[Spoilers] Garlemald is a wasted opportunity

[Antoine_Lenheim]

I am utterly disappointed about how they pictured Garlemald. I actually hyped SO much about finally going there, to see that dystopian, technologically advanced city with ceruleum powered vehicles in the sky, advanced machinery, amaurot-like city with tall buildings and dark, gloomy atmosphere. Expected to experience some of that Garlean "modern day" magitek feel that all of the little visits to various Garlean bases involved - but in a more civilian setting.

And what did I get? Coerthas 2,0? Snowy wasteland? Wtf is that? You can say that well, Garlean Empire is through a civil war but although Garlemald was destroyed, even the debris is disappointing. It was probably the most hyped up area of all time since ARR and it didn't meet those expectations, which is an understatement.

Character development on the Garleans was absolutely poor too, It's incredible how so much bloodlust over the years has just been swept under the carpet, I'm hoping patches 6.1 and above address the blatant racism between Garleans and Eorzeans.

Also Garlemald in particular look a bit unfinished and definitely re-uses a few assets from other areas in the game.

It's all just an ultimate boner killer for the rest of the story. Can't stand how poorly they treated such an important zone that we waited so long to come to.

[iheartlove42]

Character development on the Garleans was absolutely poor too, It's incredible how so much bloodlust over the years has just been swept under the carpet, I'm hoping patches 6.1 and above address the blatant racism between Garleans and Eorzeans.

They did address this. Some of the Garleans outright refuse your help. A lot of the Alliance nations don't want to help Garlemald at all.

The Garleans are now a completely decimated people. Many have chosen suicide. They realized they were taken advantage of by the Ascians. You are basically walking into Berlin in 1945.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

They did address this. Some of the Garleans outright refuse your help. A lot of the Alliance nations don't want to help Garlemald at all.

The Garleans are now a completely decimated people. Many have chosen suicide. They realized they were taken advantage of by the Ascians. You are basically walking into Berlin in 1945.

Right, I think it was convenient for the writers to destroy Garlemald because development of the story around the Garlean Empire and its people as a whole is sorely lacking. I suppose they did put the Ascians in the forefront permanently as the main enemy in ShB, when they made it so that the Empire was formed by an Ascian and the one pulling the strings, which was shoddy writing and makes me think they just wanted to sweep the Garlean Empire under the rug.

Despite the Garlemald disappointment I think the rest of EW ties up the story well and the subsequent zones somewhat make up for it.

[iheartlove42]

Right, I think it was convenient for the writers to destroy Garlemald because development of the story around the Garlean Empire and its people as a whole is sorely lacking. I suppose they did put the Ascians in the forefront permanently as the main enemy in ShB, when they made it so that the Empire was formed by an Ascian and the one pulling the strings, which was shoddy writing and makes me think they just wanted to sweep the Garlean Empire under the rug.

Despite the Garlemald disappointment I think the rest of EW ties up the story well and the subsequent zones somewhat make up for it.

Garlemald Empire being a puppet state for the villains is par the course for Final Fantasy.

[GrizzlyTank]

Garlemald Empire being a puppet state for the villains is par the course for Final Fantasy.

Pretty much FF staples aside from enemies. Crystals, an empire and a "jester".
Even FFXIV have had multiple "empires" and "jesters"

ARR: the XIV, lahabrea
HW: the VIth/church, pope
SB: the XII, Zenos
ShB: eulmore, emet
EW: garlemald, fandaniel

[MikkoAkure]

The zone itself also felt really small to me. Thing is though, is that unless they made it a city zone it was going to have enemies everywhere. They could have made it like Peaks 2.0 where there’s a corner we can go to that’s still built up and the rest has enemies, but the writers seemed very insistent on blowing it up and killing most of the civilians off.

The zone still exists though so unless the 6.X patches decide to completely ignore the new zones, we’re going back and the majority of the city exists just out of reach in the background and could theoretically be rebuilt just like how Doma Castle was destroyed.

I just hope that they give us a third eye glam piece. They didn’t even bother with making a new model for them and most Garleans are still elezen with hyur ears or straight up midlander.

[Shurrikhan]

The zone itself also felt really small to me. Thing is though, is that unless they made it a city zone it was going to have enemies everywhere. They could have made it like Peaks 2.0 where there’s a corner we can go to that’s still built up and the rest has enemies, but the writers seemed very insistent on blowing it up and killing most of the civilians off.

The zone still exists though so unless the 6.X patches decide to completely ignore the new zones, we’re going back and the majority of the city exists just out of reach in the background and could theoretically be rebuilt just like how Doma Castle was destroyed.

I just hope that they give us a third eye glam piece. They didn’t even bother with making a new model for them and most Garleans are still elezen with hyur ears or straight up midlander.

I really hope we get a side-content zone where we clear out the existing blasphemies, perhaps some of which are able somehow (liberties taken for gameplay reasons) to make more. Destroyed city warfare in place of the bland pure desolation that was Bozja? Sounds good to me. (But, really, please no Bozja/Eureka/Diadem-dependent relic farm this expansion. Please.)

[Bright-Flower]

The racism part on the side of the Alliance was explained pretty well. The group was basically volunteers in the minority that wanted to help. They make it clear that for every one person willing to go there were at least 10 who refused. This was a hand picked group for the mission.

On the garlean side, there was plenty of it. From the group at the one house who refuse to accept that you're there to help to the point of the two sisters fleeing in fear and dying out in the cold rather than accept your aid, to the legatus committing suicide rather than letting go of the past and accepting aid, to many of the soldiers you can talk to while in their subway base etc.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

The racism part on the side of the Alliance was explained pretty well. The group was basically volunteers in the minority that wanted to help. They make it clear that for every one person willing to go there were at least 10 who refused. This was a hand picked group for the mission.

On the garlean side, there was plenty of it. From the group at the one house who refuse to accept that you're there to help to the point of the two sisters fleeing in fear and dying out in the cold rather than accept your aid, to the legatus committing suicide rather than letting go of the past and accepting aid, to many of the soldiers you can talk to while in their subway base etc.

I know all of this and yet it still felt poorly done.

The Garleans got the shaft almost as much as the empire in FFXV where the whole "Empire", an Empire that conquered more than their fair share of countries, becomes nothing in the backstory.

And when we do get introduced to it, it's a husk of frightened frozen soldiers and unreasonably stupid civilians.

[Bright-Flower]

I know all of this and yet it still felt poorly done.

The Garleans got the shaft almost as much as the empire in FFXV where the whole "Empire", an Empire that conquered more than their fair share of countries, becomes nothing in the backstory.

And when we do get introduced to it, it's a husk of frightened frozen soldiers and unreasonably stupid civilians.

Seems to be a recurring trend. I never played XV but the Magitek Empire in VI was the main antagonist through the first half of the game. Then Kefkak ills the emperor and screws up the world and the empire is just gone save for one random surviving trooper, and much of the capital being repurposed for Kefka's final dungeon.

Type 0 is kind enough to wait for you to actually fully defeat the Empire before the doomsday shows up.