The Signature Story Arc is Epic

This is probably old news to a lot of you who have been playing this game for years. But I want to make a post any way.

I just did the Signature Story Arc for the first time. I had done parts 1 and 2 before, but only now did me and my friend Xanthos have have our first toons reach level 40.

And it's an amazing story. Within the limitations of the game engine, it's a lot of fun and you really feel like you're part of the story.

This alone is enough reason to subscribe, it took us about 20 hours to play through the whole thing, more content than some games have in total.

Except for the Paragon Wiki, I don't know who half the characters are, but even then it's a very nice story.

I'm looking forward to hopefully Signature Story Arc 2.

The SSA isn't years old, it's actually relatively new (the entire thing is post-Freedom launch, the last arc only launched a couple months ago).

I loved SSA#1 as well (soloed it on a lvl 50 villain Fortunata ), although a lot of people didn't like how characters died. Personally, I thought the SSA added more depth to the signature heroes than pretty much the entire rest of the game combined had done. And, I liked being a Villain that did... evil things!

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Cue Venture or sufficient substitute in 3... 2... 1.....

As a villain the story was eh. I dug the gameplay, but just could not get into the story. It starts kind of strong, but falls apart in Part 5. Picks back up in part 7, though, where Arachnos, Recluse, and the Patrons proved how bamf they are.

Blueside, though, the whole thing was just a mish mash of everyone screwing up and dropping the ball everywhere. It was just awful. And the big moment that was spoiled for us, where the mighty Statesman falls, involves the guy walking into an obvious trap, set by a greasy book nerd with a ponytail and trench coat, and dies like a total chump. Then immediately afterward, Psyche's killed off purely to make room for Yin, and it comes pretty much out of no where.

The maps were hella awesome, though, and I hope we get 'em in AE ASAP. And I did enjoy Rularuu getting exposure. That's about all I can say I legit liked about the SSA, though.

Already there, I'd say.

I took my best Incarnate Scrapper through it just to see what it was like and I was pleasently surprised at how fun it was. I have been playing for years but I never payed close attention to the Lore, I gues they wrote it for players like me or new players.

For the most part, I enjoyed SSA #1.

On the plus side, it had some really amazing maps throughout the story. The Hollows filled with lava was really nice to see (and I think it should actually BE a part of the Hollows. It made the zone look a lot more interesting/menacing.) The map with the floating destroyers was really impressive, and of course, who can forget about the space map? Going into Psyche's mind was also really interesting as far as maps go.

The story was also interesting to follow. I might be in the minority, but I liked watching the numerous cutscenes and watching characters banter back and forth, like Ms. Liberty and Manticore and all the others that occurred. I don't mind those moments of downtime or missions that are mostly talking, because I like story and character moments.

Statesman's death, though, was kind of a letdown. Not only did everyone know it was coming beforehand thanks to the announcement, but it was handled really poorly. He went down without a fight and walked straight into an obvious trap. It just seemed like a waste. We should have had the opportunity to at least INTERACT with Statesman ONCE in the SSA before he died. Where was our opportunity to connect with the guy for one last time, to get his viewpoint on everything that's going on, to argue with him or agree with him or try to console him, etc? He just kinda showed up in SSA #5 and kicked the bucket. Heck, I even would have liked to have seen him at the funeral, getting angry at Ms. Liberty or whatever and talking to him then. It just seemed like a waste. His death was handled poorly.

I also don't like the fact that Sister Psyche died. I don't feel like we ever really got to know her that well in the game, or that she got a lot of moments to make her mark. It felt like she died just to be a shocking death. At the very least, I would have preferred for her to fall into a coma or lose her powers or something. Not dying. Let's say she lost her powers, she could have been around to act as an adviser for Penny.

Other than that, though, I thought the SSA's were rather enjoyable. If the first part of SSA 2 on beta is any indication, I think it's going to be much more enjoyable.

Hi everyone.

I think it's worth me saying here that in the sense of a total story, the SSA did what it set out to do and I don't think anyone has a problem particuarly with the last part, which really did go for the epic conclusion, and has a press conference and has an epilogue that ties it off nicely.

However, it's the construction as a story that I think people rightly should have issues with. The most obvious are these are the logic gaps that occur when Statesman and Sister Psyche die, and they were enough at least for me to be jarred out of the story and broke my suspension of disbelief. The Statesman cutscene is appropriately dramatic, but the placing of the Obvious Trap (especially given how convenient it becomes that Statesman a)Seems to ignore his vast experience as a hero (can anyone imagine Captain America falling for this after having seen The Avengers?) and b) is somehow unreachable by any means to facilitate the death.

I don't mind if any character is being written out for whatever reason, so long as that writing is internally consistent with the characer and isn't doing things to forcibly make the character seem less than competent. This extends to the Sister Psyche death, where not only is the player character blatantly removed from the situation so as to unimpede the progress of the story, but extremely elementary precautions aren't taken to protect her at any point.

These aren't personal observations, they're simple observations on the writing. If I'm presented with a story and I'm immediately asking questions or finding myself unable to suspend my disbelief, that is a bad thing.

I'd like to think SSA 2 will be better than this, but it's not a good start.



S.