After the emotional foundation built in End of Sky where all five SWORD Gangs made the resolute choice to collectively defend their town against Kuryu, they are confronted with the consequence of that choice here in Final Mission as every Gang is utterly beaten by the much more powerful and experienced Yakuzas.
The franchise built towards this conclusion, every Gang since the Story of Sword had once at been each other's throat, distrust and uncooperative as demonstrated in their unwillingness to work together in End of Sky, they eventually rallied and demonstrated personal growth in their ideals at the conclusion of End of Sky as they rally behind Cobra and Sannoh Rengokai.
That was the choice the characters made and to see the futility of their fight and the hopeless of it is a gut-punch as Rude's leader, Smokey sacrifices himself to save his people and the gang rally together one last time and find hope to end what they started.
End of Sky and Final Mission wrapped up the direction of the Story of Sword nicely. Nothing explosive, nothing flashy, just a bunch of delinquents and gangsters who strayed from their old paths to fight for their town and succeeded in the end.
The franchise built towards this conclusion, every Gang since the Story of Sword had once at been each other's throat, distrust and uncooperative as demonstrated in their unwillingness to work together in End of Sky, they eventually rallied and demonstrated personal growth in their ideals at the conclusion of End of Sky as they rally behind Cobra and Sannoh Rengokai.
That was the choice the characters made and to see the futility of their fight and the hopeless of it is a gut-punch as Rude's leader, Smokey sacrifices himself to save his people and the gang rally together one last time and find hope to end what they started.
End of Sky and Final Mission wrapped up the direction of the Story of Sword nicely. Nothing explosive, nothing flashy, just a bunch of delinquents and gangsters who strayed from their old paths to fight for their town and succeeded in the end.