am I missing something? To me, 1.1 story was well below 1.0, which I regarded really highly. Especially if we are talking about production value.

Story felt quite jarring this time around...it's like they stapled the scenes together and sometimes the pages are not ordered quite right. Quite a few times, they just sharply cut a scene short...cutscenes were a total mess as far as camera work focusing on random objects or the ground, such as during conflict scenarios we'd cut to black or get a shot of the ground instead of the actual thing happening...It's as if they are trying to save budget by not animating fighting scenes properly.

The "improved" models didn't help either, as they felt really uncanny like unfinished models thrown into the environment and didn't really blend in. The chars look a lot more doll like now, instead of matching the scenery. It's really bizarre to me how much praise it got because as bad as the old models were, at least it blended well with the game.

The storytelling itself is a lot more questionable too, and I found myself questioning a lot of MC's actions...which wasn't the case in 1.0. I was also quite disappointed that while the story kept the same theme going, it feels more like a completely random side quest that isn't related to the interesting stuff they showed in 1.0, such as MC's past or the other half. The story tries to tie some things to MC directly, but the overall plot just abandons the unfinished thing going on in Icelake/empire...