of course he has to flee, which makes sense, but then why do… we flee with him? It’s not like he has to be carried to safety, he goes through a damned portal. The reason why is because we ‘aren’t there’ narratively, we have no impact or relevance to events. Only the actual characters do

Voice Acting: Inconsistent voice acting… thanks to the strike, but it’s still there. It’s REALLY awkward when two people who have no voices all of the sudden are talking to each other

Fake Drama: The last minute nonsense with Livia is really pointless. This woman has absolutely no reason to be this ‘rushed’, and she constantly lists her reason for being so rushed is because we ‘haven’t done anything’. (This is AFTER we’ve already killed three Titans successfully)

Pacing: The moment we kill the three titans the pacing just lurches all over the place

Outro: MSQ: So the finale stumbles pretty badly, but let’s go into why. The first, most aggregate negative is for the fact that they don’t up the stakes, or side the stakes, or… anything the stakes. I’m explaining this badly, they try to escalate to White Mantle, Titans, and the Realm of Torment, but don’t… DO anything with it. It’s like a guided tour of the areas before being ushered along

Outro: Plot: Now let’s talk about how the big bads of the ENTIRE expansion are… three asshole White Mantle who got lost and found the literal forge of a god. This is already ridiculous but hang on…

Outro: MSQ: …these three dickheads are… it. This is the big climactic battle. AFTER we defeat the city Titan we go in there and just smash these three idiots in the face without pomp or circumstance…

Outro: MSQ: …so that by itself…

Outro: MSQ: …deserves a triple

Spoiler Game Positives+

Gameplay Positives:

Itemization: Gear progression in general is actually quite smooth. You will move up to yellows relatively easy, and there’s a lot of sources of oranges. And if you want to make that big step up to Ascendeds there’s ways to do that. Speaking of which…

Power Progression: …the power progression itself, which is almost entirely horizontal, is really well done for the most part. Abilities, relics, runes, talents, elite specs, all does a great job of letting you keep inching forward while staying the same level you always have been

Map: This is one of the better maps in MMO design. With only a few exceptions it is easy to parse, navigate, and utilize…

Map: …easily earning…

Map: …a full triple positive

QoL: Map zoom-to markers. This is such a small feature but it saves so much time, and it’s well designed where each spot sends you to on the map

Guidance: Mouseover completion marker sparkles. A quick mouseover in the upper right and you can see where icons of X type are left on the map, to help you hunt down things

Camera: The ability to zoom out as far as we can is nice, the fact that a whole new level of zoomed out unlocks on big bosses is even better

Cosmetic: Unlocks and sharing. The basic system of unlocking gear and just keeping it is good stuff

Builds: So here’s the dealio. There’s an absolute ton of build potential in this game, for every single class. Any class can be basically anything. It’s so much that I (no joke) spent about half an hour sitting down tabulating how many weapons, skill trees, and the like each class had and came to the weird realization that unlike some other games, each class has equally great Build potential. So that very suddenly makes reviewing this easy, because all we have to do is give each class a triple. Because they’re all fantastic. So! First of course we have Thief…

Build: …which gets…

Build: …a triple

Build: Then there’s Engineer…

Build: …for another…

Build: …triple

Build: Then of course Warrior…

Build: …so enjoy…

Build: …that triple.

Build: Mesmer…

Build: …and this triple…

Build: …is no illusion

Build: Guardian who…

Build: …despite not being a paladin…

Build: …is still a triple

Build: Ranger…

Build: …which gets one per adorable pet…

Build: …so that’s another triple

Build: Necromancer…

Build: …raised their buddies…

Build: …as a triple

Build: Revenant…

Build: …which channels…

Build: …a triple

Build: And finally Elementalist…

Build: …which to keep the gag going should get four…

Build: …but instead enjoys a triple

Kit: So as I mentioned up in Builds, I did some digging on exactly how much stuff each class gets and, like it or not, it’s all pretty even. So we’re going to start with weapon kit (to be clear this is ONLY the abilities given by equipping weapons) and, again, Thief…

Kit: …gets a double

Kit: Engineer…

Kit: …for a double

Kit: Warrior…

Kit: …crushes a double

Kit: Mesmer…

Kit: …phantasms a double

Kit: Guardian…

Kit: …spirits a double

Kit: Ranger…

Kit: …has double pets

Kit: Necromancer…

Kit: …and their undead double

Kit: Revenant…

Kit: …and, uh, MORE spirit double

Kit: And Elementalist…

Kit: …which gets two per, so it’s more even this time

Kit: Utility is in the same boat. Each class gets Utility skills. They’re… not great actually if I’m honest, at least not compared to the weapon stuff, but they’re still there and they’re still decent. So each class gets a single in this case! Starting with Thief

Kit: Engineer and their builds

Kit: Warrior and their banners (please don’t nerf them again)

Kit: Mesmer and their teleports

Kit: Guardian and their buffs

Kit: Ranger and their stances

Kit: Necromancer and their wells of eternal black suffering of endless suffering death

Kit: Revenant and their spiky pits of doom

Kit: And Elementalist and whatever weird thing they do. Ask Gyga, I dunno

Kit: Okay! We’ve finally hit the point where the classes diverge enough (in my opinion) to vary up the pluses. They’re all good to some extent but some just have more use than others. To-wit; the Thief just does not have that good of Elites in my opinion (outside of PvP and the like). Thieves Guild is… there. Dagger Storm is some AOE damage but on entirely too big of a cooldown for this game. Basilisk Venom is incredibly situational, Impact Strike is mostly a stun, Shadow Meld is a stealth, and Shadowfall is entirely too small an area. So that’s a single

Kit: Engineer is probably one of the better designed ones. Elixirs (to transform you temporarily), mortar kits (equipping a… mortar… kit), supply crates (some variety here, can drop turrets or be detonated like a bomb), light beam of doom (also can leave behind burning if done properly) and of course overclocking (for your jade mech). Great stuff…

Kit: …for a solid double

Kit: Warrior elites. So we have the Battle Standard (revives and buffs), Rampage (super buff), Signet (super buff again), Head Butt (sounds simple but WEIRDLY good, considering it does a double stun, gives adrenaline, and extends berserk), Winds of Disenchantment (strips buffs from enemies in an area), and Tactical Reload (reloads all ammo and buffs your next Dragon Drigger). This is another great setup with some good usage and variety…

Kit: …for another double

Kit: Mesmer elites! Time Warp is actually not that great (WAY too long a cooldown and too small an area to be truly useful), Mass Invisibility (situational), Signet of Humility (doesn’t work on half the enemies you’d want it to), Gravity Well (actually pretty good but mostly just a 1m cooldown nuke), Jaunt (a shadowstep? Really?) and Thousand Cuts (one of the only decent ones, a line of tons of damage). So alongside Thief, I’d say this only warrants a single

