Vault of Glass: How could I possible criticize the Vault of Glass? I don't think I can... I mean, some parts took a bit too long? Like the Oracles maybe? Even that tho, I'm stretching to find that complaint. The Vault of Glass was a truly beautiful raid. Starting on the surface of Venus and diving oh so deep toward it's core was a really amazing way of setting the first Destiny raid up. I would like to say though, that of all the race-themed raids in Destiny, the Vault of Glass would have been the easiest to get right. The Venus setting mixed with the robotic Vex.... I mean... That combination is god-like in terms of setting. There's no way you could mess it up! The raid had the perfect distribution of boss and non-boss encounters. The mechanics were cool and required quick thinking and aiming, but they weren't too drawn out or over complicated. The huge drop right after you defeat the Templar will be something that I never forget. I remember walking up to the drop with my friend when we were being carried for the first time and we sorta looked at each other and said "Where do we go? Surely not down there?" and yeah well, we dropped and it was just freaking awesome. The Atheon fight had the perfect mechanic of giving us constant super while in the damage phase... I'm sure you guys at Bungie want to do that again! But if I were you I would definitely be scared of critics saying you just rehashed an old mechanic... I wonder if it would be worth the complaints? It's such an awesome idea. But yeah teleporting to the past and future was a fantastic idea and being able to kill Atheon quicker the more you leveled up did wonders for world building and character progression. It made it feel like I was a real person in this world who was getting stronger. A fantastic raid. Crota's End: I think Crota's End is the perfect example of quality > quantity. Now I know that there were many cheeses for this raid.... The bridge section was kiiiiind of a joke.... However, when you did it legit it was really cool! The setting was amazing! I remember when I got the game late and had no idea what a raid was, so I jumped into Crota's End after seeing a video of a Hunter stealthing through the lantern section and getting to the next part like that. I did that and spent probably an hour taking screenshots of the bridge area. The whole area was really cool. The lantern section at the start is the second most unique encounter of all the raids so far and was really really fun. Beyond that, the raid was good. It was short, but each encounter felt sort of like... "This is how it's supposed to be, this makes sense, yep this is cool"... Basically there weren't really any complaints to be had! Crota was a good boss with a cool mechanic, damaging him with Ghorns always felt cool and empowering. A solid raid, but certainly the least ambitious. King's Fall: Oooooh baby! King's Fall! My god. The sheer awe that took place among the Destiny community when this badboy released will always be something that I remember. We all knew that Destiny could be an amazing game and this raid proved it. While it wasn't perfect, with the required four phases of Oryx being something that is easy to complain about, the size, the setting and the atmosphere of the whole place was just phenomenal! I reckon, if the environment you're in makes you look up at some point, without there being some objective forcing you to look up, then the environment is good. I think every room I walked into during that raid had me looking up at the roof at some point. I think it's because I wanted to really take in the scale and the setting? After seeing what was in front of me I wanted to see more! I don't know, maybe that's weird... Aehh forget it lol. The place was huge! Yeah! Each boss felt like a wall. They felt like a really powerful force that we would definitely struggle to overcome. Like you were always facing the odds with uncertainty. This raid kept you on your toes. Warpriest... The first boss of the raid... Felt like a more powerful encounter than even Crota... At least to me anyway. Golgoroth is still my favourite boss encounter. The mechanics are just so good. I love the idea of having to get his gaze to make him face your team so that they can do damage. The scale of the boss area was perfect. Not too tight, not too roomy. It kept the adrenaline pumping and you felt relieved after doing each bit of damage, as you were getting closer and closer to beating him. I suppose... If I'm being picky, I could complain about the fact that the mechanics for the Sisters was so similar to that of the mechanics in the Oryx fight... But they also worked as a tutorial on how to beat him. I can forgive it! Kings Fall was an awesome and purposeful raid. In fact, I think it's the only raid which was hyped up through actual story telling before it released. The Leviathan had a great opportunity to do this as well but from what I've heard from the D2 community it fell short of this. We all knew who Oryx was and we knew that he was a very bad man! He was related to Crota who we killed before so for him, we knew it was personal. There was a real feeling of war between us and him. This made the raid all the more intense. Oh, and lets not forget the imfamous platforming! THE SHIPS! That part was -blam!