(Heavy spoilers for the third act) time wheel rant

[rad_knight]

Really? Time travel? Why? Why would they do this?
There was an opportunity for interesting stories like rebuilding dundrasil and heliodor or Erik’s sister or the way the world reacts to mordegon being defeated but instead of exploring any of that what do we get?
We get to time travel back to before the world tree fell, lose the sword of light and sword of darkness, jade doesn’t question why she can turn into a monster or why she’s in a bunny girl suit when she does, all the events of the side stories never happened so why were they even added, the scene where Sylv makes up with his father is ruined some there’s no reason for it to happen (which was the only part of the game that made me go from tolerating him to actually liking him), you have to relight the gloomnivore, Jade looses the vamp-up ability, Hendrik doesn’t form the last bastion (aka the thing that made him seem like a good person in the first place), Veronica comes back(and no I’m not just mad about that because I really didn’t like her), Rab can use pearly gates dispite never actually learning it, and all most annoyingly all of your party members have no memory of anything that happened during the second act so they’re basically different versions of themselves meaning the entire 20 hours the 2nd act took me to finish meant absolutely nothing.

I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I absolutely hate this and wanted to get it off my chest.

Edit:okay so I just got back to octogonia expecting there to be a battle gauntlet or something, BUT THERE’S STILL A CASINO! WHY?! HOW?! BOOGA NEVER TOOK OVER!

[Jeffer'son Airship]

All I can say is keep playing.

I won't spoil story stuff but everyone gets what they had mechanically back if you follow the core plot for a bit except Serena having Veronica's abilities.

[rad_knight]

Originally posted by Mokinokaro:

All I can say is keep playing.

I won't spoil story stuff but everyone gets what they had mechanically back if you follow the core plot for a bit except Serena having Veronica's abilities.

I did get to that part yah, and while that did make me a lot less livid i still think it was a bad choice writing wise.

[Illusion of Progress]

I, personally, don't see the third act happening as an undo of the second act, so to speak. Yeah, you get your ultimate happy ending, yay, but the second act still happened. That's how I take it.

At first I thought the second act was sort of undone, given the game follows the hero's point of view, and it wasn't even clear to me if he remembered the undone past. He had a vision warning him of the incoming attack at the tree, but even if he's mute, he does nothing to tell anyone of what happened, and only has the vision right before it occurred. He also seemed to look at his party funny when he first reunited with them, especially Veronica, so... it was apparent he felt something but it wasn't entirely clear to me if he retained all his knowledge or not?

In any case... (end of game spoiler so warning) When Serenica has her own go around at breaking the orb of time to return to before the point Erdwin was betrayed, the "present" for the Hero and his friends isn't suddenly vanished or erased as far as it is shown like I was almost expecting it to be, so now I'm not even sure if it actually returns you to the past as was said, or splits into its own new timeline, but if it's the latter, this REALLY means the third act doesn't diminish the second act, but even if we presume it did return you to the past and undo everything after that point, I'd still say the third act doesn't diminish the second as it's entirely WHY the Hero goes back in the first place, and you don't get any more meaning than that

Anyway...

I was hoping for, and disappointed that we didn't see, Dundrasil return at the end, given that you go there through the visions and almost everything else in the game is given a happy ending, but it wasn't there at the start and the common theme was "things go back to how they were" (Cobblestone and Heliodor both do, for example) so I wasn't expecting it. It was the one thing on my wish list I really wanted. We only get to see the whole of Dundrasil in the opening sequence (and the castle in the vision), but it'd have been nice to explore a revived one at the end too.

And yeah, there were some issues (Jade's vamp abilities, and some others), but when has time travel not introduced that. For the most part, they were glaring but minor, and the third act sort of serves as a whole "let's make things right and get the happy ending", as well as letting players have a sort of "post-game" to play where everything is (almost) saved and at its best, so it was sort of whatever to me. I was able to overlook the minor mistakes. I think the game is better off for having had the third act than if it had ended after the second, personally.

[rad_knight]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

I, personally, don't see the third act happening as an undo of the second act, so to speak. Yeah, you get your ultimate happy ending, yay, but the second act still happened. That's how I take it.