Kit: Guardian Elites. I’m… really not impressed here. Renewed Focus recharges virtues (sure… but a 90s cooldown), Feel My Wrath is an aoe buff (probably one of the better ones, gives Fury too), Signet of Courage (nice for healing), Dragon’s Maw (mean trap), Manra of Liberation (there’s just too many better sources of Stability), and Heaven’s Palm (weird dodge + hit combo that also does a knockback)

Kit: Ranger Elites. Strength of the Pack (big buff with your pet), Spirit of Nature (summons an interesting spirit that transfers debuffs into buffs), Entangle (aoe bleed and root… which doesn’t work on anything it should work on), Glyph of the Stars (nice heal actually, with some malleability in how you use it), One Wolf Pack (great double strike stance, probably one of the nicest burst elites I’ve seen), and Forest’s Fortification (great tanking ability). Overall pretty solid…

Kit: …for a double

Kit: Necromancer Elites. I love this class to death but its elites are pretty lacking. Plaguelands is lackluster for what it is (should do more debuffs and a bigger area AND a shorter cooldown), Summon Flesh Golem (way weaker than it should be), Lich Form (swap forms, and gain some nice abilities, but that 150s cooldown is killer), Chilled To The Bone (again, far too short a radius for what it does), Ghastly Breach (ditto), and Elixir of Ambition (this one’s fascinating. Give yourself every boon, give one target every condition. Sounds neat, but buffs and debuffs go away too fast for this to matter by itself)

Kit: Revenant Elites. These are weird due to how they interact with the F1 abilities so I’m going to skip over most of the details and instead just say these all deserve a single. We’ll come back to this though

Kit: Elementalist Elites. So don’t let Gyga catch me saying this, but these are pretty solid. First there’s one for each element and almost all of them do something really nice. Tornado grants stability while flinging, Whirlpool is a nice ranged yank, Conjure Fiery Greatsword… sucks actually, and Glyph of Elementals conjures an element based on your current attunement to either stun, buff, burn, or knockback/heal. Then you have Rebound which would be great if it lasted longer and had less of a cooldown, Weave Self which changes how attunements work and can lead to Perfect Weave, and Elemental Celerity which can seriously speed up your output. This all probably deserves…

Kit: …a solid double

Kit: So! Final class coverage; the actual class abilities. Thief is… fine. You start off with Steal which gives you a random ability which generally sucks. Specter gains Shroud for some live and stealth capacity. Daredevil gains better dodging which is… actually pretty nice, plus synergies with dodging. And of course Deadeye comes with the Mark, which is a ‘really kill this ONE enemy’ type builder thing

Kit: Engineer’s kind of crazy. First you have the tool belt, which changes up half your abilities based on what toolkit you grab. Function Gyro is a weird one; it lets you rez nearby allies (or finish enemies if you’re pvping) with a few stipulations. Photon Forge gives a whole heat mechanic to manage. Then of course Mechanists get their jadetech pet. All of these are well designed, different from each other, and make Engineer unique and fun…

Kit: …for a solid…

Kit: …triple

Kit: So, Warrior. Not a lot of variety here, but still some simple but solid design. Almost all the class abilities involve the same thing; Build up Adrenaline, spend it on something. Whether that’s a berserk mode, a big hit, a counter, and Flow (which is sort of a separate build/spend type bar). It’s good stuff

Kit: Mesmers! They probably vary the least, but the design of them is really solid. Every Mesmer spec has the same basic format (build up phantasms or swords or whatever) and then spend them on abilities. What makes this work is the design of each spec’s abilities you can spend on. Chrono is great at buffs and debuffs, Mirage is great for tanking, and Virtuoso is great for being a badass

Kit: Guardians! First off they get Stances which are fine. Dragonhunters get an additional bit of abilities completely which act like cooldowns. Firebrands get the entire book mechanic which is a little too complicated to summarize here, but it gives you an entirely new 1-5 bar and has additional effects based on which tome you’re flinging pages from. And Willbender gains an entire set of additional utility and movement kit. Overall some good stuff…

Kit: …for a double

Kit: Ranger! So their first mechanic is just… a pet. It’s there. It’s kinda bleh honestly. Druids gain Avatar, which changes your weapon and glyph skills and functions as a super mode (and a great healer). Soulbeast actually merges you with your pet, gaining new abilities based on the pet you merged with (which as you might imagine, there are a lot of options here). And Untamed get… honestly the pet abilities and controls I was expecting with vanilla. Good stuff here, but a bit lacking in a few respects

Kit: Necromancer starts off with Shroud, which gives them an extra health bar that refills when nearby deaths happen (and there are abilities to push it as well obviously). Reapers gain an alternate form mode with great reach, mobility, and insanely good kit. Scourge gain access to regular Shade abilities that can be summoned and can do all kinds of synergy effects. And finally Harbinger upgrades Shroud to cause Blight, and gain some new mean abilities from it. I still don’t think it’s quite at the level of Engineer…

Kit: …but there’s some damned good design here

Kit: Revenant is a weird one. Each profession ability is basically the same, similar to Mesmer, but what they do is they give access to new spirits which give you totally different kit. These are pretty well designed (especially Vindicator) and I’m with it

Kit: Elementalists! So each Elementalist weapon is functionally four weapons due to being able to swap between elements more or less at will. Then you have Tempests which gain Overload to boost the elements even more, Weavers who then start regularly rotating through the elements in a specific order, and Catalysts who gain access to dropping a Sphere regularly (15s cooldown) which then synergizes with a bunch of abilities to gain new effects. Like it or not this makes Elementalist more complicated, and in a lot of cases not quite worth it, except in more modern stuff

Cosmetics: The dyeing system in general is probably the best one I’ve ever seen. Lots of colors to pick from, colors remain unlocked once you procure them, there’s an eyedropper tool for sampling colors, and most things have a full four dye channels, dyes hit differently based on material, plus you can dye your mounts…

Cosmetics: …for a solid…

Cosmetics: …triple

Secondary: Jumping puzzles. Let’s be clear, this game is not designed around jumping puzzles (issues with telling where you’re standing, issues with telling where terrain is) but the puzzles themselves are actually pretty well designed throughout…

Secondary: …so they earn a solid double

Cosmetic: Lots. Lots and lots and lots and lots…

Cosmetic: …but not much outside of the shop…

Cosmetic: …so it’s ‘merely’ a triple positive

Core Combat: Combos. So, GW2 has a whole combos system (that’s never properly explained anywhere) which adds some fun variety and complexity to combat. Different types of setups and different types of payoffs depending on the class

Core Combat: General. While there are some related issues, GW2’s core combat is some of the best in the business. Lack of targeting (which works out pretty well), very short cooldowns on abilities, great mobility, weapon swapping on the fly, it’s all great stuff…

