i did a similar green screen rant for Cyberpunk's campaign here 👉 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qatjbMZ53tTck2w.htmlsi=He2AuRetJx7ggyYC

Cayde was funny when he could afford it, but took a situation seriously when he had to. Nimbus feels like a person who should definitely not be given any kind of responsibility, ever.

Holy crap, writing so bad it actually convinced Jez to read wiki articles. The writers should get an award.

My favorite part of Lightfall’s story was the Witness possessing our Ghost and our Guardian just standing around like a muppet looking like we forgot our lines in a play.

There's something everyone seems to have missed. Exo Stranger had one of those Neomuna ghost things, she probably didn't get it in our timeline (it's not impossible that she did) but since she has one it means she has been to Neomuna, and she never made mention that the entire city was there. Even if is was totally destroyed in the timeline she came from the idea that she knew there was the possibility it was there, which meant she should have told everyone about it and saved us so much trouble.

I feel betrayed. All this time watching Jez, I thought he was very surface level in his criticism. This is simultaneously the most eloquent critique of Lightfall and just a bunch of indecipherable chat speak. What the hell. I am super impressed! I enjoyed this a lot!

"Spoilers ahead for the worst story ever told." Painfully accurate.

I keep revisiting this video so often because out of all the critique videos I’ve seen about Lightfall’s campaign, yours is that absolute blend of Jez-brand humor I already enjoy along with such an in-depth understanding of what it lacked with criticism that is what it is. The fact that you actually had to read up on lore also warrants me pressing my wallet against my computer monitor and say “Pay him, he’s done his homework now” Thanks as always for the content as always Jez!

“The Vex are like ants… always up to something, but as long as they aren’t eroding the foundation of my house… I don’t need to hear about it.” One of the most accurate things I’ve ever heard

Please do this more, this is filling the nutshell sized hole in the channel, I love it

By the way, as an actual, professional writer with a degree in the dang thing, you've by and large levelled many of the same criticisms I had. Only you did it in a funny, entertaining way that I thoroughly enjoyed. Dangit Jez, stop hogging the talent!

I still think the calus aspect of the lightfall story should have revolved around his love for us, the guardian. He adores us, showers us with gifts, wants us to be his shadow and greatest champion. His story would have been amazing if they would have focused on how much he had lost in pursuit of his support of the darkness, and then when the witness tells him to kill us and betray his daughter, he realizes how he's too deep to back out and refuse. He makes his refusal but the witness controls his body and forces his to fight us, powerless to resist. We would end up killng him by the witness forcing our hand to do so, making calus both the bad guy and a martyr. It would have given him the tragic, anti hero story of a deeply flawed man trying desperately to pursue what he thought would make things better.

The idea of grappling the Ghost with strand at the end would...have totally been great. Hell they could have even made it so the Guardian tries to grapple them, but fails due to exhaustion or something if they really need The Veil to link with The Traveler. Would have made it so we did...SOMETHING.

This is brilliant. "Wrong tone; inefficient; not funny" is the best summary of the story. And the statement itself has the right tone, is super efficient, and leads to much funnies.

Easily one of the best videos you've made. To see you get so involved and invested in a story you've largely avoided for nine years is already incredible. For all the criticisms to be so well-explained and presented is just as good. But to take all that, and weave through it the consistently-top-notch humor you've honed over all this time? Nothing short of phenomenal. Amazing video, thank you so much for uploading!

Thanks Jez i jumped from Destiny 2 precisely because of the points you mentioned, the story was mostly told in the lore rather than the playable campaigns (or in limited time events WHICH SUCK) so i found it difficult to stay motivated and play, the icing on the cake was then removing my favourite raid (Leviathan my beloved) and also entire expansions??? it makes no sense and deterred me from spending anymore money on the game if said money would be taken away randomly. This was insightful and as a person who studied literature you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for all the work you do!

25:31 BOTW, a Skyrim background, well holding a Destiny lore book on a rant, a masterpiece of confusion.

I sincerely hope the writers at Bungie watch this video. This was like a creative writing class but with memespeak to ease the sting of actual criticism. Well done.

