greetings guardians my name is biff here so i wanted to go and give a little commentary
on the new season on day one and give my first impressions after 24 hours of having experienced
the season particularly when it comes to the narrative no commentary on the gameplay the
state of solo 3.0 what's going on of the season the amount of content that we got the breadth
of it all all that stuff kind of not included in this this is purely about the story as per usual
i think it's fair to say that these videos have become fairly routine on the channel
especially since the season of the hunt it's become incredibly clear that the narrative
has only been getting better and better and i've been every season offering critique in one way or
another at the beginning or the end of the season and i think people have really started to notice
how good the narrative is starting to become and in particular that started to get noticed around
about the season of the chosen and it's only really amped up ever since then it has now gotten
to the point that these videos where i give my first impressions and my critique of the narrative
on day one are starting to become just a little bit obsolete now here's the thing i'll absolutely
still do my first impressions but the main point of these videos from the outset was for them to be
a first guide post to critique for the developers this would then combine with the videos that we
do at the end of the season so that we'd be able to sit there and say hey this is what i thought
at the beginning this is what we think at the end this is a bunch of critique that you guys can use
to feed into future seasons i think the thing is that the narrative at the moment is really good i
don't think i see it needing much more changes for the sake of improvement bungie has really reached
that stage where they've perfected the season's narrative flow and the job of the narrative team
now is realistically all about ensuring that they keep the narrative content being added to the game
as fresh as possible and at the same pace at the end of last season my critique was just make sure
you leave enough stuff for new players to latch onto and that was it the new season even starts
well on that front and sort of reintroduces aerys for people who've never met her and introduces all
sorts of characters and yeah tells us about who they are and whilst it is a nice refresher for a
person who has played this for a long time i did notice that it was also very much there for the
sake of new players it spells out directly who the villain is going to be it tells us about
our allies and for those of us who have stayed around longer yeah the story elements we know
are very much there and there are new story elements that nobody knows about which are
also very much impactful all of this it addresses some of that there are major
improvements that still need to be made when it comes to new player experiences but as far
as the seasonal narrative is concerned i don't know what else i can really add which means that
this series of videos that i do where i critique the narrative for the most part i
think i'm going to kind of retire i will still go ahead and offer critique where it's needed
it's not to say that the game is perfect it's not to say that there aren't moments where it's
going to be important to have a critique of the narrative and it's going to still be important
to provide feedback and to review things as things go forward but i'm no longer in that
place where i want to provide a continuous loop of feedback to the developers because i don't think
they need it they have their feet they probably did before i even started doing this because
video game development takes lag time and you can't immediately change something in game in
the space of a day so yeah i don't know how much more my critique is really going to help at this
moment in time i'm very happy for everyone else to leave theirs in the comments section but again i
i think that the story and the narrative are just in a really good place and the narrative team has
earned my trust on that front with a proven track record they earned it because well they showed me
that they could earn it it was this moment back in beyond light where they went ahead and they
basically told us to trust them and they delivered on that they've done good story content across
expansions and seasons and they've got great story moments mixed in with everything fantastic lore
has been delivered to us we have awesome stuff going on in the story both in the foreground and
the background it's just good the game does not need a huge amount of critiquing current
and so i'm going to be leaving it with that however i will go ahead and still offer my first
impressions of the new season so yeah let's jump in and do that as a quick note by the way this is
all first impressions from the first 24 hours of the season of the haunted and if you are looking
to remain unspoiled that's the reason why some of the gameplay thus far has been random edz footage
so yeah if you want to remain unspoiled click off now but for those of you who do want to hear my
first impressions let's go ahead and transition over to some slightly more horrifying vistas
there we go okay so on day one we were able to experience the opening mission and cut
scenes of the season the castellam including its public event space and patrol spaces
which of course included also the pleasure gardens the various catacombs within the underbelly
different parts of the leviathan and also the royal baths there's a lot that came with that
but also we had the sever mission sever of course is the new narrative content for the season
and i think all of this is pretty fantastic this was a large amount of narrative content
for day one as we've come to expect from these seasons and i think it gives us a decent look
at the way that the season is going to pan out the theme of the season pulls back to
the narrative beats of shadow keep presage and the season of opulence with a first mattering
of supernatural communion and witchcraft horror elements layered in there to tie it all together
and it feels really quite cohesive this season is looking good particularly because of how
it's leveraged the nightmares as a narrative device the nightmares were an element of shadow
keep that in my mind were pretty underused and they could potentially have leveraged much more
strong narrative twists where necessary so let's go ahead and talk a little bit about them back in
shadow keep you had the nightmares rising from the lunar pyramid and taking on the form of old foes
