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theblackw0lf posted:So what’s another VN that people can recommend that has really great characters and chemistry, with a lot of heart and humor? It can be any genre. Seconding 428: Shibuya Scramble, the cast is strong and it managed to make me laugh out loud.
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Jul 8, 2021 07:18
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I read some of Higurashi When The Cry awhile back and was thinking of looking at it again, but there's like 10 episodes and then Umineko and I'm a bit confused. Am I correct that: Higurashi has like 8 parts that are just meant to be gone through in a linear order and just weren't put into one game on steam for some weird reason? The other entries are sequels or spinoffs or whatever and not directly part of what I would read to finish Higurashi? I have no idea what the question and answer arcs are. Stexils posted:i've found the cast of Your Turn To Die is overall well written and likeable. its a death game and unfinished but even when there's confrontations, scheming, or people acting extremely irrationally its for understandable reasons and character motivations rather than people being petty idiots (as opposed to, like, "i know there's a murderer on the loose and four people are dead BUT I MUST USE THE BATHROOM ALONE"). Legitimately this, there isn't a single weak link. Though uh, Keiji might have a bit too much chemistry with Sara. 
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Jul 8, 2021 07:52
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Acerbatus posted:I read some of Higurashi When The Cry awhile back and was thinking of looking at it again, but there's like 10 episodes and then Umineko and I'm a bit confused. Yes. The first four parts are the "question" arcs, the last four parts are the "answer" arcs, with the idea being that the question arcs raise more questions than they answer, and the reverse for the answer arcs.
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Jul 8, 2021 09:03
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There is theoretically a 1:1 correspondence between Higurashi's question and answer episodes, but there is no such correspondence for Umineko and either way you're supposed to play them in order. Questions 1-4, then Answers 5-8. For some reason they seem to have split Higurashi on Steam into 8 separate titles (under the Hou sub-title) and Umineko into two titles (1-4 and 5-8).
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Jul 8, 2021 11:02
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:There is theoretically a 1:1 correspondence between Higurashi's question and answer episodes, but there is no such correspondence for Umineko and either way you're supposed to play them in order. Questions 1-4, then Answers 5-8. For some reason they seem to have split Higurashi on Steam into 8 separate titles (under the Hou sub-title) and Umineko into two titles (1-4 and 5-8). The answer is that Higurashi took years more time to translate and release than Umineko. Higurashi Episode 1 was released on Steam in 2015, the last episode was released last year. The Umineko English translation was only a year seperated from each other on Steam (2016 for question arc and 2017 for answer arc). Fun fact: the English translation group even lent it's name to a major faction in the Umineko plot starting from episode 4 (which first appeared in 2008).
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Jul 8, 2021 11:38
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theblackw0lf posted:
Hotel Dusk and its sequel are more adventure gamey than VN but play them anyway they are criminally overlooked
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Jul 8, 2021 22:23
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:There is theoretically a 1:1 correspondence between Higurashi's question and answer episodes, but there is no such correspondence for Umineko and either way you're supposed to play them in order. Questions 1-4, then Answers 5-8. For some reason they seem to have split Higurashi on Steam into 8 separate titles (under the Hou sub-title) and Umineko into two titles (1-4 and 5-8). That's...not quite true. There's definitely a correspondence between Umineko and Chiru episodes. (Literally everything) Starting from the most obvious in 4/8 being Ange and Ange's resolution, 2 and 6 is pretty heavy on the theming in relation to Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice. 1 and 5 carries a pretty strong link in both detective introduction and trick, and 3 and 7 cover a lot more in connection to the epitaph and alternate culprits. This post suggests another set of connections, as well.
