Quote Originally Posted by ReynTime View Post
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I don't know what it is with the devs/writers just wanting to speedrun through as much as possible with minimal buildup recently, but it's really causing things to not remotely feel threatening like they should be to me personally. The final days for example are hyped up in Shadowbringers by Emet to be an event that brought the ancients to the brink of extinction. Meanwhile in Endwalker the final days only affected Thavnair and Garlemald and then it's over because we figure out at the end of zone 5 the cause of them and then nip it in the bud immediately in zone 6. Meteion was introduced in zone 5 as the "penultimate villain" of a 10-year story and then given only zones 5/6 and some cutscenes to convince players she deserved that title. [Whether or not she did is completely up to personal opinions.]

Valigarmanda suffered this same speedrun, just like many things in Dawntrail did. Valigarmanda was hyped up to be this monstrous creature in legends that even after fighting Gulool Ja Ja and his group for 10 days couldn't be slain by them, only being sealed away in a gradually weakening prison. He is finally released!...and then Wuk kills it with our help in about 15 minutes and we move right on.

v--Cringe "What-If? Below--v

They could've had Valigarmanda be the level 99 trial instead, where this time Zoraal Ja is the one to release him. We still kill Valigarmanda, but it's a short lived victory as it's essence is still lingering since Valigarmanda was extremely strong even by normal tural vidraal standards. Then have Zoraal Ja suddenly seal it away, similar to how the tural vidraal were sealed in the role quests, and then he flees. Fast-forward to the final zone: Zoraal Ja is the level 100 dungeon boss. We punch him in the face and he devours the souls. Now the level 100 trial starts as his trial form, and just like phase 1 of the trial, we beat him down fast because he has used so many souls his normal body just genuinely cannot take it. But he has one final trick up his sleeve and infuses himself with the essence of Valigarmada, essentially transforming into Shinryu 2.0 [The devs/writers pretty much made Zoraal Ja a piss-poor bootleg version of Zenos, so I'll just fully lean completely into the complete bootleg part] and then the actual level 100 trial fight starts. Yes this would require pretty much a complete overhaul of the story, hence the cringe, but given my own personal feelings about Dawntrail's story I'd happily take a complete re-write.


Yes, they do mention Valigarmanda was imprisoned for 80 years and also beaten down due to it's fight with Gulool Ja Ja, but that just seems like such a cop-out excuse when they could've absolutely done more then just release it and then IMMEDIATELY kill it off barely 15 minutes later before it does literally anything of value just to paint Wuk Lamat as a incredible hero of Tural.