|
I'm guessing Salyu is Alice's daughter. The reason she's emotionless is because MEXT tried to remove anything that can cause malice in her.
|
#
¿
May 1, 2017 00:27
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:55 |
|
|
I'd also like it if they showed us why Ena hardened her heart instead of telling us. Cause they sorta just went "cuz, lol"
|
|
#
¿
May 2, 2017 00:52
|
|
|
HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:You want your cover blown and your mind read at any point? She went into school to reverse this process. It seemed to not have been voluntary.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2017 00:10
|
|
|
ughhh yeah they actually went there fuuuuuuuuuuuu-
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2017 21:50
|
|
|
Llab posted:The guy who was doing research on Alice should've been transferred far away the moment anyone noticed that he was feeling too sympathetic to Alice. Like, Salyu knows how hosed up her entire life is, and she was raised in a cell, basically. Seriously. Historically power dynamics like the ones involved here never ended well. Especially in Japan of all loving places. quote:
She said, to a girl being kept as a lab rat whose personality was slowly being overwritten for the government's gains. quote:
You suck so much Miyoko.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2017 22:46
|
|
N-no...! LABO's ethics hadn't sunken that low at the time. It wasn't until her 6th month that Alice was discovered to be pregnant. With her already being on the cusp of her third trimester, abortion was impossible...
|
Junpei posted:Okay, guys, Miyoko certainly isn't GOOD, not by any stretch of the imagination, but her superiors/bosses certainly have to be worse than her, at least. Her bosses aren't about to be tearfully vindicated by the plot.
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2017 02:10
|
|
|
Cyouni posted:Nah they did nothing wrong, they just set up multiple ticking time bombs that kill everyone because they have no clue what they're doing. No biggie. You defend Mashiro and Yuuri's actions and yet Watase and Ukita's actions are a bidge too far, despite being caused by circumstances outside of their control?
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2017 03:05
|
|
|
I'm still not over her "why are you being so mean to your absantee mother Natsuhiko, that's not nice!!" tbh
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2017 03:40
|
|
|
Cyouni posted:So then the question becomes: how much do you trust Q, the self-proclaimed terrorist organization that wants to blow things up and hates Communicators to the point where they were protesting against them daily (and that's what you know about)? If you're Watase and Ukita, apparently completely. I don't trust Q, but I do trust Watase and Ukita. Besides from the looks of things Q might actually be onto something here. Like MEXT wasn't much better. Alice was still treated like an experiment. I'm also not convinced that what we know about Q doesn't just come from Rokumei's propaganda. Cyouni posted:Oh yeah I totally forgot about their amazing planning in "we've taken AD, we're safe from malice under 4k but forget about those researchers, and let's stay in the WX amplifier area". That is far, far from the worst plot beat we've had so far. And I don't think they knew about the malice thing. To them it just looked like LABO strung up a girl in a iron maiden straitjacket. Haifisch posted:Don't worry, it'll turn out that Communicator A infected her with malice so nothing that happened in the years since is her fault. you joke but I bet that's what will happen Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 05:55 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
¿
May 10, 2017 05:53
|
|
|
BenRGamer posted:The scientists explicitly warn about this exact thing happening. They didn't connect 2 and 2 together. I mean I get it, it was a charged situation and Watase wasn't feeling charitable to people who were keeping kids locked up. But okay, I take the point. Cyouni posted:The whole purpose was to protect Communicators that were discriminated against in exchange for research data, in the same fashion as paid clinical trials. I'm pretty sure this is the game lying to us. They still kept people locked up as test subjects. Sure for their own protection, but they weren't much better than LABO in the grand scheme of things. We are talking about an organization which let a guy get romantically involved with a VIP Communicator, and they still used the single letter designation system which obviously led to LABO's system. And besides, it's quite convenient that Alice already showed signs of N-ification when she arrived there. A more likely story is that they used her for their trials and this caused her to go N-ified.
