Terrible Story

[Lycan]

First I would like to say the voice acting was good, the visuals were nice and the combat was fine. But the story was just terrible. Especially Illaoi her whole character is idiotic and I don't think there is anything I liked about her. If they make another game I hope they don't bring her back in and certainly don't make her the main character again. I will put a few of the issues with her and other story bits in spoilers. I don't know all the league of legends lore anymore because they retcon stuff so often I stopped caring. So if you know something that would help me enjoy this game comment it.

First why did she end up being the focal point of the story? There are 6 people but It seems to focus almost entirely on Illaoi, then Arhi and MF. But If i were to give a percentage of who the bulk of the main character was I would say Illaoi is at least 60%. Because of the number 2 reason I don't like her.
Her religion. This is huge it is fine to have many religions in a game or even 1. But this game apparently has several based on in game dialoge. Yet this one apparently has a real god who actually does things for people. If this is so why isn't everyone following this religion? Why is her the structure of this god motion and moving forward instead of back. The extreme message of leave the past behind and always change and move forward in this game is out of control. They have a old faith based on this. Does anyone else see the problem with this faith structure? In the game Illaoi is against tradition shunning it and even complains about it. Yet she is apart of a religion of the oldest traditions you can be apart of and that doesn't change. Every thing in the game seems to say her religious tribe was everywhere doing everything in the past. She is very interested in this but hates every other historical past that people cling to. Only she is allowed to want parts of the past when she chooses. Why exactly does the story seem like it is pushing this her small tribe were all over the place doing everything anyways? What exactly was everyone else doing if her small tribe did everything. Makes no sense to me at all. I am also under the impression that Aurelion Sol made this plane because he is the star maker. So why are there even religions. This last part is an out of game issue but since I know about it it is confusing to me.
Third she is fine with murderers getting away scottfree. This is just stupid Gangplank killed Mf's mom and because Illaoi had a thing for GP in the past she wants MF to just let him go. If you think she is like that for everyone. No clearly she doesn't have a problem with killing bad people you do it all game long.
Four Arhi's ancestor story line. It was a huge let down. We learned basically nothing about them and instead we were shown here having to make a choice to just let their whole past go forever. Why? What is this forced story narrative achieve? Now if we go with this game as cannon they can't even go back to tell us that stuff later. There was no reason to shohorn this into the story. It doesn't even make sense for her as a character to need to give up her people's history in order to continue the quest. She was already on the quest and would have finished it regardless. The real reason this happened is so the writer could continue their push for getting rid of the past because the past is bad narrative.
Fifth and last because I don't want to be doing this forever is Veigo's story. Did they really have to turn him from a good king who's wife was murdered into a bad person in his past life. What is the point of that? If they left him good it gives a much better audience hook to feel for him. Instead they try and turn us against him with something as pitiful as him complaining to her once time that she wasn't acting like a queen and then him telling her he knows what's best for them. Anyone that actually thinks this is good story telling must have no family members or friends. People get into small arguments with loved ones all the time. Anyone that would then tell one of them that their love was fake and twisted after the other was murdered is disgusting and really made me hate the characters that were telling him that at the end. It's funny to me that Illaoi is fine with talking to him this way and trapping him but Gangplank we all just have to forgive that guy. Who by the way is going right back to his old ways.

[kukuhimanpr]

Kinda agree about illaoi. her being the focus main protag for the story is so annoying due to her preachiness about naggy this naggy that and the worst quote from her..."we are all tentacles of naggy!!!". not to mention her fanaticism ended up making her doing derpy decisions especially regarding captain plankwood. miss fortune's story ended up being just basically "i'm gonna go sasuke on captain plankwood!!! period!!!" with her concern for poor folks of bilgewater being pushed back to the background.

