[relentlessflame]

Won 50/50 on Acheron, but lost the 75/25 on the LC, so will have to pull more later for that.

Spoiler for Small tip to prepare for the final 2.1 battle and the party I used, but no details:

Bring characters that attack multiple targets (whether via their attack/skill or their ult). I personally did Jingliu, Jing Yuan, Gepard, and Luocha, which certainly wasn't the best, but slow-and-steady took the boss down. Being unprepared for the mechanic can quickly do you in in the second phase.

Spoiler for Patch 2.1 Trailblaze Mission First Thoughts:

Well, my craziest theory didn't happen, but I didn't really think it would -- though it was in the realm of possibility.

Honestly, you could kind of argue that this whole chapter was a character quest for Aventurine and Acheron that wove in the mysteries/reveals of the story, and on the whole I thought it was pretty good. Obviously Aventurine needed the character development, and I think they were pretty successful on that front. Really, the whole thing all along was a giant death flag for him, and they even had him coming to terms with "himself" for introspection near the end. But if there was ever any doubt before about "deaths" in this arc, it should be abundantly clear now: death is not the end, but the answer. So we will no doubt see more "deaths" between now and the end, but it'll just bring us closer to the truth that lurks beneath this dreamworld.

(Cynically, spending so much time with Aventurine forced in the party could be seen as a way of promoting his character for the upcoming gacha, but honestly a tank/shielder like that is pretty safe to throw into any party. Was also a small segment with Acheron to promote her honestly slightly OP "kill normal enemies with your skill" overmap skill... so yeah, as far as "ads" go, I'd say this is pretty effective.)

Acheron being an Emanator of Nihility (IX) was kind of the worst kept secret given the trailers laid it on quite thick (the last one even had "Self-Annihilator" in faint text on her title card), but I think things still aren't 100% clear. What is the "red text" trying to do as it guides us in a certain way? But besides that, very good scenes with Welt Yang that also tied in some HI3 lore about who he really is. Aventurine casting aspersions on her was misdirection, and I don't think they're going to pull any sort of twist where she's anything but an ally to the Express. However, if we assume that the person on the "call" with Black Swan was our other Galaxy Ranger showing up in 2.2, well, they didn't show up yet... but it sounds like it's not going to be friendly.

Regarding Robin, between what she said in her letter and what we know from Aventurine, I think we can start to picture what happened. I suspect she wasn't actually "murdered" in the way Sunday thinks, but she essentially staged her own death so she could cross the barrier and get to the bottom of the issue with SUD. This would no doubt put her at odds with her brother, and perhaps with The Harmony itself, who just seems to want to root out/kill the Watchmaker once and for all.

Gallagher's reveal was... quite something, although they didn't really do much to hide the contempt he has for The Family. The reveal that Mikhail is actually the Watchmaker isn't that surprising. There's a suggestion that he ended up dying IRL, but as we've seen before your spirit can survive in the dreamworld, so I'm supposing that's where they'll go with this, combined with the above point. It seems that "the waking world" that Acheron alluded to at the start is actually where you arrive after you pass through death in the dreamworld -- and presumably to the "truth" of Penacony. The mysteries run deeper...

And the "unmasking" of Sam in the closing scene was a pretty obvious hook for the To Be Continued. The monologue changes if you revisit the "special place" after finishing the story.

All in all... a good continuation, at least from my point of view. It maybe wasn't quite as exciting as the first act in some ways (though still had a few good reveals), but it's a good development of both the theme and the underlying mystery.

Spoiler for Patch 2.1 thoughts about new maps/puzzles/etc.:

Honestly, if there's one kind of weak spot of 2.1 IMO, it's that the new maps are mostly reskins of existing maps/ideas and almost all the mechanics were the same. Without the novelty of the first time, it felt a little bit tedious at times to me. They seem to have mostly made the Clockie puzzles a bit easier. I did like that they gave Hanu the bazooka though, because I don't really like this kind of stealth that much (even if it's simple).

The model-size town, though, we pretty funny as a little twist. There was also a new mini-game that apparently has more levels.

Edit: Just for fun regarding these predictions:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I guess my instinct says that he's going to be right about a lot of things, but wrong about some critical piece, but less because of willfully lying to us but because he actually doesn't know and is his just bluffing his way though. They keep pointing out he's a gambler, so even though he may only know ~60% of the facts or whatever, he's going to be willing to roll the dice. Just the fact that they're portraying him as so over-the-top-shady makes me think he's not going to be as full-of-it as one might believe (just like I think about Sparkle too, incidentally -- I think there is some sincerity in what she's doing despite her "foolish" methods).

[...]

Anyway, I suppose to be contrarian, I'll predict that neither Boothill or Acheron will know the other, but Boothill will offer the explanation that they're basically "lone rangers" (parden the pun...) who operate independently these days, so it's not surprising that they've never met each other. That explanation makes it a sort of a fake-out. But whatever the truth is either way, Boothill will end up being important later.

Spoiler for 2.1 Plot - How it turned out...:

I was right that Aventurine was "right about a lot of things, but wrong about some critical piece" but 100% wrong about the reason: him pitting the murders on her was actually the big lie. He was totally right about her being an Emanator and being the one who killed Ifrit and the gang. They portrayed it as the Gang willfully choosing to fight rather than just hand over the box and run away when she gave them the option, but she definitely killed them all.

The sincerity in what Sparkle is doing is absolutely clear now. She knows exactly what's going on with this dreamworld and, in her foolish ways, is trying to lead everyone to the end. The real question I guess is: who is she working for? I suppose the easy answer here is the Watchmaker. Perhaps the slightly more out-there answer would be Robin. We know now that Robin was investigating SUD, so if we assume that she purposefully allowed herself to get killed so she could cross over to the other side, perhaps what she found is what caused her to reach out to Sparkle and try to manipulate people to crossing over without doing anything overt. Working through a fool means no one will question it. I wonder if, perhaps, the thing that Sunday is most angry about isn't actually that Robin got killed literally, but that Robin now knows the truth that they were trying to hide from her for whatever reason, and it'll disrupt The Harmony. It's either that or the truth has also been withheld from Sunday as well so he legit doesn't know what's on "the other side" (only that people who die to SUD in the dream become "spiritually dead" from his point of view).

As for Boothill, if we assume that he was the person speaking on the phone to Black Swan (which seems very likely, as he otherwise wasn't introduced yet and we know he's going to appear in 2.2), then my speculation here was totally wrong, and what I originally suspected is closer to the truth. Not only does he know who Acheron is, he considers her an enemy. And as for Acheron being a Galaxy Ranger... it's basically a cover story. Galaxy Rangers walk the path of the Hunt, but the real Acheron walks the path of the Nihility -- the Galaxy Ranger is just what she's "known as" but not who she is.

So anyway, all in all... pretty close? They're sticking very close to the formula of making sure everyone one involved is some variation of grey in the end rather than being pure black-or-white.