Speaking of Traum, what do you think about Ruler Moriarty? IMO, I think he's kinda underutilize? There's a lot about him that could've been more interesting had he a bit more focus, like for what reason he'd prefer Kadoc over Ritsuka, or even emphasizing how much he wants to surpass his older self. I feel like they really could've done something more with a younger, less experiences, but more bombastic version of Moriarty. That being said I DID enjoy how clear they make it that while he's strong, and good at getting into Holmes's head, dude is reckless in a way his older self isn't, and functionally defeats HIMSELF at Reichenbach. Still felt like they needed more time to cook with him. Come to think of it it kinda felt like in general the writers expected to have more time with Holmes than they got.
I'll just stick the two Moriarty asks together.
Up front, I'll say that there's a reason about why I tend to focus on the Realm Plotline when I gushed about Traum and the characters, over the Moriarty-Holmes Plotline.
Don Quixote, the Paladins, Salome, Constantine and Johanna's love- that's perfect. I'll take a saccharine romantic-adventure story any day if it's fun enough.
The Holmes' plotline? Eh.
So, as a character, do I hate Ruler Moriarty? Not really. He's a fun little spin-off of Archer Moriarty, who's an incredibly fun character. Moriarty is fun. I think it'd be very hard to write a poor Moriarty, character-wise. I don't like Ruler as much as Archer, but I don't have really any strong opinions on him. He's Britomart-tier to me, as in he's fun to make jokes about, but I'm not thinking about him much beyond that.
He's an unnecessary factor. A new toy introduced to the story in order to be sold.
That being said, narratively, I'd compare him to a less egregious version of the Koyanskaya Situation.
Now, I don't think Holmes' farewell itself was bad. I felt it when I left Chaldea, that shit hurt. I liked Holmes, he was great in the story, I think he did deserve a better goodbye.
You can tell that the writers wanted a Holmes-Moriarty conflict as part of Holmes' reveal. You could tell this, because they set up the pieces with Archer Moriarty. Archer Moriarty, in Chaldea, looking at Holmes and going 'something isn't right', Archer Moriarty daring the player to think a little bit beyond the black and white of 'good and evil'. This was Archer Moriarty's grand finale, where the heroic detective would be revealed to be an enemy, and the villain would reign supreme- but at what cost? And who truly was the hero and the villain, and so on? Ta-da. There it is.
And they did that, kind of.
They just brought in a new Moriarty.
A new Moriarty with no ties to Holmes, and no ties to Chaldea, and who had all the knowledge he needed mind-beamed into his head from another planet. A young Moriarty from even before he was a criminal, even. So with no narrative, or canonical ties to Holmes. A stranger to the player, the characters, and the narrative, who was brought in simply because it'd be fresh and new.
Because it doesn't feel like a grand 'aha!' when Ruler Moriarty peels back the layers of the mystery. He didn't earn those. He's clocked into a 9-5 for the Alien World, but he doesn't know Holmes, and so when he's there for Holmes' downfall... it's fine. It's not terrible. But there's just sort of a 'what if', you know?
Holmes' final chapter should have rhymed with Shinjuku, like Douman's chapter rhymed with Shimousa.