At first I thought the second act was sort of undone, given the game follows the hero's point of view, and it wasn't even clear to me if he remembered the undone past. He had a vision warning him of the incoming attack at the tree, but even if he's mute, he does nothing to tell anyone of what happened, and only has the vision right before it occurred. He also seemed to look at his party funny when he first reunited with them, especially Veronica, so... it was apparent he felt something but it wasn't entirely clear to me if he retained all his knowledge or not?

In any case... (end of game spoiler so warning) When Serenica has her own go around at breaking the orb of time to return to before the point Erdwin was betrayed, the "present" for the Hero and his friends isn't suddenly vanished or erased as far as it is shown like I was almost expecting it to be, so now I'm not even sure if it actually returns you to the past as was said, or splits into its own new timeline, but if it's the latter, this REALLY means the third act doesn't diminish the second act, but even if we presume it did return you to the past and undo everything after that point, I'd still say the third act doesn't diminish the second as it's entirely WHY the Hero goes back in the first place, and you don't get any more meaning than that

Anyway...

I was hoping for, and disappointed that we didn't see, Dundrasil return at the end, given that you go there through the visions and almost everything else in the game is given a happy ending, but it wasn't there at the start and the common theme was "things go back to how they were" (Cobblestone and Heliodor both do, for example) so I wasn't expecting it. It was the one thing on my wish list I really wanted. We only get to see the whole of Dundrasil in the opening sequence (and the castle in the vision), but it'd have been nice to explore a revived one at the end too.

And yeah, there were some issues (Jade's vamp abilities, and some others), but when has time travel not introduced that. For the most part, they were glaring but minor, and the third act sort of serves as a whole "let's make things right and get the happy ending", as well as letting players have a sort of "post-game" to play where everything is (almost) saved and at its best, so it was sort of whatever to me. I was able to overlook the minor mistakes. I think the game is better off for having had the third act than if it had ended after the second, personally.

I do agree to an extent, but if we look at it that way there’s another issue. That being that the hero has basically no reaction to the second act. Now that’s one of the biggest weakness’s for a silent protagonist, but he has no sort of reaction to realizing he’s on the past. He doesn’t have any sort of reaction to reuniting with Veronica aside from a minor facial expression change, he doesn’t realize “oh my dad is still being tortured by the gloomnivore, I better go save him”, he doesn’t try to help Erik save his sister unless you go out of your way to do so, he doesn’t act any differently to the (possessed) kind of heliodor when he meets him at the tree, and when you got to valor where slyv’s father is he doesn’t try to convince sylv to make amends with him at all and instead Hendrick does. The idea of a main character going back in time with prior knowledge of how things go down can work well (that’s sort of what Shulk’s powers are to an extent) but that sort of story telling only works if the character who goes back in time has any actual character, and the hero is basically the same before and after the time travel.(and yes I know he’s a silent protagonist for immersion, I still just don’t like silent protagonists)
I think that there being an act 3 was definitely needed, but there was so much that could’ve been explored and potential for a bitter sweet ending of everyone rebuilding a destroyed world that just got left behind.
Erik’s sister feeling guilty for what she did and potentially trying to make up for it? Gone.
The king of heliodor and Jade rebuilding the city? Gone.
Veronica’s self sacrifice(aka the one thing she did that made me actually like her) and the implications & character development that came with it? Gone.
The casino booga started in octogonia? Not gone for some reason (seriously booga never became a spectral sentinel, why is this here?!)
There were so many plot threads that could’ve been explored that just got erased, and that is very disappointing to me.

[Illusion of Progress]

Yeah, there's definitely issues from it, but like I said, I literally took the whole third act as "yay, let's get the world to it's happy state before closing out, and so we can do post-game stuff in sunshine instead of doom and gloom" and for that it worked, but story-wise, this was probably the weakest point. That being said, it's otherwise fantastic story-wise so I guess I was able to overlook it. Rather than being bad, it was sort of a "really, couldn't you have done this instead?" due to plot holes and time travel. When time travel is involved, you almost always have to realllly suspend belief.

