Thoughts on the end of the game and the ending (Major Spoilers)

[zman9000]

So i wanna start off saying that, despite any issues i mention, no matter how down on the game i seem, i still really enjoyed the game, maybe even more then any other rpg i've ever played...

that said, i was kinda... dissapointed with the ending part of the game.
the last area of the game, sapphire ridge, and the last town, Rombus square are extremely barren... like to the point where i concluded the game's ending had to have been rushed before i looked up to see that, that was indeed the case. the story felt suddenly cut short, like the rug was pulled out from under me, and there was no payoff or conclusion. i know that there's more fixes and content on the way. as well as a dlc... but it disterb's me that this is where they were thinking of ending it. i have a hard time even forming an opinion on if the story's ending is good or not because it doesn't feel like it ended... kinda like i'm caught in limbo... which makes sense in a meta sorta way, but its not a good feeling, and its personally souring the game for me...

now on to the spesifics, and the rant.

When i first got to rombus square, i spent an hour or 2 going around trying to figure out what i was suppose to do in the town, only to realise there wasn't anything to do. One of the first things i noticed, within minutes of being there was there were hardly any random npc conversations, hardly any npc's you could even talk to... it was one of the things that made the game up to this point, even in sapphire ridge, seem bigger, and more alive. without it, i started feeling like the town was a big empty, barren, hollow, lifeless, maybe even soulless stage with nothing to do, nothing to see, and no where to go. and that's what it was.

Sapphire ridge despite seeming complicated, with a lot of hard puzzles and platforming, things which i spent the majority of time in every single other area trying to do, i finished in like 2 hours. there was supprisingly little in it, despite it being on par, size wise to other areas. there are also the other issues i've seen people have brought up, the lack of quests and other things.

As for the ending of the game, its so sudden and anticlimatically resolved, that i think it may undermine the entire story up to this point, but again its hard to form an opinion on it because there feels like there should be more... its like i'm lacking closure that most stories, even bad ones, normally give you. i think the story really needs resolution to bring it all together, and i don't think the fact that, from the looks of it, that resolution is gonna be dlc is not a plus for the game...

also the last part of the game in general lacked a lot of... like... attention to detail that the rest of the game had. one of the things i loved about the game was the characters and the writing... it was above and beyond anything i've seen in other rpg's up to this point, but that sorta felt like it dropped off at the end. for example, most character interactions were supprisingly real, as in it felt lass like a story and more like, these characters are people. however in the last part of the game, when lea meets shizuka for their final showdown, everything is resolved super fast, and didn't feel real at all... it felt as rushed as relationships in movies. think about it, shizuka goes from hating lea with every fiber of her being, wishing she would die/be erased, to being ok or maybe even a little fond of her after only a few short interactions, that being her brother yelling at her, and lea giving her a hug. i guess hugs just magically fix things? it just felt really weird it flipped so drasticly so fast...

also on the spesific endinf sequence... a character we have had no real reason to care about, maybe even hate, kills them selves, and the big bad just walks out, implying that was the plan anyway... and then after that, all you can do is watch some random scene's you aren't really appart of, and then you are trapped in limbo for ever, making it as if nothing actually mattered... this, as stated by the devs, was suppose to be the intended ending... what kinda ending makes the entire story pointless?

it kinda makes me sad, and maybe a little mad that this is how the game ends...

I ranted and raved about how much i was enjoying the game, almost non stop in a discord server, to the point where multiple ended up getting the game... now i feel weird about becaue i'm apparently not enjoying it as much, and also because i may have convinced them to buy a game i'm not so sure about anymore.

I'm sure to be ripped appart for posting this, seeing all the overwelming praise... its not like i hate the game, i even have a positive review up on the review page... i just feel like the ending was of such lower quality compared to the vast majority of the rest of the game, that it kinda hurts the entire thing...

anyway that's my rant

i'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this. its why i'm making this post. i wanna hear if there are any others that feel the same way, and also others who don't feel the same way. infact i'd love for someone to convince me i'm wrong and explain exactly why i'm wrong, because i want to completely love this game, but i just can't quite do it given the current state of the game.

[Damos]

Just to be sure and get that out of the way : did you get the good ending?

When you are in the "Meta Space" at the end, do you have a "future" ahead of you or is it blocked out? If it's blocked out, you should go back to the past and pay attention to what Hlin tells you as soon as you get back!

