Today I finish the sidequest binge. Once again, image-heavy.
First up is the conclusion of Tehgonan’s quest. It’s interesting that the array of students here is almost gender-equal – three women to four men. A pity that similar ratios do not appear in Fortifel proper.
Tehgonan: (“All right! Damn, this thing must be fifty pages long! Maybe if I start in the middle…”)
Instructor: “Ah-hem! No musing!”
Tehgonan: (“Sheesh, what a grouch.
There is… literally no punctuation difference here, yet the instructor never calls him out again. If the implication was supposed to be that he was whispering at first and then switched to thoughts, the game did not convey that at all.
So I’m bombarded with a bunch of multiple-choice questions about various things, similar to that knowledge trial way back when. If you fail a single one you fail the quest and have to try again, but as I said before there’s nothing stopping you from save scumming. I get them all right on my first try, because I am a dashing supergenius like Qualstio.
Tehgonan: (“The climate in the Human city called Wadassia could be best described as…”)
Yes FINALLY I will actually get confirmation on this. The correct answer is “temperate”, so… I guess it’s simply a warmer temperate region that only gets snow rarely? Or perhaps they have really wonky seasons.
Tehgonan: (“Which is not an identified form of the insect-like Tchiitra near Wadassia?”)
> Foulfury.
> Firefiend.
> Soldier.
I am now disappointed that there is no “foulfury” enemy in The Drop. It sounds cool and would have made for a great reference to this. I guess the stinkwing line conveys a similar-sounding idea…?
Afterwards the game trolls you with a long series of “…” messages before actually showing you the results.
So Tehgonan is all yay I’m awesome, then his mom shows up. We never actually see her, she’s just a disembodied voice, and Tehgonan runs off to talk with her. Dehl wants to come with, but
Tehgonan: “If Mom’s here, chances are Dad’s here too. And Dad really, REALLY hates Shra.”
Dehl: “I would think he would stay his anger when the safety of his son is at hand, yes?”
Tehgonan: “You really don’t know my dad. It would not be pretty.”
It’s good to know that Taru has not matured one iota in literal decades, because it definitively proves his involvement in the interludes to be worse than useless by actively introducing this plot hole. If he had mellowed out that might be a foundation for a potential character-building reunion with Rehm, thus making the events of the interlude actually matter in some capacity, but alas that is not to be.
After Tehgonan returns, he explains that, conveniently, his mother is totally fine with him traveling who-knows-where and risking his life in battle because [not found]. Then he decides he should start acting like more of an adult, which is a nice if abrupt bit of character development. Qualstio, being a kind, supportive father figure, promptly mocks him for this. Truly, he is the moral heart of this team.
Tehgonan has reaffirmed his abilities and officially established his place in the guild. His character has grown significantly. His newfound empowerment and the blessings of his family and allies have a profound effect on his prowess as well. As a result, his Element has become Mental* (no longer vulnerable to Physical element attacks)!
So that’s finally over with. It’s goodish character development and at least a little more involved than other quests, but I don’t care very much about Tehgonan so eh. He also gets exp but I’m never using him ever again so it doesn’t matter.
Alito: “Though we’ve reached Rank 24, it seems our challenges are ever-compounded! Therefore, I’ve arranged a specialized training regimen that shall benefit us all!”
By “all”, of course, he actually means just the active members (support characters might count too? I’m not sure how that works). The only one of these that benefits everyone is the last one I think, which is a bit weird. This just further discourages you from switching up your team, since anyone who doesn’t get these boosts is going to fall behind really fast, especially in skills.
“Do not worry about my family and myself. I’ve found work managing the dock, hza nek?”
The final quest is in Wadassia. The poor, tragic slave traders are here, but they’re not my quarry (unfortunately).
“The Other Blue… it has come calling! Ah!”
This quest is stupid on so many levels, but here is just one piece of nonsense: even assuming she’s able to sense a specific person on the other side of the city, why would she want to confront her brother in the first place? She certainly isn’t doing it to give him closure given how cruelly she toys with him. Perhaps she simply wants to revel in the opportunity to crush his soul. Wouldn’t make her much different from everyone else in this game.
(And, nitpicky, but it seems weird to me that she’d refer to him (and presumably herself) as “blue”. I get that there’s sky imagery at all, but the only blue associated with them is their clothing, which seems pretty arbitrary. They’re both redheads, wouldn’t that be a bigger identifier? Unless they’re both cold and she can see auras but she can’t in The Drop so I don’t even know.)
She starts babbling to Dehl.
…And Qualstio proceeds to be a creepy dickface. Screw this, I’m breaking out the gifs.
Qualstio: “What’s up, Dehl? She need to be walked?”
Dehl: “She is not a pet, Qualstio.”
Dehl: “…”
Qualstio: “Man you’re so easy to razz.”
