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Psycho Knight posted:..lot's of stuff It's kinda hard to separate your writing from the script because it looks like you're replacing responses more than filling in the silence. I mean, I can do it by looking at the font, but it doesn't really stick after reading the thread over the course of several months. I probably should've spoken up a few months earlier when I started following this thread. I like your writing and if it were in the actual game, I'd probably play it. With that said, it looks like the game does address some of Ruby's lovely-ness, though she doesn't really get more than a scolding from creepy Star-Pope (though the ending remains to be seen). My guess is her silence after being taken into custody may also be at least partly due to her still processing all that's happening. Keep in mind, her crush/idol/boss just revealed that he's insane and is unleashing a world-ending catastrophe that she blindly helped facilitate and her boss' boss is dead, leaving her life, career, and research in complete jeopardy. She also now realizes that the highly concentrated dark crystals she has been having you collect, are also being used as a catalyst to turn people into even more monsters, hastening the problem. Then she gets carted away after hearing all this. You're expecting her to turn completely on her hero and love in a matter of hours if not minutes while she's still coming to grips with the reality of what she's done. My guess is she's going through emotional shock and even shutting herself off. The shock of finding out that Mark is dead and spilled the beans anyway as well, may have been the jolt that woke her up as it's now a more immediate guilt and she now has no one left but an angry protagonist who's re-populated the city with spies and assassins. Her silence may also be her trying to be a martyr or to atone for her crimes. Perhaps she feels that she should just be silent and let the church pass judgement. After Wake runs in and talks, she realizes that there's no one left to martyr for. This does not make her right or justify her actions. It just explains them in a more human sense. Perhaps if she were given a day or so to think things over, she might actually talk, but to be fair, there isn't really time for that.
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Dec 22, 2018 03:13
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Team A: Gun Saint, Diva, and Trickster For a team suggestion: Gambler, Diva, and Bulleteer. Call it team Should children really have these jobs? Or maybe something less wordy. Edit: Commander Keene posted:Team Precocious. That works. BlazeEmblem fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Dec 22, 2018 |
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Dec 22, 2018 06:04
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BlazeEmblem posted:Team A: Gun Saint, Diva, and Trickster
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Dec 22, 2018 06:27
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Psycho Knight posted:Almost forgot to mention, AecTalek won the prize draw. Let me know how you want to do this. Need some sort of messaging thing in place, or that email forwarding that Omobono used. I learned something new, so lets test this forwarding out: aectaleksatemp@crapmail.org. Platinum upgrade seems the most sensible and thank you very much. And while it is very sad that Alec is dead (and Wake had to kill him) at least Triche should be safe now? Doubt anyone would be insane enough to send him back in now. I assume we can't talk to him at this point or else you would have shown it off.
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Dec 22, 2018 10:44
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I don't have time now, but I have some words. I'll give you a hint on what they're about: gently caress Ruby. That is all for now.
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Dec 22, 2018 12:09
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AecTalek posted:And while it is very sad that Alec is dead (and Wake had to kill him) at least Triche should be safe now? Doubt anyone would be insane enough to send him back in now. I assume we can't talk to him at this point or else you would have shown it off. I'll send it out later today. Edit: Sent As for Triche, Chlotz was the only named character who had an icon. There was no sign that Triche was out of the Hospital though (otherwise he would have been trying to get back on the Assault Team). I can't recall if we see him in the ending events, but he is still alive, at least for now. mastersord posted:It's kinda hard to separate your writing from the script because it looks like you're replacing responses more than filling in the silence. I mean, I can do it by looking at the font, but it doesn't really stick after reading the thread over the course of several months. I probably should've spoken up a few months earlier when I started following this thread. I like your writing and if it were in the actual game, I'd probably play it. Yeah, it's way too late for that. There's only one, or one and a half, updates left to this. I will keep it in mind for any future LP's I might do, though. If you have any suggestions then feel free to say them. I know italics are hard to spot sometimes, but I only have a few ways of making text stand out. This is only my first LP, so I recognize I have lot of areas for improvement in terms of writing, formatting, and pacing. Feedback is welcome, so thanks for saying something, even if it is too late for this LP. As for Ruby, I am willing to admit that your view is a possibility. I just don't think it fits in this case. The game is iffy about time passage, but based on context clues from Mattero and the Disciples, it seems as though Ruby has had at least an entire day to stew on this. The Church needed enough time to raid AngelMarker Industries, discover a hidden passage/cell, find