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Jul 9, 2021 01:13
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:There is theoretically a 1:1 correspondence between Higurashi's question and answer episodes, but there is no such correspondence for Umineko and either way you're supposed to play them in order. Questions 1-4, then Answers 5-8. For some reason they seem to have split Higurashi on Steam into 8 separate titles (under the Hou sub-title) and Umineko into two titles (1-4 and 5-8). I really wish they hadn't released Higurashi that way, eight separate entries on steam for one game is goofy as hell. Cyouni posted:That's...not quite true. There's definitely a correspondence between Umineko and Chiru episodes. (Literally everything) Starting from the most obvious in 4/8 being Ange and Ange's resolution, 2 and 6 is pretty heavy on the theming in relation to Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice. 1 and 5 carries a pretty strong link in both detective introduction and trick, and 3 and 7 cover a lot more in connection to the epitaph and alternate culprits. This post suggests another set of connections, as well. Yeah the connections are there. And it's a hell of a lot better than how I thought it was gonna be. Going through the first few ep's I thought the Answer arcs were gonna be behind the scenes explaining of the first four episodes and I became more and more confused how that was gonna explain anything as I went through. By four I think I realized that that wasn't how it was
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Jul 9, 2021 01:44
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Sharkitten posted:Hotel Dusk and its sequel are more adventure gamey than VN but play them anyway they are criminally overlooked Last Window is EU only if you want it in English. And it has become $$$. It's gotta be one of the most expensive VNs out there, right?
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Jul 9, 2021 07:32
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Is the Xbox English version of Ever17 still going for mad dosh?
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Jul 9, 2021 07:50
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I thought the xbox E17 release was JP only?
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Jul 9, 2021 07:55
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Y'know I'm not sure. There was an english release and it's expensive but now I'm struggling to find where it was released on Edit Looks like it was Windows release
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Jul 9, 2021 08:03
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Stefan Prodan posted:I mean I know the game is about like cycles of abuse and people who are products of their environment and all but most all of the adults are just awful in one way or another Umineko correctly understands that being rich makes people awful.
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Jul 9, 2021 09:12
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krauss is working on that
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Jul 9, 2021 13:01
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So I got to chapter 10 of Rains route in Baldr Sky a few months back but dropped it, but was planning on going back. I’ve forgotten a lot of what’s happened though. Does anyone know if there’s summary of events for Baldr Sky that’s ideally divided by chapter so I can refresh my memory?
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Jul 9, 2021 19:52
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Umineko 6 - just got to the first twilight, about to kick off some Sherlock Kombat. Featherine straight up says 'boy it sure is great to be a story veteran and watch people floundering around' so have some speculation: It's fun having Battler actually take charge for once, so much so that I kinda wish we didn't know that he's going to get owned (literally) by Erika at some point. It's interesting that his big change (apart from taking away Erika's Mary Sue field) seems to be dialing up the romance levels, after the Shannon/Kanon stuff's been in the background for a while. Speculation/prediction: we know that Beatrice's motive isn't revenge, sadism, or material gain. So Battler is using the murder games to prove (to who?) that love can also be a motive for murder, and can turn ordinary people into terrifying killers. If I'm right, the next twilight, 'tear apart the two who are close' (!!) will involve one couple having to kill the other. also lol that everyone gets a character-appropriate murder victim except Shannon, who just goes 'welp guess I gotta squash a child then' re: Shannon, guess we really are going with GeorgexShannon being The Greatest Love Story Ever Told  after all, huh? I can live with it, but it does hurt my 'Shannon is the real Beatrice' theory since the thematic parallel I was looking for might not be there. otoh I'm not going to drop that theory completely, partly because I don't have any others, but there do seem to be some more potential hints e.g. it sounds like Shannon had a crush on Battler as a child, which fits with the 'childhood promise' theory. otooh that would be a pretty extreme reason to commit mass murder, no matter how far you push the love angle... right? The real parallel for Kinzo looks like it's going to be Battler and chick-Beatrice, to the