59:55 - Interestingly enough, this isn't the first time we've seen that behavior as a way to honor their predecessor. After the death of her sister Yda, Lyse took on her name and mask for a time. Similarly, Eula Darnus did the same, taking on her brother, Nael van Darnus, name and armor after his death. 1:05:37 - But keep in mind he _didn't know_ that. Durante was just another pawn in the Ascians game. Remember, even Igeyorhm didn't expect for what happened to the Thirteenth to occur. She made a (huge) miscalculation and fled, leaving the Thirteenth to its fate.
If we are talking shards of Azem I feel even more strongly after this patch that the OG Golbez (the one trapped in the crystal) is the most likely candidate. Usually when our echo activates we see events in the third person, but both times we interacted with Golbez's memoria crystal we WERE him in the vision. First in the cutscene last patch and now here in the dungeon in this one where we took Golbez's place for the bulk of the memory. As for Zenos' shard my head-canon is Cagnazzo. All that desire to fight just for the thrill of it without the education and polish Zenos had as a prince.
55:48 There's also some disconnect between what we, the player, knows and what "the Warrior of Light" knows. All the indications that the Golbez we were fighting was Durante not the original Gobez were player knowledge only, excepting his choice of weapon type, and considering how often even in lore characters change jobs I think it is reasonable that Zero didn't catch on until just now. The other option would be to refrain from those teasing cutscenes that the Warrior of Light doesn't know about entirely.
Exactly, the characters didn't know this. This is just like the end of EW with the sacrifices, we know they will be back, but the characters don't. Characters just magically knowing everything we know just because would be horrible for the story of the game.
I personally think the patches suffered from not having Ishikawa. I liked the story, but the telling of the story didn't hit home for me. It's very sad, because I think she was truly a master at utilizing her characters and resources. My pet peeve is when writers dumb down characters or send them away because their full potential or mere presence would solve the conflict too fast. I hope DT won't suffer too much from her absence.
I thought it was a really interesting inversion of the traditional hero's journey. Zero ticked most of the boxes and we got to be the Wise Mentor this time around.
I’m confused as to what you mean by not having Ishikawa? She’s the senior story designer now…meaning every single storyline in the game has to be approved by her and the direction she wants it to go in before it can even be put in the game. She tells the writers what she wants and they write it, and if she doesn’t approve of its quality or direction they have to start over and fix it until it fits her narrative. I think if anything these post patches suffer from the fact that they have nothing to fall back on…in previous post patches it was connecting to the next bit of story and we had that for 10 years, but since it’s ended these feel a bit jarring until they either connect to the next story in some way or there’s more to the storyline in future expansions or post patches.