Core Combat: …earning a solid…

Core Combat: …triple

Interface: Chat design and interactions. Good interactions, mouseovers, and color distinction…

Interface: …for a solid double

Interface: Quest log. So here’s the thing. There’s two quest logs. One’s the achievement page (which is fine, and is searchable) and then there’s the MSQ page which is fantastic. Good indicators, good searching, good navigation

Alternate Leveling: Masteries and related additions to playstyle

Penalty For Failure: The entire resurrection system. This entire system is fantastic, but let’s break it down a bit. First, it’s easy to do; Just use the interact key on a player. Second, the more people doing it, the faster you rez. Third, there’s actually two stages of failure; Dead and Turbo Dead (more properly, Downed and Dead). Once you go down you have a health bar which slowly bleeds out, but gain access to abilities that are class specific that allow you to keep fighting and get back up. If something you’ve tagged dies while you’re Downed, you get back up, boom. (Also there’s more to this later but we’ll cover that in expansions). Also you have a channeled ability to heal yourself slowly, preventing the bleeding… but! As you channel, if you take any damage you get interrupted and it goes on cooldown. So there’s incentive to position yourself accordingly. Finally, even if you’re Turbo Dead (and cannot do anything) other players can still rez you, it just takes longer. This entire system is fantastic…

Penalty For Failure: …and earns an easy…

Penalty For Failure: …triple

HUD: Also there’s some fantastic HUD design in how dead people are really visible, both on the map and in the game world (the icons for dead players have either highest or near-highest priority on rendering)

Co-Op: Also if you rez people you get credit for what they’re doing, and it takes so little time to do that the entire thing really encourages people to do it

Co-Op: Designed around casual partying. The entire co-op system is great because you don’t… actually have to be in a party to share credit and help each other out. Attacks will hit their targets, tagging is fully free, and heals just heal / buff nearby stuff. There’s actually a priority system for limited target things, but the point is if you and a total stranger happen into the same boss, you both help each other automatically. This is so pro co-op and I love it…

Co-Op: …for an easy…

Co-Op: …triple

NG+: So! Aside from Vanilla (sigh) you can, at any point in time, skip to any quest you’ve already unlocked and replay it (in fact the game encourages this with the achievements and rewards). This is a wonderful and granular system…

NG+: …easily deserving…

NG+: …a triple

Interface: Icon distinction. Not much to add here, but you can almost always tell what you’re looking at with just a glance

Itemization: Wizard’s Vault. A nice ‘go do stuff, get rewards for gameplay benefit’ side thing. Great source of Legendary crafting and Ascended gear, plus cosmetics

HUD: Achievements and related buffs. So they give you buffs showing which achievements you can get in the current quest. These buffs track which ones you’re currently succeeding on (the buffs go away if you fail a condition), if you mouseover it tells you what to do for them, and they’re pretty worthwhile (they give Mastery points, loot, and Ascended gear)…

HUD: …an easy…

HUD: …triple for the quality of life and worthwhileness

Viscerality: Warriors, visual primarily. Warriors just look cool

Viscerality: Elementalist, visuals. This is the coolest, most well designed looking class in the game visually (with one exception we’ll note later). Each of the four elements look great on every weapon and across all the utilities…

Viscerality: …for a solid…

Viscerality: …triple

Viscerality: Elementalist, audio also sounds great

Viscerality: Ranger in general, but mostly visuals

Viscerality: Thief, again with the visuals. Look it’s a great viscerality game on the visuals I don’t know what you want for me

Viscerality: Revenant, visuals. Nicely ghostly and doomy…

Viscerality: Revenant, audio. …especially on the audio side

Viscerality: Necromancer, visuals, nicely green coded too

Viscerality: Necromancer, audio. Love the horrifying death sounds

Viscerality: Guardian, visuals. Big, bright, and blue

Viscerality: Guardian, audio, nice echoey

Viscerality: Engineer, visuals. This is probably the second (or third, rather) best viscerality in the game. Turrets and mechs and holographic armor…

Viscerality: …great stuff

Viscerality: Engineer, audio. Lovely sounds here

Viscerality: Mesmer, visuals. This is the other best class in the game for viscerality. These visuals are just eye-droppingly amazing, even on the smaller skills, and with things like the phantasms or swords…

Viscerality: …so that’s a triple…

Viscerality: …for visuals

Viscerality: Mesmer, audio. This is the final thing that pushes it above Elementalist. This is some fantastic sound design…

Viscerality: …an easy double

Respec: It’s not as relevant as in a lot of games but you can change your ‘talents’ more or less at will

Level: Citadel of Flames. Yes, we’ve finally managed a single gameplay positive for a dungeon. I’m as shocked as you are. It’s not great, and the ENTIRE dungeon gets a single positive, but it’s still something

Tutorialization: Class trials at 80 (and limitations). This is… actually not a great trial really, but it IS a trial and you’re given quite a bit to play with to figure things out

Co-Op: Yes even back in vanilla there are custom and bespoke co-op options for story sequences (I honestly thought these didn’t show up until expansions)

Integration: Co-Op! Yes, several missions in the game actually have custom ‘vehicles’ and modes for co-op, allowing players to keep the narrative of being there alone in lore, but group with friends in gameplay

MSQ: Molten Furnace. Actual jumps, nice side objectives, and an interesting boss

Boss: The Twisted Marionette, weirdly enough. Minibosses, buffing allies, and not too much health

MSQ: Party Politics. Interesting branching, nice penalty for failure, rewards the player for paying attention, and mostly skippable

Difficulty Mutator: The achievements for Season 2 are actually pretty legit, and allow you to vary up how you do things for decent rewards (and fun)

Overworld: I’m as shocked by this as you are but there is ONE decent zone in Vanilla, and that is Caledon Forest. There’s a few small details that make the hearts and the navigation actually worth a damn, go figure

MSQ: Dragon’s Stand. It’s actually probably the weakest of the big dragon Metas, but it’s still damned good. The three lanes with their varying content, the unlocking progression on enemies and bosses, the variety of events as you go…

MSQ: …and most importantly the big combat with Mordremoth towards the end across the islands, and his multitude of attacks on them

Terrain: Okay so I have issues with the Verdant Brink… but I will say they do a lot of manual crafting of things (like updrafts and vines) to make the zone itself part of the gameplay

Overworld: Auric Basin. Visual navigation, terrain design, landmark design

MSQ: Prized Possessions, and the egg abilities helping you to navigate a level designed around it

Boss: Mordremoth, the interior. This is a brilliant fight (with a group). The various phases, the wonderful mechanics, and just the right amount of intensity without taking too long…