point that there were some scenes where I was genuinely unsure if we were seeing chick-Beatrice or Beatrice 2. (Too many Beatrices!) I like the implication that Battler is avoiding his grandfather's mistakes by allowing chick-Beatrice to become her own person, but it still feels uncomfortable that she's still basically programmed to be devoted to him, and they're presented as a romantic couple alongside Jessica/Kanon and George/Shannon.speaking of couples I can buy that the servants truly believe they need a magic miracle to find love. whatever conditioning they had as children must have been pretty intense, but I imagine a psycho like Kinzo could probably make an orphan believe they're not human. But I don't get why they seem so certain their love has to be zero-sum i.e. only one of them can have a relationship. I might be overthinking it, but it stood out to me that Kanon insists he'd have to leave the island if Shannon 'won', but that Shannon would have to stay if Kanon 'won.' Maybe they always have to stay together for some reason? idk what reason that would be without just going 'kinzo messed with their brains, I guess' Also holy poo poo Hachijo has sent the postmodern levels through the roof. She might as well turn to the camera and go “these are the themes, stop obsessing about murder, there’s more to the story than just red truths, also fanfic is the highest form of art.” I like her dynamic with Ange, but sometimes it feels like I’m seeing the author doing a Q&A with a reader self-insert. Which is maybe the point??? So here’s the Hachijo theory: - There’s seemingly a fundamental difference between the first 2 episodes (messages in bottles) and the rest (Hachijo’s murder fanfic). The key thing about episodes 1&2 is that Beatrice wins, and her story remains untold. The catbox remains unopened, so anything could have happened on the island. We have two possible explanations, but there could be hundreds – iirc in episode 4 Ange even points out there could be loads of bottles that never washed up. - The presentation of the story makes it look like Ange’s timeline is a direct result of episode 3, but that’s misdirection. All we (and Ange, and Hachijo) know is that Eva survived and got the gold. For all we know she just hid in Kuwadorian while everyone really did die in a series of implausible accidents. - Hachijo sets out to write an explanation of the incident that fits with the facts she knows, which becomes episode 3. But that’s not satisfying, because it doesn’t answer the big question: who is Beatrice and what does she want? So Hachijo goes on to write 3 more stories in which we get steadily closer to the truth. - At some point she achieves CHIM and figures out said truth, and invites the last Ushiromiya over to listen to some fanfic about her dead relatives. As for the bottle messages and the bank cards,  maybe Beatrice wrote them, maybe not, it might not even matter at this point.Actual question for grizzled veterans - I think I might have misunderstood something about Kyrie and Asumu, specifically the timeline - when did Asumu die, and Kyrie actually marry Rudolf? I feel like this probably came up in episode 1 or 2 but I don't remember. Kyrie's big thing is her 18 years of envy. 18 years before the game is when she loses her pregnancy while Asumu gives birth to Battler and marries Rudolf. But I thought Asumu's death, Rudolf's re-marriage and Ange's birth were all about 6 years before the game, which is (supposedly) why Battler fucks off to his mother's family around that time. So shouldn't it be 12 years? or is it something that hasn't been explained yet
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Jul 9, 2021 20:34
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Gato posted:Actual question for grizzled veterans Your understanding of the timeline re Asumu's death and Battler leaving is correct. I remember being confused by that part too, but it makes a little more sense as you continue to read.
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Jul 9, 2021 21:02
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theblackw0lf posted:So I got to chapter 10 of Rains route in Baldr Sky a few months back but dropped it, but was planning on going back. I’ve forgotten a lot of what’s happened though. If you keep playing, you'll unlock an in-game scenario flowchart that eventually includes detailed summaries down to the scene-by-scene level.
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Jul 10, 2021 04:25
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Thuryl posted:If you keep playing, you'll unlock an in-game scenario flowchart that eventually includes detailed summaries down to the scene-by-scene level. Yea I’m now on route 2, though now I have a new problem. I can’t skip text that I’m sure I’ve already read. Like there were scenes that played out exactly as last time, but I couldn’t skip the text. There are definitely new scenes and text but I don’t know when it’s going to show up so I can’t use the skip all text feature. It’s really frustrating playing through what you’ve already experienced.
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Jul 10, 2021 09:48
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Yeah, unfortunately text on different routes is generally stored in Baldr Sky's engine as a different text file even if it's actually the same scene, so it won't count as having been read before.
