I don't get the criticisms that some people throw about the story in this game. Maybe they did not dig enough?

There will be some spoilers in this thread of course:

- The main story is quite complete in itself : the prologue is stunning and introduces the world and the background fantatiscally well. The story progress well, with several strong points unveiled, like that we are all mims, that the Ganglion is afraid of humans,  going to the discovery of the mysterious mech called the Vita, as well as the sub story about the Wrothians. The treason of Lao and its reasons going far beyond "he is bad".  The final revelation is extremely strong with both Elma background and even more the post credits cutscenes unveiling an ugly truth, the end of the humanity (for this spaceship at least) since it has been damaged since the arrival on Mira.

There are very intense and cool moments both playable and in cutscenes, like the defense of NLA inside the city against an army of ennemys skells, the fight against a giant ship going toward NLA, the fights against the Wrothians, and of course the final chapter.

I felt it was a really good and meaningfull writing even if there are questions left, it opens the road for a sequel.

- The relationship quests bring life to most of the charcters, giving them a background and expending them beyond the obvious. Your learn to know about Irina, Gwen, Frye, Doug, H.B, and all the others. It's an essential part of the story.

- The sidequests shines even more story wise, you get dozen of subplots going in parallel of the main story. There are many quests introducing new species and allowing you to watch how all these species interacts each other.

To quote some of them you got

- Sorties about a professor from the future travelling with a "back to the future car"

- Stories about a sect enrolling people

- Stories with a xeno racist wanting to get rid and to kill all the xenos

- Stories about a mysterious club of four who has hidden a big quantity of gold

- Stories about insect like xenos who need a mysterious water to multiply themselves

- Stories about two prones's clans, their wedding tradition, a love story between a human an a female prone

- Stories about female xenos able to change shapes (don't know their english names) directed by an AI

-Stories about the nopons, their greed, their adventures as merchants or a quest of a legendary sword..

And more and more and more. It almost feels like it never stop.

The universe of that game is huge and its story, both main story and sides stories are really great.

The universe, side quests, parts of the main plot, world building is amazing. It's a truly underrated game, because it has some evident flaws, which I don't think shadows the scale of this game.

Story is average imo, it's has bad pacing and it ends with more questions than answers. I agree that side missions are amazing, easily my favorite aspect of the game.

As for the ending, I don't think it shows that it's the end of humanity. If the memory banks in the lifehold were damaged, then the mims shouldn't be functional anymore. The lifehold is destroyed, yet the mims are functional.

Their memories and personalities still have to exist in some form, or they would be nonfunctional entirely. And they still have the genetic material, and may still be able to make bodies.

It's implied throughout the game that Mira is somehow special. In how so many species wound up there, and how everyone can communicate. In particular, there is something odd about miranium.

And that's kind of the problem with the story. There are a lot of interesting ideas that are never fully fleshed out.

Loa's body was fully recovered at the end when he washed up on the beach. So humanity still alive in some form as the planet can restore them in some weird avatar movie effect.

Yeah... which is an interesting idea, but it was never fully developed.

There are ideas that were not treated but for several reasons:

- The first is the particularity of Mira, but in my opinion, they should"t explain that. It one of the mystery that is better as a mystery than as an explanation. It is like it is. They would need at last 4 games to explain properly something of this scale.

- The second point is the second race who was fighting the Ganglio around earth. Who are they? Why they were fighting the Ganglion? Were they hostile against the humanity or did they try to save us? It was never explicated and it was clear from the beginning that they would not dig into it.

The final twist was surprising because they could have completely sealed the deal with the first ending, and then they added a lot of questions. Maybe for a sequel.

For the humanity, I was under the impression that the DNA was stocked in the database.... If the database is destroyed, then the DNA samples of the 20 millions of people are destroyed too no?

Is it his true body or it is his Mims ? A lot of Mims have been destroyed on Mira, did they all joined Lao or are they all dead definitely?

They perfectly could have ended with everybody getting back their bodies, but they went for the final twist. I hope it's for a sequel.

I don't think that it would've taken four games to explain that properly... but if it was, then they shouldn't have tried to do it in one games.

I don't think it was clear they wouldn't dig into it.  I don't think they necessarily needed to.  Would have been nice, but I'm fine with humanity just getting into the crosshairs in a Kree-Skrull war kind of thing. 

I would have been much happier with the story as it was.  I don't think it needed a cliffhanger, or any mystery that is introduced at the last minute.  If there is a sequel, I might feel differently, but as is, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

The data base was destroyed, so that should have been the end of humanity.  But, it was clear that when the database was broken, all mims should have shut down.  Yet, they didn't. So there is possibly another way they were preserved.

Lao's mim went into that goo to become the final boss.  So it couldn't have been his mim.