In my headcanon, Ilberd was never obviously a traitor. He walks in with Nanamo dead, you think you can explain to him, but he is outraged (him and Raubahn were bestest bros, right?) and he knocks you out. Meaning you're weakened for the entirety of the escape meaning it actually makes more sense. It would also have given Ilberds betrayal much more impact if it wasn't telegraphed updates in advance... As it stands it was like opening The Half-Blood Prince and the first line being "Snape kills Dumbledore". The whole Crystal Braves betrayal just wasn't effectively written in my opinion, as a plot twist it would have been amazing, instead I just sat there going "when is it going to happen?" constantly.


I'd also have had it revealed to everyone that the Warrior of Light has lost the Blessing of Light. How would Teledji Adeledji/Lolorito know that? Who bloody cares. That would have actually given some more weight to the entire affair, granted I don't think many NPCs are aware of the Blessing, but I do recall the Grand Company Leaders acknowledging it during an early cutscene. Suddenly you've gone from the paragon of virtue, blessed by the Goddess herself, to just another adventurer in every NPCs eyes. Why'd you lose the Blessing? Well we know what really happened, but if you're unaware of that (like every NPC is) you can paint a much darker picture of your character, one which backs up the claims of regicide. Oh, suddenly I'm not in a situation where the claims are absolutely laughable at best. Suddenly I'm feeling ramifications for losing the Blessing, because "Oh no! You've lost the Blessing of Light? Well, go do the impossible and kill an Ascian then!" certainly didn't make me feel like I'd lost anything, if anything I felt more powerful...

Instead we have this hilarious situation where you've been accused of regicide, lost most of your major allies, yet feel invincible. Everyone you talk to either outright rejects claims of your betrayal, is going solely off patchy rumors and are mostly unaware as a result, or is trying their hardest not to piss themselves with fear at your mere presence. I think it was a mistake to focus so heavily on the WoL during most of these dialog changes, one of the most effective ones (and I'm not even sure if it's a change?) is in Little Ala Mhigo regarding the Crystal Brave we recruited from there. If more of the dialog added following the main scenario were about NPCs I'd perhaps care more, because the NPCs are the ones in a shitty situation, not us. While they could try and put us in a shitty situation, it would likely impact gameplay in a negative manner and just result in an annoyance, much more effective I think to try and have us care about the other "people" effected by the events. But instead of reminding me of the shit that just went down, the game is instead reminding me that I'm awesome and untouchable, or just making me laugh at satire which would probably work (seriously Serendipidy, do that, no one would know the difference). That's sending out the complete wrong message IMO.

That said I enjoyed the finale, just not for the right reasons I think... Small things like "the [carriage] you rode in on" at the end got me far more than the actual plot. Really enjoyed the fight cutscenes (Raubahn owned the music) and I have hand it to SE for having the balls to off Nanamo, though I'm a tad peeved they didn't "fix" the situation with something like the Culinarian quest... Much like 1.0s original main quest, I think Class quests could do with being put in their own little Echo timeline now, they have the perfect tool to do away with inconsistencies like this, but they're not using it... Mayhaps in Heavensward... Heck that actually could have been used to make more of the NPCs in the game less trusting of us than they are without creating an inconvenience for the players... Talk to Guild NPC having finished their quests? "HOW COULD YOU?!!?". Talk to Guild NPC for the first time having finished the main scenario? Clearly marked Echo transition and things act like normal, perhaps with a few minor tweaks (/sad emote when looking at Nanamo during the Culinarian quest). Really do think there is a lot they could have done to improve the finale, guess I'll just hope for better in Heavensward.