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Jul 10, 2021 11:21
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Another Baldr Sky question. Can someone remind me who GOAT is again? I have a vague remembrance but still a bit unsure. Also how did the sky get so bad from the student flashback years to present? It’s only been a few years
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Jul 10, 2021 19:40
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theblackw0lf posted:Another Baldr Sky question. Can someone remind me who GOAT is again? I have a vague remembrance but still a bit unsure. GOAT is a Global Union army that is Anti-AI. And the flashbacks take place in a less urban environment, while the main story is in an urban one.
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Jul 10, 2021 19:57
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Umineko 6 closing thoughts: Well that was a hell of a finale - I suppose not technically a finale, but it sure felt like one. Nothing like a good 'hero crashes wedding to save damsel from marrying villain' climax. Beato's back, gently caress yeah! And it looks like she and meta-Battler get something approximating a happy ending... right? When I saw that episodes 5-8 were called the Answer Arcs, I was expecting something like the last route of an Uchikoshi game - lots of neat little bows tied on all those unanswered questions. Instead, we've been homing in on the big themes of the series - love, magic, truth, what's the deal with Beatrice - without Ryukishi feeling the need to give us a blow-by-blow breakdown of all the murders in episodes 1-4. Much as part of me wold love that, I think I appreciate what he's trying to do. On the other hand, Bernkastel as game master for the next episode might mean we get those answers anyway given that her mission is to expose all the truths, and her saying she'll do it without love (and therefore presumably with no magical explanations). I'm hoping that means that we're finally going to get into the nitty-gritty of how Kinzo got his gold and so on, but maybe I'm being optimistic. I do feel sort of obliged to have a crack at the final mystery, but the locked room stuff has never been my forte and I'm pretty stumped by this one. So Kanon got out of the guesthouse, but he wasn't in the room next door (the one someone could actually get out of). Kanon saved Battler, but he wasn't in the guest bedroom. I'm guessing the solution involves some sort of sleight of hand about who 'Kanon' refers to. One of my theories for the second game was that 'Kanon' and 'Shannon' were aliases that the the two servants could swap. 'All people can only use their own names' seemingly shuts that down... except the game's made a big deal of the fact that 'Shannon' and 'Kanon' aren't their real names. If it's really So the other big little mystery is those final parting words between Battler, Beatrice and Erika. How can there be both 17 and 18 humans on the island? I have 3 theories in increasing order of absurdity: 1. It's just a sick burn on Erika, because she’s terrible. 2. It's a comment on Erika’s role in the story. She was always an interloper, and doesn’t have any actual answers to offer about the Rokkenjima mystery. Now that she’s played her role, she’s irrelevant to the story. In other words, for narrative purposes 17 people plus Erika is the same as 17 people without her. 3. (deep breath) It's nothing to do with Erika really. The big takeaway from the Shannon/Kanon duel seems to be that they are genuinely less than human from the perspective of the meta-world, rather than just having terrible self-esteem. I asked before why they see their relationships as zero-sum. What if the reason only one of them can find love is that they’re the same person, just presenting with two different personas? Instead of two kinda-siblings talking cheerfully about how they should have had a duel to the death ages ago, it’s one person deciding which of their two mutually exclusive identities to drop. If we accept what Hachijo says about alternate personalities, the number of people on the island could be both 17 and 18 depending on your point of view. And it makes solving Battler’s locked room even easier, because ‘Kanon’ was never in the cousin room to start with - which is why he disappears when he loses the duel!!! - Now that I’ve put it in writing, it looks pretty implausible, and it raises as many questions as it answers. would George and Jessica really not notice that they’re dating the same person? What about the people who supposedly employ them? What about all the scenes where we see them together? On the one hand, I’m struggling to think of a scene where they talk to each other in the real world while other people are watching, but on the other hand my memory for the details of the early chapters is getting hazy. I feel like I’m close to something big, and we know that the answer to the logic error room and the answer to the Shannon/Kanon situation are both critical to the Beatrice mystery but I don’t think I can see it just yet. fake edit: so Ange really did die on the cliff then, but it was Amakusa? I suppose it makes sense that the company doesn't want a possibly unstable heiress wandering around digging up the past, but talk about cold. she really does exist just to get suffering piled on her, huh? additional fake edit: I'm guessing it was a casualty of pacing but it would have been nice to see one more scene between chick-Beatrice and Beatrice the Elder, since as it is the latter just seemingly vanished? I mean we're presumably meant to take it as read that she fused with chick-Beatrice, but it still feels a bit like a missed opportunity Gato fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 00:16
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Umineko 5 and 6 ending The wedding was so good, I don't think it was as good as the "I knew" moment which is the most hype poo poo I've ever seen in my entire life. Seeing Beato back after she'd been gone for so long though, it was like Manna from heaven. And that last Red Text, trust me fam you aren't the first to get thoroughly rocked by it.