[zman9000]

at this point, it does not matter what ending you get, its effectivly the same exact thing.
either way you are stuck in limbo (or you can go back), and the story which feels imcomplete will remain incomplete.

also one thing i didn't mention is, is seems weird that the one and only choice that gets you to the good ending, is right before the ending... making it feel kinda pointless, almost shoe horned in just so the story could have 2 endings...

but even that doesn't quite make sense since both endings at this point are effectifly the same thing, and even going forward once more content is added, the bad ending literally doesn't matter, cause your only option is to quit the game or go back if you get it. its as if the entire thing was added just so you could meet one more new npc before the game ended...

[BROLY 32]

Rhombus Square is the perfect city for Halloween. It's a ghost city.
It's actually the place that makes me feel the most uncomfortable in this game, way worse than Vermillion Wasteland.

[wervyn]

Not entirely. It's a little weird to me to complain that a game that's already 40-60 hours long is getting even more content in the future. There are essentially two factors that make the end of the game feel unfinished.

First and most directly to this point, the original intent was to end the game on Lea's logout, before the credits. As the game was wrapping up development, they realized that they wanted to do even more with the story, and so they started figuring out what the narrative for that would entail. The reason Ivan's content feels a little bolted on is because it essentially is. If the future was just assumed to go well it would be superfluous, they could probably get away with Lea logging back in and saying "Hi!", everyone else saying "Welcome Back", and letting you play the game as an open sandbox from there.

But since the idea was now to have more story behind that, they needed to fill in more details about how you got there. And then, because it felt hackneyed to have the game just tell you to go talk to some guy you'd never seen before, they decided to make it optional so that you would be an active participant in it...with associated consequences if you didn't. It's far from perfect, but it's probably best not to think of the post-credits scenes as different endings, because they aren't. They're a new beginning, or a failure state telling you that you have more to do if you want to see the next part of the story when it's ready.

Second, regarding the emptiness of Rhombus Square and to an extent Sapphire Ridge, these are absolutely unfinished and the main reason is time pressure and only being able to fit so much in before a mostly hard release deadline. If it had not been possible to release the game in an acceptable state then they would have postponed it again, but beyond that they prioritized (and communicated broadly about that at the beginning of this year[www.radicalfishgames.com]) based on what had to be in the 1.0 release, and what could wait. So, completing the story was pretty essential, but stuff that was essentially bonus endgame content (basically all of Rhombus Square) could probably wait.

Fortunately for us that content, fleshing out the game even more, is next on deck, and you can expect to see it start making its way to us in the next few months.

[zman9000]

oh i get all that. but the story its self felt kinda anticlimatic... just like, everything instantly resolved in the most anticlimatic way...
like, there was almost no point to the story at all.
having had a few days now to think on what put me off from the ending of the story was, again, the story its self felt rushed, like they needed to wrap it up quickly.

the main antagonist, who pretty much every aspect of the plot revolved around in some way or another, just walks away, the guy who made things complicated, who you have no reason to care about, if anything, you have reasons to dislike him... he just kills him self... lol ok...

i mean... to go even deeper, the entire game had little actual story at all, and that little story resolved with little conciquence. maybe i'm a little off base here, but the more i think about it, the less i care about the story...

and that makes me sad because the characters were amazing in this game... but the story they are in almost doesn't matter to me.

to put it another way, if feels like they wanted to make a game about some friends playing an mmo, and they did that well, but later realised that there needed to be some story to it as well.

don't mean to sound super harsh, but i only really dig into stuff that irratates me in games that i really love.

Edit: i should mention i played with no handicap on, incase anyone mistakes what i'm trying to say. it wasn't anticlimatic because the puzzles or final fights were east or anything... its because the story's resolution didn't feel right to me. i feel like i had the rug pulled out from under me.

also its not so much that the content they plan on bringing isn't in the game, its that it feels like the resolution to the story that would make the ending make sense, is in that content, not in the game yet.

its like if you were reading a good book, but then the antagonist just goes away randomally, and then the last 10 pages of the book you have to wait on. you were super invested in the story, and then suddenly, all conflict is tossed out the window, and you have to wait a few months for the conclusion.

that kinda thing drives certain types of people crazy, and i guess i'm one of them. lol

[zman9000]

hm that's an interesting way to look at it.
cause... yeah, the story, beyond my other complaints about how it ended, did feel rushed through those parts...

and i did basically the same thing, i always tried to do everything i could before progressing the story. there was always a lot of character dialog, and plent of time to sort my thoughts on the last story beat before i started the next one. however the last two areas were basically jumping from story beat to story beat. if felt like it moved way too fast...

as weird as this sounds, maybe if the end game had a bit more padding, the story pacing would have been a bit better...

edit: maybe that doesn't make sense... lol

[Michelle]

Originally posted by zman9000:

the main antagonist, who pretty much every aspect of the plot revolved around in some way or another, just walks away, the guy who made things complicated, who you have no reason to care about, if anything, you have reasons to dislike him... he just kills him self... lol ok...

