The story was always going to have a hard time capturing that lightning in a bottle that Shadowbringers managed to accomplish, nor did it have an entire game’s worth of story to leverage and tie off like Endwalker. As a result, the climb down in stakes - especially in the beginning - is pretty noticeable. It takes a while to really get going, and even when it does, the characters and company you’re keeping is mixed at best.
But it still hit some emotional highs especially towards the end and I’m very interested in where it goes from here.
Combat-side, I think this is some of the best content I’ve seen so far. Even for casual dungeons and trials, mechanics still felt new and interesting and cannot wait to see how much of this translates into the raid scene.