regarding ahri though... imo her story arc was the best part of the game... until illaoi asked her to sacrifice her memories of her vesani tribe and their research to stop viego... ahri was really hurt by this turn of fate for her, but her personality being wishing to honor her ancestors' moral code of helping better runeterra with their power kinda makes up for the erasure of her ancestors' researches in the vesani vault... but ahri still wouldn't gave up on her quest to gather all traces of her ancestors though since she wants to return to shadow isle at the ending to continue her quest. no idea how riot will retroactively incorporate her updated lore from this game into the infamously badly written grand event rise of the sentinels. but my own headcanon just simplify it by ahri secretly helping the sentinels against viego thresh 2.0. and regarding thresh... i was really disappointed thresh had no unique dialogue with ahri in this game when the team confronts him... considering that thresh was the man/demon amalgamation responsible for the whole ruination incident which most likely also wiped out all of ahri's vesani ancestors... wasted opportunity there riot...

yasuo, pyke and braum's story feels like sidequest stories. but their story arcs were quite simple and to the point, contributing to each of their character developments. so i had no problem with their story arcs. though honestly braum being added into the the team was probably the weirdest decision by the devs... as weird as viego and thresh's decision to work with vex the ultimate emo teenage yordle who feels really out of place in the rise of the sentinels event...

about viego, i never liked the simpy yandere king. his story is basically a yandere temperamental dark lord getting lucky enough to have the biggest empire in the past with vast hoard of dark artifacts that makes him op... and then he ended up being manipulated by thresh and become one track king who were only obsessed with having isolde forever by his side no matter what. its a huge letdown that so much of runeterra world development was ruined by this terrible villain when there are a few other villains that had better style and cunning to become primary runeterra villains... thresh was one of such example, but riot decides he should sacrifice most of his potential lore developments to buff up viego... its a huge waste imo... i dunno how they would fix viego's character in the future... i say riot should just ditch him and focus on other characters whose story potentials can be salvaged and improved. the upcoming project L fighting game and runeterra mmo seems like great settings to give them characters and fans the proper storytelling they deserved....

EDIT: regarding the gods of runeterra, i agree that the game only featuring nagakabouros as the only godlike being that cares about stopping viego's ruination electric boogaloo is bad writing... considering that there's a lot of godlike beings in the runeterran lore that were both active and passive in the events that happened throughout the series... most likely because of the pandemic back in 2020-2021 the devs were forced to rush the job, cutting a lot of potential contents and leaving many room for improvements...

i guess riot is still not qualified enough to write proper runeterran great event story where they should have involved many champions and other characters (including godlike beings) in the context... thats a definite problem when you have too many writers coming and going out while trying to keep up with canon and fan demands... though even marvel and dc who had much bigger and longer runs in their collective franchises often had the same problem with riot... eh... thats the downside of franchise with huge storyline variations with bazillion of writers and artists i guess...

[Lycan]

Not 100% sure how to reply @ you kukuhimanpr but this will have to do if you see it you see it.
I agree with Ahri I was liking her and I still liked her in this game but that part really mad me mad and by then I was already getting really annoyed with the game because of Illoai and what they did with Veigo's story.
I actually think MF's story especially at the end where she tells Illoai to gtfo with her don't go after Gangplank anymore. If she had decided to stop going after him because of Illoai I would have been even more mad. Braum and Pyke are completely useless. Honestly it seems like a political statement that the guys in this game were just hangers on. Yasuo got the best of it but even his story was pointless since he didn't actually get with Arhi at the end to at least make their story worthwhile.
I think Veigo's character design is really nice and it's prolly why they don't want to toss him. About Thresh I am biased because I designed a character on their forums that is almost entirely what Thresh became and they gave me no credit. So I hope they just stop using him

[kukuhimanpr]

oh... it seems you got personal beef with riot regarding that thresh-like character your made. my condolences for what happened there.
i'm still mad with viego, regardless of whether riot did worse with his character in this game or if the original viego was better. i still think runeterra deserve a more charismatic and cunning primary villain. preferably not one who were involved with stupid yordle or zoe derpy stuff...

