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  1. #1
    Player
    Cilia's Avatar
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    The Hermit's Hovel
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    Trpimir Ratyasch
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    Lamia
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    Gunbreaker Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    ---
    Elidibus / Stones
    One of the things Y'shtola questions Elidibus on is whether or not his memory is still clear, and the PC can later call him out on trying to fulfill the wishes of those who have all passed on. Both times he defaults to "It's doesn't matter," but this is more of him defaulting to his programming as a primal than his earnest thoughts and feelings. As a consequence of all those who initially called on / needed him passing away, he no longer has them to keep his existence grounded, and begins losing even more of himself as he draws more and more on the wishes of heroes across the worlds for strength. It's a consequence of his existence as a primal.

    Best illustrated in one of the pre-battle cutscenes; when you tell him those he swore to serve are all gone, he tries to restate that oath... but can't remember to whom he swore it.

    That said he still does clearly recognize Emet-Selch when he bails you out of the Rift, so who knows.

    Regardless, the fact none of the Ascians, save perhaps Emet-Selch, recognize Azem in the PC is a fairly clear sign their memories aren't perfect either.


    YoRHa
    I agree that what we've gotten so far is a bit dull, but it's important to remember this is Yoko Taro, whose MO is to throw a cruel twist into the final act that recontextualizes just about everything. There are also hints that everything is not what it seems; from 2P's boss title translating to "Longing" in hex, to the contents of her log of the same name, to where said log is found, it's clear things aren't as simple as it appears. That said it ultimately just looks like a rehash of Automata proper, so I'm rather unimpressed. (Unlike a lot of other big raid references, that one was released not so long ago, so riding on nostalgia is a less viable option.)

    And yeah, literally every character in the quest chain treating the PC as little more than their gofer hasn't endeared me to any of them. I get that it's a mark of Yoko Taro's writing, but still.
    (6)
    Trpimir Ratyasch's Way Status (7.3 - End)
    [ ]LOST [ ]NOT LOST [X]TRAUNT!
    "There is no hope in stubbornly clinging to the past. It is our duty to face the future and march onward, not retreat inward." -Sovetsky Soyuz, Azur Lane: Snowrealm Peregrination

  2. #2
    Player
    EdwinLi's Avatar
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    Edwin Li
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    Balmung
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    Machinist Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
    Elidibus / Stones
    One of the things Y'shtola questions Elidibus on is whether or not his memory is still clear, and the PC can later call him out on trying to fulfill the wishes of those who have all passed on. Both times he defaults to "It's doesn't matter," but this is more of him defaulting to his programming as a primal than his earnest thoughts and feelings. As a consequence of all those who initially called on / needed him passing away, he no longer has them to keep his existence grounded, and begins losing even more of himself as he draws more and more on the wishes of heroes across the worlds for strength. It's a consequence of his existence as a primal.

    Best illustrated in one of the pre-battle cutscenes; when you tell him those he swore to serve are all gone, he tries to restate that oath... but can't remember to whom he swore it.

    That said he still does clearly recognize Emet-Selch when he bails you out of the Rift, so who knows.

    Regardless, the fact none of the Ascians, save perhaps Emet-Selch, recognize Azem in the PC is a fairly clear sign their memories aren't perfect either.

    If anything, i think the fact that the other ascians not remember Azen is more due to the fact they have always saw him as a traitor because Azem always went against traditions and people tend to never remember properly the people they hate.

    Azem directly resolved the issues himself with others while the other memebrs for the 14 follow the tradition of sitting in their tower safely in their city sipping tea and debating on how to resolve the issue first before finally agreeing in majority what to do. A tradition that no doubt left issues to spread to a point when it was already too late to resolve because they chosen to sit on their butts too long on what to do first. From what we learned in the Ascian society, they were more of Majority must agree before they can act kind of people but Azen being a act first and discuss it later type of person does not really give them the best impressions for in their eyes they may see him/her as reckless and dangerous for acting alone.

    Heck it is even mentioned Azem was the only one who went outside of the city and tower to explore the world to see the issues directly as well while the 13 members remaind in their city with the only knowledge they get from outside the city are from reports that may not contain all the details about what is going on and in some possible cases may arrive too late to act.
    (0)
    Last edited by EdwinLi; 08-16-2020 at 05:10 AM.