Death was the only sure way to be free of whats-his-face and his sins. I dunno. It made sense to me. Also the reason the villian just walks away is because that's just an avatar. It doesn't matter what you do to him in CrossWorlds. He's still free out there in the real world. Fighting/killing his avatar wouldn't accomplish anything. Hence why he just walks away.

[zman9000]

i meant walks away as in "gives up"
and also because he gives up without explaining hardly anything...
it also felt weird because the way it was done, i felt like it didn't convey... uh... much character or information about mister antagonist's personality or motivation. he says it was for money, but the flashbacks of him give a conflicting view... almost like its two different characters...

in that way there was no resolution, bad guy does things for... reasons... and gives up all of that... for reasons... idk. nothing really mattered apparently.

[Gearwar]

I literally just finished the game 20 minutes ago and while I loved the game (specially as a throwback to snes times) and would recommend it in a heartbeat there definitely are some issues with the main story or its arc overall.

The game clearly can not decide wether the main gripe of the story is either the "existence of evotars" in the cross world universe and their right to existence OR wether the main focus of the plot is the hostage situation created by sidwell in order to keep his enterprise going.

The game tries to do both and it lacks any real impact because its too rushed (endgame) to make an impact. The suicide of Gauntham (?) meant nothing to me because there was no connection to him at all. You have no time to develop any care for those sidecharacters. So this does not work. It also does not help that the main antagonist just "walks away".

Imagine if they went for a story line that had emilie on the life-line. You spent most of your time with her, so the player certainly has an emotional connection to her. That would have worked better (just an example)

The main focus was lea, and most players I assume care about her. So the continued existence was a strong plot point. But it is handled in a very optional meeting at rhombus square and a 10 sec after credits screen. It clearly was the most important part (for me atleast) of the story and they just treated it like an afterthought.

I really hope this thing will have DLCs and or sequels where they flesh out the core parts of the story more (either focus on the AI's and their right to exist or on how far this "information business" really went with all its intricacies). As it stands now the main plot lacks a lot

They created some AMAZING characters (specially Lea, but the side characters as well) which keeps the game going, but the story really needs a satisfying conclusion.

[wervyn]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

The game clearly can not decide wether the main gripe of the story is either the "existence of evotars" in the cross world universe and their right to existence OR wether the main focus of the plot is the hostage situation created by sidwell in order to keep his enterprise going.

These two things are inextricably linked to each other though. The overarching goal our heroes are trying to accomplish is to create a world where Lea can continue to exist. The proximate goal, necessary for this to happen, is to convince a bunch of conservative old dudes at Instatainment to support continued evotar research. The obstacle that must be overcome to accomplish this is preserving that research and the mind of its primary developer. The emotional attachment to this is that Lea has made a good friend who is "like her", and whose existence is also threatened if they don't resolve this hostage situation. On the side, they will also need a strong patron and advocate when they take all this to those conservative old dudes, or it will end up being a lot of work for nothing. So the whole thing necessarily hangs together, this isn't really an either/or situation in the focus of the plot, it IS the plot.

The game tries to do both and it lacks any real impact because its too rushed (endgame) to make an impact. The suicide of Gauntham (?) meant nothing to me because there was no connection to him at all. You have no time to develop any care for those sidecharacters. So this does not work. It also does not help that the main antagonist just "walks away".

Gautham's death is meant to be shocking but understandable in retrospect, but not really about a strong emotional attachment. It's tragic in a classical sense, but there's not really any pathos in it, because you don't have enough personal connection to him to be invested in his survival. This hits Sergey and Shizuka harder because they have a long personal history with him, but Lea does not. The intent here, though you may not like it, is to make your victory feel a little hollow, even though you get everything you thought you wanted.

Directly tied to this is Sidwell leaving, which reminded me a lot of how Mr. Potter never faces any consequences in It's a Wonderful Life. Sidwell's main motivations here are the money and the thrill of getting away with it. The specifics of the business don't actually matter to him THAT much. Once he realized his current venture had hit a dead end, he was entirely ready to move on to whatever his next con job will be, and since he's interacted entirely through proxy it's not like there's a way for you to stop him. Again, the intent is to create a story with nuance, one where even when you decisively win, things aren't tied up with a neat little bow. Your plan never involved bringing him to justice, everyone just kind of assumed that would naturally follow, but why would it?

