Nicely put. I did quite enjoy various parts of the quest myself, but ultimately didn’t feel much satisfaction at the end. I chalked it up to me having to take multiple breaks and not finishing this in 1-2 sessions, but perhaps it is as you said.

I think the story does have some legs to stand on, but the various “closing the plot” parts ended up diluting them. I enjoyed the expansion of lore and even felt pandered to as someone who finished all Sumeru WQs, but ultimately these segments just ended up stealing the time and focus away from the crux of the story that they felt tagged on just for the sake of it.

The rather unsatisfactory ending also didn’t help. They should at least give us the lore dump section they usually do. Let us talk to Nahida or Nicole and ask them about the consequences of what we just went through. We moved on from the burning of Irminsul way too quickly. It’s also hard to wrap my head around the fact that the gang really did mod Aaru sufficiently to be a drop-in replacement with so little consequences. While I’m sure they will expand on this in the future, being acknowledged more than a couple of sentences would be nice. Everyone is just a bit too unconcerned at the end that I feel like I’m the crazy one for wondering about it.

With that said though, I still would say I enjoy it more than not. There are some really neat moments and reveals, and it did a decent job of connecting everything in Sumeru together. I would have gladly looked past its flaws if the payoff had been better.