when I was digging up old art yesterday I found the illustrated hell hike I drew in heavensward

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All in all: stocks are high for Evercold, I’m excited to be caught up, and I’m excited to take some time to finish side content I’ve been passing over!

First up: Warrior training arc and Arcadion.

Thanks for playing with me and my horse!

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But that may be victim to them having to facilitate a (fun!) spot to wait for Evercold. And may resolve quickly, perhaps even as soon as Halloween. At least put Alisaie in her own pear wiggler while Alphinaud is hanging with the new guys. For me.

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Lastly: we gotta go back to juicing drama. I don’t know how we got from EW to here. Alphinaud trapped and immediately switching to diplomat mode is fine but you’re telling me Alisaie says “he can take care of himself”?? She should be throwing chairs. She should be biting someone.

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I had no problem with the Alexandria war and in fact thought the invasion was exciting, but I wish it had more human weight. A war fought by robots following the command of a woman who isn’t real to preserve people who aren’t real while the people who are real don’t notice/care. No bite.

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To this, the Alexandria wrap-up was a little too uncomplicated for me. Between the two nations, at least.

Shout out to the one girl during the Solution 9 recovery who was like “we just burned these guys’ home to the ground maybe we should be worried about that”. She was a real one.

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Oddly enough the character I thought was reacting most reasonably (most of the time) was Wuk Lamat. She was often the one most willing to be sad and the one most righteously angry. I would have liked to see more characters responding off of that.

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I think my ultimate biggest me-specific complaint is that, coming off EW’s characters-crying-per-minute rating, I felt like the story often didn’t capitalize on its own plot beats enough. I constantly wished characters were more desperate, more sad, more scared and—in particular—more angry.

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Patches were fun and felt packed to the brim. Very excited for the new evil girl. Lotsa new evil girls recently we love to see it.

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Scions are well-documented to be scarce and spread thin in this one. I don’t want EC to just be Alphinaud and Estinien for selfish no-Alisaie reasons, though. Not sure how to resolve this within myself. Immediate Evercold Alphinaud pear wiggler will help I think.

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Gulool Ja Ja was my favorite character and solo duty! I really liked all 3 siblings but did feel like I had to make a bit of my own food in terms of their motivations and interactions.

Tuliyollal’s a contender for one of the best cities in the game. Controversial perhaps: I liked the jazz!

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Despite some in-immediate-play pacing issues and some grumpy circumstances I really liked the overall themes and aesthetics of the back third of DT. But my favorite was the stretch of about immediately after the split starter quests to entering S9—which is a big stretch!

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duty complete dawntrail thoughts!

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AND THATS CREDITS FOLKS

see you all next year!!

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me in dawntrail: I wish they would have cut the cast but focused in on a select few scions

me headed into evercold: wait so alisaie isnt coming 🥺

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in trouble

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for these folks this is sort of like if aliens arrived on earth from the stars but were led by angus mcdonald boy detective

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Alphinaud hitting that accent perfect after two seconds of speaking to someone. That’s MY baby president.

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speaking of things making me worried I don’t like how icy blue and almost pupil-less this girl’s eyes are

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Pink

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