[SPOILERS] Hot Take: Losomn Dran Story > Fae Story

[Ottomic]

I've just played the Nightweaver storyline in Losomn after going through the Beatific Palace the first time around, and bosses aside I have to say, damn, it makes a day and night difference for me.

I mean the two storylines in N'Erud are pretty much the same, yeah they have different endings and bosses but essentially you do the same steps if you go through all dungeons, you get the same (ish) hub areas and enemies, and the mood is pretty much the same. Starting in Dran losomn makes a huge difference imo in how that world is framed and how you progress through it.

And maybe I was lucky, I'm not sure how many areas I got by chance, but I felt like the Dran story was much longer, first getting to the seamstress, then the asylum, the clock tower, Shattered Gallery (didn't get Red Prince), Nimue and finally the Nightweaver fight. What I liked the most was the fact that you start on the Dran section, seamstress starts talking about worlds being sewn together, learning from Marrow not really knowing if this whole thing is real or what, and finally finding a door into the Fae palace where you get to visit the other world.

In contrast, on my Fae playthrough I just arrived at the Beatific Palace and yeah I started ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around with the quill doors and going here and there but the story doesn't quite unravel as well as on the nightweaver story, to the point that I just assumed the Dran sections were just areas in the Fae city and the Dran were some kind of slaves to them or something. Also I don't think there's anything in the Palace approaching how cool the Asylum is.

I even think that the two storylines could be played one after the other and keep a nice momentum and variation going, as opposed to N'Erud where it would essentially just end up being the Sha'Hala fight at the end of the Tal'Ratha line; however, imo the Nightweaver story should still go first, as it frames Losomn and its dynamic much better than the Beatific Palace does. You get to learn about the Fae which is cool and all, but I feel the Dran areas and what happens in them more interesting.

What are your thoughts?

[jjj0309]

Losomn is indeed the best world over other two. Has very distinct two storylines, compared to other two where it seems like only bosses are different. I had same as you, Fae first and Dran in the next run, and I was very impressed the way game connects and explains how those two worlds collided and both Fae and Dran has their own stories. Both world's art directions are remarkable, Fae's golden palaces and Dran's 19th century industrial feeling.

I think Fae's more like static yet delicate way of storytelling, where you read books and talks to NPCs to know about what's going on, and Dran's more like dynamic and violence where you thrown into mad world full of angry mobs and maniacs. The Nightweaver saga ends with total conclusion yet Faelin/Faerin saga never tells you what exactly was happened and the fate of the one true king and I think it's on purpose, like how Remnant 1 tells you and revolves story around the eternal empress but never showed her until it's sequel. Maybe in Remnant 3 we would know what would happen to sleeping one true king, and who was the real imposter.

The whole Losomn feels like 70% Dran and 30% Fae. I personally liked both of the storylines, and felt like then inconclusive story of Fae's more like intended, like Yaesha from the previous title. Honestly Fae's feels more like out of dreamy, illusive and fantastical like fever dream, yet Dran was more like harsh, brutal reality right out of backstreet of 19th century London. And I think both are intended. The whole Fae doesn't make sense like reality but mesmerizing, yet Dran feels more like brutal nightmarish reality that everything makes sense yet horrible. Man I love both, but I understand your point, I think it's because Dran's given more weight and importance compared to Fae.

[Hogger]

While I love Nerud most due to design and atmosphere Losomn is best from tehnical point of view. Two very different stories and good flow. Very different bosses, many secrets and good roster of enemies.

[Ottomic]

Originally posted by Vengola:

While I love Nerud most due to design and atmosphere Losomn is best from tehnical point of view. Two very different stories and good flow. Very different bosses, many secrets and good roster of enemies.

And a stupid amount of junk to roll into for scrap.

[JaegerSnake]

well, Losomn is the best world because it's actually 2 worlds. Yaesha is nice but it's the same place since Chronos and it gets kinda boring going to the same place 3 times in a row. N'erud is a very interesting sci-fi setting at the edge of the cosmos. Losomn offers 2 different settings to explore and depending on the rolling you can get as few Fae maps as possible, turning it a good Resident Evil/Bloodborne hybrid.

[Malidictus]

I'm not sure I'd call that a hot take. Seems pretty reasonable to me :)

The Fey storyline in Losomn is the most boring, trite, dull-as-dishwater high fantasy I can think of. It's even more paint-by-numbers than Yesha, and that's saying something. If you asked an AI to generate "generic high fantasy", it would probably come up with something like that. The only remarkable aspect of that story is the One True King as the Guardian of the world, but that's about it. It looks generic, it feels generic, it lacks any compelling features.

