Storyline Rating

• RandomguyonMN wrote on 2014-10-10 21:57
  Just curious, how would you rate the storyline? or more specifically how would you rate individual parts of the generations since they have very clear divisions. I am also including the actual game play quality in the scores.
  
  Personally, I would give
  Generations 1-3 (Advent of the Gods)- 5/5
  Generations 4-8 (Dragon)- 3/5
  Generations 9-12(Alchemist)- 2/5
  Generations 13-16 (Shakespeare)- 2.5/5
  Generations 17-18 (Saga 1)- 3/5 (Millia is a -10/5)
  Saga 2- 1.5/5 (that pirate crap is -20/5)
  As a whole- 2.5/5
  
  All generations have their good moments but as a whole I think the storyline is a complete mess with too many characters, many many bad quests, terrible pacing, and bad writing in many places.
• Syr wrote on 2014-10-10 23:08
  Chapter 1 --> 4/5
  Chapter 2 --> 2/5
  Chapter 3 --> gr8/8
  Chapter 4 --> 1/5
  Saga I --> 4/5 because Akule, 2/5 if no Akule
  Saga II --> i'll get back to you on that/5
  
  G9~12 had the best storyline and mainstream quests (back when Mabi wasn't LOLfaceroll). G1~3 had great story but I disliked the mainstream quests.
• truefire wrote on 2014-10-11 01:53
  G1-G3: Anything you enjoy in the later chapters owes itself to the first few gens establishing intrigue. This they did very well, and it's probably the only chapter that made a great deal of use out of NPCs and keywords. 5/5
  
  G4-G8: It gets a lot of flak for being pointless but I can't help wondering what would have been if the director had stayed on. I liked it, because it allowed a cooldown period between the events of Chapter 1 and Chapter 3. Considering that only two of the gens in chapter 2 actually had story, I was fine with it being more setup than next big thing. 3/5
  
  G9-G12: I like this chapter more for the concepts than necessarily the plot. I liked the research into Fomorian warfare, which lead to alchemical research and introduced new ideas to the already intriguing nature of mana and erg in-game. I liked that Neamhain's appearance was heavily connected to the backstory of various locations in chapter 2. I also liked the budding influence of Adniel upon the Milletian, promising that the Milletian's connection both to the gods and to the dragons was only going to get stronger as time went on. Honestly, I find the major big bads of this chapter to be more of a waste of time than anything that happened in Chapter 2, and I feel like a lot of the major moments of this chapter were meaningless as well. The last of the Parthalonians are wiped out, Nuadha wakes up and gets knocked out almost inconsequentially. Cichol is killed but not really. Neamhain is never heard from again after her powers were stripped (whatever happened to returning them to her, as was alluded to at the end of the chapter?). Once again, a lot of potential in this chapter probably ended up getting screwed over because of the change in directors. 3/5
  
  G13-G16: A giant clusterfuck of retcon. This director seemed hellbent upon undoing everything interesting that the previous generations put forth. He had no real subtlety, was incapable of intrigue, and he pretty much just kept throwing things at a dartboard in the hopes that something would stick. A couple characters were fun, but that's about it. 1/5
  
  Saga I: If I want to watch an anime, there are far better ones to choose from, no matter what genre or mood I'm looking for. If Millia had been a Chapter 1 character, she would have single-handedly been responsible for the death of Mabinogi. Tarlach was mildly interesting, but his actions and thoughts were both highly contradictory. Shamala had no impact on the story at all; she just seemed to be connected to people who did. A waste, really, especially when pre-saga seemed so intent on giving her relevance. Akule and Dowra were fun. Millia and Maike were insufferable. The magnitude of Macha's anti-climactic battle is almost as great as the size of her forehead, and I feel the need to shoot in the face whoever thought up Cessair's Heart and her nightmare fuel lips (which this guy must have thought were the most awesome thing ever, because he decided to use those lips again on the smarmiest little shit this game has ever produced--Merlin). There was so much that could be done with a Tarlach no longer shackled to Sidhe Sneachtha, but nope. Gotta kill him off and make a shota. It seemed like this installment was more interested in moe bait than anything else. And just like with Chapter 4, a couple interesting characters does not make up for a whole lot of terrible characters and subpar storyline. 1/5
  
  Saga II: The only thing to look forward to in Saga II is knowing that the G19 director would love nothing more than to pretend all of Saga never happened. Sure, I will end up losing Akule and Dowra, but sacrifices must be made and I'm sure I'll find some way to live with it. Somehow. But who knows? Maybe Saga II will suck significantly less than Saga 1. Low expectations and all that, though. ?/5
• koishi-sempai wrote on 2014-10-11 03:47
  C1: 8/10: Probably should be higher but it wasn't as great as C3.
  C2: 6/10: G8 was a pretty good gen, though a bit annoying.
  C3: 10/10 (Best gen by far, best story, best battles, best music best everything. C3 was an EPIC from beginning to end. This is the absolute zenith of Mabi's storytelling.)
  C4: 8/10 (The Shakespeare was actually decently executed)
  Saga: 6/10 (Akule and Ruairi carry Saga so hard, it's a 2/10 otherwise. Millia is a -100/10 as a character, and Dowra and Maike were basically forced into the plot)
  Saga 2: -100000000000000000000000000000000000000 ^ 10000000000000000000000000000024234234/10 so far. Gathering trash? Kristell basically thinking of FUCKING TARLACH...FUCKING TARLACH as just some familiar kid? MAKING A CHARACTER THAT IS WORSE THAN MILLIA?!?!?!?!!?!??! The fucking boar mission which was actually a good concept but fell flat on its ass in practice (rock throw animation is too laggy and glitchy for most people to actually execute what the mission asks for)
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-10-11 06:35
  Chapter 1: 4.5/5. A slow start, us slowly getting power and slowly saving the world; basically what truefire said. However, I'm sorely disappointed of Ruairi's naivety, immediately believing a lie without thinking of it.
  
