This needs some sort of DLC to give closure on the story (spoilers)

[a694]

Mainly Sable's fate; I know it's implied that he died considering what we last hear of him, but we see nothing of him nor any mention of him in the ending cutscene. Since Voodoo had an interest in him, is he potentially with that cat?? And if he's for sure dead, then why don't they wrap that up fully in the end??? Kinda depressing of an ending but I am hopeful

[helm_breaker]

Agreed. The entire ending and epilogue feels too rushed, as if they cut out having an actual ending due to time or budget constraints.

Not only did we not get any closure on Sable, we also didn't get any closure on a lot of other characters too.

What about Jethro and the Golden Hands? Did Jethro survive after getting blown up at Dreamer's Keep?

What about Tybrious? Has he been punished for his crimes in killing "defective" Valhallans?

What about Vassago? Whose side was he really on?

What about Vena?

[a694]

Originally posted by helm_breaker:

Agreed. The entire ending and epilogue feels too rushed, as if they cut out having an actual ending due to time or budget constraints.

Not only did we not get any closure on Sable, we also didn't get any closure on a lot of other characters too.

What about Jethro and the Golden Hands? Did Jethro survive after getting blown up at Dreamer's Keep?

What about Tybrious? Has he been punished for his crimes in killing "defective" Valhallans?

What about Vassago? Whose side was he really on?

What about Vena?

I'm someone who's used to a lot of subtle deep lore connotations from my several years combing through Genshin lore like a schizophrenic, so from my confirmation-bias riddled mind most likely fate for Sable is that he's with Voodoo, and getting him from that thing's grasp may be the driving motivation behind a future DLC. Makes sense from a story perspective since why else would Tevi and Celia become involved in a future plot , but that may just be cope 😭

But yeah, for sure on everything else too

[helm_breaker]

The plot overall is easily the worst part of this otherwise excellent game. I particularly hated how it turned out that the real villain was revealed via not one, but TWO fakeouts.

First it was a fakeout to reveal that Queen Tahlia (who the game never even mentioned literally once prior to her reveal) was behind everything.

BUT THEN....ACKSHUALLY.....the real villain isn't Queen Tahlia! Have another fakeout! The real evil is Revenance! It felt like the end of Final Fantasy 9 with the surprise reveal of Necron.

The sad thing is, the premise of Tevi's plot is good. And the world and setting is also interesting. If only the writer had some kind of an editor willing to tardwrangle the script, we could have had something really solid.

[Darkshadovv]

Tybrious... can't really be touched when Amaryllis basically enables him to do as he pleases. But the ending does say Celia is trying to overthrow him and make a change in Valhalla's ranks.

"Queen Dahlia" was kinda foreshadowed, Vassago wasn't lying when he said he had no idea why she was there and calls Sable's brother a two-timing traitor in the same moment. I'm not sure I would've appreciated the real Dahlia being evil when Anton makes it clear she's not racist. I can kinda get behind springing up Tahlia, since her entire motivation is being jealous of living in her sister's shadow, but she definitely needed more screentime.

Tahlia harboring/siding with decay and spectres was explicitly shown in the opening cutscene, but they can totally write out Revenance (decay gaining sentience) while still being able to make Tahlia the nightmare decay final boss and I don't think anything would change. At least let us read Zema's final notebook.

As for Sable... during the last stretch of credits you can vaguely see Voodoo's shadowy silhouette taking him away which seems like a DLC hook. Surely, with Tevi being the granddaughter of the two most powerful mages of Az, she can totally fix Sable.

Other than that yeah the finale was just horribly rushed. But I still cling onto the glimmer of hope for patches.

[searinox]

Originally posted by Darkshadovv:

"Queen Dahlia" was kinda foreshadowed, Vassago wasn't lying when he said he had no idea why she was there and calls Sable's brother a two-timing traitor in the same moment. I'm not sure I would've appreciated the real Dahlia being evil when Anton makes it clear she's not racist. I can kinda get behind springing up Tahlia, since her entire motivation is being jealous of living in her sister's shadow, but she definitely needed more screentime.

I mean Dahlia being evil was also kinda foreshadowed - another Ulskan NPC was going "I was there in Ana Thema that night, it was her, she unleashed the decay, why doesn't anyone believe me?"

(Unless they just didn't know there were two royals... but honestly that whole situation is weird. At least part of the Charon/Tahlia union was to provide him legitimacy, so surely her existence was known, but at the same time it's like Charon and Dahlia are the only ones who know Tahlia even exists?
...I don't even get why Charon would leave Tahlia behind if he didn't know she was behind the rebellion. One of the greatest magicians Az has ever seen didn't have magic to carry two people?)

But at the same time, Big Bad Dahlia wouldn't even need to be particularly evil at all? She wouldn't need to be racist or anything, all she would need is enough motivation to try and fire up Elysium. If anything the reverse could've easily been tied into her motivations - basically right after the rebellion the Ulskan massacre happened so despite all her policies the human-beastkin relations were still a complete dumpster fire during her reign, and that's one of the potential motivations to "fix the world" right there. The decay and spectres could've easily been explained by Elysium being improperly cast for whatever reasons - some disagreement between Charon and Dahlia, perhaps. Tahlia is honestly just as tacked on as Revenance, with the only difference being that she got a bit more screentime.