  3. #3
    Player
    Iscah's Avatar
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    Aurelie Moonsong
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    Bismarck
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
    I agree that what we've gotten so far is a bit dull, but it's important to remember this is Yoko Taro, whose MO is to throw a cruel twist into the final act that recontextualizes just about everything.
    The thing is, it's going to be very hard for this shocking third-act twist to be meaningful if I don't care about what little I've seen happen so far.

    The characters are just there. They've barely shown a personality beyond "fight the enemy". I don't feel like I know enough about them for there to be a twist that changes my understanding.

    Are they simply relying on prior familiarity with the characters, despite no guarantee that players have it, or is the writing like this in the original too?
    (7)

  4. #4
    Player
    Alleo's Avatar
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    Light Khah
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    Moogle
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    Arcanist Lv 91
    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    The thing is, it's going to be very hard for this shocking third-act twist to be meaningful if I don't care about what little I've seen happen so far.

    The characters are just there. They've barely shown a personality beyond "fight the enemy". I don't feel like I know enough about them for there to be a twist that changes my understanding.

    Are they simply relying on prior familiarity with the characters, despite no guarantee that players have it, or is the writing like this in the original too?
    I agree with that. A twist imo only works that way if you care about the people and the world they are in. I dont care at all for the characters. 2B does some saving and then takes off..9S tried to kill us. What twist could happen that would be soo cruel? Unlike his own games Yoko Taro is restriced (thankfully) and cant just do anything. So the first and 99% of its characters are save (the only ones I could see dieing would be the two dwarves). 9B and 9S barely have screentime or character so honestly those who care are probably those who played Automata.
    (6)

  5. #5
    Player
    Cilia's Avatar
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    Trpimir Ratyasch
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    Lamia
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    Gunbreaker Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    The thing is, it's going to be very hard for this shocking third-act twist to be meaningful if I don't care about what little I've seen happen so far.

    The characters are just there. They've barely shown a personality beyond "fight the enemy". I don't feel like I know enough about them for there to be a twist that changes my understanding.

    Are they simply relying on prior familiarity with the characters, despite no guarantee that players have it, or is the writing like this in the original too?
    TL;DR: Basically.

    As the story is presented in the original game, the first two routes ("Endings") don't give much context beyond an alien-created machine army conquering Earth, humanity fleeing to the Moon, and the PCs (2B and 9S) being soldiers in the war to reclaim Earth. As YoRHa they strive to keep their emotions to a minimum and carry out their tasks with mechanical efficiency, to the point 2B's catchphrase is "Emotions are prohibited." Further, the machines are cast as all nothing but mindless automatons carrying out their programming; excepting those not linked to their network everybody treats them as just fodder.

    Then you get a bunch of whammies that recontextualize everything:
    • Having assimilated a lot of data on humans into their network, the machines have become for most intents and purposes human other than their mechanical bodies.
    • YoRHa units are made using repurposed machine cores, so they're effectively the same.
    • Both the aliens and humans the two factions fight on behalf of are extinct (the machines turned on their creators when they realized they had no use for them, while humanity went extinct as a result of what happened in the original NieR; there's nothing on the Lunar Base except an incomplete human genome and a propaganda center).
    • 2B is actually 2E (Executioner), created to kill 9S whenever he gets too close to the truth about the war and has done so several times before. (The "A" Ending has her strangling him to death and hinting at this while she does so.)
    • The war is designed to be unwinnable on both ends.
    • In the event YoRHa gains an edge over the machines, there's a backdoor into their orbital Bunker that allows them all to be infected with a Logic Virus that will effectively turn them into zombies.

    ... but most if not all of that interesting information is locked behind hours of gameplay, requiring a runthrough of the same story twice from different perspectives. However once you do that you learn the YoRHa units are far from emotionless as the above revelations take a severe psychological toll on the characters - 2B succumbs to the Logic Virus but not before confessing her love for 9S in an audio log, and 9S himself essentially goes insane with grief and rage.

    But yeah, for the first two routes you aren't given much context or details on what's going on other than "go kill the evil machines to reclaim the Earth for humanity." It's certainly a poor way to hold your audience's attention if they don't know your MO though.

    As for the story in XIV itself, it does appear to be relying on familiarity with the characters and story of Automata to keep your interest... which is a problem.