The Dran storyline isn't exactly unique, either. It's ostensibly "Silent Hill in Victorian era London". At the same time, though - neither of these settings are particularly widely explored in video games. The central theme is compelling, as well - a society falling apart not through disaster or monsters (not directly), but through a creeping presence that they refuse to acknowledge.

I would argue the Dran world is also a far darker, more visceral setting, as well. It's probably the most depressing part of Remnant. From Drea to the Asylum to the "shiny creature" and more. The Fey are given some agency to fight against the decay of their world. The Dran never catch a break.

I'll be honest - Fey Losomn almost turned me off the game entirely, as that's what I got for my first campaign. I also got Ravager Yesha, which I personally feel is the more boring of the two, as well as Tal-Ratha N'erud, which is also the less high-concept one.

[adobo]

I think its because nothing actually gets resolved. You meet the Council and find their traitor. Meet the goddess who wants you to kill the impostor king, Get dumped into this Bloodborn town looking place for no apparent reason. If you go to do the Feast event, it implies they're hunting the Dran for food and possibly other reasons just for fun. Then you meet the Impostor King who either has a split personality or really wants to suicide by hero.

In the end, killing him doesn't really resolve anything since the One True King is still asleep. We never really find out anything about the assassin knife since no Fae weapon was capable of hurting the One True King.

A lot of things are implied and you just leave with more questions than answers.

[Trichouette]

My thoughts are, I love the jester.

[jjj0309]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

I'm not sure I'd call that a hot take. Seems pretty reasonable to me :)

The Fey storyline in Losomn is the most boring, trite, dull-as-dishwater high fantasy I can think of. It's even more paint-by-numbers than Yesha, and that's saying something. If you asked an AI to generate "generic high fantasy", it would probably come up with something like that. The only remarkable aspect of that story is the One True King as the Guardian of the world, but that's about it. It looks generic, it feels generic, it lacks any compelling features.

The Dran storyline isn't exactly unique, either. It's ostensibly "Silent Hill in Victorian era London". At the same time, though - neither of these settings are particularly widely explored in video games. The central theme is compelling, as well - a society falling apart not through disaster or monsters (not directly), but through a creeping presence that they refuse to acknowledge.

I would argue the Dran world is also a far darker, more visceral setting, as well. It's probably the most depressing part of Remnant. From Drea to the Asylum to the "shiny creature" and more. The Fey are given some agency to fight against the decay of their world. The Dran never catch a break.

I'll be honest - Fey Losomn almost turned me off the game entirely, as that's what I got for my first campaign. I also got Ravager Yesha, which I personally feel is the more boring of the two, as well as Tal-Ratha N'erud, which is also the less high-concept one.

Fae, Ravager and Tal-Ratha? Man you've got the all 3 worst worlds, what a poor man. RNG to be damned man, glad you finished the game.

[Hogger]

The game is kinda contraversial. You either love it to death or hate it.
No in between.

For some of us it is a challenging release from boring and easy but grindy games obssessed with microtransactions and battle passes. Great atmosphere and tons of secrets.

For others it is a crappy and too hard game plagued with bad story, classes that do not work, overpowered enemies and cheating bosses.

As for not explaining or resolving stuff from my experience with horror and adventure games or tv shows as soon as authors explain and resolve everything yet keep pumping new seasons it all turns to crap.

Less is more. Show, do not tell.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by jjj0309:

Fae, Ravager and Tal-Ratha? Man you've got the all 3 worst worlds, what a poor man. RNG to be damned man, glad you finished the game.

Really? I thought Ravager and Doe was the more interesting of the two Yaesha plotlines. Water Harp was cool too.

Nightweaver is definitely the best plotline in the game though.
N'erud, I didn't care for either.

[Ottomic]

Originally posted by jjj0309:

Fae, Ravager and Tal-Ratha? Man you've got the all 3 worst worlds, what a poor man. RNG to be damned man, glad you finished the game.

Out of two playthroughs I've gotten two Ravagers and, to be honest, I don't think the N'Erud boss matters that much in terms of story, but I enjoyed the Tal'Ratha fight more personally.

Originally posted by majikero:

I think its because nothing actually gets resolved. You meet the Council and find their traitor. Meet the goddess who wants you to kill the impostor king, Get dumped into this Bloodborn town looking place for no apparent reason. If you go to do the Feast event, it implies they're hunting the Dran for food and possibly other reasons just for fun.

