Anyone else surprised what happened with Valens Van Varro?

[Raikai]

I really loved the whole Welryt saga... To the point I wish it had more of its elements, like the G-Warrior, explored. But I get that it's just a side story.

It's a shame, though, that Squeenix can't (afford to?) allocate voice acting resources to the other parallel big storylines to the MSQ. The fruition of those would greatly improve with it.

[glitteringcosmos]

I really loved the whole Welryt saga... To the point I wish it had more of its elements, like the G-Warrior, explored. But I get that it's just a side story.

It's a shame, though, that Squeenix can't (afford to?) allocate voice acting resources to the other parallel big storylines to the MSQ. The fruition of those would greatly improve with it.

Agreed, I feel like anything that's Chronicles of a New Era could only benefit from voice acting. Though I wonder how much it would have cost to get the Nier cast in for the Yorha raids xD

[Vahlnir]

From start to finish I actually really enjoyed this storyline. Seeing that man suffer was the icing on the cake for me. That was not a quick death. He felt every ounce of pressure. One might argue that it was still better than he deserved, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

[Theodric]

Eh, it was alright. I don't tend to entertain revenge fantasies because the characters are just pixels on the screen at the end of the day.

I thought Valens was a pretty amusing presence. Much like Joffrey in Game of Thrones. Although I'm a sucker for antagonists and villains with nuance and sympathetic backgrounds, it's nice to just get a completely unrepentant psychopath from time to time. Valens was that in spades, but unlike Zenos...he didn't just sit around complaining that he was bored. He actually did stuff! Plus, for all his nastiness he was actually pretty talented...if overconfident. In many ways, he reminded me of Hojo from FFVII.

[Saefinn]

I liked the plotline. At first I was half and half on my feelings about it. I thought that Gaius' kids were being idiots and the motive didn't seem logical, like if you want to do Gaius proud, don't repeat his mistakes and just listen to him, because it'll end badly and look, you just saw it end badly. And like, "I kill gods for a living", they'd be safe coming with the WoL and Gaius - tell them what you know and point the WoL in the direction of the bad guy.

But it made more sense as you learned more about their situation and their motive. How they wanted to make him proud wasn't through continuing where he left off in the sense of the Weapons project, but in the sense of the strong leading the weak and in liberating their own people and ending the weapons project and it seems a little suicide by WoL helped.

But Allie always ended up seeming like the sensible one, though she did do a dumb-dumb with Diamond, but it paid off.

As for Valens, yeah, he was unrepentant and some of the implied undertones were a bit ick. But I was invested in seeing him get served and he got served and it was beautiful, you know he suffered and it was an unexpected detail but I think they realised what the fans wanted. And using the Heavenscracker 'pop' sound effect was clearly intentional, it just made it that little less dignifying whilst handling something gruesome without it breaking the age rating.

[JisKing98]

Honestly the best part was seeing panic as soon as my boy Gaius bust out the new move. I was reminded that Gaius used to be the big bad we needed to take out for a reason.
Low key I'm kinda of hoping in 6.0 he becomes the new emperor of garlemald and keeps his ideal of strength regardless of race, religion, creed. Thats one way they could end the game with.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Wasn’t a fan of the storyline, was insanely predictable and monotonous. It did go to good lengths though i suppose to show Gaius’ faults. Would be interesting to see him be the right hand of the next Emperor(i don’t see him as actual Emperor material though). I thought Valens was interesting, essentially a better Zenos but i’m not a big fan of body horror so the plot line as a whole was pretty meh.

[Theodric]

Wasn’t a fan of the storyline, was insanely predictable and monotonous. It did go to good lengths though i suppose to show Gaius’ faults. Would be interesting to see him be the right hand of the next Emperor(i don’t see him as actual Emperor material though). I thought Valens was interesting, essentially a better Zenos but i’m not a big fan of body horror so the plot line as a whole was pretty meh.

I like the body horror, though one thing I struggle to understand is why it's unforgivable when the Garleans do it but 'a grim necessity' when the Fae do it. I can't imagine life as a leafman is any more pleasant than life as an artificial construct, though it wouldn't the first time that the story ignores the implications of what some of the 'protagonists' do.

[Haruka_R]

This dude really tried to fight someone with a tablet. What a...what a putz.

[MorionQ]

I like the body horror, though one thing I struggle to understand is why it's unforgivable when the Garleans do it but 'a grim necessity' when the Fae do it. I can't imagine life as a leafman is any more pleasant than life as an artificial construct, though it wouldn't the first time that the story ignores the implications of what some of the 'protagonists' do.

The Pixies and Fauth being tiny sociopaths by nature is pretty much exactly how mythology portrayed Fea. They’re innocent, not evil, they aren’t driven by a fear of consequences/empathy, just like a bratty, unwatched child. Fairytales were the original horror stories for kids to keep them in line, afterall. It became abundantly clear how disturbed our WoL is by them after a few side-quests and Feo Ul’s drive to help us is more a personality quirk of theirs than actual empathy.

This is the difference. Garleans like VVV and Zenos have not only gotten away with being sadistic bastards, but are actively rewarded for doing so instead of being brought to justice. Shoot, since the horrific actions of the Allagans and Garlean Empire are a result of how Emet Selch initially built them, the Fea creatures unique to the First might be another Ascian’s idea on how to breed more chaos and discord. (Pixie and Fauth are born out of circumstances surrounding a desth, so I wouldn’t be surprised.)

On subject, the ending chunk bringing the story together was really all I cared about. I’m having a slightly less hard of a time being on board with Good Guy Gaius now, and I was too busy crying about Allie’s memories, because, damn, that was the perfect kind of cheese to get me going. Priorities, I guess.