Thank you to whoever wrote the Pandaemonium story so far [SPOILERS]

[Midareyukki]

The first thing I enjoyed was how they managed to make the most out of an obscure mythological anecdote (Erichthonius's birth). As it went on, I enjoyed the way that they toyed with not one but two aspects of the FF mythos. Lahabrea is the opposite to Mateus in FF12, who in turn is named after the Emperor of FF2. The Emperor split his soul to conquer Heaven and Hell both (Pandaemonium is Hell's capital in Milton's Paradise Lost), while Mateus bound an ice goddess to himself as a hostage.

But the actual story itself, the way that each character brings nuance to what's appears to be a sensitive oedipus-esque scenario, is honestly really interesting. And it for sure made Lahabrea look far more respectful than any other aspect of the game.

We're told Lahabrea was a genius.
We're told Lahabrea was one of the strongest among the Fourteen.
We're told Lahabrea was the man behind the creation of Zodiark.
We're told Lahabrea's lecture hall was full of students eager to hear him.

But what we see in the entire game is a raving fanatic who plays all of the villain tropes and dies unceremoniously by some priest cosplaying as Arthur Pendragon.

Even our character at one point remarks with "Really??? You guys like THAT guy?!", because it's just so odd to hear all these interesting and frankly intimidating things about a man who we beat barely knowing what the hell we were doing. And then we beat again, only to then see Artoria Pope Alter slice him and end him.

And we finally see why he became such a degraded shadow of who he once was, what led to that, and caught a glimpse of his actual greatness. Again, a really good homage to just how underrated and underappreciated the greek god Hephaistos himself is, both in-mythos and by the people who study it. One of the Twelve bloody Olympians. A great god who created impressive and magnificent devices, whom even Zeus feared because at any given time he could unleash the monster powering Mount Etna. But all he's known for is being "the lame fire god who got angy at Aphrodite being a girlboss".

I too greatly enjoyed the story of Pandaemonium this patch and I'm excited to see how it plays out. It subverted my expectations in all the right ways.

.....ok who are you and what did you do to aveyond-dreams.

When there's something positive to say, we're gonna be positive. It's just not always like that.

people never expect that when they're told "If we complain about the game, it's because we care about it and want it to improve" they're actually being told the truth.