My gaming time lately has been divided pretty evenly between Breath of the Wild and Destiny 2, with just a little Etrian Odyssey Nexus on the side. I tend to always bring a handheld to work but because I've committed to writing a little every day, that has mostly taken the place of that handheld time! I don't really mind it, though, because I do like to write and I'm comfortable with progressing through that game at a leisurely pace.
Aside from my initial entry on the subject, I haven't really talked about Destiny 2 that much, even though I'm pretty engrossed in it. I have a weird relationship with MMOs, which I guess Destiny 2 pretty much is. I tend to enjoy the leveling process and fall off once I reach the cap. It happened with FFXIV (50 was the cap at the time) and it has happened repeatedly over the years with World of Warcraft, even if I haven't checked out the last couple of expansions. I think this approach is probably the opposite of most that play these games.
I think there is this tendency to rush through story content and reach a level cap so you can get into the "meat" of these games, which is raiding, high-level group content, and that sort of thing. I like that stuff, but I also really enjoy playing solo, and in the case of Destiny 2, the solo quests are engaging enough for me and feature enough story to keep me entertained. It might be a different story if every quest was simply "kill 10 of this thing" with no real motivation for why, but each quest in Destiny 2 is pretty long and involved with plenty of different objectives, even in the case of quests that aren't a part of the main storyline.
I can't comment much on the overall narrative thrust of Destiny 2 because I'll be the first to admit I don't totally understand it. There are different warring alien factions, some of which look like Warhammer space marines and carry ridiculously annoying riot shields. There are nightmarish space mind flayers as well, who most likely shoot lasers. I'm never sure, because I tend to mow them down pretty quickly. What I can say though is that I really enjoy the voice acting and characterization of the principle characters, even if they're seldom visible onscreen. The voice heard most is the voice of your floating robotic Ghost companion, whose level of sentience I can only guess at. I think there's a lot of background I maybe missed by not playing Destiny 1, but I can still get a good sense of the interplay between the important character's personalities.
Cayde, expertly voiced by Nathan Fillion, represents the character class I chose to start the game with and strikes me as a reckless space pirate of some kind. Who knows if this fits his actual backstory at all, but his quips are frequently pretty amusing. Zavala is very no-nonsense and direct, by contrast. He's also a blue alien of some kind. I think maybe he's the same race as my starting character? He reminds me of the Kree from the Marvel universe. And then there's Ikora, who is taciturn and kind of badass. I have less of an impression of Hawthorne, but she still feels narratively distinct from other characters in the game.
I think I tend to approach stories from a place of feel rather than detail. For all I know the plot of Destiny 2 makes no sense and is ridiculously terrible, but, thematically, it feels good. I like the art direction, the characterization, and the way there is a sense of urgency to the quests. The objectives I'm accomplishing feel important and impactful instead of like busy work. Maybe this feeling will change as I progress to end game, but for now I'm really enjoying just playing through the story missions.
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