So my thoughts on the stories:
Werlyt
As soon as Mr. IamsoEvil told Allie that her brother was brought to a save place I knew that he was death. That she believed his words is just stupid imo and that she somehow missed him or thought that she could just steal it without there being a "off" button is quite naive.
I am not that annoyed that she survived because I do like my happy endings but its still sad that it was her and not at least her and her brother. But female NPCs just have a much better rate surviving in this game. She also suffered from some consequences but that was already solved at the end.
Redemption is also fine and I agree that one should let go of past hate otherwise you wont move on with your life but I do not agree how Gaius got away with everything. Of course he is suddenly the leader for the raid and afterwards will help rebuilt..after everything he has done until now. The only reason why he is on the path he is right now was because he was played by an Ascian and got his ass kicked by us. When Lahabrea revealed his plan he did not turn onto him...he still was like "lets talk later I need to smash these insects before me first". And I have a very hard time that he never once noticed what is wrong in his country...its unbelievable for me.
But I guess after all he has done he still gets a free pass unlike Fordola who has to run around with a detonator on her neck and still has to serve her time in prison.
Hopefully this was his major role in the story and hopefully that means that he wont be a possible leader of future Garlemald.
Nier
I was told we should wait until the last act because the creator of Nier loves to push a lot of story behind the last arc. Yet here I am having no clue how it makes sense at all. For me this is the absolute worst raid story until now, even something like Alexander was better.
There is no explanation to fit it into the game and the Nier characters who only got truly introduced in the last patch are already gone...should I have felt something when they disappeared? Heck I did not even feel much for the dwarf Sister. At least the brother is save but somehow on a quest to get more information...how? The first barely exist anymore..how would he suddenly get information on Aliens?
If we somehow get all the info dumps with these weekly quests than that would still be bad storytelling imo but honestly I really doubt we will get much out of it.
Rebuilding the city also feels kinda useless..its tiny and feels like most is still intact. Honestly the rebuilding should have been done in a week...
So yeah this raid is an absolute disappointment for me. Bosses felt so random if you have no idea about Nier, the tower itself was not great to look at and the story was barely even there...but at least the music was good.
MSQ
Finally Tiamat is free. Interesting that she too was tempered but thankfully we got her out of it. The dungeon itself felt great especially with her there.
I love that the city states are leaving their past behind and try to be better. Some might not like it or think that it will take the edge away but at the same time wasnt it always a point that they still had their own demons to face? But now that they are at least facing them and trying to change for the better, yet I have already read that this is not good?
Graha Tia is a delight and he and the twins will be my dream team for the trusts. I also love that Estinien was joining us and his (and Arenvalds) interactions with Alphinaud and his meeting with Alisaie were pure gold. I also loved that Alisaie was a bit jealous.
I really hope that Arenvald survives it but I guess he might be the change that is needed to make Alphinaud into the new healer job.
The towers are really creepy and I hope that we will deal with them over time. Also doesnt the story kinda hint that most of the civilians in the city of Garlemald are now tempered? Ouch that sucks. Thankfully we got our plot device Angel that will save them. (I just roll my eyes when they are totally out of Aether in one second and quite fine the next..)
I do not like the talk at the end about Hydealyn. Of course its good to know more about her but I really hope that they dont go into the directions that she tempers too because it makes no sense...we are not acting like someone who is tempered (we barely even talk about her and our goals are mostly to just save the planet and the people living on it) Also I kinda doubt that Middy was just able to lock away our tempering when he sealed the crystals...we also did not act much different there either.
And Ysthola should have seen something on our soul if we were.
Also why should she be disappointed in us? In the german version they ask if she is either to weak to talk or that we have fallen from her grace. But what should we have done to deserve that? She wanted to save the first otherwise she would not have sent Minfilia there. She told us that the Ascians are her enemies thus us destroying the big ones should be great...
I really hope that its just a red hering..otherwise we would have to deal with Zodiark and Hydealyn in 6.0 which already feels like it could be too rushed.