Ibram Gaunt fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Apr 29, 2013

Artificer fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Apr 29, 2013

Omniphile fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Apr 29, 2013

You can tell that this was written by the same person as the Kotori route, but this one goes farther. There’s a similar attempt to portray combat, secret organizations, and arguably even romance in a relatively unglamorous way (notice, for example, the anticlimax of Shizuru just shooting the Key in Kotori’s route). I remarked earlier that Akane was an odd replacement for Sakura Matou, but perhaps that’s exactly the point; you could make a good argument that a story like HF is fundamentally dishonest because it tries to have it both ways with regard to things like Sakura’s level of responsibility for what the Shadow does, because Shirou and Sakura (and Saber) are fundamentally idealized characters, because it avoids showing what Shirou and Sakura are like as a twentysomething married couple and how Sakura copes with her guilt, and so forth. The Akane route deals with the implications of having a close relationship with an evil person, even if the evil person does repent eventually. This makes it uncomfortably depressing in a very different way from typical VN melodrama.

I initially thought that the main flaw in all this is that it require turning Kotarou into a fundamentally different person from who he is in the rest of the game. Perhaps this could be said of all the routes, though, including the common route. In the common route, Kotarou is a self-aware perverted goofball who has his heart in the right place but is far from being an exceptionally good person. In the Lucia route, he’s similar to his common route self, but strangely indifferent to the lives of Kotori and Yoshino. In the Chihaya route, he’s an idiotic idealist. In the Shizuru route, he’s a mature idealist. In the Kotori route, he’s arguably not really that different from who he is in the Akane route; he’s just dating a sane person and is physically weak enough that he isn’t tempted to solve his problems by killing people.

I should also note that Gaia’s motivations made more sense here (though they’re still clearly not arguments one should agree with). To some extent, their viewpoint is based on Divine Command ethics, and the radical environmentalist angle is just a particular expression of that. Notice that they never really express concern for nonhuman life forms other than the planet, as a singular being, which ought to be preserved and has the right to judge humanity simply because it is the planet. Guardian, despite apparently being run from the Vatican, never adopts that sort of attitude; Guardian’s ideals are essentially utilitarian. There’s a similar dichotomy in the Nasuverse: the Church, in practice, wants to protect humans (and doesn’t care how Gaia or Crimson Moon feels about that, no matter how transcendent they happen to be), while some magi place the metaphysical goal of reaching the Root above human lives.

All of that is just an excuse, though. Really, the holy woman and the disciples just want to destroy everything because they resent everything, themselves included. In the end, I guess that makes Akane similar to Midou, but Akane is a much more believable character, largely because she’s genuinely miserable, capable of sophistry, and not absurdly hammy. Takasago actually has basically the same personality as Midou, though; Suzaki makes bad hiring decisions, I guess. I liked that he wasn’t sort-of glorified the way Midou was, though; instead of having a tragic backstory, Takasago draws power from bitterness over his first world problems and doesn’t have the strength of will to accomplish anything except when he’s high. While Midou’s hamminess is sincere, Takasago’s is an attempt to hide his own banality.

So I guess what this all amounts to is that Tanaka is a better writer than Tonokawa. Fortunately, Tanaka also wrote Moon and Terra. Based on the Moon OP, it seems we’ll finally get a Shizuru vs. Krivoy Rog fight.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Apr 29, 2013

Einander fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Apr 29, 2013

While I didn't expect anything else I thought it was kinda funny how he makes a big deal about not wanting to show his face but oh look he's a bishonen with no appearance flaws. Shocking. I kind of expected at least a scar or something. But Jesus when people said the plot sort of vanishes in the routes I didn't expect it to drop that hard. "Oh Clear is a robot and Toue is controlling everyone PS the tower got destroyed goodbye" The fight scene was kinda cool but the intimate romance scene afterwards was just...Well it wasn't rapey at least but the fact that half his face was exposed made it seem like he had a lazy eye and made the scene alot more comedic than it clearly intended. It was also sort of horrifying when it talked about parts of him chipping off and stuff during . Although I'm a big baby and still thought it was sad when he booted down but he got fixed so whatever. Ending was cute. Credits song was nice too. I sort of wish it was just more Clear being Clear and less melodramatics but eh whatever.

Ibram Gaunt fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 29, 2013

unpronounceable fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Apr 30, 2013