My feedback concerning "The Sacrifice"

[(XBOX)zorroporro]

Just finished it. My feedback is only about the quest, not about the sacrificial mods or items. I'll start with the positives.

+ The story moved along with quite a pace, without many hiccups.
+ There was some actual story to tell too.
+ Some of the emotional and "cool" story beats about Umbra were handled well, such as the "let them come" phase, where you know you're controlling him and there is a sense of power, revenge and achievement.
+ Some of the visuals (the beginning/ending place most of all, along with Umbra itself) were nice.
+ I do like the idea of reliving memories, and moving the exposition side of the story along with some gameplay (the game you played with Ballas).
+ It's free.
+ It ended with some sense of mystery.
+ Didn't introduce a lot of characters I didn't care about. Somehow I'm grateful for that.

- The operator. I can't stand her (for me it's a girl). I like the idea, and I liked the revelation in Second Dream (which is yet to be topped, I don't think the ones after it came close), but it plays out like a young person reading aloud his/her fanfiction, trying to sound engaged in whatever they're reading. It takes me out of the game every time. I tried silencing the Operator from the menus, but it didn't work. I'm watching a character I don't like (I have the hood on, but in the cinematics it was off), listening to voices I don't like, talking about things in a way that I don't like, which brings me to...
- Too much exposition with words, too much trying to force emotion. What made Second Dream great was the long silent part where you find the operator, carry him/her and fight the Stalker. No words. You're allowed to suck in the atmosphere, you're allowed to feel the story. The emotional punch was strong, and it got me invested, since I didn't feel like the "video game" was trying to explain itself to me. I was alone with the experience, without talking heads trying their best to make me understand what happened. It was great. I didn't have that with Sacrifice. I didn't have that with War Within. I'm hoping that future cinematic quests bring the sense of mystery and immersion without constant explaining, handholding and forcing too much to the player.
- Fighting the Umbra. I'm one of those who's glad about the Plains being in its own, self-contained thing. But now, since I haven't grinded for powerful amps and such (because I dislike how the Plains makes me feel like I HAVE to do so many things I don't want to, instead of letting me do things that I do want), the fight was annoying. I could chew Umbra's shield a bit by bit, but it was so repetitive: dying, shooting beam, dying, shooting beam. Of course I'm glad that "dying" meant nothing, but it was a chore and ultimately meaningless gameplay-wise.
- The face+boobs of Lotus. Perhaps that's an inside joke, but they stood out like a sore thumb. I'm not a prude, I'm just saying they didn't fit the design at all. It looked like she just put on a weird, huge suit.

Overall I kind of liked it. If I had to give a score, it's about 6 or 7 out of 10. I had a lot of gripes, but in the end it was a lot better than I thought at some point. I severely dislike the operator in any form, especially when they speak, but otherwise most of the story beats were satisfactory for me. Thanks for listening, have a nice day and carry on!