At the very start of the game, Orobyss says:
“In the beginning, there was darkness
Only myself, Eterra, and the void”
…Only, that’s not true, is it? Eterra reveals a lot later that herself and her brothers were created by humanity, and, while something called the Calamity destroyed almost everything, alongside Eterra and the Observer there were human survivors under her care.
Ah, someone could say, but Orobyss is insane and so he is an unreliable narrator. Honestly, that feels like an excuse – if anything, at the time he knew more than Eterra did thanks to his role as the Observer, god of time and fate.
The thing is, I’m rather fond of the reveal we get in the Temple of Eterra, and I would rather not spoil it. So my suggestion would be to change Orobyss’ lines to:
“In the beginning, there was darkness
Myself, Eterra and the void”
Just removing the “only”, it becomes the truth – Orobyss is not saying humanity was not there, only showing that it did not matter to him
When we get to the Keepers’ Camp, our dialogue with Lena has a dialogue tree in which the options are:
“What happened?”
“I assume something happened?”
…C’mon, those are almost exactly the same thing. The slightly difference in tone is not worth having two options here.
The Keeper’s Camp is one of the most reactive areas in the game. It actually has five states:
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The first time we enter, when Lena and Grael are talking
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Then, after accepting the quest to find Balthas but before meeting him. This one is easy to miss because there is no requirement to actually go back to the camp in this state, but it has a lot of unique dialogue, especially from Lena
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After Balthas is kidnapped
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After rescuing Balthas, when he and Lena are face to face
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And, lastly, after being transported into the future. This one is also easy to miss, and lore-wise it doesn’t really make much sense (if it were that easy to time travel, our character would likely just go back and avoid the entire Ruined Era), but I’m guessing it exists because using the Portal ability in the beginning of the Ruined Era takes our characters back to the camp
But there are a few things that could be better in those states:
Isfarger, the merchant, has a short dialogue tree during state 2 before we get access to the trading interface. Worse, in state 3 there’s a loooooong dialogue tree before we actually get to sell stuff. Her dialogue is interesting, but still, I wish it were quicker to use her merchant services.
Maeve, the Hereborian who’s pissed at being a babysitter, has some weird dialogue. In one tree, we have two options: “What’d he find?” and “Thanks for telling me”. Both lead to the same reply, “Not sure… Some kind of weapon?”. This reply doesn’t really make sense in the context of the second dialogue option.
Then we get the whole Grael thing. Keeper Lena says she sent him to check on a vault in the mountains; Maeve says he claims to have found something that would help their cause; and our character tells Balthas that Grael will return with the third shard of the Epoch soon. One could argue that our characters could have inferred that based on what information they had by that point in time, but it’s somewhat of a leap; and Maeve also says, “But his task for the Keepers is done”, which doesn’t make sense when in theory he is going to fetch the last piece of the Epoch for Lena. IMO, this is an important piece of information to be only vaguely alluded like this – it’s one of the hints that Grael will become the Immortal Emperor (we find Grael’s shard of the Epoch in the Emperor’s body).
(Incidentally, I haven’t played that part of the campaign for a long while, but it was very weird to me that, when we meet Grael again in Hereborea, no one says anything about his shard of the Epoch)
I wish the game had the option of having subtitles. Most of the spoken dialogue has accompanying text, but a few lines don’t – probably it’s because I’m not a native English speaker, but I still don’t understand what is it that Balthas says right before using the Epoch (“With the Epoch’s power… One final” what? One final gambit?).
(IMO, Balthas’ voice actor is one the best in the game. All of his dialogues have a great flow, and I can feel the proper emotion from his tone of voice.)
In the Ruined Era, I have two observations:
Elder Burron mentions the “foretold holder” of the Epoch… And it’s never mentioned again. Would have been interesting to know if Elder Balthas left behind the knowledge that a traveller would one day appear with another shard of the Epoch, and what he had instructed people to do when that happened.
Orobyss. Pannion’s apprentice is the first to actually say the name “Orobyss”. The next time we hear it is when one of the random cultist enemies say “Orobyss beckons”. There’s no grand reveal, just from that moment on we are supposed to know that the main antagonist of the game is called Orobyss. IMO, it would have been better if his name were announced with significantly more dramatic flair.