So, this is something you normally see on YouTube videos or even on something like IGN, but I'm doing this here because I genuinely want to share my opinion with everyone and how I see it, only I don't have the equipment or time to actually make a video over.

So the new expansion for Destiny 2 came out Tuesday 9 A.M PST, or 11 A.M CST (my time). I have to say that I played that main campaign from start to finish in one entire seating which was about 13 hours in total, the longest I've ever played or finished any campaign in a single sitting with completion. This expansion is called Lightfall and I played it on Legendary Difficulty.

Now if you aren't aware of what I'm talking about, around a year ago, The Witch Queen dropped with an absolutely amazing story and came out with a new way for players who were wanting a bigger challenge out of the game's PvE side. Normally this was only used for Grandmaster Nightfalls, Master Raids or Dungeons, Legendary Seasonal Missions, and Master/Legendary Exotic missions.

Now it is similar to how CoD's or Halo's campaign gets a little harder (or really you just have lower base health in the former) depending on what difficulty you chose, but in Destiny, the Legendary campaign does what's called a "Power Cap", where your Power, or in other MMO games Level, and gear are all capped at a level that never exceeds that point. This is to not only make sure you aren't too powerful to just be able to steamroll missions in under five minutes if you know everything, but also increases the enemy AI and how they react to certain angles, moves, or even gameplay that the player makes, something that was insanely finely tuned from the original Halo trilogy. Certain enemies threw more grenades that did more damage, more sniper based enemies that can either two-tap or one-tap you if you aren't careful in your decision making, and gives Major and Boss types more health. Not only does this happen to give a greater challenge, but this also INCREASES the difficulty if you have more people in your fireteam, with the hardest being with you and two of your friends or other players. I love the challenge that it brought and genuinely had to switch up strategies so many times after wipes and how much damage I was either taking or dealing. Enemy shields are more resistant to types that do not match the current shield type they have (just like in Halo how the Elite's shield was heavily resistant to Human Kinetic weapons, but weak to the Covenant Energy weapons).

Now, I said that Witch Queen dropped with an amazing campaign that took me a couple ten days to complete due to the solo experience and me not exactly sure of how damage types and armor mods work. Everything tied together nicely and had a perfect buildup to the final boss with multiple phases and mechanics in order to actually make progress (and mind you, I was failing upwards the entire play through of that). The Hive had their own legion of Guardians that could be resurrected by their Ghosts if they were neglected and let me say for ammo economy wise, this was not at all fun. The gameplay I had fun with, but it didn't really bring anything new to the table on that front as it was using the same buildcrafting system that's been in place since Shadowkeep that came out close to (if not already) four years ago, and the last new subclass was almost three years ago.

Now. Lightfall dropped, I played it for an entire day from start to finish on the campaign. I absolutely loved the gameplay and the environment of Neomuna and Strand. However, the story couldn't decide if it wanted to focus on The Veil, something that's connected to the Traveller and must be protected at all costs while we are losing a territory battle over it, or if it wanted to focus on the new subclass Strand. The beginning had nice punches that were thrown about and not only did we finally get FULLY ANIMATED CUTSCENES AFTER EVERY MISSION, Bungie needs to keep that, but it did an excellent job at presenting the current and new threats, figuring out the course of action, and introducing the player to the Planet Neptune and it's city Neomuna.

The first chapter (about four missions long) starts out with the Witness' fleet approaching the Traveller while Guardians, Elliksni of House Light, and Caitl's Cabal empire protected and held off the line. We are collectively getting our asses beat when the Witness finally finds out where the Veil is hiding, and sends Calus to retrieve or secure it. We (The Guardian) and Osiris follow after and sneak onto one of the ships and fight our way through to the drop-pods. This point we are behind, and are solely focused on breaking through Calus' defenses, and securing the area around the Veil.

We learn that Calus (or Edgy Thumb according to TH3JEZ) has created a device meant to either set up a link or destroy the veil, we don't entirely know what as it's brought up, and never capitalized again until like five missions after the fact. We break into the ship, fuck some shit up, and are finally faced with the thingy that we were sent to destroy.

Unfortunately, due to extreme exhaustion over our body not being able to handle the power of Strand, we had to retreat back to Osiris and the Cloudstriders while Empress Caitl's forces gave us enough covering fire and secured a way out.

That's the end of chapter one. My first thoughts were, Well shit, we're losing. Looking back however, this was where the story focusing on the veil with Strand being just a power to use began to disappear.

The next chapter begins with helping out the Neomuni by working with the Cloudstriders and Osiris, but while also trying to figure out Strand. Neomuna is currently under a threat of not only the Shadow Legion sent by Calus and the Witness, but also the Vex, because I guess we need a secondary threat on this world because it's standard to have at least two threats per destination. I think the most was Tangled Shore having the Scorn, Fallen, Hive, and Cabal.