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Jul 12, 2021 00:37
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Gato posted:When I saw that episodes 5-8 were called the Answer Arcs To be clear, this is something that MangaGamer came up with to match the Higurashi naming scheme. At no point do they call them the "Answer Arcs" in Japan. Higurashi's second half is named Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai in Japan, the "Kai" in this case being 解, or "solution"/"answer". Umineko's second half, on the other hand, is named Chiru (散), which Jisho defines literally as "loose articles (not packaged with other things); bulk items; individual items" and "loose change," which do not seem directly relevant. That character is also used in other words, where it often adds a meaning of dispersal, separation, scattering, etc. Anyway, unlike Kai which has an obvious meaning, this is a rather vague term to use for episodes 5 through 8, and its meaning is very much open to interpretation. Fans in the past have called eps 5 through 8 the "Core Arcs." MangaGamer stuck with "Answer Arcs." Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 00:46
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:To be clear, this is something that MangaGamer came up with to match the Higurashi naming scheme. At no point do they call them the "Answer Arcs" in Japan. 
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Jul 12, 2021 01:09
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The way I've always looked at is that Higurashi Kai was about answering the mystery, and Umineko Chiru was about breaking down the mystery and all of that it entailed.
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Jul 12, 2021 01:35
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:That character is also used in other words, where it often adds a meaning of dispersal, separation, scattering, etc. 散 alone for that other meaning reads "bara," the reading Chiru refers to the verb form 散る; quote:散る/ちる/to fall (e.g. blossoms, leaves)|to scatter; to be dispersed|to disappear; to dissolve; to break up|to spread; to run; to blur|to die a noble death Edit: my headcanon translation is "breakdown" in multiple senses of the term LordMune fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 01:56
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LordMune posted:散 alone for that other meaning reads "bara," the reading Chiru refers to the verb form 散る; Breakdown is a good replacement word, should have been the actual translation. Umineko: Breakdown Arc sounds great.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:37
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LordMune posted:Edit: my headcanon translation is "breakdown" in multiple senses of the term I just learned the Japanese name now, but I think a multiple interpretation works best, because there are a lot of uses. Like, the GOO sample sentences seem to all fit so well. 気が散る - Get distracted 霧が散る - Disperse the fog 噂が散る - Spread gossip There is also the meaning of "dying quickly in battle." Spoiler for all episodes: This in a row seems to correspond to each episode. Chapter 5 is getting distracted, Chapter 6 has the fog clear, Chapter 7 spreads the "gossip" behind the characters, and in the fictional world chapter 8 has them all die in battle MegaZeroX fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 02:37
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umineko no naku koro ni Sou… The fog clears up e: the visual at the end of the ep5 OP also helps illustrate it I think Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 02:47
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Dispersal feels really good to me. Moreso than breakdown.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:54
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One of my biggest criticisms with Baldr Sky is that every route is a romance route, which is to be expected with this genre, but some feel a bit forced, and a couple make me feel icky. Plus I think it can hurt the character development and growth for the particular heroine for that chapter. Well I’m about finishing route 1 of dive 2 so we will see how the last 2 are. theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 04:30
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Ahhh the grisaia problem
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Jul 12, 2021 05:09
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I may not be able to MiB myself and play it again, but the true reward of finishing Umineko is getting to read other people's theories.  If you're finishing up 6 and want to theorize more, by the way, now is the time to do so. Chapter 7 is going to spill a lot of beans.