Mark, analyze the data from Mark's Vis-o-Matic, use that data to search the locations for Heaven's Door, and then have Mattero sit Ruby down for interrogation when that search turned up nothing. Mattero also says they found Mark "this morning", so Ruby would have spent at least one night under arrest (the Church had no reason to raid AngelMarker until that broadcast from Enzea). Mattero also raises the spectre of the Church being able to just force the information out of her, meaning they will find out one way or another. Despite that, Ruby still refuses to tell him anything. Even when Wake shows up and orders her to "tell the truth", she plays dumb by asking what he's talking about. He clearly found out about what she was hiding, but she still takes one last desperate shot at dodging the subject. She's also a very composed character. Even if she were shaken by everything that happened, I doubt her mind would be in such a state that she wouldn't recognize the need to cooperate in whatever way she could to stop the chaos that's unfolding. Like Triche, I don't remember if we hear about what happens to her in the ending, but I don't remember anything about her receiving a major punishment. I'm pretty sure guilt is the only punishment she gets. I'm not blaming her for being secretly used by Enzea. She does genuinely seem to want to save the world from the Dusk Circles. It's just that her hubris and ego result in terrible things happening, and she doesn't exactly make a concentrated effort to make amends for it, or even utter an "I'm sorry." Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Dec 22, 2018 |
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Dec 22, 2018 12:35
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AHAHAHAHAHAH! It's so much worse than I was expecting. Being tricked by Enzea is one thing. Refusing to tell anyone how to save the world days after Enzea's murdered his family while declaring his plan to kill everyone DURING A LIVE BROADCAST is something else. Combine that with her lovely behaviour all game and I can't bring myself to sympathise with her in any way. RIP Mark 
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Dec 23, 2018 16:05
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RIP Alec, your death was entirely forseeable. He was a solid character though, RE: Ruby, I do sympathize with her a little bit. However, even after some time has passed, she still refuses to tell anyone what she knew. I mean, she knows exactly what's going to happen if they don't stop Enzea. All her refusal to talk does is make it harder for Wake to save the day and condemn people to either death/injury by fighting the monsters or monster-hood themselves as the Circles expand. As for teams, let's go for Dark Knight, Dungeon Master, and Ninja for A. For the full team, I'm putting in Team Runnners Up of a Diva, Bulleteer, and Ninja
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Dec 23, 2018 17:43
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I'm still catching up on the LP, but you're a big fan of Reel Big Fish, huh? There's been a lot of their lyrics in the update names.
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Dec 23, 2018 21:57
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Taciturn Tactician posted:I'm still catching up on the LP, but you're a big fan of Reel Big Fish, huh? There's been a lot of their lyrics in the update names. Yeah, I kind of got into a thing there for a few updates. I didn't really notice until Chapter 3 or so that I had used like 3 different RBF songs as update references. I had to fight back the urge to use two others later on, just because I wanted to have a variety. I am definitely a fan. Got a few of their albums. Have fun catching up. The finale should be up by the new year. I'm keeping the Star Child vote open longer than usual since I figure a lot of people will be away during the main holiday days. OOrochi posted:
I have a little sympathy for her. She wasn't being evil or intentionally helping screw the world over, she just got used. That can happen to pretty much anyone. What gets to me is that she doesn't appear to feel any immediate remorse. Even hearing about Mark being dead, she seems saddened, but it doesn't seem to give her much pause. Again, she doesn't try to apologize to anyone either. She could very well be suffering a lot on the inside, but it's really difficult to tell for certain. As much as I hate how Ruby acts, I will say that she is a good character. She does stupid poo poo and screws up a LOT of things, but all of it has a link to her personality. Her hubris, ego, obsession, desire, whatever you want to call it, is the reason behind her stupid actions and gently caress-ups. Even that stupid Sealing Matryoshka stunt could be inferred to be because she is trying to assert her authority. I consider her to be well written, personally. Alec is also well written, but I'll get into all of that in the character analysis. Nyeehg posted:AHAHAHAHAHAH! Yeah, it's pretty bad. Enzea might be a very generic villain, but drat it did he pull off his plan perfectly. He had Ruby completely figured out and used her masterfully to avoid any suspicion from the heroes. She had it so bad for him that it is possible she may have taken that secret to her grave if it weren't for Mark's message, or the Church would have had to force it out of her at least. Like, he did this entirely live on TV. Why would you do anything to protect him after that? Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 22:26
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For Team A, let's go for Gun Saint, Dark Knight, and Warlock. If Warlock wins, and is male, name him Dumbledore. If Dark Knight gets a spot, I second Cecil for a guy, Cecilia for a girl. For the C Squad, let's go for Witch, Ninja, and Paladin Requested Witch names remain the same, Morrigan or Morgana. If you get a Ninja male, name him Scorpion. Name a female Kagero .
