Well at least the personal story part. I’m sure there’s still a ton to do outside of that. Considering the personal story only required getting 5 out of 23 total masteries and the fact that I didn’t need to explore any of the Dragon’s Stand zone means I have more to do there. But I also know that if I stop the progressing the story to dig in now, there’s a good chance I won’t pick it back up. Long term, I’m going to take my current character, Vale Faelight the Sylvain Guardian, through all of the story first before venturing out to other aspects of the game or other characters.

I was surprised how short the story was for Heart of Thorns. Only 16 chapters and it probably took me around 10 hours in total to complete. I would hazard a guess that the core story felt longer because chapters were broken up by level requirements. Heart of Thorns, on the other hand, only required masteries to move the story along which did offer a nice break to explore and participate in events. The lack of Renowned Hearts threw me off at first but after a little while I preferred the dynamic events.

As I mentioned when I first got here, Heart of Thorns open world felt more difficult than the core Tyria. It did force me to pay a little more attention now that things weren’t face-roll easy. By the end of the story, I didn’t find myself staring at the downed screen quite as often.

As for the story itself, I preferred Heart of Thorns to the core story. The whole build up a large army and lead it storyline didn’t do much for me. Heart of Thorns’ storyline of a rag tag bunch behind enemy lines going to save their friends and defeat a big dragon was definitely more my style.

Playing a Sylvari lead to way more little interactions than I thought it would. Surprised that was the case, when everyone’s the hero I would have thought the story would be the same for everyone. Every once in a while I was questioned by Pact soldiers whether I could still lead because of the influence of Mordremoth. Some of the story missions had Mordremoth talking to me. On the final mission, I chose Caithe and Cnmach to come with me and someone made a comment about everyone going in to the final fight being Sylvari. What can I say? I love a good redemption arc.

It was so nice to get out of the same zones I’d seen a dozen times over and see some new environments. Gliding is a fun way to traverse the map but I enjoyed those first moments in (zone name) without the glider where one misstep would send you over the edge of a cliff.

For now, it’s on to Living World Season 3 but I have a feeling I will return to the jungle eventually.