For Sidwell, too, you're intended to read between the lines a bit. While the game never spells it out explicitly (though the post-credits scene practically does, honestly), his character becomes a lot more interesting once you realize you've interacted with him a lot more than you initially thought.

The main focus was lea, and most players I assume care about her. So the continued existence was a strong plot point. But it is handled in a very optional meeting at rhombus square and a 10 sec after credits screen. It clearly was the most important part (for me atleast) of the story and they just treated it like an afterthought.

I really hope this thing will have DLCs and or sequels where they flesh out the core parts of the story more (either focus on the AI's and their right to exist or on how far this "information business" really went with all its intricacies). As it stands now the main plot lacks a lot

The DLC content you want to see is confirmed, hopefully next year. Honestly they probably would not have included the Ivan subplot if they had gone with the original plan to just end the story, since it would just be a distraction in that case. As is, that's more about seeding/teasing the next chapter.

[Damos]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

The game clearly can not decide wether the main gripe of the story is either the "existence of evotars" in the cross world universe and their right to existence OR wether the main focus of the plot is the hostage situation created by sidwell in order to keep his enterprise going.
The game tries to do both and it lacks any real impact because its too rushed (endgame) to make an impact. The suicide of Gauntham (?) meant nothing to me because there was no connection to him at all. You have no time to develop any care for those sidecharacters. So this does not work. It also does not help that the main antagonist just "walks away".

That's spot on! Although those two directions are definitely connected, the game switches back so late to the hostage situation that it's hard to care as much about is as we care about the future of Lea and Evotars in general. Gautham especially, unlike Sidwell, I find his motivations at the end really unclear, which is disappointing considering how prominent he has been to Lea's journey since he first tried to capture her on the MS Solaar.

Sure, he is a great game designer with an obsession about being god, and after living so long in this fantasy world and habiting this fantasy character, it got to his head. Not to mention the stress and guilt of torturing innocent Evotars for illegal purposes and being constantly blackmailed by Sidwell. I get all those things individually, but it's still hard for me to grasp his motivation at the end.

He helps Lea to reach the server as a way to stick it to Sidwell once and for all. But then do a complete 180° turn and decides 10 minutes later to put obstacles on her way and fight her in The Ultimate Experience? Why? My intepretation is that he wanted this test as a final proof to both him and Lea that Evotars are indeed a worthy new kind, who is strong enough and has enough will and determination (©) to earn and be worthy of its freedom and right to continued existence. "Prove me that you are worth living" kind of megalomaniac thing.

That would have been an epic way to amp up the epicness, clarify the stakes and tie up eveything thematically before the final battle. Unfortunately, it's never made that explicit, and it remains needlessly obscure until Gautham kills himself and it's too late anyway. Everything is there, it's just not connecting quite as it should imo.

Originally posted by Gearwar:

Imagine if they went for a story line that had emilie on the life-line. You spent most of your time with her, so the player certainly has an emotional connection to her. That would have worked better (just an example)

Can they do that though? I mean, I had the same thought initially. My main regret was that
nothing in the final segment felt as epic and as high of an emotional stake than the incredible post-raid twist and whole Lukas-Lea arc, them struggling together captive in Vermillion before one of them can escape punching through dungeon walls with the help of Sergey. This was the peak of the game storywise for me, so much feels and atmosphere!

But this is not Final Fantasy. Emilie's life will never really be on the line. It's just an avatar. The real Emilie is comfortably sitting on her couch in France, playing a videogame. She can just turn it off at any time and go back to her real life with no consequences. Same for our entire guild, Appolo, Joern, etc... For their life to be at stake, it would mean the real persons behind the avatars would have to be physically captured in their homes by Sidwell group. Very tricky to set up and not really fitting with the "low-key" but character-driven feel the story is going for.

Originally posted by Gearwar:

The main focus was lea, and most players I assume care about her. It clearly was the most important part (for me atleast) of the story and they just treated it like an afterthought.

I don't agree with this part. The final arc forgets a bit about it yes, but the actual ending is all about Lea. From the cutscenes of all them going back together to the playground to revisit areas and relive memories, to Sergey's monologue about his friendship for Lea. Or the beautiful final group goodbye to Lea, or the joy of Emilie jumping on the HQ table when she learns Lea will be back, it's quite perfect in that regard, really didn't feel like an afterthought to me!