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Dec 24, 2018 00:43
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Let's say Diva, Ninja, Dark Knight.
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Dec 24, 2018 01:46
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Going to close voting tomorrow evening so I can start grinding levels. Hopefully I will have the finale up by Friday or Saturday. Close to wrapping up my first LP. Good way to finish the year. Edit: Star Child Voting is finished now. I need another half a day or so to get them to the level where I can take on Dark Alec's wandering soul who is somehow stronger than actual Dark Alec. Also, maybe that second Monokuma quest. That one is more of a pain because if he hits Wake/Feene at any point with 'Good Morning' then the battle is over because that's a strong Light attack against Feene's Dusk. Leveling also really slows down after a certain point, even when abusing the EXP DLC. Finally, I won't reveal the teams until the update, but holy poo poo did they have some skewed stat graphs when they first started out. They've evened out since then, but they are all still as slow as tectonic plates. That is an unfortunate combination of classes. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 26, 2018 01:03
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~Update 18: First in the line of fire, first into hostile lands; Tanks leading the way~ A quick note: Due to Feene being voted for the ending Heroine, she will be the mother of all of the Final Star Children. This is going to be a complete family affair.  We open with the final Team A(wful), helmed by Cecil the Dark Knight. The name was suggested by user TracerK.  Following that, we've got Kagero the Ninja. Name suggestion came from Sword_of_Dusk.  Finally, the team is backed up by Olivia the Bulleteer. This name was chosen at random.  Final Team A(wful) sets the stage for the following teams in terms of stats. RNG has apparently decreed that Enzea will be getting steamrolled by a group of Star Children that take damage, move, and hit, like a formation of loving Panzer tanks. The weird stat spread is mostly caused by equipment. It evens out once their training is completed, as we'll see in a little bit.     Commander Keene's Team "Just Like Daddy!" will fill the Team B slot. Originally Commander Keene suggested two Lancers flanking a Hunter, but was kind of non-committal about the Hunter. Since Feene was chosen as Wake's destined heroine, I took a small liberty and felt it was more fitting to have a lady Paladin fill that middle position. Team Just Like Daddy! is composed of Ryusei and Yu the Lancers, backed up by Cecilia the Paladin. TracerK suggested the name for a possible Female Dark Knight, so I decided to re-purpose it for a Paladin.     Sword_of_Dusk's Team... uhh... "RPG" I guess? Sword_of_Dusk was so busy suggesting names for all of the individual characters that he didn't suggest a name for his team. Let's just call it "Team Dusk". Anyway, Team Dusk will be filling the Team C slot. It is captained by Morrigan the Witch, and includes Scorpion the Ninja, which are two more characters that Sword_of_Dusk suggested names for. It's rounded out by another Paladin, who was randomly named "Rook". So there we go. The last group of Star Children that will be making the making the charge to save the world (and do some house cleaning). Somehow we have ended up with slightly over half the group composed of dedicated tank classes. They won't be beating anything in terms of speed, but they'll be able to safely wait for their turns behind the loving Spartan shield wall they've brought along.    After some heavy training, the kids look a tad more balanced in terms of stats. SPD is still an ongoing issue, even after I served up an all-you-can-eat buffet of SPD enhancing fruit. Not like it will be a big deal either way I suppose, considering they can vastly overpower anything the game has left to throw at them outside of these upcoming DLC bosses. You may have also noticed that it's a little brighter around the ol' Academy. After some equipment farming, Wake/Feene, Team Just Like Daddy!, and Team Dusk (weirdly enough), are now wielding the power of Light. Team A(wful) v4 has meanwhile doubled down on Dusk. Here is a quick recap of how that came to be:  First of all, you will want to grab yourself the following classes: Ninja, Trickster, and Thief. They don't have to all be in the same team, you can slot them in anywhere. You also need to level them all up until they unlock their special skills. It doesn't take long, so don't worry. I believe it's around Level 10 for most of them, which at this point in the game is stupid easy to grind out. This is the combination you are looking for: Invisibility (Ninja) - Causes monsters to ignore you. Unfortunately it won't stop some monsters from blocking doors or chests, so you will have to fight them occasionally. It also only lasts for a limited number of steps, so you'll have to keep using it as you explore. Visual Aid (Trickster) - Reveals