Wow. Lightfall broke Jez so hard he actually went back to understand the story

Bungie really said "put all the additional dimensions of Calus into Season of the Haunted and lore books"

Okay. So I'm not an idiot. I just thought I was immediately forgetting what the veil was immediately after being told 💀

We have moved from surface-level monotone complainy guy, to a knowledgeable critism lore chad. Jez has shown more dynamic character progression in this video than the entire Lightfall campaign

Jez, this is genuinely the best video I’ve ever seen from you. Your script is extremely well written, your critiques and analyses are genuinely profound, and the editing style is super engaging and funny. I know these videos take ages to make, but I really hope to see more like this at some point in the future. Well done!

It pains me that the "vanilla" campaign is not even a part of the game anymore

Had a friend who explained his issues with the newest expansion, so knowing that bit of background made this video even more of a delight. I giggled a lot, thank you.

This is the most beautiful description of the campaign I've ever seen lol. Freaking perfect J3Z

Damn, Jez actually managed to rewrite Nimbus' dialogue while keeping the cringe energy that Bungie intended without going overboard.

The writers strike started early at bungie

The fact Nimbus doesn't even get a meme photo on the wall of jerks not telling us shit is killing me lol

As a former English teacher, this made me proud. I genuinely didn't know Jez had this in him. Well said and the criticisms were on point.

For once jez not understanding the story is justified.

Honestly I started destiny about a month ago. I got thrown into this first mission randomly upon launch cause they like to do that, and despite having absolutely no context I could tell from the moment we reached Neptune that everything everyone was saying about how bad lightfall is was absolutely correct

I thought Callus screamed "Cannolies", I thought he was pining for pasteries.

Here's something I learned during my game dev days. They don't actually hire professional writers most of the time, because they think 'anyone can write'. If you want to get into game development as a professional writer you better also be able to program or something too because you won't ever get hired otherwise.

Jez should do the voice-over for the recap cutscenes in destiny 2 from now on.

I will never get over how absolutely ugly the NPC designs are for this expansion. Like, holy hell, I cringe every... single... time... I see one of the two chrome domes just from pure disgust at their designs.

One thing Bungee needs to do is let you play the whole campaign with the new subclass powers. It's annoying because the subclass you're probably using is better than the subclass you're forced to play for a few seconds.

Brohan: Hello, strand? Guardian: Strand broke Brohan: Understandable, I am going to die Rhombus: I need his core

Man, really well done on this one. Don't call yourself a bad writer because you wrote the hell out of that script and it shows. The point about a creator being able to transfer a feeling I feel like was built up through the whole video so the point really landed when you made it. Holy hell, it's almost like the creative process you engaged in had the effect you're describing!

Jez, this is your masterpiece, it's both funny and on point, it's coherent to all critisicsms the expansion received and it still feels like your vids. this must have been a hell of a job to do but I hope it pays off. hat's off to you

Writing at BUNGIE is GARBAGE, I got the same feeling... how everything can be so beautiful in this game, (the arts) even the main LORE, and they can f... it up so well with the WORST characters ever and the worst lines of dialogue every single time with the peak of it with LIGHTFALL

Jez, I haven't played Destiny in years and you're validating that decision. Thank you for your service and the giggles.

Honestly, the biggest misstep with Strand is that took a similar approach with its introduction as they did with Stasis. I think it worked with stasis because Beyond Light was primarily about Stasis, and the Pyramid on Europa was trying to tempt us to the darkness with Stasis, so it made sense to drip feed us. Lightfall didn't seem like it was supposed to be about Strand, it seemed like it was supposed to be about the Witness and the impending calamity, and yet basically most of the expansion was dedicated to us learning Strand, with Osiris and your ghost saying that it's a powerful tool to have so we need to learn it, but not specifying why it's really necessary to prioritise learning Strand now, over just using the extensive power we currently have to help defend the Veil and learn Strand later, until literally the mission where we need it to destroy the suppressor things that are immune to damage from all of our known powers, making Strand our "key" to victory, except we also don't need it for the final mission either so. Honestly if we had gotten the Strand subclass like half-way through the campaign, it would have been better, especially from a gameplay perspective, because we'd actually be able to build around it properly and incorporate it into our arsenal. Somehow in the expansion that championed loadouts as well as more accessible build-crafting, just didn't let us do that with Strand for the actual campaign, instead we get a demo version that is basically pointless to even use for many of the encounters on legendary difficulty because you don't have a build for it. Like the story isn't even THAT bad in a vacuum, it just feels like this is the kind of story for an expansion like Witch queen, where we're getting closer to the end of this big saga, but we're not a single expansion away. But as it stands, it's just disappointing. This is the expansion where some real answers needed to happen, and ultimately all we got were more questions.