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2017 09:19
|
|
|
k'. 1) First, you build your facility in secret somewhere in a rural area. You don't put it in the middle of a city, you're essentially a cross between a mental institution and a witness protection program. So build it there, make a nice security perimeter, spread information that this is a mental hospital. LABO did this part right and I have no idea why MEXT did not since apparently we're dealing with professional agents. Getting your VIP away from a potential flashpoint and to safety is pretty standard stuff. MEXT instead decided to stay in one place until poo poo really hit the fan. 2) No loving experiments. Should be self-explanatory 3) Have a plan B. 4) Don't leave a paper trail 5) Make sure your communicators have some interaction with people besides the employees. 'Course this assumes the government was willing to play ball. If they don't well poo poo, that sucks. But then let's stop pretending there is some moral high ground to be found here, these people were just following orders but they felt really bad about it guys so that makes it better quote:While we're on that subject, let's also say that they can't interact with any test subject in any positive fashion, given you seem to think that Alice's romance was forced. It wasn't forced per se, it sounds more like Stockholm Syndrome to me. There's a fine line between being friendly (which MEXT did and was good) and romantic involvement (nope nope nope nope nope). Like I know Azumi's heart was probably in the right place, especially given how much the story wants to emphasize self-sacrificial love, but historically these power dynamics didn't end well. Even in the best of circumstances we're talking about a woman who was isolated and half lost her mind getting involved with a researcher who was charged with taking care of her. It's not a good look. quote:And they're not allowed to hide their identities in any fashion - those must be made public. 6) Give them a new name and identity. They're people, they need names not barcodes. What MEXT and LABO did was dehumanizing as gently caress and belies their priorities. quote:Let's hear your plans for what you'd do to combat what's effectively constant persecution of a minority, to the point of things like the Andresy Witch Hunt. What do you mean "to the point"? That wasn't a serious incident at all. Some yokels got drunk on moonshine and Jesus and set fire to a few places. It's tragic, certainly traumatizing for Alice, but hardly the Aum Shinrikyu attacks. Even though it's pretty obvious they were the inspiration for Alice's sect.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 09:11
|
|
|
Cyouni posted:There are an average of 166 thousand Communicators in the world, and projections state that 6 thousand of them are Japanese. You're essentially suggesting lock 6 thousand people somewhere rural. And you want them to voluntarily walk into this. And if you want to pretend it's a mental hospital, good luck getting non-employees to visit 6 thousand people without anyone ever being tipped off. Not for all of them, just VIPs like Alice. Cyouni posted:Do you not see the problems with that? You're completely forgetting about the rest of Rokumei City in this design of yours, all of whom were actually fine with experiments as part of joining one of these government-designated cities. That's the whole point of the city and the other five like it - to serve as a safe haven for Communicators in general. Alice was basically the first case ever, which didn't anticipate things like the Anti-BC League actually inside Rokumei City, which is why LABO and its defenses (not to mention the full lockdown of Rokumei City) were later developed. All things covered in Ena's absurdly long briefings. Then MEXT is profoundly incompetent if they didn't have a plan B. If she was part of a sect that had manipulated the police in the past, they should have protocols in case their location was ever compromised. This is police cop poo poo 101. Cyouni posted:Isolated and lost her family, sure. Half lost her mind...significantly less so. The incidents that prompted her N-ification were pretty obviously the Anti-BC League, as can be easily determined by simply looking at the timeline, and that was after they started getting involved with each other. That's completely wrong, she was losing her mind when she came to Japan due to the cult using her for Senses Sympathy, then it accelerated since she continued using her powers in PRC.  Cyouni posted:I'm mildly curious if you actually know that things like Boy A/Girl A are the standard Japanese method for hiding names that they don't want to be revealed, typically juvenile offenders. It makes complete sense that's how they'd be referred to in official documents if you wanted to hide their past. I do, except read the Tsubakiyama journals again and Salyu's internal thoughts, most of them use the single letter designation in their day-to-day interactions. Miyako only called Yui by her name when they were alone. Cyouni posted:Uh...it's specifically noted that although the Andresy Witch Hunt is the most well-known one (for obvious reasons) and the thing that started it, similar anti-Communicator discrimination started occurring around the world after that. No dude that's not obvious at all. The apartment burning casually mentioned in the dialogue seems far more notable that the Witch Hunt, where the only incident took place in some podunk church. Why would the latter be more famous especially since the government suppresses information about S-rank Communicators?