I was otherwise okay with some of the "tie ups" not being as "strong" as in the second act, like with Erik's sister, Veronica, etc., because it made them that much more powerful. If it was 100% rinse and repeat, nobody would be talking about it. I WOULD expect it to go down differently, given the state of the world differences. I do wish they had ADDED more there rather than just slightly tuned down the existing conclusions (more or less), sort of how I wish they explored a new Dundrasil.

See, everyone is complaining about orchestral music or some out of place character stories to be added, and me, I'd just rather they came out with a real sort of DLC follow up add on that... I hate to use the word "fixed" to imply it's awful as it is but maybe "better used the potential" of THESE sorts of things instead (not that it's going to happen this late, though).

And yeah, the silent protagonist thing is heavily intertwined here. As I said, it's not even 100% clear to me if he actually remembers the past consciously and down to the detail, or if he just has convenient spotty moments of feelings. Maybe someone else can weigh in there. If there's evidence to support he did remember it, then yeah, odd to not to go "so uh... guys..." as it'd really weaken his character otherwise. Only reason NOT to do it would be if he saw himself as some more neutral and impartial observer to the world while still wanting to "set it right", but there was no indication that was his desire at all so I don't get it either. Probably best not to overthink it and just take it as them wanting to "slightly change things up" for gameplay/story reasons to minimize the repeat, which there was a lot of.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by rad_knight:

I know he’s a silent protagonist for immersion

If anything, Dragon Quest XI is a perfect example of why silent protagonists suck. If they wanted a self-insert character it is better to have several dialogue options to pick from. Having the protagonist be silent and barely show any emotion, like he didn't even hug Veronica or anything after going back in time, was immersion breaking.

And don't even get me started on the worst handling of a wedding I've seen in any game. "I wish I was married to Gemma" ..... *done* and that's it, you're now married. Just like that? HEY, HOW ABOUT A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CUTSCENE!? No, have this photograph instead so you can see what you missed.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by rad_knight:

BUT THERE’S STILL A CASINO! WHY?! HOW?! BOOGA NEVER TOOK OVER!

I had the exact same thoughts.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Citronvand:

Originally posted by rad_knight:

I know he’s a silent protagonist for immersion

like he didn't even hug Veronica or anything after going back in time, was immersion breaking.

The lack of hugs was so jarring in this game. There were so many times it was obviously warranted, and then... they just abruptly stop and maybe hold hands? I took it as them not investing the time or effort into animations, I guess?

[♠KANE †]

They ran out of budget to animate the HERO's face with even a miniscule bit of emotion? xDD

How does a silent bland unmoveable character with zero expression EVER add immersion to any story?

But yeah i agree with all the posts above. The time travel element whilst making the post game kinda enjoyable ...totally for me undid the story hardships and sacrifices built up to then and undid character development for many main characters. So they just shot themselves in the foot storywise just so they could add on another 20 hours gametime. I did like that gameplay still but storywise hrmm not so much. Maybe they should have done the time travel element similar to how Avengers Endgame did it? xd (each character going back with their own mission etc i dunno)

[rad_knight]

Originally posted by ♠KANE †:

They ran out of budget to animate the HERO's face with even a miniscule bit of emotion? xDD

How does a silent bland unmoveable character with zero expression EVER add immersion to any story?

But yeah i agree with all the posts above. The time travel element whilst making the post game kinda enjoyable ...totally for me undid the story hardships and sacrifices built up to then and undid character development for many main characters. So they just shot themselves in the foot storywise just so they could add on another 20 hours gametime. I did like that gameplay still but storywise hrmm not so much. Maybe they should have done the time travel element similar to how Avengers Endgame did it? xd (each character going back with their own mission etc i dunno)

The big issues I had with it were mostly that the party couldn’t go with the hero for basically no reason (aka the character development wouldn’t have been undone completely), the fact that the potential storylines from the second act never go anywhere (Erik and his sister going on a treasure hunt, jade and her father rebuilding their kingdom, etc), and the fact that Veronica comes back, and no I’m not just saying that because I can’t stand her.(seriously, at the time I found her body 3 of my 7 party members could revive people and I had an Yggdrasil leaf. If you’re not gonna let me revive people I normally can, give me a reason.)