in the form of guardian's trauma here's the thing they were effectively used in shadow keefe
but only in one instance and that was with eris's fire team haunting her which was pretty spooky and
really good honestly it told a great degree of stuff to us about the trauma that
aerys had experienced and about trauma generally and accepting loss and about closure and it was a
really strong story beat when it was used but for the most part i think it was just one of
these moments where nightmares in shadow keep felt very under used and poorly used as far as
a narrative perspective is concerned the reason i say that is because nightmares and shadow keep
were predominantly bosses that had a nostalgic twist you would fight the nightmare of crota or
the nightmare of the fanatic or the nightmare of gaul and these would just be bosses that didn't
really have any relation to the hive or the moon necessarily but would have you know this thing
of ah they were a big boss in our guardian's past rarely was there a boss like say crota or omnigul
that was exactly on point for all of the stuff that we were fighting them for you know it was
maybe three of those bosses i'd throw fogoth in there too that made a lot of sense and you know it
didn't narratively feel like it fitted all the time and maybe that's okay because you know
maybe it is just activities and bosses but i still feel like there was more that could have been done
here in season of the haunted however the nightmares have returned and this time they're
doing kallus's bidding and they are directly malevolent you see the beginning of the season
of the haunted explains that the nightmares of the lunar pyramid were released in shadow keep as a
sort of defense mechanism because people including aerys were starting to tamper with the pyramid
here in the season of the haunted they are a tool that's being actively used by kallus with
malicious intent callous and leviathan communed with the pyramid on the moon and at this moment in
time has started drawing those nightmares to the leviathan and is actively using them this is very
different from what we experienced in shadow keep in shadow keep this was dredged up trauma from
guardians past but now callus is actively using them where before it was kind of like exposing
an old wound now it's a little bit like taking that exposed wound stabbing a knife back in and
twisting kallus is very deliberately exploiting those nightmares to weaken us that's an awesome
choice and i feel like we're gonna see the way that it impacts the characters of this season
going forward a lot i also feel like we already see a fair amount of it thanks to the opening cut
scenes and the sever mission from the first week and to talk briefly about the server mission from
this first week i think this is nightmares done correctly you see back in shadowkeep again you had
these bosses that were just out there on the moon and they didn't really have any context around
why they were even there didn't make sense for the reason why they were about now we have nightmares
that contextually make all the sense for the narrative crow for example is actively trying
to exercise and dispel the nightmare that haunts him personally aldrin solve this is great because
aldrin itself isn't just some nebulous blob of shadowy darkness instead aldrinsov is recognizable
you can see aldrin's face in there you can hear aldrin's voice talking back and forth to crow
and you can see crow having to confront that fresh trauma again aldrin actually goads him on they
have conversations back and forth that are really quite tangibly delicate and you can feel the crow
is starting to fray whenever you do that sever mission it's a really strong set of writing that
bungie has introduced here this also isn't just a moment where bungie is driving home the fact that
crow and aldrin are separate characters using this nightmare device but also it's showing how
crow can potentially doubt that idea crow sits there and at the very end of the mission you
know when you go back to the helm and talk to him he says that aldrin and him are the exact same in
some ways and it's one of these moments where you sit and you have that character really struggling
with their internal fears and regrets it's it's amazing it's really well done they've leveraged it
as a narrative device really well but then you go into the sever mission you do the final boss
and you realize that they've even taken the old bosses aspect of it and they've done it right here
you see when crowe does try to dispel aldrin they have a conversation and then aldrin states that
their legacy is coming to see them or something along those lines and you see the nightmare
of the fanatic enter the arena saying the word father you then have to fight back the fanatic
as crow then fights to contain aldrin that right there is nightmare bosses done correctly
the fanatic isn't just found somewhere on the moon for no good reason and then just fought and killed
with certain mechanics they aren't just sitting at the shrine of oryx because it was a playspace that
was available no you're fighting this alongside crowe who is also having to deal with that very
relevant trauma remember that that's relevant because aldrin sov basically created the scorn
and the first scorn that he created thanks to wish magic from riven was yeah the fanatic all
of this makes sense it ties together with the characters it is very relevant to crow and it's
really impactful when you see all of that pulled together in nightmare form this is the most direct
form of confronting trauma that one can perhaps have for crow's character yeah this is nightmares
done right this is really good it's very promising for what we'll see in the rest of the season and
it makes me really question what we're gonna see with something like say zavala and his wife in
particular i'd assumed given the text that we had in the previous law entries regarding her that she
died of old age but maybe she was murdered by someone can you imagine for a second if she was
murdered by satanics that would be an incredible reason to bring tanex back as a story boss for
this particular sever mission but also man is that a great development of tanex's character
and isn't that an amazing way for zavala to get some personal development as well
all of this is good this is gravy bungie can layer all of this on as stuff goes
i really look forward to seeing how they develop this in the season that's really good
i think it's also worth giving a little praise note to the castellan patrols hear me out on
this one okay i know that sounds like a bit of an odd one to lean into after i've just talked