  Chapter 2: 2/5. I never did G7 but G8 left off with a plot hole: Kelpie's memory.
  
  Chapter 3: 4/5. Expanded further a bit from chapter 1, also made Morrighan evil. However G12 was a bit blah: despite Morrighan's evilness we're still forced to help her and Neamhain just disappears for no reason since C3.
  
  Chapter 4: 1.5/5. The shakepseare concept was... okay. I don't get how we help Morrighan then for no reason we're trying to help Shakespeare. However, Shakespeare and Bella were just out of the blue and then Morrighan kicks them out of Erinn. All the choices during G15/16 were pretty good, helping us take the flow of the things, which is the only thing I credit.
  
  Saga 1: 0/5. So we've gotten Transformation, Demigod, Brionac, rank 1 in many skills, etc. But the Cessair still effortlessly stop us; that makes the hard work to get our power ALL FOR NOTHING! Then they make everyone turn their backs toward us, making our fame ALL FOR NOTHING! Tarlach and Ruairi betrayed us and that is unacceptable. Also Millia and Maike are a fucking dicks and I just want to throw them in the fire. Not to mention the tons of plot holes.
  The main thing that pissed me off was Akule. He practically stole a lot of character elements that Kakashi Hatake from Naruto, specifically the "behind this mask is another mask". It's HIS FUCKING FAULT we were in deep shit in the beginning of the Saga 1; if he didn't force us to run stupid errands, gave us a 'working' charm, didn't fake his death, yada yada, we wouldn't be in so much fucking trouble. Why does everyone like Akule? I just don't understand.
  
  Saga 2: 0/5. As with Saga 1 and Chapter 4. They keep throwing in random characters out of the blue, with literally no backstory whatsoever and we've never heard about them, and I'm sick of new characters who are already stronger than us, plot-wise. The Ace's personalities are wonky and cliche, not to mention Tarlach being a childish kid we're forced to babysit. He betrayed us, and I can't stand for that.
• M wrote on 2014-10-11 20:14
  Pretty much everything after the first chapter went downhill. I may have read the stories in the moment, but by G12 or so I started skipping the dialogs as a whole. Mabinogi's story is entirely wasted and completely destroyed. I used to enjoy finding out the connections between Mabinogi's storyline and the real mythology it was originally based on. Unfortunately, the story has since shot far away from anything that remotely resembles its original mythology base and is a completely random hoshposh attempt to throw in anything that devcat might think is interesting in order to suck in money. Much like Maplestory, this game has sold out and is no longer what it was or what it could have been.
  
  That being said, I don't mean to bash the game to those who still enjoy it or like its content. I know plenty of people who still enjoy and play the game and I'm sure in some alternate reality I am too, but not this one. I tried to stick with it as long as I could and when I finally did stop playing Mabinogi, it was not because of the pitiful storyline, it was because of the financial burden this game tends to cause hardcore players. Though I do miss the original storyline, the new storyline is completely uninteresting as is much of the content. In fact, looking back I can't understand why I kept with it as long as I did. I was uninterested in the game a while before I actually quit playing it, and with that, I am glad I no longer play. Perhaps if they started from scratch or around chapter 2 in some other game, I would play again lol
• Taycat wrote on 2014-10-11 21:01
  in this thread: nobody likes millia or maike because of the way they act (millia makes sense because everything is foreign to her. maike is racist/untrusting of other races because that's what nearly ALL elves are taught)
  
  i'd give the overall story a 4/5 tbh
• RandomguyonMN wrote on 2014-10-11 21:57
  Well with the exception of just one person thus far, we can all agree the writers for mabi...are not good at writing long overarching stories. So to counter all the negativity let's at least appreciate what the writers got right:
  
  All generations have amazing music.
  Chapter 1: Pretty solid from start to finish. Great characters, plot, pacing, combat, and art design.
  
  Chapter 2: The ending boss fight against the red dragon is my absolute favorite fight in the game, very dynamic, forcing you to be mobile and pay close attention to the boss while fighting to the tune one of the best scores in the game.
  
  Chapter 3: Good concepts were introduced to the lore but were not explored very well. The final boss fights of G10 and G12 deserves special mention for being well executed.
  