all the traps on the current floor. More importantly, it will allow you to see which of those Purple Chests are rigged. Purple Chests are where the good poo poo is, but at this stage of the game about half of them are booby-trapped. Also, Visual Aid cannot foresee the "Defeat all monsters trap". You may want to carry some Escape Hatches (or a Dungeon Master) in order to escape from the Labyrinth when you don't want to fight your way out. Lockpick (Thief) - Let's you open the locked Purple Chests. It is possible to get items or accessories which will do largely the same things (Detailed Map, Stealth Badge, Keys), but it's more effective and less expensive to just create the Star Children. It takes almost no effort, so there's no reason not to. So what kind of spoils can you get by doing this?      Gooooood stuff. Wandering around the Sub-Labyrinth "Treacherous Halls" nets me a lot of powerful equipment for pretty much every Child. Apparently Star God got a little drunk at some point and spilled a bunch of gear around Pandora.  Wake also gets some new weapons, including one called Starlight Edge which has a +5 to Light and is better than any other current weapon. This is enough to change Wake/Feene to Light element attack instead of Dusk, which is sweet. At the very least it will even the playing field a tiny bit with Alec. Speaking of, it's finally time we take care of those little threads. Between the leveling and all the new equipment, we should be on solid enough ground to take out all the remaining threats.  Hiding out in the Sub-Labyrinth "Fool's Repose", at the very end, are the wandering spirits of the walking jokes that are Rus and Clau. The Quest "Fallen Disciples" needs to be picked up first (which means you need DLC access).  Is this truly the best use of our time? Just let me have this. I need a little pick-me-up right now.   Structurally, this fight is identical to the story fight. Rus and Clau have just been buffed to Level 65. I actually beat these two before I trained the next generation Star Children, just to see if I could. The Star Children we've had for the past two chapters managed to fight them at roughly 20 levels under, while Wake/Feene were 15 levels under. Rus and Clau suck.  Sending Rus and Clau to hell for good and turning in the quest offers us the reward of "Chain Slicer", which is a weapon for Wake. It's a little situational. It has a huge speed boost, but it completely neuters attack. Despite how much I value the SPD stat in this game, 1400 ATK is too much of a drop for my liking. Not to mention that this happened before I go item hunting and wind up with the Star God swords. No way I'm giving up more ATK than this and Light element. Plus, Chaining is kind of useless to me at this point.  Now, this leaves us with two more things to do. Both of those things are not fun or easy, even after leveling everyone into the mid-60's (which is complete overkill for the end game. I beat the story on my Vita with Wake at 55 and Star Children in the late 40's. In the interest of showing respect to Alec (and because he is more difficult in my opinion), we're going to have our rematch with Monokuma. Monokuma's Revenge is the beefed up version of that Monokuma Strikes quest we did WAAAAY back in the LP. He was mostly harmless back then, but that is not the case this time (well, kind of).  We go back to the place where the bear first laid down the challenge, Blue Garden.  You came! I'm surprised to see you here in such utter despair. It's wonderful!  Oh! What a cute-- Don't. Don't what?Don't say what you were about to say. Me and Narika ran into him before and she said what you were going to and he did this whole stupid spiel. Just trust me, he sucks and he needs to be destroyed. We can gut and stuff him later on if you really want.Wait... what?  Monokuma is now taking things seriously. His defenses laugh in the face of everything else in the game. In fact, his stats in general laugh in the face of everything else in the game. I don't believe there is any standard enemy or boss in this entire game that even comes close to Level 99. The "Serious" enemies are Level 99, but those are EXP grinding enemies and their stats are not anything absurd. You can safely start fighting those guys around level 40.  Anyway, Monokuma is very dangerous to Wake/Feene. You'll want to keep their health maxed whenever possible. A critical hit from "Time for Punishment" or "I'm Mad At You" is probably going to kill them in one shot even at max HP. "Good Mornin'" is a Light element attack and that may just end the battle at any point that Monokuma decides to use it. During one of my practice runs it hit Wake/Feene for 5500 damage, and that is at Level 65. I decide to go the Ether Release route during this battle, but you need to be careful of this. He can easily knock out one of your individual Star Children, and that will cause an Ether Break if you are at Level MAX.  