    Don't misunderstand - I'm not saying what we've gotten so far is "good" by any means (given we've barely gotten anything at all). Just that Yoko Taro's MO is to withhold context until the final act, and make said context sad and tragic to elicit pathos from the audience.

    That makes it predictable to a T, like how there's always a twist in the ending of M. Night Shyamalan's films; once you get the trick, it's boring.

    (And like I said elsewhere it doesn't appear to be going anywhere the original Automata didn't, and that theme was pretty recently explored using Omega within XIV itself, so... whatever.)

    EDIT

    Quote Originally Posted by SecretCrowds View Post
    Question about our dear Elidibus and his motives.

    Sorry if this has been discussed already. But something still confuses me about the MSQ. What was the reason for Elidibus making all those people see the starfall and think they are the Warriors of Light? I can’t seem to piece it together with what he did at the climax, summoning all those other-world heroes to fight the scions and all.
    As a primal, Elidibus is powered by faith. It's to make people put their faith in Warriors of Light (of which he is the first ever in context), which he draws on for strength, rather than keeping their faith in the Warrior of Darkness (the PC).

    Step 1: Awaken normies to the Echo.
    Step 2: Say they're Warriors of Light and encourage them to be heroes.
    Step 3: Give them engineered threats to put down via Black Masks, increasing faith in the Warriors of Light.
    Step 4: Profit!
    (6)
    Last edited by Cilia; 08-16-2020 at 11:42 PM.
    Trpimir Ratyasch's Way Status (7.3 - End)
    [ ]LOST [ ]NOT LOST [X]TRAUNT!
    "There is no hope in stubbornly clinging to the past. It is our duty to face the future and march onward, not retreat inward." -Sovetsky Soyuz, Azur Lane: Snowrealm Peregrination

  6. #6
    Player
    Saix027's Avatar
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    Ashyra Leyran
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    Zodiark
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    Scholar Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
    As a primal, Elidibus is powered by faith. It's to make people put their faith in Warriors of Light (of which he is the first ever in context), which he draws on for strength, rather than keeping their faith in the Warrior of Darkness (the PC).

    Step 1: Awaken normies to the Echo.
    Step 2: Say they're Warriors of Light and encourage them to be heroes.
    Step 3: Give them engineered threats to put down via Black Masks, increasing faith in the Warriors of Light.
    Step 4: Profit!
    Which makes me wonder how this even works, since they had believe on a different Primal basically and not the person or object itself, i mean wouldn't that mean any primal can pull power from other believers that not worship them directly?
    (0)

  7. #7
    Player
    Hikari_Kishimoto's Avatar
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    Gridania
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    K'ore Cir
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    Lich
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    White Mage Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post

    The solo duty fighting past characters felt like it didn't know what it was trying to achieve.
    Very much so.

    Also...

    Elidibus constantly accusing us of not caring about the fate of his people was so bothering - since it wasn't true at all. If the ending of 5.0 had achieved anything, then it was this.

    When he then turned the Amaurotines into races of our time, so that we would relate to his feelings of grief and loss, it felt so unneccessary. In fact, I had felt more related to them, when they had appeared as Amaurotines.

    All-in-all, the solo duty felt like an half-hearted, forced attempt to make us realize that to him, we are the bad ones. What we had already known.


    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    ... it would have been so much more effective if they'd made you slay illusions of people you cared about.
    Absolutely. A missed opportunity.
    (2)

  8. #8
    Player
    Fenral's Avatar
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    W'fharl Tia
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    Gilgamesh
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    Viper Lv 100
    G'raha stuff:
    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    Rammbroes' message to G'raha strikes me as odd and ambiguously worded, and I originally took it with an alternate interpretation that didn't seem to play out. I need to set my thoughts on it out as a separate post, I think.
    [...]
    All happiness aside though, wasn't he specifically in the tower to guarantee that there'd be someone able to control it at whatever point it was reopened? Unless the soul crystal continues to be functional as a key not physically bound to an individual, I suppose.
    Ramnbroes message was specifically meant to absolve him of his "duty" to the Tower, as well as his inherited duty to Lady-never-mentioned-again Salina herself. The tower has brought hope to people of future times, just not on the Source. Mission accomplished. Sealing it again is more of an "and the Master Sword sleeps... forever" formality than anything else. It's going to sleep again, but this time without leaving that nagging sense of wasteduntapped potential. The writers have other toys they want to play with now. (Like Azys Lla, maybe?)