Boss: …easy double

Overworld: Bloodstone Fen. Same generally good design of the previous HoT zones, but better across the board. And of course they do one thing very right; they make the initial waypoint the highest point in the zone so you can always glide down to anywhere in the zone

Overworld: Fire Islands. The chutes, the water, the layout are all surprisingly well designed (I guess I’m the only one surprised, since they’ve had good zone design for a bit now)

Enemy Design: I’ve been chewing on this for a bit because most of the enemy design up until now has been very tepid, but as of Season 3 they’ve finally started doing some interesting things with cross enemy elements and designs

Overworld: Draconis Mons. At first it looks irritating, but a combination of gusts, leylines, and thermal tubes really helps with navigating this colossal zone

Traversal: Mounts in general are a game changer. Each one operates a bit differently and changes how you can interact with the terrain

QoL: Keybinding mounts! You can hotkey each specific mount, and given that you can swap on the fly out of combat while moving, this really makes getting around much smoother

Traversal: The Skyscale gets special mention. On the face of it it’s just a crappier WoW style mount, but between the wall grip, the dash, the nuke, and the fireballs, plus the second chain of acquisition (and buffs) in its second mastery, it earns its own point

Traversal: The Turtle is weirdly well designed. A two seater mount that has each player helping each other out with their abilities, one can fly and slam and the other can shoot and buff. Thing’s a tank

Co-Op: Still pro co-op, but harder to sync up than ever before for some stupid reason

Overworld: Crystal Oasis. As is going to be the norm for a bit, we have a good zone here. Good events, good flow, good layout…

Overworld: …good usage of mounts

Overworld: Desert Highlands isn’t quite as good (in fact its reliance on gating the player behind masteries hurts its design) but there’s still good stuff here

Boss: The Facet of Glint fight is a nice escalation fight and actually follows the rule of 3 (first phase, figure out the light facet. Second phase, the dark one to break. Third, combine both)

MSQ: The Enemy Of My Enemy has a great segment where you play with a bunch of troops. This is just long enough to not be dull, and the enemies play around with the concept (different enemies that benefit from different tactics)

MSQ: The third quest is ALSO pretty good. It’s a race, where you use enemies to boost, and it has good co-op options to boot

MSQ: The big charge up through Balthazar’s forces alongside the Awakened is already awesome…

Hyperbeam Moment: …made even better with Sohothin and the absolute devastation you can bring to his forces

Boss: I love the Balthazar fight. Easily the best fight to date in the game…

Boss: …easy double

Boss: I’m very fond of the dervish boss fight with Warden Amala as she rotates through her Avatars

Boss: Scruffy 2.0 is all the right types of hectic (at least if you’re in a group). Fire everywhere (but it’s filled telegraphs so you have more time than it looks to avoid), jumping out to grab the conduits to break the shield, fun stuff

Mid Mission Checkpoints: So it looks like some specific bosses have a built in checkpoint going right back to that boss if you fail or leave the mission

MSQ: I actually rather liked the stealth section in Rata Primus. Good sight-lines, good kit, and some nice optional objectives

MSQ: Escorting the kids across the village with Braham. Banelings bots, plenty of extras to mulch, and a tutorial for the upcoming boss fight

Boss: Mark 2 Beta Exterminator Golem. Mean but fair, great attack patterns, nice variance in phase 1 and 2, and properly intense

Boss: Commander Lonai. Relatively simple attacks, but the arena changing and the new attacks to dodge is great

MSQ: Forearmed is Forewarned. Well designed stealth section (with a few glitches) and a great charge into the fortress

Overworld: Domain of Kourna. Nice flow, nice events, nice meta

Boss: I LOVE the Joko fight. Lots going on, great escalation, great usage of the illusion ring mechanic

MSQ: Helping the refugees flee the Shatterer is just well designed enough to be fun

Boss: The spider queen… thing is actually a really solid fight. Braham having to be encouraged to knock out the webs, keeping trash off him while dealing with the big’n

MSQ: Glint’s final trial is reasonably fun. Interesting, dynamic, and not terrible solo

MSQ: Dragonfall is a better designed Dragon’s Stand. Same general idea (split into three) but far better lead up and execution, plus just straight up giving the player the leyline pathing for free to help with navigation (and each wound cleared adds a leyline)…

MSQ: …easy…

MSQ: …triple

Overworld: Dragonfall. Between leylines, drafts, vents, and routes, this place is really well designed

Boss: Kralkatorrik. Fun, if problematic without a group

Enemy Design: Of course. Friggin’ Hydras

Co-Op: Yep. Some really cool interactions here honestly

Overworld: Consider this a general overworld positive for the three zones. There’s, I’d say, two good events across all of them, and a pittance of good terrain design enough to qualify for an aggregate

MSQ: For what it’s worth, I do like Dragonstorm. Quick, well built, lots going on, good variety, and generally fun

Mid Mission Checkpoints: Same generally good design as in Path

Co-Op: End of Dragons naturally has the same co-op design and support as the previous expansions

Tutorialization: For the first time we actually have in game tutorials of things like Defiance and Combos! They’re not perfect tutorials, but they are still good

MSQ: Initial

Overworld: Seitung, events and hearts. Yes, really, they finally have legitimately good stuff to do, I’m as shocked as you. Zone design isn’t great though (we’ll talk about that in the negatives)

Boss: Mai Trin, aka Scarlet again. Fun fight though

Kit: Jade Bots are weirdly good. They give a substantial vitality boost, they have lots of options for equipment chips that boost your stats or loot or mobility, all of this is good stuff…

Kit: …but what really makes them work is they don’t lock anything mandatory behind grind walls

MSQ: Fun airship fight, fun optional bonus powers, fun boss fight with Ankka

Boss: The Minister Li fight is one of the best fights so far in End of Dragons. Good variance between adds and him, and good escalation…

Boss: …easy double

Boss: Joon. While it has some issues, there’s still some nice complexity to it and general fun

Hyperbeam Moment: Aurene merging with us and turning us into an absolute ball of destruction for the final boss is exactly as awesome as it should be

Boss: The final boss fight with the Dragonvoid is nothing short of amazing. The initial fight, the escalation and variation of each specific platform, the aforementioned hyperbeam moment, the final boss against Soo Won, this thing is absolutely amazing…

Boss: …earning a solid…

Boss: …triple, for being quite likely the best fight in the game (at least to-date)

MSQ: Dragon’s End. While tight with the timing and execution, this is unquestionably the best of the big dragon metas…

MSQ: …easy…

MSQ: …triple

Boss: Soo-Won, Event version. Mean, brutal, complex, has some helper mechanics for people less geared…

Boss: …great stuff

Mid Mission Checkpointing: Once again, quite a few, and quite well designed

Co-Op: Secrets, as usual. Even right off the bat we get special co-op design

Secondary: Rifts are… fine. They’re quick, rewarding, and have a lot of people doing them. They’re nothing special but that’s it really

Hub: The Wizard’s Tower. Everything is laid out in a circle around the Mystic Forge, the bank and AH are right next to each other, the crafting stations are close by and well laid out, and there’s a vendor right there

Mid Mission Checkpoints: Yep, they’re still good

Minigame: Housing. Lots to do, lots to decor, lots of options…

Minigame: …easy…

Minigame: …triple

Co-Op: Housing also has legitimately valuable gameplay benefits, which is nice in general, but also you can drag other people with. So they can benefit, which encourages people to join housing, which encourages decor and style both (races, fanciful things, layouts, etc.)

