Overall, great stuff.
There were a lot of fantastic character moments.
The biggest surprise is how much they made me care about Aventurine. In 2.0 he was kind of just this little annoying shit, but now I think he's an excellent character to the point I consider pulling just because of that, lol.
It's so cool how the two focal characters this update, Acheron and Aventurine, are really great foils and parallels to each other.
Aventurine follows the path of Preservation, but he is a self-destructive gambler. He is the last remaining survivor of his race, so it could be seen as him being a walking embodiment of Preservation in that regard, but his actions say the opposite. He might use others and their posessions for his gambles, but it's always only his life that he puts at stake, in a self-destructive, almost suicidal drive - but he always comes out on top because of luck.
Meanwhile, Acheron is an Emanator of Nihility in body, but does not really come across as very nihistic - which makes sense, because an Emanator of Nihility is a paradox in itself - the Aeon's power of Nihility returns everything to nothingness, so only by resisting Nihility can you exist.
All of her scenes were fantastic. With Welt, with Duke Inferno, with Sam. All around great stuff.
The Duke was great too. He wa a villain, but his worldview was fascinating. And honestly it feels like there are parallels to Sam (which makes sense because Sam is rumored to be Destruction too - honestly it feels like they've overall gotten a lot better at lining up gameplay and story paths.
Talking about Sam. They finally revealed his identity. I can't say I was surprised because I got spoiled early in 2.0 because of some shitheads on the internet, but also there were tons of hints in the game going as far back as the White Night trailer where his wing suspiciously had the same color sheme/look to it as Firefly, various things subtly hinting towards Firefly being connected to the Stellaron Hunters, etc. Still, would have felt better if I could have theorized this on my own and got the confirmation instead of getting the confirmation and theorizing backwards. But it is what it is.
Firefly/Sam is too goddamn cool though and I 500% want her. She's basically a Kamen Rider and I live for it (hell, her big move in the boss fight is basically a Rider Kick)
Anyway, moving on.
Constance made a short camea and it was great. Can't wait until the Duke's children make an appearance probably sometime after Penacony.
And Boothill got a short intro too, making a great first impression as well - nothing much to say otherwise.
Then back to more interesting things - Gallagher completely surprised me. Well not there being a twist, Shaoji insisting that he's the most normal dude ever in the livestream pretty much outright says that he is not at all ordinary, but man the nature of that twist was so god-damn interesting. I really want to know what he is and how much of what he told us is actually the truth. Some of the backstory of Penacony he told us sounds believable on paper as it also lines up with what's "hidden" inside the Hanu books, but who knows!
He's connected to the Something Unto Death and kind of came across villainous in the scene with Sunday, but at the same time not really (at the end of the day he's sending Sunday to Robin).
Sunday was also
very interesting. He's giving off religious zealot/inquisitor vibes. I found it interesting that he genuinely seemed to believe "Death" in the dreamscape was real and Robin actually died. Either he's a great actor or he's being played too by someone even higher up the chain. Great stuff.
Which then leads us to "Death". I found the death scenes of 2.0 the weakest parts of the story there, because the concept of "what does death mean in a dream" hadn't really been well established at that point. I kinda get it, because it's a big part of the mystery in 2.1 and I find the entire thing incredibly interesting conceptually, but it does leave the 2.0 scenes kinda muddy unfortunately.
The dreamworld has pretty much been likened to an ocean a few times, with for example the loading screens whenever you switch between dream and reality, the whales swimming around and gravity being weird when you first enter until the "Harmony" stabilizes you, implying we're "diving" into the dreamworld.
The Penacony dreamworld we know is just a small area close to the surface but below there is still the whole deep-sea. "Death" is one way to make you dive down further into that part of the dreamworld is what Aventurine has proven in the end - he looked at sleep as a "rehearsal for death", which can be taken as death being a deeper sleep, so sinking deeper down into the big ocean that is the dream.
The Family doesn't want this though, so they have built a "net" that normally catches people that sink down that far via "Death" and just sends them all the way up instead (waking up). But Acheron and Something Unto Death are apparently so strong that when they kill you in the dream, they shred that net and "sink" you without the Family being able to intercept.
I'm super curious about how this will continue. There are soooo many potentially interesting plot threads going on and being set up. Robin and Sunday will meet up in the deep dream. Firefly will probably take us there too. Boothill is gonna arrive and possibly clash with Acheron. Aventurine is gonna do things. The IPC has a fleet ready to take over Penacony. The Watchmaker and Gallagher. Sparkle being a wild-card running around in the background still. And probably way more.
Also we randomly got a Jade design reveal and goddammit I need her. Suddenly this game makes me want to collect all the IPC characters
And I swear, if we don't get Cornerstone transformation forms for all the Stonehearts over the course of the game my disappointment will be immeasurable.