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Jul 12, 2021 09:28
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:I may not be able to MiB myself and play it again, but the true reward of finishing Umineko is getting to read other people's theories. well that's both reassuring (esp. given the fact that 'Answer Arcs' is apparently very misleading advertising) and a bit ominous. Gonna give myself a few days to mull things over, but for posterity's sake I'm going to update the big list of questions from before - Who is Beatrice, the Golden Witch? It seems like we’ve got most of the framework here. Meta-Beatrice is the underlying principle of this game board, a meta-world entity that represents a combination of the folklore/ghost story of the island's witch and the persona of a certain person who was very, very dedicated to Battler. The split between chick-Beatrice and elder-Beatrice was a contingency plan by meta-Beatrice which makes this duality explicit to Battler. - Who were Beatrice Prime and Beatrice 2, and what happened to them? Where did the gold come from? Same guess as before - Beatrice Prime was some random German or Italian woman who helped Kinzo get his hands on a boatload of Nazi gold. It seemed pretty likely even before that Beatrice 2 was their daughter and the Battler/Kinzo parallel makes me almost certain. - Who is Beatrice 3? Does she physically exist, and if so why isn’t she present in every game? I still think it’s Shannon, same reasoning as before plus Hachijo’s comment about alternative personalities. She’s too busy resolving her metaphysical differences with Kanon to put on the suit in Episode 6. - Is Beatrice the murderer? I’m still going with multiple murderers, but the majority are probably going to be Beatrice. I can’t be bothered to go through each and every murder, but I’m pretty sure either Shannon or Kanon are at least around for all the murders in episodes 2 and 4 (except the final five, which are probably the booby-trapped mansion). Episode 3 was mostly Eva, and Episode 1… you got me. - What was the sin Battler forgot? Yup, I’m ready to put money on ‘childhood promise between Shannon and Battler.’ - Who is Battler? What happened to the original Battler? So I’ve been thinking about this one a bit more and I think I’ve got a more coherent theory than my previous one: Asumu gave birth to a child called Ushiromiya Battler, but something happened to that child fairly early in its life, so she adopted our hero Battler (who is probably Beatrice 2’s child) as her son. Battler doesn't know that he's adopted, and Kyrie probably doesn't either, but Rudolf does and was planning to tell him after the conference. Asumu died when Battler was 12, he was pissed off that Rudolf married his mistress straight away and went to live with his grandparents, checking in with Ange occasionally i.e. that part is exactly as we’ve been told. Unfortunately during his last visit to Rokkenjima he made a dumb promise to Shannon/Sayo which he forgot as the years went by because, hey, he’s got a lot of stuff going on and it’s not like she’s going to murder anyone over it, right? I’m pretty sure this fits with all the red truths. I like this one better because switching in a new Battler at age 12 requires too many leaps of logic for my liking. Also while the idea that Battler doesn’t remember the sin because it wasn’t actually him who made the promise seems elegant on the surface, it basically turns the sin into an accident beyond his control. But all of meta-Battler’s behaviour towards Beatrice in 5 and 6 seems to indicate he really does accept that he wronged Beatrice and needs to make up for it - it seems pretty crucial to their relationship. Plus given that Beatrice is seemingly omniscient as far as the game board is concerned, it would be weird for her to not know this one critical detail. One big problem is we still don’t know who raised the substitute Battler before he became an Ushiromiya. My initial thought was Kinzo but you’d expect him to pay more attention to Beatrice’s only living descendant if that was the case. So who?? - Why does everyone on the island die when the game ends? How does Eva escape? Still going with ‘bomb/gas that kills everyone left in the mansion.’ I realized after the last post that in 1998 Ange never actually sees the mansion, which feels like a setup for it having a big crater in the middle or something when we finally do get a look at it. - What’s going on in 1998? Who sent the bottle messages, and the messages to the victims’ children? When did Ange die? What did Ange see in the boatman’s house? Welp, guess I was wrong to assume the 1998 story was wrapped up, although the Hachijo thing still felt more like a very extended coda than anything else. It’s all but said outright that Amakusa kills her after wiping out Kasumi and her goons. The bottle messages might be Shannon/the culprit fantasising about killing all the Ushiromiyas, and the bank cards were a way of apologising to the families left behind. Presumably in other timelines nobody makes it back and the messages are the only clue anyone has about what happened on the island. No idea why they’d use Maria’s name though. Still on the boatman’s house. He has a portrait now, so maybe we're pulling a Persona 4 and he was the mastermind the whole time.