Co-Op: Also the usual co-op goodness

Boss: Greer. It’s barely a boss, mostly mechanics, but they’re well done

Boss: Decima. Good variety of mechanics, good escalation, and doesn’t overstay its welcome

Mid Mission Checkpoint: As usual

Overworld: Consider this a full aggregate. The zones are… fine. Decent events, decent layout, decent design

Spoiler Game Negatives+

Gameplay Negatives:

MTX: Shop. This is the worst of the Big 3’s cash shops (though not as bad as some others I’ve seen). An absolutely huge amount of stuff in the game costs money cosmetically…

MTX: …so that’s…

MTX: …a triple

MTX: Then there’s the huge amount of quality of life features and gameplay aspects locked behind the shop (things like bank space, shared slots, build slots (which is actually a scam don’t buy those), even hero points can be bought in the shop). So that’s a lot of awful…

MTX: …and deserves its own…

MTX: …triple

MTX: But then there’s arguably the worst aspect of all. Most things can’t be bought at all times, they become available for purchase periodically. There’s no indicators of when something will go on sale, the rotation isn’t linear, and the duration of something being available isn’t set in stone either and can be as few as several days. This is an awful way to try to force players to constantly log in just to check the shop just to be capable of giving the game money for something they want…

MTX: …and it can go…

MTX: …directly to hell

Tutorialization: Or lack thereof. For there are a lot of things that really just ‘go look it up on the wiki’. In the interests of fairness, the wiki is REALLY good, but the game doesn’t get credit for that. Hell, something the game doesn’t tell you is that the /wiki command is a thing in game

Interface: AH and Chromium issues. Put simply the Auction House actually runs on Chromium and has all the related issues that implies

Itemization: Dye gacha. Dye packs can be bought on the Auction House but other than that, it’s a random chance from a random pack. Good luck!

Interface: Also the interface just… sucks in general. It’s got some shiny graphics on it but it’s old and it shows, with inconsistent interactions, weird window movement, odd cross-referencing, having to do single-type interactions across multiple windows, etc…

Interface: …for a double

Itemization: Loot shotgunning. The game absolutely bombards you with loot. This is an issue on the face of it…

Itemization: …but it gets worse when you consider the related issues of crafting, salvaging, and researching

Itemization: Currency bloat. There are just way, way too many currencies in this game, and which ones are useful for what is a web of insanity to untangle

Builds: The range and quality of builds is just too big. It’s a rare problem, but one that crops up every now and again. The gap between a good build and a bad build is enormous, and there’s no skill or improvement to bridge that gap, it’s just pure math and stats which drags the whole system down

Secondary: Jumping Puzzles. Or, more accurately, the game itself. This is a game where it’s difficult to tell where you are and where is navigable terrain, and that’s a problem when you have dickish jumping puzzles

HUD: I’ve seen worse, but there’s a lot of baffling decisions here. Bad color distinction, tiny usage of space, and real customization at all

HUD: Also I’m not a fan of the tooltips

Power Progression: Hero points. Screw Hero Points. These aren’t account bound and require doing stuff that more or less mandates grouping, but are also required for accessing elite specializations (also known as ‘the actual classes and builds’) so that sucks. It’s okay though, you can buy them in the store for real money! I’ve chewed on this a bit and I was originally only going to give the single but I realized something. The group wall aspect by itself…

Power Progression: …mandates a second negative, but I’ve got a third cooking. See, on your first character as you progress through the story naturally you’re probably going to find hero points and gain them as you go. Cool. What about on your alt? What if you want to try out another class? At that point…

Power Progression: …it’s worse. Because you either just redo the expansions and/or zones, or you get lucky and find a Train (which are getting less and less common it’s worth noting)

QoL: Real life timers on Metas. Why is this a thing? It makes it regular, sure, but if a given Meta always happens when you’re busy working or sleeping or at school, sucks to be you

Traversal: This is a good time to mention that walking is not great in this game. It’s slow, and terrain is not designed around it. And here’s the thing; over in WoW they baked Dragonflying into the leveling experience even for a brand new account, so we considered that in the equation for reviewing. Guild Wars 2 does not. So I hope you enjoy spending a colossal amount of time walk…

Traversal: …walk…

Traversal: …walking

Traversal: Collision. So, an inordinate number of games have this form of ‘interpretation’ of collision boxes. This is old tech, going back to the NES era in fact. You’ve probably heard of it called Coyote Time, but there’s lots of little nudging and smoothing that happens to prevent… exactly what happens in this game from happening. So in this game if you collide with even a single pixel wrong, it stops you dead because the collision has none of this interpretation baked into it. This is incredibly irritating and provides a more or less nonstop frustration in just getting from point A to point B. It actually gets worse when you get mounts as their collision boxes are different than yours. So…

Traversal: …it earns…

Traversal: …a triple

Viscerality: Thief, audio. I’m sorry, guns sound SO BAD in this game, I’ve actually switched specs to avoid it

Co-Op: This is a weird one. In a game so co-op focused, there’s entire swaths of quests where the people who aren’t the quest starter just cannot interact with things. This is not just irritating, it can easily lead to ‘everyone die so we can progress’ scenarios

Level: Ascalonian Catacombs. Meandering guidance, disinteresting elites that are stronger than bosses, almost no real boss mechanics to speak of, murky graphics

Level: Caudecus’s Manor looks like it should be fun, but it isn’t. The initial section stumbles over itself by forcing you to just spam the same NPCs over and over while waiting on timers, then it’s just giant piles of elites followed by non-bosses…

Level: …honestly this one’s worse than the Catacombs

Intro: All. Seriously, every single Intro to this game is awful. They take maybe a few minutes, tops, to be like ‘hey here’s how you move’ then shove you into a boss fight which is terribly designed, then slap you on the back and give you the Adventurer’s Guide and call it a day. Speaking of which…

Tutorialization: …the Adventurer’s Guide. This is.. Not a very good guide. I’ve seen worse, again, but it feels very tacked on. Probably because it was

MSQ: Sylvari 2, Green Knight. This entire fight is irritating, and an HP Barrier boss on top of that