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 17:48
|
|
Communicators were targeted by normal people for the sole fact that they were Communicators-- and those incidents only increased in frequency afterwards. In April that same year, a young American Communicator was lynched in Brooklyn. The following month, an entire apartment building was burned to the ground in China. In June, it was Germany. In July, Italy and America. In August, it was Germany, France, and Austria. In September, it was Russia, France, America, and China... I had my hands full just counting all of the similar incidents.
|
EponymousMrYar posted:For all that Q might have a point in doing this, they still set off a bunch of bombs and may/may not have been responsible for the last bomb blowing up early. We mostly know what LABO's been doing because we've been shown and told about it, but our only line to Q is through Watase and Ukita who's actions make sense based on what we know of LABO. That is a point. EponymousMrYar posted:I totally understand the Miyoko hate in the thread but to me it seems like she's middle management caught between a rock and a hard place and trying to make the best of it Again, I'd probably have a lot more pity for her if the game wasn't about to tearfully vindicate her. She also just comes off either detached or self-serving in her dialogue. Like either she's just following orders or she's trying to justify to herself all the poo poo she does. That's a great quality for a villain, but it's not something that endears a character to the audience.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2017 00:03
|
|
|
Yeah. That's exactly what I expected. Honestly it's so goddamn rote that I can't even get upset over it. My one piece of advice is that if you feel like this tugs at your heartstrings, then go back to the previous chapters and reread how Miyako treated Natsuhiko. That's the ptoblem with this trope in Japanese media, it only works in one direction. It hopes that by the time you get to the twist, that the wise older generation had a method to their madness (and it is a twist), you would have fogotten exactly what was said and done. You just remembered how much you disliked the character. So when this twist happens, oh poo poo you were just as wrong as the mistreated character don't you feel silly I think there's a lesson to be learned in that you know... If you go back and reread what the character did though, you usually lose the sympathy you have for them, because shocker, they were still an rear end in a top hat.
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2017 18:55
|
|
|
Junpei posted:Why is everyone hating on Miyoko even though she's trying to help Natsu and co. escape, avoid/escape Security Sector 6, gave Salyu a normal life outside the lab, tried to keep Natsu from having A SEVERE PSYCHOTIC BREAKDOWN FROM GRIEF, and dozens of other things that probably would have gone way, way worse if she WASN'T around? Because what they're doing is a lovely VN trope, Junpei. It's character development by way of audience guilt trip. And it's used as tacit approval of absentee parenting in real life, which is lovely as gently caress. You're also ignoring the context of what she did and for how long she did it. She spent most of Natsuhiko's formative years, during which he has intense mental damage and was hallucinating a BC ghost, away from him. Knowing full well he had maybe 25 years to live, she instead chose to throw herself into research instead of being a goddamn parent. Like I really want to emphasize the point, she's not his aunt, she's his mom. This is not an excuse. And let's suppose she did find a cure to let Natsuhiko live longer. What now? Oh thanks mom you're cool all sins forgiven? The two are almost perfect strangers. And if she didn't? Well her kid would die from brain cancer and she would realize she knew nothing about her own son. Of course this is Miyako we're talking about so SHE'D FEEL REALLY BAD ABOUT IT but SHE DID HER BEST and there was ultimately NOTHING THAT COULD BE DONE. In fact gently caress it. My prediction for the ending: Miyako eats it from one of the people with guns, Natsuhiko uses SSS to read her memories and we'll see that SHE REALLY DID THINK ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME when she did her reasearch, and that just before the fire broke out she was on the cusp of discovery. She then dies and Ukita takes up the torch, perfecting the cure and letting Natsuhiko have a life. Natsuhiko will then reflect about how he never really understood his mom and that this might be why we need BC to really be able to commu-you get the loving point. And thus the guilt trip aimed at the audience will be complete.