When i played on legend difficulty with my friends it felt like we were babysiting Osiris

Some other plot holes I noticed: >If Neptune wasn't transported to a different reality that the Witness couldn't find, then how did it stay hidden? Magnetic fields and clouds all operate within the domain of Newtonian physics. Are you telling me that a being who can command gravity as just one among many weapons in his paracausal arsenal couldn't find a planet? And if he knew where Neptune was, was he so stupid that he didn't think to take a small look? >Why do Cloud Striders exist if they haven't been needed since their civil war or whatever ended and they'd fought off the Vex? >How did the Vex find Neomuna? >Since the Neomuni have Mary Sue nanomachines (son) more powerful than SIVA and the technology and resources to upload people's consciousness to a virtual world, whey would they bother with human soldiers? >If Cloud Striders are such units that they can outmuscle stronger-than-SIVA nanomachines, why could they not repel Calus? Why could they not load an oil drum of nanomachines into a catapult and fire it at Calus' ship to give them their own SIVA crisis? >With the technology, energy, and infrastructure to upload a city's worth of consciousness to a virtual world, the Neomuni couldn't create longer-living Cloud Striders? Bungie has done their research in the past - even if it's just for technobabble. They should know just how massive a task it would be just to store a human mind in a digital format. ＬＡＺＹ　ＷＲＩＴＩＮＧ >And thinking it necessary to make literal human sacrifices for the sake of safety, they didn't think to keep the Ishtar Collective's defense turrets on? >How did Neomuna's founders escape the Darkness during the Collapse? >If you just need chaotic magnetic fields to throw off a pyramid fleet, why not weaponize it at the very least? Clovis Bray had the technology to create singularities in the Golden Age, and gravity is much more complex than magnetism. >Does the Witness not regard the Vex as an asset? Just hack their sensors and use them as free scouts? Monitoring the Vex would have been an easy way to learn about Neptune - other than the fact that Neptune maintains a predictable orbit and whose location could be easily extrapolated therefrom. >And despite Neomuna's isolation, they still know about the warlords of Dark Age Earth, being able to monitor Earth without their own sensor equipment ever being sniffed out by the Witness, Cabal, any Fallen house, Ikora and the Hidden, and any of the very capable seers in the Reef. >I suppose the magnetic fields and clouds would guard against an assault from the Ascendant Plane. >Why does the Witness even bother with a fleet when he could instead use the power at his disposal to open a portal to the Ascendant Plane? >Why is Strand considered a force of Darkness when there is nothing about it that's thematically tied to Darkness? >Nimbus' speech about life force and rivers could easily apply to Arc or Solar Light. >Why does Strand only manifest on Neptune? >If the Veil is responsible, then that would make the Veil a conduit of Darkness, and who was it again that wears the Darkness like a cloak? >How'd Elsie get a Pouka? >What's the Pouka's connection to Strand? More to come as I think of them. Also, my guy, it looks like something is wrong with your legs.

The saddest thing about Calus as a boss to me is the concept art. It was badass and had great ideas.

I could not have possibly put this any better myself. This video absolutely encompasses everything I felt about the campaign. I didn't even finish playing it myself and just watched someone else do the story instead. That, and the video is masterfully edited. 10/10 Jez.

Now I know why I found myself ignoring 95% of the dialogue for this story. It was so bad, that I subconsciously ignored it.

"as an adult feeling stuff can be hard" is one of the most raw lines I have ever heard

"What is pain but the shadow of joy" is an absolute fire quote!

This might be my favorite Jez video to date 😂😂 it’s got all the comedy all the cringe and it’s actually a very well written critique of a story and I did not see that coming 😂😂 kudos Jez and editing team this was great

I love how tye worst experience for Destiny players was the best Destiny experience I've ever had considering how boring I think the series is. They should take themselves less seriously more often.

Despite having learned about strand, we couldn't learn how to use strand to fix the loose threads of the dumpster fire known as the Lightfall campaign

My personal opinion: Destiny 2 has a formula. It releases the vague unexplained expansion, then tells more of the story within the 10 weeks of the season. It makes people want to come back for more story. Just this time, Bungie didn't explain enough to hook people to care.

If something is supposed to be a mystery, it has to be a mystery to everyone the player is interacting with, unless they have a reason not to explain. Otherwise it's like listening to two of your friends talking about some funny in joke and actively refusing to elaborate when you ask.