Level: Twilight Arbor. This dungeon really sucks. Everything about this place sucks. Irritating enemies that are overtuned, irritating boss fights, frustrating corridors, and nothing to flesh it out past ‘hallways with enemies’…

Level: …make for…

Level: …a triple

Level: Sorrow’s Embrace. Yet another irritating dungeon for, honestly, all the reasons I just listed…

Level: …so I’ll just give it…

Level: …the triple, but hang on

Terrain: The terrain is especially bad in here. Actually gets in the way of simple navigation and combat

Level: Honor of the Waves. Bad hitboxes, bad signposting, and two bad bosses in a row…

Level: …make for…

Level: …another triple

Boss: Gaheron. This dungeon was actually fine, but the boss was AWFUL. So you have to pick up an item and throw them at him. The items have very short range so you have to get close. He’s constantly throwing waves of death and circles of death, both of which basically kill you. Recovery is frustrating or impossible, and when you finally knock him out of this mode his vuln period is so small half the time you can’t even reach him to hit him before he restarts. And then just rinse and repeat this thanks to HP Barriers. This boss…

Boss: …absolutely…

Boss: …sucks

Hub: The Grove. Too vertical, too irritating to navigate, and stuff is everywhere

Hub: Divinity’s Reach. Way, way, way too big for what it is

Hub: Rata Sum. This place has all the issues of the previous towns combined…

Hub: …for a double

MSQ: So, vanilla quest design… isn’t. I’m not going to be mean, but this is some very basic X of Y stuff. The ‘good’ news is there’s not a lot of it, relative to how long it all takes

Grind: So let’s talk about Vanilla leveling. It sucks. They’ve actually made it better in recent years by adding the Adventurer’s Guide, but it’s still a slog your first time through. In fact it’s not even super obvious HOW you level (the answer is by doing all the activities in zones, by the way; Hearts, Events, Vistas, Points of Interest, and Hero Points). Once you hit 80 this smooths out considerably (except in Maguuma) but getting to 80 initially is such a damned chore. Honestly, just buy a character boost and use that…

Grind: …and avoid…

Grind: …the triple negative. I know what you’re thinking, ‘This sounds like more than a triple negative!’ And I agree. But we’ll bake those other negatives into zone design, because honestly that’s where the meat of the negatives really lie

Overworld: So. First let’s get this out of the way; I’m not reviewing every zone in the game. This is because (due to the deliberately limited scope of this review) a lot of zones aren’t relevant, and you will never even visit. So those zones get a pass. That does still leave the rest, and if you’re reading this you’ll notice this is in the negatives section, and that’s for a reason.

Overworld: So let’s talk zone design. We will start with Queensdale which… sucks. The early parts are actually quite fine, but the moment you leave the super noob tutorial area the quality of events and hearts immediately plummets. This is on top of frustrating navigation with the cliffs and river running through it…

Overworld: …so that’s a double

Overworld: Plains of Ashford isn’t as bad but suffers from the same issues. Irritating to navigate and gets noticeably worse the moment you pass that invisible barrier

Overworld: So here’s a weird one. We then dip our toes into several zones (where they expect us to level, yay… more on that in a bit). But we don’t really experience these zones unless we decide to level there. So for all the 15-25 zones we’ll just smother an Aggregate over all of that

Overworld: Then we sort of bounce around a lot until we start doing regular quests in the 40 zones. The Bloodtide Coast is… not good, which is the nicest thing I could possibly say about it

Overworld: Lornar’s Pass is so, so much worse though. This place is a pain to navigate NOW nevermind as a new character without mounts…

Overworld: …so screw this place

Secondary: Speaking of which, Hearts. I hate Hearts. They’re Tasks, which under normal circumstances would mean we don’t review them at all, but they’re considered mandatory for leveling and are a huge portion of Vanilla’s content. So what’s the issue with them? Honestly much of the issue boils down to two things GW2 vanilla has in all aspects of its game design; They didn’t quite know how to design individual aspects (like how much % completion a given action gives) and they were too ambitious for what they could manage. This leads to things taking too long and being too irritating. So I’ve decided we’re going to be VERY generous and merely give each zone that’s an intended leveling zone a negative for Heart design. This means starting with Queensdale

Secondary: Metrica Province

Secondary: Wayfarer Foothills

Secondary: And Plains of Ashford. Then we hit up the major leveling zones for each region

Secondary: Starting with Diessa Plateau

Secondary: Snowden Drifts

Secondary: Kessex Hills

Secondary: And the Brisban Wildlands

Secondary: At this point they start to merge a bit. Sylvari, Asuran, and Human all get funneled into the Gendarran Fields

Secondary: While Charr and Norn shuffle over to Lornar’s Pass. Both of these naturally funnel into Lion’s Arch, and at that point it gets a bit weirder (and worse) to level

Secondary: So we’ve got the Harathi Hinterlands

Secondary: Bloodtide Coast

Secondary: Dredgehaunt Cliffs

Secondary: Timberline Falls

Secondary: Sparkfly Fen

Secondary: And Mount Maelstrom

Difficulty Curve: Claw Island is a noticeable bump up in difficulty, but not in a good way. Enemies just suddenly hit harder and it leads to a lot of frustration and deaths

Difficulty Curve: Orr is even worse. We’ll talk more about this in zone design but the Orr zones are clearly designed for people already at 80 with gear, and it sucks

Overworld: Speaking of Orr. These zones aren’t the worst zones in the game, but they are NOT good. Every one of these suffers the same basic problems. First, they are absolutely flooded with events… events that can be frustrating to do and often lock out navigation. Second, navigating these ruins on foot is atrocious, at best. Third, there are irritating enemies absolutely everywhere. And finally, even WITH a mount they’re frustrating to traverse. Every one of these zones are awful, starting with the Straits of Devastation…

Overworld: …an easy double

Overworld: Then the Malchor’s Leap…

Overworld: …for a double

Overworld: And finally the aptly named Cursed Shore… which isn’t actually as bad as the others so it gets a single

MSQ: Romke and holding the line against artillery and endless waves of doom

MSQ: Hold the line quests are fine. Boring hold the line quests that last forever are not

MSQ: Alliance Investigation is a legitimately awful quest. Go do ‘stuff’ to progress a bar (basically a big Heart quest). Thing is what counts and what doesn’t feels arbitrary, and even the things that do count give miniscule progress. There’s some hidden secret stuff that give a big chunk but there aren’t enough to actually finish out the quest, so you end up having to grind Events. You know, the things that are timer based and may or may not even be up right now. We ended up (accidentally) doing the same cow event three friggin’ times to finish this out. Screw this quest…

MSQ: …and everything about it

MSQ: Aetherblade Investigation. This one isn’t as bad as the previous one but it’s still awful for basically the same reasons. The big difference is each manual interaction actually prompts an event which helps speed along progress

