spoiler:

The game opens on the hero finally thawing as they're attacked by The Rose, a new organization/movement ruled by Jaania that's taken over Oaklore. Okay, cool. Good start. It is genuinely surreal to see a bunch of faceless Rose enforcers taking over such an iconic location. Their banners drape the halls as the player walks through familiar scenes being controlled by a malicious outside force. Now, for clarity, I haven't actually finished Book 3 yet, so there is a chance we get rid of their presence here eventually. But, in the moment, you know this is how the zone is now. There's already a weird vibe in the air just knowing that this area's been drastically changed, and it'll probably never go back to the way it was.

After that, I wanted to get the most out of Soulweaver, so I did the next arc of that class's arc, the Tomix Saga, and I feel like this is where my problems actually start. This arc is great, I honestly like it a lot. The idea of getting things together to create a ship to sail the Void is fantastic. I really love the new cast they introduced for the journey, and I honestly love the lore revealed with Pandora. It adds a lot of humanity to the arc's villain, Envy, and even retroactively changes the implications behind Greeed's motivations into being born from the grief of a dying mother who just wished her child could live as a normal human. This is great stuff! Annddd then you get to the war, and to get to Greed, the heroes have to murder fully conscious innocent people to undo the locks on the doors.

And it's like... this... what are we doing here...? This feels pretty far. It honestly feels too far. This is the same game where you save the world with the power of elemental bacon created from a chickencalf messing up a chickencow wizard's spell. And now we just have to be okay with our ally killing a woman screaming for her life. It's a real downer detail, especially since the monsters we've been fighting are already just innocent beings that were made to follow Envy under the threat of death. So I get the idea of sacrifice being an important part of the arc; Tomix has to die. Envy is basically sustaining his life, so Tomix knows he will be sacrificing his life to stop them, no matter what happens. There's a clear theme here, but it does feel like this idea could have been hammered home in a way that was less edgy. But sure, it's just one 'feel bad' quest. But at least Ridane managed to have a kid named after Tomix, symbolizing how there's still hope for the future.

Then I went into the questline from Robina- I mean, this mysterious Rose spy. And OH BOY, this one... so the hero goes back to the Sandsea and learn about The Rose, and here's the thing... I don't like The Rose. I REALLY do not like The Rose. I think it's kind of fascinating just how much I dislike The Rose. Because the point of the Rose, on paper, is that they're a flawed, nuanced organization full of people with good intentions who work towards an amoral cause of safety over the creativity and self-expression of the masses. The problem I have is that, in reality, they end up being an authoritarian evil empire that gets openly embraced by various towns at the expense of the magical population, which is enslaved and forced out until there will eventually be no place for these magical refugees to live. It feels like it really doesn't take that much to realize that would be the inevitable end-goal, right? Just like real movements based on fear and bigotry, the end point of Thee Rose's mission is always going to be the death of culture and the beginning of a genocide of magical races in this universe. And the only thing standing in the way of that inevitable conclusion and these groups is the fact that they have enough military might to fight The Rose off while their members in the majority of human towns are progressively discriminated against and forced out as The Rose slowly gains influence via. fear of the unknown.

Now, it's important to note two things here. First, I don't want to imply any shade or ill will towards the writers. I respect the work they've done, and they should be proud of making something this beloved. But, second, is that I'm basically a minority myself. As a bisexual Transfem, I'm going to naturally have a different perspective on the world than I assume the people making the game might. I feel like this is fairly important context for the criticisms I'm going to levy towards the writing here. Because when I look at a story that might not be approaching things from that angle about bigotry and oppression that was made in a very different climate than we have now, it's probably fair to say that we're going to come to very different conclusions about things.

So when the big takeaway for a lot of The Rose's storyline is that 'it's complicated' and 'there are good people doing these horrible things for a fascist organization', it probably lands WAY differently for me than it would for other people. This makes parts of this Saga genuinely weird to play through because I, as a player, am extremely anti-Rose. But when Sek Dat says to destroy his materials so The Rose can't use them, that's not my priority. The guy also says that Zhoom is being held by Thee Rose. So my thought would be to try to save Zhoom first instead of doing what the manipulative litch mummy wants. This creates a weird problem where the story has to do one thing, but the actions of my character are not the actions I'd want to take as a player. So my character, The Hero, obeys Seek Duat and ends up causing them to be empowered again as they drain the literal life essence out of my dragon.

