[Klashikari]

2.2 had very awkward pacing in general but at the very least, unlike Luofu arc, the conclusion wasn't half baked, although few things are still left in the air, so we will most likely have a rather short epilogue in 2.3

Spoiler for 2.2:

From starter, I'd say 2.2 has the opposite flaws of 2.1: instead of hyperfocusing on a single character, 2.2 dumped so many actors I'm not exactly convinced it was a good approach.
Firefly wasn't completely neglected in this patch, but I really don't understand why MHY keep making her do things offscreen even though 2.1 and 2.2 keep pointing out she has been a lifesaver for discovering the truth of Penacony and warning Acheron who was exiled by Gopher. Mentioning Elio's script just doesn't really cut it anymore, moreso that they keep waltzing about her "death" which is really getting stale at this point. Not to mention that her presence in 2.2 was a bit weird since sometimes she was completely absent and other times, she was sticking with the group as if she was part of the Astral Express.
Robin and Boothill arguably feel like they are bunch of NPC given how little they did during the story even though, on paper, they have contributed a "lot". Same could be said for Aventurine and Argenti, the latter being there just as a out of jail card for the former, which was weird. I mean, if they could meet Robin in the reef, then it would have made sense for Aventurine to be there and regroup with AE.
Acheron's parts were fair enough, although I'd argue they should have been shown in 2.1, not only to coincide with her banner but also to give more insight about Nihility, IX, and foreshadowing Aventurine's gamble (which is still questionable since Aventurine kept antagonizing her, which could actually make AE not trying to cooperate with her to begin with). That said, I really wish MHY stopped their obsession with their pseudo philosophic talks left and right, which was pretty egregious with Acheron. At this point, her discussion with Tiernan was borderline obnoxious with both being extremely obscure with their choice of words.
As for Sparkle... well, she didn't do much and the "bomb" devices given to random people had no relevancy whatsoever. My only conclusion is that she probably knew about what was going to happen and guided people around so they could fix the "ceremony" while just mocking people around for her own amusement.
But the real kicker is probably Gopher, acting as a "big bad" in duo with Sunday, yet he didn't have anything to show except when he forced Acheron to leave Penacony. Honestly, I found his presence utterly pointless and I think they should simply have Sunday as the only villain in this arc. To be honest, I'm not even sure if his motivations are similar to Sunday considering how little substance he had.

As for the plot itself, as I stated before, the pacing was all over the place. TB and Firefly reunion wasn't really there, instead we got a very dry and short summary of what actually happened, despite how TB was shook after her presumed death. Then we got the revelations in the reef which were a bit lame for a lack of better words, especially when it comes to the watchmaker.
Not only the whole pageant event felt like side quest filler, but the whole objective was that they could approach the theater to deal with the Stellaron if push comes to shove... but to the Family, their identity was already pretty known at this point, moreso they sent Welt and Robin for negociations already. So the plan was really awkward since the Family could easily cancel or manipulate the contest to drive AE away from the theater. At least, that section had gameplay so it wasn't totally boring, but it really was out of place.

Going through Sunday's reasoning wasn't too bad, but it was kind of repetitive with the questions based on "minor" cases, except Robin's. Even then, it really looked like Sunday deliberately cherry picked cases that ended badly, without much drastic examples that would be felt as "an universal and cruel truth of the world at large". Similarly, the way how they handled Penacony's past with that pseudo dreamscape dungeon wasn't particularly great and I think it would have made more sense if it was covered back in the reef with Micah and Misha. At least, they did a good job at integrating gameplay element to illustrate the situations (notably the inability to change the dolls' emotions in certain cases).
The fakeout was a nice touch, but I wish it wasn't so obvious (Fight being overly short and easy with lack of buildup, OOC interactions left and right etc). As for the actual fight, it was fine although I'm exactly fan of the BGM. In fact, aside of "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking", I don't really like Chevy's songs in general, and that one for the fight was just going with the flow and that's about it. In comparison, Wildfire still feel much more impactful given its buildup and change of rhythm.

The aftermath was more or less what to be expected, since the IPC agenda is still there to begin with, so I don't expect some fun games with Jade.

But frankly, I think they could have handle things much better than this. In my books, the following changes would have fixed the pacing and impact of Penacony arc:
-Acheron backstory part of 2.1 to make her role more impactful when it comes to Aventurine plan
-Keep Boothill for a different arc altogether. I think it would have been fine if Acheron was really a galaxy ranger despite her self annihilator position. They already had the perfect excuse of having Acheron leaving Penacony and joining the Express, so might as well compress Boothill and her role into 1.
-Involve Misha a little bit in 2.1, in order to make the reveal more impactful in 2.2. The fact he was neglected for so long with obvious hints of being not visible except for a select few were enough to imply he was going to be a "major player" in name only
-Firefly POV for her "second death" (I suspect she left AE crew in order to kill herself in some fashion so she could warn Acheron IRL in the express)
-Aventurine joining the crew in the reef to share information about the SUD monster and so on.

Frankly, everything before the showdown against Sunday felt a bit too much on the "tell" instead of "show", to the point it was really not organic.