I just wished one of those cutscenes would show Lea paying one last visit to Jet and Carla on the Ms Solaar, but it's probably something saved for the post episode DLC?

Originally posted by Gearwar:

They created some AMAZING characters (specially Lea, but the side characters as well) which keeps the game going, but the story really needs a satisfying conclusion. I really hope this thing will have DLCs and or sequels where they flesh out the core parts of the story more (either focus on the AI's and their right to exist or on how far this "information business" really went with all its intricacies).

Yes, yes yes! The characters are absolutely AMAZING in Crosscode, fantastic writing and storytelling skills all the way through in that department. But I agree that late parts of the main story could be fleshed out more, especially antagonists motivations (Gautham!) and how their hostage situation/ ultimate experience ties up directly to Lea's journey and goal.

[Gearwar]

I know the Stories are linked together which is fine, but the way its design and path only show you bits and pieces of each narrative without ever building a climax in each arc are what is holding it back as a whole

Like for example you get the information that Lea is in a Coma and that the reason behind you logging in is to find the other 3 devs. Which is fine, but then something happens out of the ordinary during that raid, which was arguably the most intense part of the story (as damos already said) and you end up in the wasteland. This was interesting because it was a mystery in the established universe or of what we as the player know.

Now you get the info that Lea is an Evotar and AI and there are others as well. Which was great really as the story suddenly started to take on a new angle and a clear focus (atleast so I thought) was beginning to form. But then you leave the Island and suddenly its back to do the story line in order to find the developers.

Like it kind of gets teased abit, then dropped, only to appear later on again.

Fast forward to the very last encounters: Apparently you have to stop the information business now and stop the mysterious guy again and free Shizuka (who btw hates you at first but then loves you in the span of a conversation) and the other developers from the evil merchants grasp. And while you are at it save the Evotars maybe? An admirable goal I suppose, and it probably would have worked if the end boss was not someone completely different than the evil guy.

Now you have to do a challenge for no reason because Gauntham (one of the people you want to save?!?!?!) apparently does not really care anymore (we assume he lost a real reason to live and is just waiting for a challenge? yes?)
Its not even that only Lea could perform this feat. Everyone else could too. In fact the level 75 chars could do it better than Lea and even the Evotar of the german guy (forgot his name) was better suited than Lea, as he was level 60 and my lea was lvl 53 or so.

And I get that only Lea could access the server, but since it was Gautham who posed the challenge and did not really know about this or care about anything but the "challenge" I really wonder why Lea had to go through with it. I mean she was not any more special than anyone else, so what was the reason behind that? Surely Gautham could have picked other better leveled people for the job. As said there were other Evotars. The guild leader's Evotar could have killed the endboss with a kiss since she was 12 levels above me and had better gear.

So now you beat him and then he commits suicide. Because he was so far gone. Gone from what? And then you finally face the bad guy, who walks away, telling you .. "ah well I knew I had to anyway. Cya."... What?

Okay so what was the purpose of this? Apparently by the time we escaped the island he already knew there was no point in threatening the devs anymore, so that threat was defeated. And the Evotar Server did never seem to really interest him a lot anyway. There is a hint that he might have tried to secure them from the world, by hiding em, but its just a hint and open to interpretation.

Instead of giving us two wonky goals, they should have focused on one in the very last section imho and not used the endboss/end dungeon the way they did. I mean thats just my opinion of course.

@ Damos

I did not mean they did not focus on lea being a present player in the game (albeit as an AI) but rather how they handled the "will she return, won't she?". I liked the ending scene where they run around for a last time and talk about the game. Even though I felt the only one really having an interest in Lea's return was Emilie I still found the sentiment nice.

I watched the bad ending and the good ending and honestly I felt pretty underwhelmed with both. Lea's continued survival depends on an optional (easy missable scene btw) quest and a 5 sec after credit scene. Hence why I called it an afterthought.

Rather than making a big deal about it (which it is btw) it was only mentioned. They could have rewarded the player with an ending where Lea logs back in and everyone is cheering or something and then they run through the wilds. Or design the ending in a way that lea sacrifices herself (for whatever reason) to save the other evotars and then wether you have the good or the bad ending, she comes back.