Ynow, if I had gotten any of these things I might have understood it a little better. I just got to the Beatific Palace, met the Jester, and basically bumbled my way into the most generic dungeons possible (Postulant's, Tiller's Rest, Ironborough) and then off into the Malefic Palace. I even thought the "two worlds being sewn together" the Oracle mentions were the Malefic and Beatific versions of the Fae worlds, and not the Fae and Dran worlds instead.

[Jinx]

The Fae story is more fairy-tale, a lot of the story is lore, it doesn't spell it out for you in the way that the Dran story does which is more victorian era horror.

The Dran story is in almost all ways a better story.

Being honest, I would like to see what becomes of this world once it finishes knitting together. You basically destroy the entire ruling class and most of the trouble makers along the way of completing both story lines, so it may actually knit together in a mutually beneficial manor.

That said I kinda want to see the Dran uplifted, I keep screaming at the monitor "stop ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with me! I'm just looking for a dangerous monster that is hurting people! I know I don't look at you but can you please stop making me kill you??" The fae warriors are warriors, and I'm a trespasser in their kingdom, that alone is enough, they're also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fae which means they'd happily eat your face just because they can. The Dran have no real reason to attack me other than maybe thinking I'm with the guys who are abducting and eating their people.

[Hogger]

Originally posted by Jinx:

The Fae story is more fairy-tale, a lot of the story is lore, it doesn't spell it out for you in the way that the Dran story does which is more victorian era horror.

The Dran story is in almost all ways a better story.

Being honest, I would like to see what becomes of this world once it finishes knitting together. You basically destroy the entire ruling class and most of the trouble makers along the way of completing both story lines, so it may actually knit together in a mutually beneficial manor.

That said I kinda want to see the Dran uplifted, I keep screaming at the monitor "stop ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with me! I'm just looking for a dangerous monster that is hurting people! I know I don't look at you but can you please stop making me kill you??" The fae warriors are warriors, and I'm a trespasser in their kingdom, that alone is enough, they're also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fae which means they'd happily eat your face just because they can. The Dran have no real reason to attack me other than maybe thinking I'm with the guys who are abducting and eating their people.

My feeling from experiencing Dran is that they are a parody of warhammer imperials, killing and burning anything that is unholy or foreign. Rat ogre mini bosses also confirm this.

Facing them is kinda like playing Vermintide or Warhammer Online but opposite to imperial areas and folk. Like you are a monster in their story.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by jjj0309:

Fae, Ravager and Tal-Ratha? Man you've got the all 3 worst worlds, what a poor man. RNG to be damned man, glad you finished the game.

Yup. It wasn't until my second full playthrough that I realised how much more fun the alternate worlds were. My first playthrough felt honestly like a chore, as I found... pretty much none of the worlds compelling. Well, except N'erud. I like both versions of that, but I like Sha-Hala more :)

Originally posted by Evilsod:

Really? I thought Ravager and Doe was the more interesting of the two Yaesha plotlines. Water Harp was cool too.

I don't like Yesha in general. Never liked it in the previous game, either. It feels oppressively boring to me - even more so than Fey Losomn. The Ravager isn't terrible, don't get me wrong, it's just not particularly remarkable. Hearing the pan drone on and on about "muh balance" feels like watching an episode of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. It's not BAD, I just don't care.

By contrast, Jinas' story is compelling to me because we've been talking about her since the first game. She's THE central character of Yesha, even though the Ravager was upgraded in importance between games. Jinas, the Thaen Tree, the One of Many Faces - that's actually interesting. The Ravager story, by contrast, feels like reading the Nara and the Jubhawk, Yesha edition.

[Ottomic]

Personal preference aside, I think the randomness of the game can affect how much you get to enjoy each area. Like, on my first Yaesha run I came across the Laemir Censer guy, and while I found his bit as enjoyable as a 15 minute lore dump can be, at least it contextualized the boss and the world in general. Even when on my second run-through I came across The Lament, I was like "oh yeah! Red widow stuff, I recognize that from what that guy told me." Without it, you kinda just go through the motions.

And I know it's my fault for not playing the previous two games, but I mean that's why I found the Nightweaver storyline so enjoyable, not only because the exposition is sorta baked in but also because you discover the story through the Dran and then go to Fae land. And while I dunno how common the clock tower event is, I also think it was a great touch of exposition to understand the Fae-Dran dynamic as well.

I mean I get that the randomness is great since you can't rely on walkthroughs and it helps replayability, but I kinda wish the stories were more curated as well.