"In from the Cold" Scenario, any way to skip it?

[MilkieTea]

I thought it was great. I hope to see more situations like it in the future. Feeling powerless from time to time is neat.

I found it very engaging and it quite honestly put things into perspective for me.

I was me in mind but not in body, and thus I could feel the weight of what I was doing. Overall it wasnt hard (I finished it in 13 minutes my first try, and I am most definitely going to keep doing it using NG+ ASAP because I want to whittle that number down.) But it was annoying in all the right ways. Garleans are the closest approximation to actual humans- humans don’t autoheal out of battles, they can’t cast a spell to give them extra health or mend broken bones. And for once, I felt… human. I’d never felt that ingame, even from the beginning. I’d always felt “fantasy.”

Granted, the entire Garlemald questline itself was very humanizing but this tool the cake. In Nazi Germany (which given imagery I’m assuming Garlemald is based on.) families hid the weight of the war from children, while those who were deemed subhuman were forced to work mere miles away. In fact Jullus’ childhood story reminded me of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

The girls who died over trusting us, the enemy in their eyes, reminded me of hearing in school about how so many towards the end of WW2 offed themselves even when they might not’ve faced retribution because they werent even involved in the war.

And finally, the 1st Legion Legatus’ death… woof… that reminded me immensely of Hitlers death as troops were moments from storming his bunker.

The entirety of Garlemald was a step out of fiction and into the cold, harsh reality that fantasy cannot always be fantastical, and this instanced battle really sealed the deal. Being ‘normal’ for once made me really happy for what I have outside of that, and really sad for Garleans.

[SturmChurro]

I found it very engaging and it quite honestly put things into perspective for me.

I was me in mind but not in body, and thus I could feel the weight of what I was doing. Overall it wasnt hard (I finished it in 13 minutes my first try, and I am most definitely going to keep doing it using NG+ ASAP because I want to whittle that number down.) But it was annoying in all the right ways.

I don't see this. The timer is there just to give you a false sense of urgency. They give you way more time than is necessary, in an overly large area with a bunch of (literal) junk in the way, to try and obfuscate the singular correct path, and it relies on finding things - in order. I see no reason to even try to beat a previous time on a mission. After the illusion is broken, it's just another scripted story mission.