Originally posted by Darkshadovv:

Surely, with Tevi being the granddaughter of the two most powerful mages of Az, she can totally fix Sable.

Lol Tevi is barely worth anything. She instantly loses against Vassago and Amaryllis the moment they go serious, fails against Charon, and would fail against Revenance too if Zema didn't pre-package a solution for her. She couldn't fix Sabrina, either. Even Memloch was like "Only someone from the royal family can release me. As you are right now, you can't do ♥♥♥♥". If anyone, Dahlia would have better chances at that

[SinglePoorIan]

Could have sworn that Tevi is Thalia's daughter not Dhalia's because Dhalia gave Thalia's secret daughter a necklace and her mother discarded her once he plans were in motion.

This means that most of magic comes from Charon because Thalia confirms that she doesn't have as much mana as her sister which is why needed that sword to steal Charon's.

So Tevi is strong enough but still has a lot to learn considering that it was Zema not Charon who tutored her in magic.

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One of things that I find odd is the relationship between angels and demons because Amaryllis was made by Charon after the rebellion to keep track of the astral gears and its implied that defective angels(like Fray) are demonifed by Barbados(? I forget his name) but then who made Vassago? But that demonification deal is AFTER their long and destructive war. This feels like a chicken and egg situation.

But for some reason he operates on demons too as Sable was his target but overall he was swept under the rug and forgotten about.

The story was intriguing up to finding Dhalia's flute when it focused on the human/beastkin conflict and started backsliding after that.

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Now that I think about it, what was Charon's motivation for Eilodion beyond just for science? Who was he trying to help considering that Dhalia was alive after abandoning Thalia in the fire. He mentioned he had an odd wish to Zema and if Zema knew about Revenance then why didnt he let Charon know? How did Thalia get enough mana to start the rebellion? Hmmm, so much they could have talked about if they focused on what happened 30 years ago.

[a694]

Originally posted by Darkshadovv:

"I can kinda get behind springing up Tahlia, since her entire motivation is being jealous of living in her sister's shadow, but she definitely needed more screentime."

"Tahlia harboring/siding with decay and spectres was explicitly shown in the opening cutscene, but they can totally write out Revenance (decay gaining sentience) while still being able to make Tahlia the nightmare decay final boss and I don't think anything would change. At least let us read Zema's final notebook."

"Other than that yeah the finale was just horribly rushed. But I still cling onto the glimmer of hope for patches."

I think one thing that could have been interesting, and maybe they could add in a future patch, would be if we could find discarded notes from Zema throughout certain game areas as extra secrets. Which would vaguely foreshadow the ending plot, and then would be tied up as a form of confirmation with being able to read Zema's notes. (aka it would only be hinted that they are from Zema, but not explicitly confirmed before those big reveals)
But alas that isn't the case, would be neat if they added that though.

[a694]

Also, the most important thing (other than Sable ofc);
Vena rematch, need to beat up that cat a proper second time like we promised several times (maybe without that exact wording)

[Pawtacle]

Originally posted by searinox:

Lol Tevi is barely worth anything. She instantly loses against Vassago and Amaryllis the moment they go serious, fails against Charon, and would fail against Revenance too if Zema didn't pre-package a solution for her. She couldn't fix Sabrina, either. Even Memloch was like "Only someone from the royal family can release me. As you are right now, you can't do ♥♥♥♥". If anyone, Dahlia would have better chances at that

I guess I have pretty low standards for writing because I liked the story... This is my only gripe with it, they seemed so dead set on reversing the "powerful hero saves the world" trope that you can't really win against any of the late game bosses - that just seems kinda insulting tbh. Like, just let me have my power fantasy of being a cute badass bunny girl dammit :D

[a694]

Originally posted by Pawtacle:

I guess I have pretty low standards for writing because I liked the story... This is my only gripe with it, they seemed so dead set on reversing the "powerful hero saves the world" trope that you can't really win against any of the late game bosses - that just seems kinda insulting tbh. Like, just let me have my power fantasy of being a cute badass bunny girl dammit :D

Honestly agreed, I still think that the story will be massively improved if they add stuff to actually resolve the loose ends of the story. Fine to have those as long as they actually commit to resolving them in the future.

[花园骑士]

If we squint our eyes hard enough, the intro cutscene already foreshadows Tahlia. Egg says “their” intention has never been clearer, so he thinks there’s more than one culprit behind the attack. We know one of them is presumably Charon(which he isn’t, but that’s what they would think) so who’s the other? Dahlia then follows with beyond her “royal” duty, implying that a royal is also among the culprits. (It’s a stretch, but she wouldn’t phrase it like that if it doesn’t involve royals)

As for why everyone doesn’t seem to even know about her, it is said in ch.3 that human society values individuals. Tahlia would effectively be a less competent copy of Dahlia, which makes her not such an individual to be known about.