Diffuse vs linear storytelling and worldbuilding are both equally valid, used differently in a ton of different novels and similar. Some people prefer one over the other, doesn't make the other by default worse. Take Lord of the Rings, Sauron has not much more impact on that story overall than Lethice does for COC1, for the most part, he's just there and caused a lot of stuff the heroes have to deal with "or else." It's not the best analogy and I'm sure someone can poke holes in it if they tried fairly easily, but should hopefully illustrate my point.
I think that Sauron is a better match for Kas than he is for Lethice, personally. The reason that Sauron is a passive antagonist is spelled out very early and is directly linked to the plot: We have the ring he needs to become not-passive, he knows we have it and therefore he will keep sending his proxies at us until he either retrieves it (Bad) or we destroy it (Good). All of the 'stuff' that the Fellowship deals with along the way is either Sauron attempting to get the Ring or the heroes thwarting his attempts or distracting him so Frodo and Sam can get the Ring to Mt. Doom. Replace 'the Ring' with 'the Champ's soul' and you have CoC2 except that Kas is also an active antagonist who directly advances her own plans as well as delegating them to subordinates. And like Sauron and the Ring, the fact that Kas wants the Champ's soul provides a very direct motivation to oppose her.
You are required to go and talk to Marea the worlds Godess who will tell exactly how the world came to be in the state that it's in and the effects it has had on the lands.
Okay, fair, you do need to do this as part of the story.
You are required to go to the factory where you learn the fate of all previous champions and that you were suposed to join them, and that they are being used to pump out corruptive fluids into the lake to snuff out any remianing purity in the land and you decide whether to stop it, let continue, or make things much worse. You are required to go to Zetas' dungeon where you learn he's been ousted for has failure to capture you and is building up an army with his fuckslave vala to try to usurp Lethice. And you'll go and pretend like none of this relevant to the games story because of course you are.
These are literally the
only things relevant to the plot however, everything else is a sideshow. And frankly, Zetaz is basically a sideshow as well; He doesn't have a fraction the menace of the Nazgul (to use the LotR comparison already raised), you literally kick his ass effortlessly in a cutscene before the gameplay properly begins and and the 'threat' he poses basically consists of sitting on his ass and waiting for the Champ to come to him, just like Lethice. That's one of the biggest flaws in CoC1: There is very little active menace on the part of any of the 'major' antagonists. We only see a handful of demons while roaming the land; the closest active sign of the demon's continuing presence is that roaming band in the desert, while Ceraph and Vapula exist in their own little bubbles. CoC1 ran heavily on
telling the player that the demons were doing all of this awful shit with very little
showing you the threat they presented. Vapula's the closest the game has to that and again she's entirely confined to a bubble plot in a part of the game you're never required to visit.
CoC2 by contrast constantly reminds you that Kas is an active presence in the world. You can't get through two of the three starting zones without dealing with at least one thing that she has either just done before you arrived (the Alraune/the Hive) or is actively doing (Harvest Valley) and she's a very direct presence in the Winter City. We see what she's doing in KM even if that plotline isn't finished yet. Many of the sidequests likewise involve dealing with the direct consequences of Kas' actions and as the game progresses, you start encountering enemies like the Painted Demon(s), increasingly powerful imps and transformed cultists to remind you that not only are the demons a threat but they're actively getting
more dangerous. The game never lets you forget that Kas is the villain that needs to be taken seriously and who is capable of showing up to do
more things whenever she feels like it. She is proactive in a way that Lethice
never is and her supposed demonic hordes rarely are.
But setting all that aside, who the hell is actually going to play either of these games like that? Have you ever played a RPG doing ONLY what's required for the mainquestline? You know as well as I do you're missing like 90% of the game by doing that.
Yes, but most of those games (and CoC2) give you some in-universe reason for
doing all of that side content. CoC1 gives the Champ no specific motivation to do anything past the Factory, outside the meta-logic of 'well, I'm playing a game, I guess I should see what will happen if I do this'. Finding the final two dungeons basically consists of the Champ bumbling across them, without any of the prompting that the Factory had.
That's just silly. To think that plot relevance has anything to do with being in a bubble. On that note who besides Cait breifly at the begining and ethryn at the WC have any relevance to the main plot?
Brint/Brienne by virtue of their home being the current target for Kas' ambitions. Azzy's content may be plot-adjacent but you're at least
compelled to interact with her on the way to advancing the plot. Quin is connected to the main plot because he was part of the cult that started this whole mess to begin with. Arona may be optional but the reason the Kervus are in the Frost Marches to begin with
directly ties into Kasyrra's appearance.
Also, reminder: The companions interact with the main plot and side content
constantly because they have all manner of dialogue and other interactions when you bring them. CoC1 characters (and most TiTs ones) exist in their own completely isolated bubbles at camp/in Tel'Arde/the ship/whatever planet they're on (choose as appropriate) and have no impact on the plot.
I'm not arguing that one is better than the other. If you think CoCII's story is better then more power to you,
I should have been more clear that that last part wasn't directed to you directly so much as it was to calkhi's claim that "CoC has a better story than CoCII even at comparative points of development". As I've tried to articulate, CoC1's story is a barely-there excuse plot to justify all of the extra Stuff.