MSQ: Kessex Hills Investigation. Again, not as bad as the original one, but still can go straight to hell

Padding: Health. Way too many enemies have way too much health in vanilla…

Padding: …for an easy double

MSQ: Battle for Lion’s Arch is… fine, honestly, but has just way, way too much trash for what it is

Boss: Also each boss is legitimately terrible. They’re fairly basic, and that’s fine, but they have way… way… WAY too much health…

Boss: …for an easy double

Unskippable Cutscenes: So, I know this is sort of a damned if you do damned if you don’t, but the (much improved) cutscenes… are unskippable. It’s not bad in Vanilla really though

MSQ: The Aerin fight. I get what they were going for (in fact it’s a cool idea) but the implementation is just irritating. Grab a crystal (which goes away in one use and doesn’t respawn quickly) and use its ability to keep up with a constantly moving boss

Overworld: Dry Top. There’s worse, but between the sandstorms, the rivers of sand, irritating navigation, and the janky crystal mechanic? Not a great place

MSQ: Uprooting the Iron Marches

MSQ: Hidden Arcana… and Glint’s Lair (constant damage, slowly respawning enemies, mandatory safety bubbles, and jank)

Boss: Distorted Facet of Darkness. So every now and again he does an attack which spawns a thing which pushes you to 1 HP which you take to a node which periodically absorbs your buffs which then dies which then damages him. This takes FOREVER and is janky as hell to boot

Boss: Also the last boss has a horrible padding problem. Even when you figure out what to do, it just takes too damned long

Boss: Tracking the Aspect Masters and the tedium of the Mordrem Teragriff fight. He’s incredibly boring, has very inconsistent hurtboxes, has way too much HP, and is a nice big red light / green light fight to boot

Interface: Feedback issues. There’s just too often where there’s too little feedback on what the hell is actually happening, which makes improving a pain

Core Combat: So this is a weird one. Enemies can do knockbacks, knock ups, and juggle you. And you can take falling damage and all kinds of fun stuff… and they can’t. Considering how much terrain can matter and players have access to plenty of knockbacks, it’s a weird oversight

Bug:

Bug: So the Vanilla quests like to do this thing where they constantly shove the exit portal forwards and if you’re not paying attention, once, at all, go redo the ENTIRE instance again because you accidentally exited

QoL: So in Vanilla instances there’s no exit without just… leaving the game. Logging out. Which also kicks you out entirely

Overworld: Silverwastes. Irritating to navigate, frustrating map, and the Skritt thing requiring events to move. Also some of the Meta stuff literally blocks progress in just navigating

Boss: The Shadow of the Dragon final fight is AWFUL solo. It’s already irritating (and cheats, with HP Barriers and invincible adds) but doing this fight solo is long, sloggy, and boring

Grind: Mandatory glider and mushroom grind in Heart of Thorns. This is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but it still mandates stopping the game and grinding in a zone with terrible experience gains…

Grind: …and it still sucks

Grind: There’s actually ANOTHER grind wall in Auric Basin I totally forgot about! So that sucks too

Grind: Did you know there’s yet another grind wall? Even further in you need Nuhoch! Geez laweez

Overworld: Verdant Brink navigation. There’s worse, but getting around this zone kind of gets frustrating, especially with the sheer verticality (and especially before you get access to wind drafts)

Encounter: Line attacks. So these have inconsistency in hurt boxes, they do WAY too much damage, they’re easy to miss in the chaos, and they lock you down once you die on them. They are honestly pretty badly designed

MSQ: City of Hope has some legitimately good ideas but they kind of suck in execution, especially the bunny segment

Map: Tangled Depths. In a game with one of the better maps in MMOdom, the map of this place just inexplicably sucks. The roads are improperly labeled, the layers are irritating to see through, and it not only doesn’t help but it gets in the way of navigation

Boss: Mordremoth and soloability. This fight just SUCKS to solo

MSQ: So there’s a quest to gather ingredients for an elixir. It honestly kind of sucks in general… but it has a weird oversight too

Bug: See, it lasts until the next reset, which is at a set time every day. So if you do this quest right before that reset, or don’t have time to finish the next quest… sucks to be you

Boss: The Ice Beast is… irritating. It’s a nice experiment but it’s vague, janky, and irritating

MSQ: Breaking the Siege and the return of ‘go do stuff’ Investigations quests. Seriously please stop making me do these, they suck. This one’s actually particularly bad…

MSQ: …easily earning a second

Boss: Caudecus. This fight sucks in a group (tiny area, confusing visuals, tons of damage everywhere) but it’s absolutely miserable solo. This might legitimately be one of the worst fights in the entire game…

Boss: …screw this fight

Bug: Balthazar’s hounds have a very easy bug to fall into which, without knowing it’s a bug, can totally screw over the player’s ability to figure out what the heck is going on

Bug: The puzzles of “Where’s Balthazar” can actually bug out in one of two separate ways (either permanently unsolvable, or the nodes not interacting in linear fashion)

Grind: Wow. One last grind wall apparently; You need to push Raptor up to Canyon Jump before you can even progress the MSQ (and get the other two mounts). What in the world

MSQ: The Way Forward. It’s just… run around talking to the same NPCs like three times

MSQ: The Departing. There’s an absence of guidance… no actually there’s WRONG guidance, telling you the wrong thing. This is on top of it being…

Padding: …INCREDIBLY padded. Like holy crap this takes forever. Actually…

Padding: All of Path of Fire has this weird padding problem. There’s only three acts but they take HOURS to slog through, even if you skip the mastery grind…

Padding: …for a solid…

Padding: …triple

Bug: Scruffy 2.0 fight has a game-breaking bug where if you mount a skyscale in the fight it softlocks it and you have to start over

Boss: Scruffy 2.0 is yet another ‘sucks to solo’ fight

Bug: So! That wonderful ‘hey do you want to leave the instance’ popup following you through missions is back

Bug: Speaking of. Hurtboxes are always inconsistent but it only really sucks when the game demands precision

Boss: Zafirah solo… sucks (yeah I know not the first time… or second…)

Bug: Would you like to leave the instance! Seriously this bug gets worse the further into Path you get

Boss: Kralkatorrik solo. Yeah I know you’re tired of hearing this but it’s true, this fight is just not great without a group

Unskippable Cutscenes: Sadly, they return

Unskippable Cutscenes: (Also for Heart of thorns, whoops!)

