.....
Yet when it came to me choosing sides, and I didn't chose hers, she left there and then. She said I can't expect her to go against her country. I tried to plead with her, but she wasn't having any of it. She was gone. I met here again on Ukaizo, at Hazanui's side, with red circle under her feet. I used Serafen's mind control to take her out of the fight, hoping she'll calm down once her side is beaten. I took out everyone else, then waited for the mind control to run out. Nothing - not a word, not a single comment. Just back to shooting at me. I send my party to take her down, and Eder landed a crit. Just like that, she just exploded into hundred bloody bits.
I'm not actually criticising this. I genuinely felt bad about how things turned out, but I could understand why she did what she did, why I ended up staring down the barrel of her gun in the end. When that overkill animation kicked in, I felt sick there and then. Thing is, that was the only part of the final act that actually made me feel anything. Everything else rang all the more hollow because of that one organic moment; the final narration was droning on about Eothas punching a tower over and over, and I just kept thinking "I can't believe Maia's gone. There isn't even enough left to bury". When I replayed last act for the RDC path, nothing remotely close this impactful happened. The ending felt all the weaker for it. ......
Sorry but I heartily laughed at this part, yet, also cried a bit inside b/c I too chose the Maia romance. And mainly because her romance opening dialogue was so ..damn ..cool. And her storyline quest is damn cool too. It would be totally mortifying to meet her end like this!