Anyways, we fight the Vex and Shadow Legion for a bit, somewhat(?) familiarize ourself better with Strand, and then focus back on the Veil. We have a bittersweet moment with Osiris who attempts to summon Sagira, but it immediately struck with grief upon remembering that she sacrificed herself for him.

Chapter two was more or less a filler chapter, with missions that were just absolutely needed to fill in the quota but somewhat brought a bit more life to the Neomuni. We learn how to use Strand better (but we still don't fucking unlock the class), fuck the Vex up, hear Nezarec in the strike, and then continue on. This is what I meant where the story did good at really showing the rest of Neomuna. Do I wish we had more? Fuck yeah. But I'd prefer it in another season that focuses on Neomuna itself.

Chapter three begins and immediately we are tasked with destroying the thing that's meant to do something to the Veil again with a full frontal assault. We fight a couple Tormentors, fuck up their shit, and arrive to the Radial Mast (this is the thing the tries to do something to the Veil, or the thing that does a thing to our thing which is a bad thing). Rohan tries to buy us sometime while we deal with a threat, we look within for Strand, use it, only to once more be exhausted when at the finish (apparently even The Guardian has performance issues fellas, so don't hate yourself). Rohan kills himself to destroy the bad thing, it's supposed to be emotional, but considering (if this is supposed to be treated as either a couple days in game) we only knew him for like ten minutes while playing, it didn't really feel too emotional. Sorry Rohan, I'm sure you meant something to others, but your death was something Bungie kinda skimmed over until after the campaign was done.

After he dies, we continue on and finally storm up to the area outside the Vault holding the Veil. This is the final mission and it's actually really good in my opinion. There's like four parts to the outside portion. The approach, and the three defend portions. The approach is really solid as you just arrive to fuck shit up, and take control to stand off against any arriving opponents and just eradicating them. Anything that pulls up without an invite from us? Absolutely wreck their shit and fuckin smite them out of existence with a satellite cannon.

The first portion of the defensive part is only You/The Guardian, against wave after wave of Shadow Legion Cabal. You slowly become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of forces arriving when Caitl and her troops arrive with some assistance and I have to say? This was the best moment of playing with Allies that are computer generated.

Anyways, we hold off with the assistance of the Orbital Cannons before it's eventual malfunction. We then hold it off with nothing but sheer willpower mixed with some Monster Energy and Pure Meth. Two Tormentors spawn, Caitl's troops are slowly dying, and after everything, the only ones still standing on the battlefield are you and the Empress herself.

Calus shows his sky face (I don't actually know what to say, he's literally a face in the sky) and Caitl tells you to go ahead while she buys you some time. You run ahead, see the Veil, and then proceed downward, racing to beat Calus who I guess absolutely sandblasted his daughter. We get to the final destination underneath the Veil, where Calus is waiting for us as well finally fight.

We kick his ass, turn him into a bunch of roots, and then our Ghost, being taken over momentarily by the Witness, sets up the link anyways and we lose. Traveller gets a triangle sliced into it, creating a portal, and that's it. We unlock Strand finally, do a couple side quests on Neomuna, and then promptly fuck off to find something better to do.

So. Gameplay wise, I had a lot of fun with Strand. Swinging around in first person never felt so smooth and it's hilarious what you can already do with it in both speed running or casual play. I didn't necessarily care for the "Custom Loadouts" section or the new armor mods as one could already be done using Destiny Item Manager (or DIM) and the other kinda made everything a little wonky. I've yet to use the custom loadouts, and the armor mod page I don't really care for.

Story wise, what the fuck was even the point. We don't accomplish anything, we were told a whole bunch of shit was supposed to happen, and yet we received nothing on both, the lore behind Strand and what the fuck the Veil even is. (Unless you for the Deluxe boxart for the game that comes with the lore book Osiris made, but even that doesn't tell anything.) It's been a month post release and we still know nothing.

Also, fuckin Amanda Holliday got her ass toasted so there's that I guess.

During the writing for this, we did sadly receive the news of Lance Reddick's death. He was an absolute phenomenal actor and invested so much time into both his work and the Destiny community as a whole. I'll see you Starside, Lance, can't wait to see how they kill off Zavala in the future.

Anyways, so far, there's still the rest of the Seasonal mission to finish as well as the rest of the year leading up to The Final Shape. I'm hoping for something good, but I'm ready for anything at this point.

Apparently everyone hates Datto for his Elitist video, but in all honesty who doesn't at this point.

I honestly wish we actually got something that focused on the Veil and Neomuna, instead of focusing so much on Strand. What Bungie should've done was allow the players to unlock Strand early into the campaign to not only get more familiar with it as well as customizations, but sadly that's not what happened.

Raid was cool, but after the first 48 hours playing it again shows that it was really only built for contest mode. We could've had a Taken King like raid where if we didn't kill Calus in the campaign, we could've truly fought him as the Raid Boss.

Overall, the campaign left a lot to be desired for the story, but the gameplay was fun. Not being able to kill teammates with collision damage kinda sucks, but that's really it.

Next retrospective (I guess) will be for Sonic Frontiers.