Obviously, spoilers.

Next up for us was Theodora.  At first, I considered doing her first, but having played it after Leda and Cai, I'm glad I didn't do Theodora first.  It would have left a bad taste in my mouth.

My real beef with Theodora's Story is that much feels like it was left unresolved and unfinished, while at the time time having a lot of rich lore baked into the middle.  But the battles were unbalanced - the battle against Cai was much, MUCH more difficult than the final battle.

What I Liked

✅ Theodora gets a boat, which lets you travel around a bit more freely than Cai, even up and down rivers.

✅ Some of the stage gimmicks were interesting, such as one where you need to kill more giants than the opponent, or another where you must collect more magic orbs than your opponent, but can only hold one per party member and they drop your Prt (protection) to zero.

✅ Bonaventure is so far one of the strongest overall characters in the game.  For those that played Three Houses, he's what you'd get if Hubert were better written.

✅ It seemed like there wasn't a significant need to overlevel.  We ended the first part under level 40 and at no point did it feel too difficult or too easy.

✅ Theodora's Blaze Art is grossly overpowered, in some stages the difference maker between winning and losing.

What I Didn't Like

👎 For reasons I can't really describe, Theodora's seemed to drag around Chapter 9 or 10.  It felt more like going through motions than actual motivation.

👎 At least in the first part, Bahr Vahn felt unfinished and half-baked, as did pretty much every other antagonist.

👎 It felt like the game was feeding you the characters it wanted you to have, instead of being balanced with the recruitment (Cai's was way more balanced).  Many of the other characters' requirements felt abnormally high, especially Support.  We did end up recruiting way more than other segments, but that was more due to the lack of other stuff to do (see below).

👎 It felt like Theodora didn't get very many quests and certainly not as many as Cai.  This might have been to balance out Renown, which Theodora gets a lot by sending supplies back home, where Cai can only do with his quests.  This balancing resulted in significant time for training and support, but made hers feel more like a chore than actually contributing to the land and its people.

👎 Gambits are present here (and only for Theodora's so far), but they are a pale shadow of what Three Houses did with them.  For the most part, they were helpful with group healing and defensive positions, but nowhere near as overpowered as the prior game.

👎 The default crew, mostly Lilian and Lysander, felt tacked on and not part of "the team" if that makes sense.

Summary

Theodora's Story felt more like a tech demo than actual part of the game.  I wasn't nearly as invested as I was with Leda or Cai's sides.  I don't know if that's just basic pacing or what specifically I was feeling, but for the first time since starting the game, I wasn't "feeling" it nearly as much as I would have liked.