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
Cyouni posted:Exactly what do you expect her to have done? I expected her to be a goddamn parent. As do a lot of other people in this thread. I also expected her not to do that BC ghost nonesense but we've beaten that horse enough. You're missing my broader point though. Miyako could have done everything in her power and I would still dislike her because of how the story presents her actions. Mashiro and Yuuri both team up to excuse her despite Natsuhiko's condition and history. Any time we see her talking to Natsuhiko, it's always in a super detached way. Why are we supposed to have sympathy for her given that we never see her being a mother to Natsuhiko after the LABO incident? There are plenty of ways they could have made her seem detached but sympathetic. Instead they choose to load all the reasons why we should like her into the end, expecting us to just swallow this. But all this feels like is a post-hoc justification for Miyako to be a terrible person. Cyouni posted:Yep, that's something Yuuri brings up. "So you see Natsuhiko, it can't be helped..." Llab posted:Maybe it's a Japan thing It very much is, and it's a source of a lot of inter-family friction in the country. Which is why I have no patience for this trope. This is society being a piece of poo poo, and the media tries to frame this as "oh those selfish youngsters...if only they understood how the world worked..." It's incredibly lovely and anyone who says this deserves a whack to the back of the head. Unfortunately a lot of parents believe this, and then they wonder "oh poo poo why are my kids so distant/non-communicative?" TheOneAndOnlyT posted:Let's be real, this is a Japanese game. The moral isn't going to be that humanity needs BC. It's going to be that humanity doesn't really need powers to understand each other, they just need to try harder and Do Their Best and the world will be a better place, because humanity can do anything if it collectively sets its mind to it. Bonus points if the character espousing this moral spends some time talking about how humanity sucks most of the time but they still believe in its power. I actually though about posting something like this but I decided that was a bridge too far. If the game does actually do this it will be the most hilariously tone-deaf ending to a story I've seen in recent memory. That would drive the game strictly into parody territory.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2017 00:16
|
|
|
Yeah the means Nagisa is coming back. What's OCR btw?
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2017 21:10
|
|
|
Holy poo poo. I need that in my life. That poo poo is reason number 1 I didn't make a new LP.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2017 21:18
|
|
|
Hahahaha goddamnit Natsuhiko
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2017 22:56
|
|
|
That was a fantastic bad end, goddamn.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
I love that Natsuhiko managed to gently caress up the memory even worse than N did.
|
|
#
¿
May 25, 2017 06:08
|
|
|
drat  But yeah, I dunno what our big plan here is tbh.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2017 22:34
|
|
|
I too give my sociological phenomena engrishy names.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
I dunno how I feel about these scenes. It's great learning a few new things, but on the other hand the game seems really more focused on hammering home the character's established personalities rather than revealing anything groundbreaking. Miyako is also the worst again, holy poo poo what a moron.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2017 20:07
|
|
|
This really seems more like something Jun would do, but I guess on the other hand who didn't make a fool of themselves trying to impress someone they like.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2017 04:50
|
|
|
The second Ukita CG is prob for censorship as well. Notice how the gun's in shadow? That's a technique they use to make scenes be more accpted by the review boards. Yeah, it's silly.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 20:50
|
|
|
That's cute, but they're really pushing how everyone knew each other at one point.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