Of course, the writers have no way of knowing that it'd be a bit hard to watch the character stand in for the love of my life, being basically tortured? But sure, whatever. It feels pretty bad, but your dragon recovers pretty quickly, and you beat Sek Duat. The bigger issue is that the Rose enforcer in charge of this area then proceeds to chastize The Hero, YOUR CHARACTER, for messing up in a decision you never actually made and had zero control over. And that's also really frustrating in a more tangible way, right? Because being told you failed for doing something you disagreed with as a player feels REALLY BAD, and it just felt worse to me because the entire narrative point of this decision is to prove that The Rose is right here. Your character did walk in, untrusting of them, and ready to believe the worst, and they did kick off another near-disaster because of it. It's trying to add nuance when, ultimately, the player's distrust of The Rose is completely justified, but the decision The Hero makes is very much not where people would normally go with things. This means that my takeaway wasn't "The Rose really cares about people and is doing their best", it was "The Rose is being unfairly elevated by the writing to avoid the real issues behind them".

And then, after that, I got to the thing that really made me frustrated with this Book. The Caamity Saga. You can probably already imagine why, based on my existing problems here.

It starts off pretty well; the cultists create Valtrith, and he just flies straight at the player out of nowhere. This is a really fun introduction of the villain! It feels a bit fanfiction-y with how they pool all these specific, recognizable items together to summon him, but it's a really cheesy start and I'm excited to fight this over the top force of nature villain that will stop at nothing just to fight you. But, eventually, that feeling changes hard as Valtrith kidnaps Serenity and holds her hostage. Then, with no way to stop him, we're forced to watch as Valtrith slowly murders her, fuses a Doom Weapon with her body, and creates a new villain that puppets her corpse around like a zombie as they straight-up tell you, the player, that her soul has been actively destroyed.

This is one of those moves that I feel like HAD to be controversial at the time. I mean, Serenity has been around since Book 1. This game came out in 2006, and I believe Falconreach and the Inn were around basically by the start of things. This is a character I've got some 19 years of nostalgia for, that I really liked. But nope, she's dead now. Feel bad. Your Hero fails to save a pretty iconic NPC that got completely blindsided out of nowhere. Never did anything reckless, she never made a mistake, and, if anything, the backstory she gets makes her out to be an even bigger victim than we thought. So just FEEL BAD about the thing the writing DECIDED to do to her.

Of course, I'm not against NPCs dying. We've had plenty of side characters go out in battle or die for the plot, and I love how the game handled the death of Tomix. But the fact that there's so little reverence for this character just feels really wrong to me. She doesn't even get a funeral, which is also very odd, right? I mean, even Warlic got a funeral for his fake death. It's like, the plot is telling me that some of these named characters are notably more important than others, but it's still expecting me to care a lot about a 'less important' character when they meet what feels like a way worse fate. where she couldn't even go out on her own terms.

So yeah, pretty rough. After that, I went to chill out a bit with Aegis's quest. And it's pretty quirky, he finally gets a human body and we're just going to keep correcting him... and his big day is bookended with him remembering the trauma of his death.... and....... oh, I guess Isaac got infected with Void Madness and Ridane's having to take care of baby Tomix on her own while dealing with the daily struggles of watching her husband slowly lose his mind until he presumably becomes too far gone to justify keeping alive........ Wowww..... All of that feels bad. It feels REALLY bad.... What happened to balancing out levity with darker moments when all these quests just kind of feel really bad with really downer notes all over the place now?

At this point, I was just determined to get through the rest of the Calamity Saga. New quests, I have to play as Serenity's possessed corpse as it goes around gaining power completely unchecked, as our characters do nothing to stop it. And I just don't like it. Playing at a constant reminder of the horrible thing that happened just does not feel good; it feels really bad. But whatever, at least this can't get worse, right?

Okay, so. Quests are already bumming me out. All these questlines feel really bad to play through. And then Caitiff takes things even harder by corrupting The Hero's dragon, YOUR dragon, and turning it into a weapon to be used against everyone on the planet. Wow, that feels really bad to go through! Personally, this hit hard because, as I mentioned, pretty specific circumstances make me feel way worse about bad things happening to this specific character. But even outside of that, they're the one companion a player is going to be attached to more than anyone else, right? They're an adorable small animal, and now the story is asking me to stick around and watch as the big bad beats the crap out of them and makes them the new big edgy threat. And BOY, does the plot really take its time getting everyone in position, as you have to sit back and watch the horrific corpse of a beloved NPC use them to do pretty vile things.

I'm not against either dealing with The Hero's failure or with a plot where your dragon becomes a big threat. But dealing with both feels like WAY too much, and doing all of these quests basically back to back is a good way to really wear a player down. Especially when it feels like MOST of the arcs in Book 3 are just real downer adventures with big moments designed to make the player feel bad for playing over anything else. At this point, I basically checked out of things and stopped trying to really engage with the plot, because the story felt like it was showing its hand way too hard. But yeah, eventually you go through a whole war, and you save your dragon... only for them to stay corrupted as the game forces you to watch them twitching in pain on the ground as you're completely powerless to help them.

