Guild Wars 2

A lot of posts on the forums/reddit have talked about how good/bad the story has been done and why and what not. To be kind, I had a less than positive feeling about the HoT narrative after I finished. The delivery of it was well done, but the actual thing I don’t feel as strongly for.

HOWEVER, the one moment in the whole narrative that instantly struck a chord with me was your old companion returning as one of Mordremoth’s tools temporarily. This was sooooo good for multiple reasons and I wanted to discuss them briefly.

Let me start by saying that my main’s sidekick was Sieran, and I loved her to death in the original campaign, even over the fan-favorite Tybalt (who I later went back and played through to see the difference). The original campaign had many critisicms like its ease / disjointedness / delivery, the actual narrative I still greatly enjoyed, and despite these critisicms I still think most people who complain can agree that it introduced some great characters in the lore. I think very few people would say they don’t fondly remember the first sidekick they played through on.

The whole reality rift stuff and fighting Mord in his strongest asset (his mind) wasn’t jiving with me, and it played out very cookie-cutter with B-iconic character after character appearing in the final fight. The ONLY thing I wasn’t expecting was the old companion. I had felt for the most part the original campaign was almost completely forgotten except a couple of characters littered throughout the maps. The events of the past were history in HoT. But then without warning Mordremoth pulls from your memories your old self-sacrificing companion.

My reaction was along the lines of initial shock “Sieran?!” and then instant hatred and overwhelming sense of wanting to pound Mord into oblivion “MORDY YOU SON OF A kitten, YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE, I’M REALLY GONNA KILL YOU NOW BECAUSE NOW I CARE”

This actually plays into the fact the Mordemoths supposed to use your mind against you and makes sense plot-wise. It plays into (perhaps surprisingly more than expected), your old feelings about old characters that have gone on forgotten for too long. And what really knocks this very short but glorious moment in the story out of the park is the one line of dialogue the old companion gives you. Now its a little different per companion, but with Sieran, she says something like “Magister? Its so good to see you again.” She says this with a bit of confusion, but then her sincerity follows through in her voice. This one line of dialogue had me more emotional by FAR the rest of the story combined. I always remembered Sieran’s character as quirky, innoncent, and genuine. This one line of dialogue recaptured her personality so well.
The player characters response mimicked my own feelings so perfectly, “Sieran, its good to see you too.” Simplistic but perfectly succinct.

Tybalts presence pulls out the same feelings, (not as strong in my case because of my affection to Sieran), but also because of a less genuine line. The player character says “grab an apple and help me do this” . I can’t fault anet too much because of the obvious call back, but there was more to his character than his iconic joke. It felt less genuine. Don’t get me wrong, this is stilll an incredible moment.

I was discussing this with my girlfriend earlier who felt the same way, and wanted to see if anyone else felt the same. Let me know in the comments!
Also, if anyone at anet is reading this, give whoever came up with this amazing an idea an apple for me.

I admit, the return of Forgal when I played as my Sylvari ranger was a surprise. The only real surprise during that fight.

I kind of wish they had done more with that. Pulled out more characters from your past that had died.

Yeah, that was definitely the best part of the final fight. And my vocal reaction was pretty much verbatim of what my charr said (though perhaps a bit more profane).

It’s rare when video games can get me to have the same reaction as a character’s reaction to that same thing. I think the only thing that succeeded in that was Psychonauts (the main characters’ facial expressions at the weirdness matched my own a lot). And when that happens, I consider that to be Grade A game making.

I even liked the fight against Blighted Eir and Blighted Canach. And after Tybalt showed up, I was like “wait, are we going to revisit every failure the PC had in the personal story!?” and was so hoping for Tonn to reappear from the greatest fear arc, or Barron/Fero/Arda Gyreshriek from the Priory’s Further into Orr arc. Part of me was also hoping for a return of killed villains – Gaheron, Kudu, Trybulus Griefblade (from Ash Legion storyline), etc. You know, pulling the player’s personal victories and failures to fight against him.

Was a bit disappointed when they didn’t show. Would have been better than Marjory and Left-behind-Number 3 (Braham/Canach/Caithe) joining in after that system was figured out. If Mordy was so smart, he should have figured out once the PC so quickly realized Marjory was a fake that approach wouldn’t work.

But the situation around Trahearne and how forced that felt, and how it felt like a blatant catering to the vocal Trahearne haters to me (I know others will disagree), ruined the greatness of that final mission’s fight.