Eventually Qualstio shuts up long enough for something to happen. This guy is Hunio Falitzo, Falitza’s twin brother, and he’s been trying to track her down so he can shove her into a therapy program. (A mundane Wadassian one; for some reason he’s convinced that magical therapy is impossible even though it seems like that should be the only solution given that the insanity is magically-inflicted in the first place.) The guild does not ask why he didn’t pursue this plan during the many years she was in Sanctifel even though it would have been trivially easy for him to help her escape (as the guild demonstrated), but he helpfully explains to the air anyway:
“I’ve not seen her since they locked her away.”
but
Sanctifel is right there you can just
it’s open to visitors you just walk in and
“She still has those same vacant eyes…”
This has been mentioned multiple times and I’m kind of curious how she pulls it off. A visual illusion? Or just incredible acting talent? Because if it’s incredible acting talent I call bullcrap, that’s a copout and a relative should be able to see through it anyway.
Qualstio points out that the therapy methods Hunio wants are physically strenuous and Faltiza needs to toughen up first because these quests need stat requirements unless you’re Sirush.
I would like to point out that Falitza does not say a word throughout all of this even though she could resolve things in an instant presumably because, as a woman, she is an object and not a person.
She needs 70 stamina, which she doesn’t technically have yet – however, stat bonuses from supports count for this purpose, and Sirush has a pertinent one. (Also an overpowered one; support bonuses are usually limited to 15 points in total.)
According to the punctuation standards this game uses, this is a thought bubble. So, here we are: Falitza, supposedly faking her insanity, still sounds nuts even in her own head. I’m convinced now: the ending reveal was a last-minute addition made up on the spot, and the developer didn’t bother checking to make sure the rest of the game was consistent with it. That’s a shame.
…And her next line is (“Mmmmph!”) so what, is she suddenly mute? Was she supposed to be whispering? I don’t even. Anyway, she punches Dehl to get his attention this time.
Qualstio: “Did she just sock you in the shoulder? Bahaha, you can’t get no respect at all!”
Can’t you feel the friendliness and kindness just radiating off of him? Truly, this is the bestest most wonderfullest friend Dehl could ever ask for.
They meet up with Hunio and Alito explains that the treatment alternates between strenuous physical training and relaxing meditation, which is supposed to help her focus and clear her mind or whatever. When she returns, her condition has not improved in the slightest. The therapist explains that she refused to participate in any mental activities and focused solely on the physical training, which… is actually consistent with the ending reveal in that she only cared about developing practical skills??? Except she must also know it looks really bad from Hunio’s standpoint and… I don’t even know.
So Hunio understandably blames the guild’s use of her as a meat shield for this and orders everyone out. Falitza starts babbling nonsense at him, then when he begs her to stop she babbles more until he’s reduced to the verge of tears.
None of this makes any sense! She has no reason to keep up her act. They are alone, for whatever that’s worth, he can’t drag her back at this point, and he clearly just wants closure. Despite supposedly caring about him, she strings him along, wastes everyone’s time, and finally convinces him that his efforts were all for nothing. And for what? What does she possibly gain from this? Her act was a means to an end she has already fulfilled.
In fact, if she absolutely has to maintain her act the entire game, this would be a perfect opportunity to drop real foreshadowing – after Hunio orders everyone out, fade to black, then start a new scene with Hunio returning her and suddenly mellowing out. It would be weird but there would be mundane explanations for it, tipping players off that there might be something more going on, then when it’s explicitly spelled out everything clicks. Bonus points: this approach would make Falitza into a non-sociopath, which would be consistent with her characterization in The Drop.
Instead Falitza is essentially fridged so we can make her personal character development quest all about her male relative and how hard it is on him. (The super-sad music plays and everything.) When I watch this scene, I do not see an intelligent, savvy woman pushed to her limits and desperately maintaining an important cover. I see a mindless plot device, a prop to be used as an emotional torque, used to make us sympathize with some random guy who came out of nowhere and has no other purpose. It’s ridiculous, it’s misogynist, and it’s terrible writing. Though to be honest, it’s not much of a surprise coming from a game that thinks reducing women to their reproductive organs is a meaningless footnote.
And as icing as the cake, after Hunio leaves:
Falitza: “Dove? Why are you so cold? Why did…? O-oh. The sky is calling for you again.”
Why does she say this? Why does she say it in typical crazy talk? He’s already left, she’s alone, there’s no point. If it’s absolutely necessary that she can’t tell him, this would be another excellent opportunity to reveal the truth by having her talk differently, but she’s still nutty. The only answer is that the reveal didn’t exist in the author’s mind at this point. At the final culmination of her character arc, the point where we are supposed to learn more about her and she is supposed to grow as a person, Falitza is a passive, mindless bauble and nothing more.