    It also still stands that it could eventually be awakened and operated by other means, just like literally every other piece of technology ever made. Hell, that's been proven at least partway already. The "living key" bit was only ever a flimsy diabolus ex machina to begin with, so the less they dwell on it the better, in my opinion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    Alternately or as well, seeing as we didn't actually see G'raha's reawakening, perhaps we woke him first up and asked whether he was willing to accept it. Not that you'd probably want to say no to something like that, but again, the Exarch IS G'raha and would justifiably know that he would want to do it.

    Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.
    G'raha outright says that there are no contradictions in his memory, which I believe means his Source self was asleep at the time of the transfer. His Source self's memories end at the time he sealed the tower (and presumably found a cozy corner for a catnap), so the only new memories would be waking in the Eighth UE, getting sent to the First, and then returning to the Source. It's a single, unbroken chain of events with no divergence, therefore no opportunity for Source!G'raha to exist as a separate individual. Which I guess still sounds awful if you write it all out, so that's probably why they didn't.

    Is it maybe too convenient? Yeah, sure. Is there room for a darker "but actually" down the line? Also yes, but going into that now would have soured the feeling they wanted for this particular finale, just like how the Exarch's body going off warranty wasn't brought up at the end of 5.0 proper.

    Unless the real plan is for every Scion but Alph and Alie to have some sort of Sword of Damocles like Y'shtola's cast-from-lifespan aethersight, and for them all to come back into play at the worst possible moment. Yeah, not going to think about that anymore...
    (12)

  9. #9
    Player
    Morningstar1337's Avatar
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    Jun 2014
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    Aurora Aura
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    Exodus
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    Thaumaturge Lv 80
    Quote Originally Posted by Fenral View Post
    Unless the real plan is for every Scion but Alph and Alie to have some sort of Sword of Damocles like Y'shtola's cast-from-lifespan aethersight, and for them all to come back into play at the worst possible moment. Yeah, not going to think about that anymore...
    Let's see...

    Apart from the aforementioned, Thancred does have an inability to use Aether and Urianger has....job security until they require the EX ARR Trials. Krile didn't have any known adverse effects from being rescued from Eureka, but then again her involvement in that plotline gives her a simialr aegis to Urianger's.
    (2)

  10. #10
    Player
    Iscah's Avatar
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    Aurelie Moonsong
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    Bismarck
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    Summoner Lv 90
    Quote Originally Posted by Fenral View Post
    G'raha stuff:
    G'raha outright says that there are no contradictions in his memory, which I believe means his Source self was asleep at the time of the transfer. His Source self's memories end at the time he sealed the tower (and presumably found a cozy corner for a catnap), so the only new memories would be waking in the Eighth UE, getting sent to the First, and then returning to the Source. It's a single, unbroken chain of events with no divergence, therefore no opportunity for Source!G'raha to exist as a separate individual. Which I guess still sounds awful if you write it all out, so that's probably why they didn't.
    I think I'm going with my own earlier take on it though - and because it's logical, not just because I want to ignore an alternative.
    If we were talking senitent clones, which is the thing these sort of conundrums tend to pop up in fiction, then yeah the clone is a separate person and isn't simply the property of their genetic original. But G'raha can know his own mind on such a prospect, and is able to think "yes, I would have been happy to accept this back when I was the age that my other self is now" - and because there's no divergence between the two selves, simply two points on the same life, he is genuinely able to speak for his other self's wishes.

    It's still sort of convoluted, but I think it works out okay. Though perhaps they shouldn't have included the idea that there was a risk of damaging both souls... it's not like there were any real stakes to the transfer in the end (unless we're in for a nasty surprise later). Just perhaps make it a risk that the Exarch's soul might not stick properly though G'raha's will still be fine.

    I'm kind of surprised they didn't just go the route of transferring the Exarch's memories without his soul, though. I think it would have made the death scene more poignant, but at the same time I think I'd be stuck wondering whether he truly died (i.e. body considered dead, soul free to return to the Lifestream) or whether his soul would remain trapped in his crystalised body. That said, I had contemplated that as a potential ending for him - fusing with the tower completely and watching over the Crystarium forever - but then there's the running theme over the story that immortality is actually pretty miserable.
    (4)

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