about sever and the narrative story missions but hear me out some of them are setting nightmares
to rest and eris will give you a little context about each one when the time is right and you
know that's fine you're sitting there and you're getting a little bit more context about nightmares
from the moon and the things that killed them you'll see a few of them repeat here and there
but that's not really what i'm talking about some of the patrols have you walking up to the
frames that kallus has overridden and then you'll actually get a patrol mission from kallus as well
he'll actually talk to you he will give you a little context when you reach your patrol location
he gives you his opinion on the current events he talks about other characters and that's really
important this is good this is bungie doing what they did with witch queen where it's acquainting
you with the villain of the expansion and their motives it allows you to get inside their head and
to really understand them and this is pretty good out of just a seasonal patrol beacon
i really do hope that bungie remembers to insert kallus in the seasonal narrative in more ways than
just this though it's good to see here moneris making comments during the public event back and
forth i do love to see all of that that's really good but i hope to see more beyond just that
put him in sever where we inevitably get to missions which involve kaitlyn put him there
taunting her alongside her nightmares which we know now at least includes gaul but i'm still
holding out with the expectation that we might see umuna wrath i really really want to see if
they include kallus more and honestly they should if they're doing everything correctly
this is the moment at which bungie can prove that they're getting their villains right
they are understanding the key point that for villains to be effective they need screen time
which they absolutely did they read the assignment and they understood it when it came to which queen
and i'm hopeful that they will do the same when it comes to this season giving villains screen
time makes them better villains when we sat there and had to face up against someone like saeramus
the lack of meaningful screen time with her meant that you know she wasn't as effective as she could
have been now we get callous we've already had a lot of history with kallus but if kallus gives us
a little bit more this season that's going to be really good we may get more out of him than we've
gotten out of a lot of villains from mainline expansions and that's awesome because kallus can
avoid that feeling of becoming the villain of the week and if he does that's really good that'll be
really exciting i think the real dark horse of the season that everyone should keep in mind even if
it doesn't really change too much however is aerys aerys has referred to herself in this season as
a new witch as she takes control of the crown of sorrow this is a real escalating development
of her character where before when we first met her in the dark below back in destiny 1
she was a rugged and haunted survivor and she was someone who was trying to get revenge she has now
embraced her journey and her place in the universe she knows who she is and who she was and if i had
to use a word to immediately describe her energy it wouldn't be as haunted as it used to be it'd be
determined or even driven she knows what has to be done she knows how the path that they'll chart is
probably one that goes through darkness and she's not afraid of doing it she is determined to ensure
that even if they have to use dark means they will achieve their ends keep an eye on her character
and see how it develops as a member of the dark vanguard i would anticipate that her role in the
core story is only going to get more and more important and also bungie has been a big fan of
doing awesome things with heiress for a long long time i once again have to sit there and say well
done to all the voice cast as well everyone who's jumped in and contributed something to the season
thus far it's really easy to tell that some of the voice work has been absolutely fantastic whether
that's brandon o'neill's crow or whether that's courtney taylor as keital and amanda holliday
whether that is someone like maula gorondona who again reprises aerys and i didn't know
if you could add more to eris but she adds more to aerys aerys just keeps getting better
every season yeah no seriously amazing work from every single one of you you've all done fantastic
and of course i look forward to hearing more from lance redick to and zavala seriously this
is all going to be a fantastic season the cream of the crop as far as voice actors is concerned
they're all here basically and that makes me even more excited this week ended with eris needing to
come up with further plans of action and as per usual we have the break until reset next week
crow failed in his first attempt at severing his nightmare but that doesn't mean that has to remain
this way this season is once again going to be talking about regret loss pain and closure and
paradoxically i feel like the narrative here is in an awesome place despite the grim subject that
it's describing it's been very well written from what i can see thus far and i just can't
wait to jump into the law speaking of which law videos coming very soon i know that there is a
certain legendary glaive that is bound to have everybody raising their eyes and you know what
yeah i'm covering that one first and then i'm gonna jump into the seasonal story from this week
and we're going to talk about everything that happened because oh my god yeah um uh if you've
not played it and done all of the conversations and done the radio conversation back in the helm
um emotional damage emotional damage incoming seriously wow emotional damage yeah i'm gonna
leave you to do that if you've not played it yet go play it the season's great for the story
uh go and enjoy it either way thank you very much for watching leave your own thoughts down
below if you think that there's a need for the critique videos like i talked about the beginning
let me know because yeah i'll still make them if you guys think that it's actually
a valuable service but if not i'm happy to just do first impression stuff and then to do
recaps of the narrative at the end of the season and then just do normal law content as is
all things considered though thank you so much for watching and i do hope that you've all enjoyed
in the meantime my name has been my name is bife porodasia adastra i'll see you starside
you