MSQ: Revels & Rivals, aka ‘go do events for an hour’. I really dislike these quests, but the piddling amount of progress events give makes it even worse…

Padding: …and oh my gawd it takes so friggin’ long

MSQ: Lack of polish, again. Quests stumble over each other, events don’t trigger quite right and layer on top of each other, triggers are smaller or harder to see, all kinds of stuff

Bug: Lots. All little ones, but lots. Icebrood has issues

Traversal: So this is… weird. They actually let us mount in instances back in Path, and it was awesome! And then they… don’t in Icebrood. This is such a weird inclusion, especially since other methods exist already to limit player exploration

MSQ: Okay so the Wolverine Trial… SUCKS. Easy to fail, hard to backtrack and reset (unless you succeed), and it’s so arduous and long…

MSQ: …it deserves a double by itself

MSQ: The Ox Trial isn’t nearly as bad but it still sucks and I still hate it. Grab and drag… while taking damage. That’s… it. That’s all

MSQ: Aaaand Eagle Trial. Run against the current (which means… run slowly… again)

Unskippable Cutscene: Oh by the way, unskippable cutscenes

MSQ: So! Go do events. …again. They know there are other types of quests right?

Choice: So this is a weird one. Icebrood has a lot of gameplay options… thaaat either mean NOTHING or are actually false choices (like you pick one, and then… nothing happens differently)

Bug: By the way that stupid ‘exit the zone’ bug is back and as bad as it was in Path

MSQ: So let’s get this out of the way. There are 10, count them, TEN mandatory Dragon Response missions to progress the MSQ. In a ROW. It’s… I don’t even know how to put this into words. This was absolutely arduous when this was new, and it’s arguably even worse now. So what we have is three major problems slamming into each other simultaneously. First is these basically require a group (or a very good solo/duo build). There is a built in group finder but if no one’s available or you don’t want to, sucks to be you. This is MSQ too so you’re locked out unless you get a group. Considering how large of a hurdle this is…

MSQ: …this is already…

MSQ: …a triple

MSQ: Then problem two… there’s no real incentive for doing these. Here’s the thing. GW2 has a tendency to keep older content relevant thanks to drops, masteries, legendaries, collections, etc. But there’s nothing really there to keep the Dragon Response Missions relevant so… nobody really goes back to do this stuff. Sooo good luck getting a group!

MSQ: And then we have the final problem. These aren’t bad (not really) but they’re very, very simple. And they never vary. And there are TEN of them. IN A ROW. And this blocks the Outro to Icebrood. This is, easily, the worst part of the entire thing…

MSQ: …and this is another awful, awful…

MSQ: …triple for Dragon Age 2 Syndrome

Boss: The ‘dodge the aoe stuff’ boss of the DRM’s is honestly really boring

Boss: And then there’s the Destroyer Wyvren which is juuust irritating. Lots of lunges, huge aoe swipes, and frustrating vuln phases

Overworld: This is a weird one. Seitung is just… irritating to navigate if you don’t have a Skyscale. Now they have these ziplines to navigate but these have several issues. First, they’re an unlock you don’t get until the next zone. Second, nothing shows them on the map or minimap. Third, you can’t interrupt them in mid stream. And finally they don’t chain properly. If all of this sounds familiar, they fail at every single thing the previous thermal vents had already done properly

MSQ: So, yeah, yet another ‘go do events’ quest. Why do they keep doing these?

Overworld: So… New Kaineng is not very well designed gameplay wise. Navigation is a pain, especially if you don’t have a Skyscale (sound familiar?) but it’s even worse here. This is a HUGE zone and very vertical and the ziplines just do not work for it

QoL: No gliding or mounts in instances. In some cases this makes sense, but it’s just a blanket restriction and just slows things down

MSQ: Have fun doing two hearts to progress! You don’t HAVE to which is why this is only one negative

Bug: Way too easy to get stuck in collision boxes. Seriously it happened like 4 times on accident

Unskippable Cutscenes: These are never going away by the way

MSQ: So as usual there’s a big boring ‘go do stuff’ step. But it’s actually worse than usual because each step layers so you’re functionally doing three of them…

MSQ: …and on top of that one of them has no proper indicators of where to do it…

MSQ: …AND it’s done in the place where you require a filter just to access

MSQ: The entire ‘flee the caves’ sequence with the Ravenous Wanderer is too long and too boring both

Boss: The entire FIGHT against the Ravenous Wanderer is way too long and way too boring

MSQ: Also this entire sequence has a weird lack of polish. Lots and LOTS of little details that are just wrong

MSQ: Good tutorialization for a TERRIBLE stealth section. This commits every single sin of bad stealth design. No kit to avoid being caught, binary difficult (being caught at ALL is a total failure point), hobbling movement speed, and any failure means starting all over. The only saving grace is it’s short but…

MSQ: …it’s still an absolutely terrible entrance to the new expansion

Bug: Exit to ZONE??!

MSQ: So the first major quest in Secrets is to go do Rifts. The SECOND major quest is to… go do Rifts

MSQ: Okay now go do events

MSQ: Tower of Secrets… sucks. It’s long, and I mean LONG, and filled with irritation and awful guidance…

MSQ: …easy double

Overworld: Big, huge, open zones with a Skyscale which doesn’t have a lot of its traversal… fun if you have a Griffon, boring if you don’t

MSQ: Go do Rifts. Again

MSQ: …go do Rifts… …again…

MSQ: ….a…gain… this is five times now just in Secrets

MSQ: …do… e…v.e.n…t.s…

MSQ: …itchy… rifts…

MSQ: Oh and go do events but JUST events on the west side

MSQ: One… last… event bundle… this is FORTY TWO mandatory events by the way

Grind: Oh by the way, there’s a step to grind the zone currency. It’s not even clear that’s what you need (I needed a walkthrough to determine this) and if you don’t have the currency, go grind

Boss: Eparch is a really pathetic fight. I hesitate to even call it a boss

Unskippable Cutscenes: As usual. Though this might get even worse in Janthir

Unskippable Cutscenes: The worst in the entire game. Literally half hour cutscenes with no way to skip is a bit much…

Unskippable Cutscenes: …actually it’s closer to 45 minutes of unskippable cutscenes

Unskippable Cutscenes: Also it happens constantly across the expansion

Interface: Housing controls. These aren’t the worst I’ve seen but they are… rough

MSQ: Go do some gathering, now go craft, now go do a heart!

MSQ: Please stop making me do hearts

MSQ: PLEASE stop making me go do events

Graphics: So… the engine is just old and not keeping up anymore. This wouldn’t be an issue but they keep being more and more ambitious with their zones and their details so it keeps being an issue…

Graphics: …with pop up, bad LoD, and bad loading

Boss: Decima and Greer at the same time was… boring. Just do their mechanics, individually and separately, again, three times in a row

MSQ: So hey! Go grind a mastery to progress. Again, by the way, this is two times in Janthir. First time since friggin’ Path

MSQ: One last ‘go do events’ step. Sigh

Outro: Boss: The final boss is three random ghosts. Sigh

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