[Spoilers] Garlemald is a wasted opportunity

[Rufalus]

I wanted more from those tag girls we first saw at the end of ghimlyt dark. I haven't played all of the quests yet so maybe I'm missing something.
This is worse than a civil war; it looks like a weapon of mass destruction went off at this city. The devs really wanted get rid of it before we could arrive.

[KageTokage]

The city was already badly damaged due to the civil war, but the following mass-tempering destroyed it even further as Anima's thralls were demolishing buildings and using the pieces to construct the Tower of Zot.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

I also forgot to mention how much all that Towers plotline sucks. After all the buildup with Fandaniel, Zenos and the towers I was expecting that story arc to last quite a while longer instead of getting resolved so effortlessly. Where the story went from there was way better than I imagined, but the whole "towers" plotline just made me go "wait, that's it?"

I think the beginning of EW, up to the end of Garlemald, was probably the source of the 2 week delay. It feels rushed/unfinished to me. I think it really picks up after that though.

[IckeDerTyp]

I saw a train and cars! I liked it~

[Hainiryun]

I personally kind of loved it because we got there after the fact. The empire being already functionally gone by the time we get there is just a far more compelling angle IMO.

What we get of the Garleans is a people who've just had the entire core of their society ripped out from under them and are still struggling to even comprehend that let alone cope with it. They lash out at people claiming to be there to help because they have to, they're clinging on to what little remains of their entire identity; Garlean superiority and the savagery of the outsiders. The younger characters in particular have been raised to see us as brutal savages who'd gladly go back to persecuting the Garleans like we did their ancestors. So when we show up on their doorstep with an army right as they're at their weakest the obvious conclusion is we're here to kick them while they're down. Emet-Selch found a people who had been legitimately downtrodden and turned that against the world, using the suffering of their people as justification for terrible crimes. What we see in Garlemald is the consequences of that society. The Garlean identity that has been drummed into these people can't survive the fall of the empire. We see it in the reactions of the guy with the radio; Varis is alive and still fighting for us in secret, he has to be because otherwise we have to accept that Garlemald has fallen and can never be repaired.

Quintus felt like he encapsulated that perfectly to me. He refuses to concede that Garlemald needs help because to do so would be to admit that Garlemald is done. Self-reliance and survival in harsh conditions have been at the core of Garlean identity since long before the empire. If he accepts help from outside then he's conceding the very idea of Garlemald, which is especially impossible to do when help is on the way. Garlemald will be reclaimed, the Xth is on the way with help and they'll retake the capital without the help of outsiders who'll simply use this as an in to victimize the Garleans further. When the Xth is a no show he has to finally accept that this has all been for naught. He's driven the remnants of his legion into the ground, allowed civilians under his watch to suffer and die all on the hope that help was coming. All he acheived was hampering the help that was already there. Given the empire is only ~55 years old (thanks time bubble) He's also likely old enough to remember the pre imperial republic, having experienced the state of pre imperial Garlemald he can't bear to see his people reduced to that again.

Given time the remnants of the Garlean people will hopefully be able to find a way to endure and become something new but the story emphasizes that they were victims for a reason. Not just of Zenos and Fandaniel's scheming but of Emet-Selch. The empire was never designed to last, even if Zenos had never gotten involved something like this would have happened eventually. Not that this all absolves the empire of all its own crimes of course. The Garlean Empire had a whole lot of victims and its own civilian populace are just the latest entry on that list.

There's also some echoes of of Amaurot of all things there. Emet-Selch was still clinging to the memories of a society that was gone and could never come back, and now the people of the country he created find themselves doing the same.

[Naria]

I was surprised how much I liked Garlemald actually. The music and the atmosphere was bleak and chilling (no pun intended). I thought the people and their varying reactions were very well done and as realistic as could be done in such a sort time. While I liked her well enough in HW, Lucia was an unexpected and standout character in that arc for me and I hope we don't go five years before we get to see her again.

[Floortank]

I knew we were never gonna see the Garlean Empire. They'd built up an expectation that was too large to actually carry off. The Empire as described in earlier parts of the game and EE came off as massive. Even just their airships suggested an immensity of docking structures that would have rivaled the Tower of Babil for size.

I knew they would not give us a city that was larger than three or four Kuganes. I thought maybe they could make it a contiguous outdoor zone that happens to look like a city, similar to parts of the Lochs.

When they revealed that it would basically be a burned out ruin, I was like "aha!" because I knew they were doing that to resolve the inherent problem they'd set for themselves. That Garlemald / the Empire's territories were too vast to render without it becoming the entire expansion.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

I knew we were never gonna see the Garlean Empire. They'd built up an expectation that was too large to actually carry off. The Empire as described in earlier parts of the game and EE came off as massive. Even just their airships suggested an immensity of docking structures that would have rivaled the Tower of Babil for size.

I knew they would not give us a city that was larger than three or four Kuganes. I thought maybe they could make it a contiguous outdoor zone that happens to look like a city, similar to parts of the Lochs.

When they revealed that it would basically be a burned out ruin, I was like "aha!" because I knew they were doing that to resolve the inherent problem they'd set for themselves. That Garlemald / the Empire's territories were too vast to render without it becoming the entire expansion.

Nobody asking for them to recreate Garlean Empire in its entirety. Just Garlemald is enough. But it felt so unbelievable that such a huge Empire got reduced to dust and ashes in such a meager amount of time. THE Empire, our grave enemy which was always been showcased as a superior nation with advanced technology. And when you finally arrive there, there is nothing except wasteland, small pile of rubble and bunch of frozen soldiers.

Where is everything? Where are remnants of once grandeur Empire? Sure, if you want to show that nation after a terrible civil war, it's perfectly fine but just SCALE it differently! For example, the main capital feels like scorched Doma in terms of scale and size. It should look like Amaurot, just debris of Amaurot! Also where is furniture inside that pile of rubble? Where are remnants of technology aside from radio? EVERYTHING in that huge Empire was lost in a fortnight? No more airships, reapers and Ultima Weapons? Even destroyed ones?

That zone feels super rushed. It lacks scale, lacks that essential vibe of once vibrant and grand place that is now in decline. It feels like Coerthas. You can't just sweep such an iconic place under the carpet without it looking super unbelievable.

[Kaliesto]

The more I was thinking about it, but the whole map should have been city ruins.

It would have different from the typical snow landscapes we gotten before.

[Rufalus]

The city was already badly damaged due to the civil war, but the following mass-tempering destroyed it even further as Anima's thralls were demolishing buildings and using the pieces to construct the Tower of Zot.

Fair point, just found it a bit too clean how it went total wipeout in such a short period of time, off screen. Similarly I never felt fully satisfied with the explanation of how almost the whole allagan civilization wiped out by a calamity too, even with them being spread over such a huge distance globally and in some cases not living on the ground and having access to incredible technology and defenses. Would think they could recover quite well even from massive damage to the heart of their empire. Back to Garlemald, I imagined it to be much larger and more robust. How swiftly could you desynth a metropolis and build that tower from it.