guimachiavelli
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1 day
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December 31, 2022
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I understand why Stormblood focusses on Ala Mhigo and Doma. It was becoming untenable to keep talking about Ala Mhigo's subjugation and using Ala Mhigans as plot devices— the WoL murders gods and saves the downtrodden left and right, so it was time to solve the situation instead of leaving the whole nation as an eternal place of pain and suffering.
That said, the narrative starts badly enough by yeeting us to Kugane and Doma, and gets much worse the moment we return. As much as I do believe everything is political, Final Fantasy as a franchise is not generally well-equipped to address geopolitics: wars, governments, ethnic tensions, none of those things can be satisfactorily addressed by 1: a single person; 2: a hero whose main talent is "murder stuff really good." Hien coming out of nowhere and usurping Xaela's customs and rites to force them into the conflict is…not great. The few times the Alliance and the Scions mention their opponents would tell them everything after being "interrogated" made my skin crawl a bit. I'm not saying prisoners were tortured, but…you know, that's something that happens very often in war and that a fantasy franchise about magic crystals cannot really address.
Another weird choice in this expansion is how it is clearly the expansion about Ala Mhigo, yet we spend the majority of time in Doma, learning about Doma, and freeing Doma. Ala Mhigo is really more of a vibe than an actual concern for, what, 70% of the story?
Most of the major characters are not really great. Zenos is just a basic and overpowered sadist—a trope I am personally not a fan of. Yotsuyu is evil in a really campy way, which is cool, but also tired (and sort of annoying in how the game really wants us to see the pleasure she takes in committing atrocities is at least partly sexual). Fordola might have benefited from more attention, but since we spend so little time in actual Ala Mhigo, who knows. I assume the patches will shine more light on this. Lyse is not great either, her evolution from comic relief pugilist to resistance leader requiring enormous quantities of suspension of disbelief—though perhaps the issue is less about disbelief and more about the writers being very keen on pushing a bland secondary character into a position of power and heroism.
That said, the narrative starts badly enough by yeeting us to Kugane and Doma, and gets much worse the moment we return. As much as I do believe everything is political, Final Fantasy as a franchise is not generally well-equipped to address geopolitics: wars, governments, ethnic tensions, none of those things can be satisfactorily addressed by 1: a single person; 2: a hero whose main talent is "murder stuff really good." Hien coming out of nowhere and usurping Xaela's customs and rites to force them into the conflict is…not great. The few times the Alliance and the Scions mention their opponents would tell them everything after being "interrogated" made my skin crawl a bit. I'm not saying prisoners were tortured, but…you know, that's something that happens very often in war and that a fantasy franchise about magic crystals cannot really address.
Another weird choice in this expansion is how it is clearly the expansion about Ala Mhigo, yet we spend the majority of time in Doma, learning about Doma, and freeing Doma. Ala Mhigo is really more of a vibe than an actual concern for, what, 70% of the story?
Most of the major characters are not really great. Zenos is just a basic and overpowered sadist—a trope I am personally not a fan of. Yotsuyu is evil in a really campy way, which is cool, but also tired (and sort of annoying in how the game really wants us to see the pleasure she takes in committing atrocities is at least partly sexual). Fordola might have benefited from more attention, but since we spend so little time in actual Ala Mhigo, who knows. I assume the patches will shine more light on this. Lyse is not great either, her evolution from comic relief pugilist to resistance leader requiring enormous quantities of suspension of disbelief—though perhaps the issue is less about disbelief and more about the writers being very keen on pushing a bland secondary character into a position of power and heroism.