By this point, I wasn't even mad anymore. I was just sitting in front of my laptop in disbelief that the story was this determined to make the player feel as bad as physically possible, seemingly just for the sake of selling how dark and mature it is. I mean, I get it, this is to set up another character, but I mean... really....? Was this the best way to show off their abilities after everything else? In a quest saga where we needed an easy win harder than any storyline I've ever seen from any of these games before? I'm just thinking back to Book 2, where horrible things were happening, but the game still had the time to stop and talk about the Atrean culture and have drinks with the people you helped save. And again, I get it, you are meant to feel overwhelmed and deal with the depression your character feels. But also, at the same time, it feels like there are limits here. Otherwise, it feels like it'd be really easy for people to just leave and do something else that isn't super depressing, instead, right?

Annndddd then the Rose gets the spotlight again in the epilogue. The village was destroyed. The Rose barely helped. Everything is awful, and they did nothing. We get to see Jaania struggle with the fact that she's hated, but here's the thing. One person in the crowd basically says, "I'm a magical race, you'd kick me out of town".

That one line feels like it's basically the end of any dialogue about nuance you could really have here, right? Because he's correct. There is no world where magical races can live if The Rose gets their way. Imagine how hard it has to be to be an elf in this world, just watching The Rose slowly take over city after city as it pushes all the magical races away into more and more desperate migrant cities. Just being powerless to do anything as this force that doesn't want you to exist slowly gets closer and closer to your doorstep, to the point where you would be kicked out of your home and thrown into a cold and unforgiving world full of evil sorcerers that want to use you for experiments and towns full of zealots that hate your very existence. It is an EXTREMELY dark situation to be in and one that I relate to way too hard as a Trans person that's forced to watch our own world struggle to keep from becoming an increasingly cruel and inhospitable place for me and others like me.

The game looks at this and has the crowd ask your character what to do with The Rose.

I look at this, and I want them gone forever. But the crowd keeps arguing for The Rose anyway in the name of nuance. Who cares if they're ineffective? Who cares if they're targeting minorities? At least the fascists just want to do the right thing.

I have zero sympathy for Jaania and her organization. The writing has my character leave it up to the people when I want to tell The Rose off more than anything else, especially after how unhelpful they were in the entirety of this Saga so far. Just leave it up to the people to have a majority vote in a town where the majority is human and, thus, have no concrete reason to care about the minority groups outside of basic human empathy.

Personally, I REALLY hate this scene. The character I relate to the most in this moment is whoever threw the rock at Jaania's face. These enforcers could have all been knights. They could have become Guardians. They could have each set out on a million different adventures, saving a million different lives. Instead, they exist to serve humans at the cost of everyone else. And the writing desperately wants me to see that it's a complicated issue full of greys when I just can't believe in any world where the outcasting of the most vulnerable populations is the price for the unfounded idea of safety.

Sorry if I'm taking things a bit far, but I just REALLY did not like where this scene landed. But at least we get a somber note where we see Serinity's ghost. The ghost that shouldn't exist because it was devoured. And she just says she wants to die, and we shouldn't try to save her soul. And that also feels bad. But it's okay, because we came through and things turned out all right.

Let's just stop for a second.

The town is destroyed. You, Serenity, are dead. My dragon was tortured. And between the others that died in the multiple wars and the follow-up quest about the aftermath of the mask (where another character keeps calling you out for failing to stop the Sun from disappearing, by the way, because of course it has to make you feel bad), we ended up in a situation where the lives of every magical creature in Falconreach came down to an impromptu democratic decision that might have lead to the deaths of even more innocents in The Rose's bid for power.

I feel like things did not 'turn out okay'. Things turned out bad. They turned out REALLY BAD. I'm just so far from where the writing wants me to be in this situation, and it feels wild to me that even this scene isn't really comforting. It's just more frustration that puts things even harder on The Hero's shoulders, even after they have a complete breakdown, as the mob keeps demanding them to make a decision.

Just....

At some point, I don't even really understand why, you know? And I want to get caught up and keep up with this game, but I just really don't want the rest of Book 3 to be like this, even though I know it probably will. Even if it is, I really don't want Book 4 to be like this, either. I mean, times are tough. Everyone's stressed. And the approach of real-world fascism is more dire than ever. Maybe we shouldn't have so many quests built around just how much we can make the player feel bad about what's happening? Like, just some little wins every now and then go a long way, you know?

I wasn't around when these quests came out, and I don't know what the general vibe of the players was at the time or how these events were being received by the community. But I genuinely want to know if other people had the experience I did, or if other players maybe had a different take, where they saw way more positives here than I did. Because I don't know what the current playerbase is like, but I HAVE to imagine all of this was extremely divisive and there are people who love all these quests I'm talking about for their own specific reasons.