-ing amazing (excuse my language). That will always be etched into my memory. When someone starts talking about some cool section of some other game with good platforming I'm always going to be reminded of the ships in King's Fall, and I will be sure to tell them about it. Kings Fall: A++++++ Wrath of the Machine: Another case of Crota's End's quality > quantity, but this time, there was a lot! So the quantity part doesn't mean a whole lot in that saying. The first boss was pretty good but I'm gonna cut right to the Zamboni. This part of Wrath of the Machine is my personal pick for the most unique and interesting raid encounter so far. My only wish is that we could have seen it first hand rather than in a trailer.... But maybe at that part of Destiny's life cycle it needed to be in a trailer to bring people back... Who knows? I wonder how many people at Bungie said the Zamboni part would be impossible to get right before they started actually working on it. Maybe none, but I can see it as being a very different thing for game designers to create. This raid featured some good falls like in Vault of Glass. I really like those falls man! Something about them just makes for a good sense of scale and world building! Maybe in the future we will start at the bottom and go to the top???? Could be good Bungo! Spiderman, for me, is probably the coolest looking boss so far. I know that Calus looks like a total pimp but I'm a huge fan of sci-fi/robotic looking stuffs like the Vex so SIVA was another great setting for a raid in my book. The mechanics for the boss fight and the part before it with the different elemental servitors was fantastic. That boss fight was seriously fun. Maybe the most enjoyable boss fight so far (But Golgoroth...)? The empowerment buff was a little bit annoying to communicate and get everyone into the right spots so frequently, but when it flowed it was one of my favourite encounters ever. Leviathan: Weeeelll I haven't played this one yet because I'm waiting for D2 on PC! So I know you're thinking WELL THIS REVIEW IS USELESS THEN!........... But I've watched plenty of videos on it and seen PLENTY of complaints about it. I won't say much about it (because I can't really...). I was going to, but I'm hella tired and don't want to :D. The raid looks incredible. The setting is amazing. I was really curious to see what you would do for a Cabal raid and you did not disappoint. Definitely (almost?) on par with the awe that Kings Fall created when seeing it all for the first time. I'm not a very fussy person. I like to just go with whatever and enjoy gaming with my friends. All that the raid needs to do for me is be challenging, look amazing and feel good to play. From the looks of it and comparing it to other raids, it absolutely nails those things. However, I've heard that it can be quite buggy. With the final boss fight, having people get flung to the side during the shadow realm part should probably be addressed. Stealth sections in games like the Pleasure Gardens have to be so finely tuned it's ridiculous, you guys took a real risk making this part. Usually in raids, if you die or fail, you know why. If players are sitting there getting frustrated and asking "HOW?!?! HOW DID IT SEE ME?!?!" then they're going to get fed up with it pretty quickly. Once you start feeling like it's the games fault and not yours, it gets very tedious, very quickly. What if you could absorb some of the stacks (like 5 or 10?) you get when you feed a plant to go invisible for like 5 seconds or something, just to give the players a bit more control over the Beasts seeing them or not? Idk, but that and the shadow realm part from the final boss could do with some fine tuning! The raid looks phenomenal though and could easily make it into my top 3 if you sort these things out. Order of what I think the best raids are: Vault of Glass, Wrath of the Machine, Leviathan, Kings Fall, Crota's End Order of what my favourite raids are: Kings Fall, Wrath of the Machine, Leviathan, Vault of Glass, Crota's End Obviously I haven't played Leviathan yet so I'm going by what I've seen. Thanks for the read! Good luck to you Bungie, I hope the next few years of D2 are a blast for you guys as well as us!