SSNeoman posted:Well let's start from the bottom: 0: Yuuri Holy poo poo Yuuri you hosed everything up. Everything. I understand why you'd do what you did initially, but 9 years later of this charade is insane. There comes a point where her actions just started to feel self-serving to me. Like she used Natsuhiko to experience the outside world instead of just doing what is best for her friend. I get that might be the point, but the writing tries to justify this with her insane martyr complex so I get the feeling that's not the story's intention. The major twist associated with her is just...oof. It wasn't great for me and it took me out of the story. 1: Ukita I get what you're doing, but drat dude. drat. You need to just like, stop and think things through sometimes. 2: Mashiro She went up from rank 1 by virtue that Yuuri dropped. I just don't feel like she cares about Natsuhiko, but is instead going after some idealized Natushiko that exists in her mind. Considering she's been inside his mind for years, it's strange that she knows him the least. All of her positive qualities feel like a VN writer trying to manipulate his audience into liking her more (INTO ANIME, IS WIFE MATERIAL, etc) 3: Natsuhiko Can actually put up and be compelling, but he still suffers from  syndrome. He's honestly only this high because his ending where he pulled a Yuuri was something I legit wasn't expecting.<There is a laaaaarge rift here> 4: Salyu Oh am I ever gonna catch poo poo for this one. Her fall in the rankings just came from a lot of people becoming way more interesting and involved in the story while she remained static. She also helped out on the "vindicate Miyoko" squad so that might be doing it for me too. 5: Watase He really made a mess of things but his role in the story was genuinely compelling and he seems to bring out the best in Natsuhiko. He's also shown to take responsibility and is otherwise a cool person outside of his Q activities. 6: Ena I appreciated what she tried to do and her role in these events. She's definitely the adult in the crowd and is desperately trying to do the right thing. She's not perfect, but I wished I could see more of her story since it was honestly quite interesting and I'd check out a VN just about that. I just wish she wasn't so loving wordy. 7: Jun Provides levity to the story and regularly helps people snap out of their funk. Her SSS affinity scenes were some of the highlights of After and she remains a cool character throughout. 8: Kazami By far the best twists are associated with her. I really appreciated her character and her arc within the story. She also helped by amping up the tension when she got malice'd. I'm not sure how I feel about her ending up with Watase, but eh, I guess they both have a lot on their plate to come clean about. I like her, she's cool. Also her Xtend scenes were cute. Honorable mention: Subject N a genuinely well-executed villain who was slowly revealed as the plot went on. Very well done by the writers and her powers and arguments led to a lot of interesting moments. Though I wish it was against someone who was not Natsuhiko Tenkawa. OTOH even she made him actually stand up for himself, so I guess that says something about her as a villain. Her effects on Kazami were probably the most tense parts of the story. Honorable honorable mentions: the BC-users in the school. Their little arcs and stores were honestly one of the highlights (if not the highlight) of Before for me. It added a lot to the story and world-building. Dishonorable mention: Miyoko Tenkawa So hey remember how I called Yuuri's martyr complex "self-serving"? Multiply that by 5 for Miyoko. I said it before, but I despise this VN trope. It's rarely, if ever, executed well and the character who is vindicated by it never learns their lesson. Miyoko is even worse though because she knows she's hurting Natsuhiko. She knows their relationship is rocky. But she does nothing. We never see how the two drifted apart, which would have helped a lot. Seeing Natsuhiko live with a ghost must heart-wrenching for a mother and she probably sees her deceased husband in her son. But she does nothing. Several characters remark how she is throwing way too much of herself into her work in lieu of spending time with her son. But she does nothing. Everything is she does and justifies to herself seems tailor-made to make herself feel better about her mistakes, her organization's mistakes and so on. I just don't feel a single bit of care coming from her throughout 95% of the story. Then in the climax she comes in and suddenly she cares and has a plan to get the heroes out of their predicament. My, how convenient.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2017 21:33
|
|
|
Vampires Dawn 2 Krabbeln in meiner Haut Diese Wunden werden sie nicht heilen
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2017 20:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:55 |
|
|
I think your style worked very well for this game, you let it speak for itself, for better or worse. Voting is also a great way to get your thread traffic, since people sometimes just don't have a lot to say about what happened on screen. Ya did good! It was a great LP 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2017 23:00
|
|