the common criticisms of this game's story are really weird. a lot of people talk about celica's act 4 being the weakest part of the story because her actions make no sense but i think the issue there (and in the plot overall) is much less celica, who i would say is still acting consistently to her character, than it is the way rigel and the duma faithful are portrayed. though by the end the goal of the story is uniting the two countries, you're largely limited to the perspective of zofia with rigel as a constant antagonistic force, and its not until late act 4 they start to be put in a sympathetic light at all. even by the end of the game when man vs god becomes the primary conflict, its only really duma who is seen as an obstacle to overcome. throughout the story mila is just painted as a force of good, especially due to your characters' voice lines constantly mentioning and thanking her. the duma faithful are especially an issue since they're just shown as this overtly evil group with their motivation being an extreme devotion to their god, which is also... one of celica's main motivations, but this is never really pointed out as a negative thing. celica sacrificing herself kinda does this but not well enough. so i wish there had been an actual attempt to make characters like jedah actual characters with understandable motivations and the duma faithful as a religion instead of this weird cult, because it would have been a really easy and effective parallel with the player characters and their worship of mila. its like its half there but they couldn't depart from gaiden enough to not have this crazy evil gharnef guy. (also making the duma faithful less evil would make ruldolf's plan make a bit more sense). but uh whatever i'm complaining about all this but actually i don't care this is one of my favourite games it can do no wrong for me etc etc.