I’m convinced that whoever wrote the dialogue and story for that expansion probably wasn’t hired based on merit. That level of writing demonstrates a lack of sophistication typically exhibited by very new, teenage writers. It’s bad fan fiction that you feel gross/ secondhand embarrassment for listening, watching, or reading. Also, just because you get paid to write (“professional”) doesn’t mean your work is good at any level. Constructive criticism is perfectly valid regardless of whether you’re in the field or not

Your point about the irrelevance of lore when it comes to telling a coherent narrative was a masterpiece, my guy. Informative, thorough, and funny. I’ve sat university level writing lectures that were less polished than this. Slow claps all the way through from me. This is why you’re my favorite mountain in the Sudan.

This was more profound than the entire campaign. Also yes I giggled, more than once. Thank you, Jez

I still can’t believe a cutscene of The Witness giving Callus a bath was in this atrocity.

I am an absolute lore maniac for certain games and franchises, YET I agree fully with the point at around 26:00. Make a good, full story first and foremost. The lore should be the icing on the cake, not the vital parts of it! Make it complete, goddamnit!

Ok, real talk: THIS is the review we've all truly wanted. Sarcasm, humor, and truth. No whining, no confusion, no telling me the raid contest needs to be tuned to streamers.

Lightfall’s story is like if in Witch Queen we never found out how Savathun got the light and we just killed her with no answers. I was really expecting us to be forced to revive Savathun in order for her to tell us what the Veil actually was. But nope.

Can we ALL AGREE that Bungie constantly DELETING OLDER CONTENT from previous DLC, but yet STILL having the audacity to NOT make them FREE AND INCLUDED IN FUTURE BUNDLES the absolutely BIGGEST SCAM EVER!!! They have the NERVE to still demand MONEY for the Forsaken DLC, even though the ENTIRE campaign and dungeons have been deleted. Its the MAIN reason I will NOT be returning to Destiny until they do. If you wanted to buy all the DLC, including the new one coming out, it would cost a new or returning player over $200!!!!!! When it SHOULD only cost you about $60 or $70 for a Light fall bundle that includes ALL PREVIOUS DLC CONTENT.

As crap as the story was, hearing Osiris say “Oh.. right..” genuinely hurt. Bungie needs to let him take one of them home

In almost 4 years I’m watching jez, I actually forgot that he had a brain and was capable of deep analysis and not just being taken care of by Datto.

Nimbus really sounds like someone said "what if he like had the quips of Tony Stark with no ability to read the room or character development?"

Uhm what story? I tried to play the game and found no story. Here’s an example. “We thought we couldn’t die, until we did.” “This is the end of the beginning” “it has only just begun” “this is the beginning of the end” like wtf are people smoking thinking there’s any coherent story inside the game you play here?

I absolutely loved every bit of this actually. You of all people going balls deep into the lore to figure out literally ANYTHING that's going on is both impressive that you did it, and depressing that you had to. This is unironically some of if not damn near your best work, and I already love your content, rants, etc etc. PLEASE more of this 69420/10

Something i want to say about 20:05, what you're describing is making an Exo but the people on Neomuna can't make Exos even though they have Vex because they don't have the Veiled statue in the Deep Stone Crypt, that's actually why they thought Exos were extinct

The worst story Bungie ever told...so far

I am pretty sure the problem of "Shooting good but what even is going on" has existed for years, the second they started removing story and phasing out old content. that is what ultimately got me to stop playing. tbh, the Witness as a villain got me to pick it up again because I love the mystery surrounding this almost godlike character and wanna know more about them. the scene where they reality stoned the guardian in the ship was honestly chilling. I really wish destiny just left all of the story in missions in the game for new players to experience.

Jez, I know you might not see this but I would like to say, you are a very funny guy and your usual videos are great and I always love watching them, but the way that you combine a serious tone and a humorous tone in this video, is almost magical. I truly believe that this is one of the single best videos you've ever put up on your channel, hard work truly does pay off. Keep up the great work Jez!!