MF getting mad with illaoi and warning her to not approach plank plank anymore was a good plot point, but MF knows she'll always need illaoi's help to stabilize bilgewater, so she still remain friends with illaoi. albeit with more wariness. the short story riot recently released (the will of the dead) that connects this game with the rise of the sentinels event emphasizes MF needing illaoi's help to purge or watch over the buhru amulet that seals viego, so at least thats a plus for MF for not wanting to get even dumber due to viego and focus on stablizing bilgewater. still disappointed with that short story though due to illaoi not seeking ahri's help to meet yorick to further purge the viego amulet (ahri would be very willing to help). illaoi made a lot of dumb decisions... its even worse that riot decide to make her a main protag for the whole story arc with this game and the fight against viego... sigh...

yes, the men are hangers on... that happens a lot in the series because female champions are generally more popular to the fans... both naturally and politically... but eh, i'm not really concerned about it, because pyke, braum and yasuo get some nice character developments they really deserved. though i wish pyke and yasuo would stick around a bit to help keep watch over viego's amulet until the experts deemed the amulet is totally safely sealed or whatever. pyke would be very willing to do the extra watch duty due to his abyssal fish overlords having him put viego on his list. braum needs to bring maokai's healing leaf to freljord people so its no brainer he needs to return back home. i wish mf would just give a free trusted navigator to braum so yasuo didn't need to be braum's guide to return to freljord... if the devs want to explore ahri-yasuo's relationship even more, they could have ahri offer yasuo her help to rescue riven from noxus, which in turn give her the opportunity to seek vesani traces in noxus... but that's probably will only happen in fanfics though... so many unrealized potentials...

[Lycan]

I stopped paying to much attention to lore when they retconed Sokroa and Warwicks lore. Then they seemed to have retconed it again for warwick by putting that stupid tank on his back. Warwick is my fav league hero but they don't seem to do anything with him. I was also interested in ASol I am surprised there was no mention of him in this game. Even though they for some reason focus on a clearly fake religion since If i am not mistaken Sol created the planet so that would make him the real god for these people in a way

[kukuhimanpr]

yeah, some retcons are bad like the soraka warwick retcons, but some others are good. the retconning of the entire institute of war and summoner stuff was really good for the franchise's lore, since it frees all the champions to pursue their own stories in more reasonable manner in the runeterra fantasy world rather than being slave prisoners of the summoners... ahri's vastaya vesani retcon is also a good thing imo since her original fox turning into human and wishing to be human is too generic and too similar with the typical kitsune/gumiho/huli jing real world legends... also ahri's new outfit retcon which feels closer to a ninja sorceress huntress is more in character with her personality than her original asian-courtesan-ish dress...

i dunno much about aurelion sol's lore except that he's involved in runeterra's creation. (though him being stupidly nerfed for the sake of balance as playable champion in the league arena simulator is just very disrespectful to his lore (and the lore of many godlike champions)). there are so many godlike and demigod beings in runeterra... i've played the legend of runeterra card game, and the number of god-ish beings in there is just too overwhelming for my mind... so i guess the writers were also confused how to incorporate those godlikes into a story arc... that, and the pressure of limited time+resources and the pandemic... and probably there's some people in the development team liking illaoi too much which upped the bias of buhru nagakabourous stuff, thus the game came out like that, not including many other godlikes and champions that should have been involved in the context of the story.

i've learned the lesson of not expecting much out of riot. and just take what canon lore of the characters i like and make my own headcanons for them. its more enjoyable and less headache inducing that way.

[Lycan]

I would agree with your last point if they weren't making RPGs now So their lore actually has to matter because it's part of an actual story I am playing

[kukuhimanpr]

riot had always play loose and unpredictable in the context of lore consistency and connectivity across various medias. well, we can only hope they won't mess up as bad as how D&D did many ef ups to the characters in GoT final season that caused so much rage with GoT fans. i'm sure the fans of arcane series would be very traumatized if riot follows D&D's example.

[Lycan]

I honestly don't think most of these companies care what their fans want. Pretty sure that has not only been proven but many of these companies have openly said they don't want the fans anyways

[kukuhimanpr]

yeah that stuff caused me to set my expectations low on all of companies/authors i'm interested in when they announce something i should be hyped for... i've had enough cases of being overhyped & disappointed for life...

[Lycan]

Indeed I don't even want new things from stuff I like anymore half the time because I know it's most likely just going to be ruined

[kukuhimanpr]

viego be like: "did someone says ruin?!?!?!" then I am your king!!!" heuheuheu...