First off, they badly combined the story of the second [find more alien tech] and third [Takashi ends up back on his homeworld] books. The first season roughly follows the first book with some changes in places for various reasons.
Second, because of how Sleeves work any character can change their body so Rick Flagg from Suicide Squad becomes Falcon from the MCU. This also means actors can play multiple characters when someone else uses the Sleeve which results in Mackie playing a sassy black lesbian at one point who is somehow more competent than who Takashi Kovacs is meant to be as a super soldier/spy Envoy.
Third, it's mostly a story about Kovacs love interest who really just wasn't anywhere near as prominent as the show makes her out to be, nor is she who the show makes her in regards to the Envoys.
Now while body changing does still fit within the lore of the story the choice of protagonist for the second season was shit because Mackie just isn't very good, regardless of anything else.
Ironically the best thing about the second season is Poe who isn't even meant to be in the story because it's originally Hendrix in the book but his estate didn't want him being used so changes were made, changes which were pretty much universally loved given the turnout of Poe.
Also the ending is dumb since it goes against one of the main points the Envoys stood for, but then because of how things turn out in the final battle someone probably wanted a happy ending to the show rather than how things were when the smoke cleared.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete did a comic about this in March.
Even if you don't watch most of season 5 you should watch the finale which was originally filmed at the end of season 4 because they didn't have know if they were getting a 5th season. The season 4 finale was then shot after the renewal was condirmed.
The last few scenes are very moving and the choice of music is perfect.
You can find classical music in the most random places at times. The first Battle Arena Toshinden had a lot of up beat tracks for the various levels fights would take place on which is understandable for a beat em up game.
However the hidden bonus boss level for Sho...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_CICilgy9l8
Toccata & Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Problem with modders going pro is they then have business hours and regulations to adhere to. I've seen it happen in several games where praised and talented modders have been scooped up and then forced to follow middle management directions rather than make their own passion projects.
X-Com 3.
The rebooted X-Com was a resounding success despite how similar to the original it was in terms of mechanics. While you couldn't specifically place where your base was, or build multiple bases anymore, the mission content remained faithful to what players had enjoyed for years.
Then came X-Com 2 which picked the playerbase up in a limo, took them out to dinner, wined and dined them with almost endless treats, then took them back home and treated them to a night that wouldn't be forgotten.
Then they did it again with the War of the Chosen expansion, Alien Ruler DLC, Spark DLC, and TLP DLC.
The mod library, actual character customisation [which could at times have more time spent on it than said characters would end up living for on missions], and multiple new takes on the game meant everyone had mor balaten than they knew what to deal with.
Then there was all the User Generated Content/UGC in the mod library such as Long War 2, The Hive, Capnbubs accessories, and so many more than did the same thing, offering levels of customisation you probably can't find in any other game. Countless voice packs ripped from other games, weapon and armour skins from CoD, Mass Effect, Destiny, Star Wars and Trek, Overwatch, Halo, and more.
It truly was the kind of sequel that exceeded everything that came before it.
And then we got Chimera Squad as a follow up... 🙄
And then Jake Solomon went to work on other projects... 😐
Plus Phoenix Point went Epic exclusive which killed a lot of interest in the game for many 💀
So not only is the bar set extremely high for an actual third installment, but so far everything directly and indirectly related to X-Com 2 has been less than good news.
A year later, Ezra with Morai's help uses a portal in the Jedi temple on Lothal to pull her out of that moment, presumably displacing her forward in time up to his present day.
The thing you gotta understand about Rebels, is that Ezra is so powerful he's practically an Eldar Farseer or Worldsinger from 40k.
tl;dr Filoni added time travel to a 40 year old franchise to save his waifu oc yet again.
If you want to die a quick death make a drinking game out of SNW and take a shot every time a male character gets talked down to by a female one.
You'll have taken 4 shots within the first 5 minutes of the season 2 premier.
I learned about it on here too, but from the other thread that was posted 3 days ago
https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/16c1q0NFSc/one-less-pedophile-in-the-world/c/
Not that the title gave much away 🤔
Significant parts of those expansions were also heavily done in favour of the Horde faction in terms of what content was completed.
Cata: Goblins had so much work done on them the Worgen got nothing after their starter zone despite the plans for Silverpine. Later on the Horde intro to the Twilight Highlands involved an encounter with Deathwing while flying on a fleet of airships. Alliance got a shitty cutscene of Flintlocke flying off into the distance before a fade to black.
WoD: Dealing with the fallout of the latest Horde fuckup the story was mostly a "What if?" retelling of the Horde prior to Warcraft 1, except they were just as genocidal as when hopped up on demon blood so that wasn't an excuse anymore. Still, most of the events dealt with Thrall tracking down, then executing, Garrosh. Fighting and killing various famous faces from Horde history. Then the emergency asspull that was demon infestation 2: Hellfire Peninsula Boogaloo which ended with a fight very similar to a TBC one because the devs didn't want yet another Ork finale raid after SoO in MoP, and by that point the WoD had been shelved to make way for Legion.
BfA: the first raid was so badly connected for the Alliance they kind of just were there. Meanwhile Horde had an entire zone story leading up to it. This was the expansion which had the Horde turn genocidal yet again, for the fourth time. 🙄
New speedrun challenge.