This is the closest we’ve gotten to monotone complainy guy and I love it, do these more

The whole "the traveller is gone" shit after the end was pathetic to me. We fought 8 years killing off gods and baddies to stop them taking or killing the traveller and it was a huge deal every time. Now it's all "oooooohwell the travellers dead, let's not be too upset". Stupid dlc the worst yet

The history of everything EGG refrence is peak

This video tells a better story than the campaign, Jez should be in charge of the next expansions narrative

Couldn't have said it better myself. What a wasted opportunity Lightfall was. I'm still grieving. Great vid though bud - had a lot of laughs :)

I was genuinely bracing for absolute horror knowing how this expansion's narrative was so bad that even casual Destiny fans who could not care less about story lampooned it - a feat not matched by any of the previous expansions, most of which are themselves black holes of narrative quality. It's good to see that, even knowing that, I _still_ underestimated how bad the writing would be.

"The campaign is the story you actually told; the lore is the story you could have." Thank you for summarizing my problem with Destiny's writing so well.

Jez helped me understand Lightfall’s story better than me playing through it three times. I was worried I was just stupid, turns out it’s also shitty writing lol.

Jez, this was fantastic. PLEASE DO THE OTHER CAMPAIGNS! I absolutely loved this.

THAT'S the issue with Lightfall, it is not the big expansion meant to signify a huge change in how the world works but it does not even adhere to its title. Lightfall felt like a seasonal quest more than a coherent expansion

“The part where Leia is an ice wizard.” You made the sequels sound far more awesome than the are, sir.

I love how they say “We just lost” after they all just stood there and watched passively for like an hour.

One of the things that makes this really work is that you made a very cohesive, complete and high quality video. You didn’t just say what they did wrong but you demonstrated what they should have done by putting out a complete and high quality product in your own medium. That’s cool as fuck. And you absolutely made me feel something - admiration, and pride for being part of a really passionate community.

You know, I had no idea you did this sort of analysis. I only ever happen to catch your general videos, which are funny gameplay compilations. This shit was funny and well put together. Good job.

I love how the second to last mission is a tutorial for the subclass you mastered in every mission before it. The pacing for this DLC was god awful, almost as bad as the writing💀

It's really something that Jez has better writing and story comprehension skills for Destiny's story than the *flipping hired "professionals"* at Bungie! Honestly, you asked good questions and pointed out good plot holes. Only thing I'm still wondering is if Nimbus's ribs are meant to look broken.

Great summary of the Absurd campaign. I also feel like the veil looks very similar to some of the circular stuff you see in the Dreaming City.

I'm so glad you spent that time talking about the 2nd ghost possession. That pissed me off SO MUCH in the moment. Despite close to a decade of our guardian being the best/strongest, we see our ghost, clearly acting possessed, and do LITERALLY NOTHING to stop it until it's too late, despite having 2-3 business days to actually do something

The thing about destiny is that the consistent poofing of random character and important events into the story makes me not give a shit at all, it seems whatever information we are told can simply be changed on a whim and whole societies and civs with decades of history supposedly can be poofed into existance.

1:16 killed me completely!!! "This is office window shot number 1. From the guy in charge of everything - it's pretty high up there. He seems very invested in how these events play out and he will definitely leave that room for at least once." xD

100% on the Osiris and Nimbus critiques, and they REALLY should have put all the interaction between Nimbus and Osiris during the post-campaign quest to acquire Deterministic Chaos into the damn story missions because it is literally the only time Nimbus is understandable and Osiris is appropriately mentor-like for this expansion thus far but it's a damn optional sidequest for a weapon after the story bits.

In light of the recent news its intresting to think that this expansion may well have quite literally killed destiny.

I wholeheartedly agree about lore, I still cannot believe how many fans use lore as an excuse for bad storytelling and writing, and that goes for a lot of modern franchises

This is honestly one of my favorite jez videos I’ve seen. I love the regular, light hearted, enjoyable type of content but watching him actually delve into the lore and supporting stories makes me giddy

I love the use of halo music in it, since it reminded me that the entire neomuna story has been done before, and better by bungie with halo ODST. Like the entire thing is already giving massive ODST homage vibes from the neomunan asthetic to the fact that you drop pod into the city, and that game had amazing tone.

Destiny is like when you come up with a great idea for a meal then realize you only have about half the ingredients but try pushing through anyway only to end up witn an unsatisfying half assed mess

What's really fucked about this is that in all 3 of my playthroughs, I never got the cutscene where Nimbus goes "I'm full of fury, she's got an army, and you have green magic strings." This video is like the 2nd video I have seen it in, because this DLC was so scuffed it was possible to miss a cutscene during 3 playthroughs...

This is 100% deserved by the campaign. I'm honestly glad you didn't do this as a nutshell video because nutshell videos deserve better material to be based off of.