  Chapter 4: The Shakespeare stuff can either be seen as a daring gamble to shake up the game or one of the most laziest desperate attempts at writing by pretty much stealing from off a far better writer, but I actually prefer to agree with the former in that it did actually break from the mold.
  
  To answer Taycat, Millia has a right to be angry at the start of her story, but to be rude and hateful to the Millitean, who is one of her most helpful and powerful ally at achieving her goals no matter how much he/she helps her makes no sense. I find it funny how they could not make Millia a like-able character despite all they had to do was repeat Eirawen's story. Eirawen started as a rude spoiled brat who lost her father and her home as well as many people she loved and takes her anger out on the Millitian but eventually warms up to him/her. I could be a complete minority in this but I liked Eirawen and I am amazed how the writers failed to make so many characters interesting or just ruining them despite giving them so much screen time and yet only introduced and showed Eirawen for a single generation and made her stand out. Also the build up to the finale (despite the resolution being horrible) was good, seeing so many past characters all at once was great.
  
  Saga 1- Just like Chapter 3, good concepts were introduced but not implemented well. Ruari and Akule were great. I actually didn't hate Maike as there is supposed to be a hatred between Elves and Giants.
  Saga 2 (as of ep. 2)- Tarlach's nightmare was actually pretty cool
• Zekkii wrote on 2014-10-11 22:10
  Millia isn't simply a disagreeable or angry person, she's this really annoying, demanding, unforgiving, helpless, bossy, lazy person. The player is forced to go along with her and do what she wants when most people just want to ditch her or worse. Ruairi stupidly blames the milletian for stuff all the time, but he isn't attached by the hip constantly whining at us. The whole generation had some pretty flimsy logic and lazy writing.
  
  On the plus side, there was some of the best visuals in the videos and I liked the music. As I've said before, I like that it was sectioned into weeks but don't care for daily saga repeats.
• Sougenmu wrote on 2014-10-13 19:09
  I thought the first 3 generations were great. The rest being interesting still but only g16 of thr shakespeare ones was the only good one of the group. Course I found it real intense acually with eirawen being kicked out etc starting a rebellion. I never read macbeth so it added effect. Making thise small choices was a nice touch too.
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-10-14 02:39

  Quote from Zekkii;1250713:

  Millia isn't simply a disagreeable or angry person, she's this really annoying, demanding, unforgiving, helpless, bossy, lazy person. The player is forced to go along with her and do what she wants when most people just want to ditch her or worse. Ruairi stupidly blames the milletian for stuff all the time, but he isn't attached by the hip constantly whining at us. The whole generation had some pretty flimsy logic and lazy writing.

  
  
  Millia = Female Ruairi.
  
  We save her fucking life like twice in G17, yet she still bitches at us. I bet when she wakes up (which fortunately she doesn't), she'll still bitch.
• JADT wrote on 2014-10-15 09:47
  I see everyone is giving c3 a bad review.
  
  C1 - 4/5: Because the plot is always getting dumbed down by nexon, it was a lot better in the beginning.
  C2: 2/5 Not very memorable.
  C3: 5/5 Pretty good, it wraps up C1 with a nice cliff hanger, which inevitably goes nowhere in C4 and C5 which are half assed completely due to a stupid new director.
  C4: 0/5 See end of last statement
  C5: 1/5 Missing textures galore, La fail is invisible, and the cutscenes trip balls sometimes.
• Zekkii wrote on 2014-10-15 10:26
  Actually I'd like to talk a bit about C1. Across the board people seem to rate it the highest or second highest. A lot of the story elements were well played and the characters were definitely better. However in terms of gameplay, there was a lot to be desired. The questing system was very confusing at first, and a lot of the quests involved extremely hefty travel times back and forth. In the actual time of its release it was not available for free players, and in the current era it's been butchered but the questing system improved. I think what really made the first few generations truly enjoyable for me was the social aspect of doing and talking about it with my friends. Overall I'd give it the following:
  
  Early generations:
  Storyline: 9/10
  Gameplay: 2~8/10 (it was great when you weren't traveling for hours or trying to find the next quest)
  Social Aspects: 10/10 (maybe a little nostalgia)
  
  
  Now:
  Storyline: 4/10 (rest in peace)
  Gameplay: 7/10 (the revamp did help this, but I still prefer the old version)
  Social Aspects: 0/10 (there is none)
• RandomguyonMN wrote on 2014-10-15 21:53

  Quote from JADT;1251062:

  I see everyone is giving c3 a bad review.

  
  Think the problem people had with g9 was that it was more of an alchemy and shadow mission tutorial than an actual story line. It was extremely padded, making you do the same dull missions that are exactly like regular shadow missions repeatedly. But overall I think the main problem people had with chapter 3 was that it stared an entirely new cast of character while the old cast for just forgotten.
• Not wrote on 2014-10-19 23:56
  C1 was one of my faves before it was butchered, 9/10
  C2 was okay, I liked it actually but not as much as C2 or C3 so 6/10
  C3 is the best tbh 10/10
  
  honestly the story is one of my faves even in C2 but the new chapters are fucking ridiculous . they dont even deserve to be rated theyre that bad tbh. literally............ LA FAIL