That and they didn’t go all the way with the time travel with things like the casino is still in octogonia(seriously is it explained anywhere how/why that’s still there? Do any characters bring it up? Shouldn’t Vince at least be confused that the arena turned into a casino literally overnight)

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by rad_knight:

and the fact that Veronica comes back, and no I’m not just saying that because I can’t stand her.(seriously, at the time I found her body 3 of my 7 party members could revive people and I had an Yggdrasil leaf. If you’re not gonna let me revive people I normally can, give me a reason.)

The way I've learned to take this with games, and this goes for practically all games and not just this one, is "if it doesn't happen in the story or in a cutscene, but rather CAN happen in gameplay, then it's not necessarily canon". That is, the fact that you CAN have a character be killed in gameplay and revive them with an in-game item means nothing for canonical purposes.

The actual story, and the potential gameplay elements for the player, have to be taken with a bit of separation. You open up too many plot holes in many games' stories otherwise. Many things are there mostly, or solely, for gameplay purposes more than anything anyway, and will ruin the story if you take them too literally together.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

It is somewhat explained if you dig around the royal library, iirc.

Time travel in the game causes a ripple effect ultimately ending in merged timelines.
That's why Octagonia still exists and why near the endgame it seems like your party members actually start remembering act 2 stuff.

It's also implied the ripples from changes in time take longer the further back you go, so Serenica's changing of the past is going to takes years, perhaps even centuries to actually have an impact on the present the current heroes know.

[rad_knight]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Originally posted by rad_knight:

and the fact that Veronica comes back, and no I’m not just saying that because I can’t stand her.(seriously, at the time I found her body 3 of my 7 party members could revive people and I had an Yggdrasil leaf. If you’re not gonna let me revive people I normally can, give me a reason.)

The way I've learned to take this with games, and this goes for practically all games and not just this one, is "if it doesn't happen in the story or in a cutscene, but rather CAN happen in gameplay, then it's not necessarily canon". That is, the fact that you CAN have a character be killed in gameplay and revive them with an in-game item means nothing for canonical purposes.

The actual story, and the potential gameplay elements for the player, have to be taken with a bit of separation. You open up too many plot holes in many games' stories otherwise. Many things are there mostly, or solely, for gameplay purposes more than anything anyway, and will ruin the story if you take them too literally together.

I know that much, some things just need to be there to have a game (like skill trees for, or plot essential characters running away but no one else in fire emblem an example) but usually at least in my case, if there’s a gameplay feature that can be used to fix a problem in the story, but isn’t, there needs to be a reason.
Like in the case of Veronica’s death being un revivable, this could be fixed with a short bit of flavor text about the zing spell that says something along the lines of “a spell used to revive those who’s lives were recently cut short by monsters” with the key word being recently, or a cutscene with Erik asking Rab how the zing spell works and Rab answering with something similar.
Even though the second and first acts couldn’t have to big of a time skip between them (considering Erik, Sylv, and Serena never ran into each other despite all 3 traveling the world) this bit of text and/or dialogue could be used to explain why Veronica can’t just be revived, and leads to a more natural(for lack of a better term) story as a result.

[Illusion of Progress]

Yeah, there's multiple ways to deal with things, but in the lack of an "official" (in this case, story) reference, such is the case here as far as I know, then the answer is almost always best taken as "the plot hole opened up by that gameplay thing needs to be detached from story here".

In this case I don't remember if there were any story references to resurrection, or the Zing spell(s) specifically, and there may have been given the churches (but keep in mind, many things exist and many NPCs may even give lines and dialogue referencing things more for gameplay reasons so it's muddy water and doesn't always mean "officially canon" or "officially can and/or does happen" just because "this thing exists" or "the NPC quotes it"), but I always took the entirety of resurrection in this game, and in most RPGs, as more of a gameplay only thing. It's an RPG so it's common to have things that "bring characters back", as having death (or knocked out, or whatever the game terms a case of 0 HP and a character kissing the dirt) lead to a game over wouldn't sit well with many, and would arguably take away gameplay aspects even. Again, I just took it as "this spell exists for gameplay reasons but obviously it's not an all encumbering death cheat story-wise" or you'd never have anyone die outside of old age or really extreme examples (for example, unrecoverable body or whatever).

Again, you just have to separate story and gameplay in many games like this. If not you're just going to bother yourself with potential plot holes like this.