Revelations from Patch 4.3

[Theodric]

Shadowhunter:

It's pretty much outright confirmed that it's Gaius, given the mask:

[Cilia]

Shadowhunter:

Well, I suppose that's pretty explicit.

I figured there must have been a reason they focused on the white mask in the closing scene, and given no Ascian is known to use a white mask there must have been something special about it.

Still, while it does match up with Gaius' old helmet... the "Shadowhunter" could have acquired it from the ruins of the Praetorium somehow, or otherwise acquired one that matches up with Gaius'.

For the record this evidence does push me into the "Gaius Lives!" camp, but the possibility that he's still dead and it's all just an elaborate fakeout isn't something I'm ruling out until we get explicit confirmation.

[Eisenhower]

MSQ:

Doma being rebuilt, Gosetsu being bedridden and Yotsuyu having amnesia all felt par for the course as this round of MSQ started. I sort of expected there to be some drama involving Yotsuyu and the Doman populace. But the people seem to be able to rein in their anger far more than I imagined. Asahi trying to restore his sister's memories were also expected, but I thought initially that it would just involve the relic in order to instigate Garlean action. Seeing Yotsuyu relapse felt like an okay ending - and though it was tragic, I'm glad that it didn't get neatly wrapped up with a hugs and kisses. To me, it helped keep things grounded. Gosetsu being part of the trial was a nice touch.

The Zenos situation in terms of Ascian possession was nice to get a bit more info on. My suspicion is that Elidibus is going to parade around in that skinsuit to further push the empire towards punishing primal activity and in turn cause more desperation on the other side of the conflict. It feels like the empire has been quiet for a while in general and that a storm is going to come rolling in soon. I don't mind though. The empire doesn't feel like a threat right now. Not that it should be cartoonishly evil - the introduction of the different factions was a good addition, along with the second in command not being a jerk - but the empire got to be able to walk the walk at the end of the day.

The real highlight for me however was without doubt the short segment in the Burn, where we control Alphinaud. In the moment, I was overjoyed to see SqE try something new in terms of how they deliver story. I really hope they continue to explore and utilize new tools like the one we got now. Ideally I would have liked to see a bit more exploration before duking it out with imperial agents. But I'll take it as is. notGaius caught me by surprise though. I'm unsure how to react to it aside from "does anyone stay dead in this game?"

24-man

Overall no big reactions on this one, save enjoying Ramza being a real jerk.

What irks me is the fact that we finally get someone talking about aetheric science in good (faux) scientific terms, but she gets immediately shut down by Cid. No Cid. Let the girl talk. I want to know more. It's most certainly the case that the abbreviations and terminology used (NNR-type, CPRS waves, neuroharmonics) are just going to be one-off mentions with no solid basis. But I want to believe that the lore team sat down and actually build some science around it all. I want to believe.

Four Lords

Tataru is the worst party member. Soroban got swole. Surprise turtle vs turtle fight night.

The dungeon however, was really nice. Seeing magical mantras in two languages was really cool. Seeing an incarnation of the monkey king that actually features his transformations and staff was refreshing. Though having us ride the clouds as a transition in the dungeon itself made my mind consider whether or not that part was in-game advertisement for that mount.