As it is, you have a casual meeting and in a sentence you get the message "yay or nay". Again, the only one caring was Emilie. It felt a bit lackluster is all. It was the most important thing for me, maybe thats why I was not satisfied

[zman9000]

@ Gearwar
you honestly summed up a lot of issues i had better then i did.
also

"Shizuka (who btw hates you at first but then loves you in the span of a conversation)"
this was my first, (uh what?) moment in the game, my first hint that something was wrong with the writing and or pacing. i mean i noticed the other areas that were barren, but i thought i was missing something, more stuff would open up if i progressed, or something like that.

Also to really hit on your last point. Emilie really is one of, if not the best characters in the game. don't get me wrong, i got a kick out of lea, but emilie was the main thing that sold me on the game. i made sure to bring and keep her in my party every chance i had, and i payed attention of every line of dialog she had, even backtraching to get more dialog i missed because i enjoyed the character that much. (i mean is was sorta the whole best friends lea and emilie, but mostly emilie)

in a way, i think it was a missed opertunity to not put emilie in peril in some way. even if it was an evotar emilie. we hardly got to know lucas bevure he and lea got trapped, and while we got to know him a little, and it sucked he was stuck, but it didn't have a major inpact on me.

now if it was evotar emilie who was stuck i think i would have binged the rest of the game even staying up multiple nights to see what happened, cause i was that invested in her character. (also because i had off work the week i played through so i could have done that)

heck when lea and emilie got back together after being seperated i teared up. that moment was the point where i wanted the game to be perfect, and replace my favorite rpg of all time. but this kinda sour ending, that doesn't make sense kinda killed that feeling for me. its still an amazing game... it just has a bad ending.

edit: fixed some spellings

[Virtualkiller]

I hope they continue on from both endings, like the metaspace splits into two with one continueing on from the bad end and one from the good end. the bad end possiby haveing lea be 'resurrected' from data the main bad guy had/coppied near the end. Think about all the chances the bad guy had the stop lea but didn't, he could have made a copy of her from theese time knowing she would be deleted after everything was over. So lea joins the 'bad' guy for the sake of survival/ starts to resent Sergey for deleting her and the rest of the Evotars and becomes 'Evil' herself. And then you have the 'good' ending where lea fights to make Evotats accepted and find the main bad guy.

[VicViper]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

Now you have to do a challenge for no reason because Gauntham (one of the people you want to save?!?!?!) apparently does not really care anymore (we assume he lost a real reason to live and is just waiting for a challenge? yes?)
Its not even that only Lea could perform this feat. Everyone else could too. In fact the level 75 chars could do it better than Lea and even the Evotar of the german guy (forgot his name) was better suited than Lea, as he was level 60 and my lea was lvl 53 or so.

And I get that only Lea could access the server, but since it was Gautham who posed the challenge and did not really know about this or care about anything but the "challenge" I really wonder why Lea had to go through with it. I mean she was not any more special than anyone else, so what was the reason behind that? Surely Gautham could have picked other better leveled people for the job. As said there were other Evotars. The guild leader's Evotar could have killed the endboss with a kiss since she was 12 levels above me and had better gear.

So now you beat him and then he commits suicide. Because he was so far gone. Gone from what? And then you finally face the bad guy, who walks away, telling you .. "ah well I knew I had to anyway. Cya."... What?

Gautham is actually interesting because his intentions are not explicitly stated but hinted between the lines. He is the kind of guy who would throw away anything for his goal to create the Ultimate Experience. He was not only playing as a god, but also setting himself into the role of final boss waiting to be beaten from the start. After all he is the creator of challenge, but what does challenge even worth if no one can take and overcome it? He can only be made complete if a player shows up and beats his obstacles. Others would not be able to solve this because only Lea has the power of exponential growth. You can have a level 99 character hitting boss for ages.

His company is too conservative for his wild designs so he sided with Sidwell for his dream, but eventually realize it was more than sacrificing stuff on his side. He also caused others' sufferings which led to his unstable mentality. He was obsessed with Lea because she has the potential to be the one who beats his challenge, especially after escaping from his dungeon. In the end through Lea his fantasy side's wish was complete, now all that left was the real side consequences, and he suicided to escape from the mess he caused.

Similar thing can be said with Shizuka. You think she hates Lea, but it was never really about Lea. She was just frustrated and Lea was the only outlet because Lea was the first Evotar and thus the symbol of the suffering on her side. She was well aware that Lea has nothing to do with all of that so after she got the emotions out the conflict was resolved. That being said, devs could certainly put more stuff in this part so more people can understand what the story is about. Back in the days RPG had a lot of subtle story telling but people have long forgotten this style and prefer explicit plot instead(which is kinda sad).