Like I said, the Soul Reaver team had to put up with a LOT of hardships to make Defiance turn out as well as it did. We could sit here and debate the strengths and weaknesses of BO2, but even cutting that out of the list of reasons I listed leaves a hefty amount of obstacles. The DMC-style combat and dumbed down level design were the results of marketing pressure, trying to make the series "cooler" and more "accessible". I never felt like the storytelling suffered for that, and so I'm thankful that it turned out as well as it did. Pile on the time and budget limitations, and it's a miracle that the plot turned out the way it did.

Even though Defiance as a game suffers in a lot of ways compared to its predecessors, its story was filled with some truly remarkable revelations and wrap-ups, and I thought it was one of the better series finales in that regard. It didn't feel like it tried to take on too much, or be a "best of". It had issues to address within the storyline and I felt that it answered things appropriately and wrapped up character arcs in some truly satisfying ways. I'd say it ended on a positive note. Maybe on not quite the note I had expected, but a positive one nonetheless.