- What actually happened with Natsuhi’s baby? How is it linked to Beatrice 2’s death? Does the man from 19 years ago actually exist? Same theory as before – the MF19YA is just something the culprit came up with to blackmail Natsuhi, but the baby was real and was Beatrice 2’s child (and grew up to be Battler). - What are Rudolf and Kyrie up to? Rudolf is still a bit of a mystery, but it’s possible he’s just what he seems on the surface – a surprisingly well-balanced, goofy playboy. We’ve had a pretty deep dive into Kyrie’s backstory now - turns out she's a psychopath, who knew. It’s possible I was overthinking the ’shouldn't it be only 12 years of envy’ thing – after all, even after she got everything she wanted after Asumu’s death, Battler’s existence would have been a constant reminder of her failure to win Rudolf the first time around. Her envy wouldn’t necessarily stop just because Asumu was dead. Some new ones to add to the pile: - Wtf is going on with Kanon and Shannon? Before episode 6 I was reasonably confident that these two were just orphans raised to see themselves as subhuman in Kinzo’s ninja orphanage, and that their arcs were about coming to see themselves as fully human through the power of love. But all the stuff around their duel in Episode 6 really does seem to be suggesting that they’re not fully human in some sense, and that their relationships being mutually exclusive is a genuine problem that has to be solved. I already laid out my theories before, but neither feels fully satisfactory even though they’d open up a lot of red truths. ‘Two people swapping personas’ still doesn’t really explain the zero-sum relationships. ‘One person with two personas’ is bonkers and renders god knows how many previous scenes unreliable. - What does the epitaph mean? I’m obviously not in a position to solve the Japanese equivalent of a cryptic crossword (although I had a hunch that was what it was as soon as I saw it since my grandma loves cryptic crosswords) though it would be interesting to know if any Japanese players managed to solve it by this point. It seems pretty clear that everything up to the last twilight translates to a set of directions to a physical location on Rokkenjima, which you can puzzle out once you figure out the starting point near Kinzo’s hometown (using an atlas). The last verse stands out a bit, since its construction is much less cryptic, it seems odd that Kinzo would want the witch to be “put to sleep for all time”, and it’s noticeable that we haven’t had any hints about that part yet. The more interesting question is what does the epitaph mean to Beatrice? After all, we’re told in red that Beatrice has nothing to gain from them solving the riddle, which makes sense if it’s just some folly of Kinzo’s. But then why send the letters encouraging the family to solve it? Just to sow chaos? And why set up the murders to reflect the epitaph? Maybe it’s the culprit’s way of mocking Kinzo and his legacy? - How many people are on the island? 17 or 18, obviously  might add to this if I think of any other big questions (or feel free to suggest your own) in the next few days. it will be a monument to my hubris
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Jul 12, 2021 22:54
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I believe the epitaph was first solved in ep 3 by Japanese players (or discussion boards, at least), and I've seen it solved in ep 3 by an English player. (And one just after ep 6.)
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Jul 13, 2021 00:34
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Jesus that must've taken some dedication
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Jul 13, 2021 00:41
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Just finished the night of the festival in Higurashi chapter 3. I didn't expect Keichi to follow through with killing the uncle. Overall the first chapter is still my favorite but this one night to it if it keeps ramping up the craziness.
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Jul 13, 2021 04:58
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 17:00 |
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I've restarted Yu No about six times now and I think I finally managed to get on a new route, I was trying for Mio, but somehow got Hatano so I'll roll with it. This game causes me anxiety like no VN I've ever played, I'm constantly checking the route map and my world position. And I'm absurdly paranoid that I'm going to miss and item or a gem.
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Jul 13, 2021 05:54
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