Damage wise, this battle is going to drag on your end. His defenses are so high that pretty much everything short of a crit will just graze him. His HP is also likely above 70k. So make sure you bring along an ample supply of Multi-Potions. You'll need to heal pretty much every time Monokuma gets a turn, and sometimes it will take 2 Multi-Potions to top off.  Bonding Drive will hit the hardest, as usual. Unfortunately, it still barely dents this bastard. So this fight entirely comes down to whether or not you can survive Monokuma's attack turn. He's not as insanely quick as Dark Alec, so you should have lots of time to heal in between. Just use your strongest attacks to chip away at him whenever the chance is available. Alternatively, you could take the turtle strategy. Monokuma might be going all out this time, but his MP still isn't quite up to snuff. He has 3000, and his skills burn about 300-500 each. I've never seen him use a normal physical attack unless his MP is out, so if your defense and healing can hold him off, then he should fizzle out in 6-12 spells.  His physical attack still hurts, but it's a little more manageable than the spells. It can hit two zones, but if you position your teams correctly then there is a chance he'll whiff one of them, as he did in this screenshot.  Taking him down and turning in the quest gives out Upgrade Parts EXA, which are the ultimate weapons for the Heroines.  They are really good. Of course, if you have managed to beat Monokuma's Revenge, then there isn't much need for these weapons. That's usually the kick in the teeth with these things, isn't it? Hell, I don't even use Feene's ultimate weapon, because it bumps her Dusk element too much. I want Wake/Feene to maintain their Light element attack.  Well, that brings us to this. Our BFF is still chained to the mortal coil, and we can't just leave him be. Let's do this, again.   There he is... Are you certain of this? You know that pessimism isn't really my thing... but if we don't make it out of this, I don't want Alec's soul to be stuck here for eternity. We need to do this now. I don't want to have any regrets. I understand. Let us put his soul to rest, then. Alec's soul has apparently been working out over the past few days. He's now Level 70 and his stats have received a bit of a boost. He's just as dangerous now as he was when we fought him in the story. Like Rus and Clau Round 2, this battle is identical to the story battle. Whatever strategy you used to beat him then will be the go-to strat this time as well.   In hindsight, this heavy defense oriented Star Child group works to my advantage somewhat. They hold up pretty well against buffed Alec. Wake/Feene are still a concern, but Multi-Potions will keep them kicking. I took the "Ether Release" route here as well. I boosted the Ether Density to MAX to give myself a little breathing room and cut down on Alec's bullshit of hitting you three times in a row.  As with Monokuma, chipping away while the kids fire their Multi-Potion loaded Super Soakers is a solid plan. Waiting him out is not an option since he doesn't use MP skills at all. Bonding Drive also wasn't hitting quite as hard as it did when the story battle happened. I tried it during a previous run and it only scored about 8000 damage. It's not enough to end this in two strikes like it did previously.  He doles out a lot of Glow and decent EXP when defeated. Really though, this isn't about any of that. This is about making sure Alec is set free. Take it easy, Alec. We'll give Enzea a few extra stab wounds just for you. Turning in this quest gives Wake the Impact Gauche weapon. Unfortunately, this has already been rendered obsolete by the treasure hunting trip from earlier. Still, at least we helped out Alec one last time. That clears everything up. Only one thing stands in the way of saving the world, and that is kicking Enzea's smug god-complex rear end. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Feb 23, 2019 |
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Dec 28, 2018 22:08
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Ah the "slowly steamroll across map and hope the objective was one of the things in your way" strategy.
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Dec 30, 2018 05:41
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~Update 19: In God's creation, supernatural high~ Welcome to the final story update of Conception 2. I'll warn you in advance, this game doesn't really linger a whole lot on story beats. Despite how dragged out the opening section was, the ending is pretty quick.   Unfortunately, we've got this god forsaken Labyrinth to get through first. Yes, the final dungeon is 25 floors. It took me roughly an hour to work my way through this place while avoiding as many fights as I could. It's a giant pain in the rear end.     Wake. We just got contacted by the Church. It seems Enzea was the one who put Dark Crystals on the black market! Dark Crystals are the main ingredient in Trigger, too.None of that really matters anymore. He dies here.You and your team are the only hope left. I'm begging you. Avenge Alec and our classmates in our stead.Don't worry. I intend to.I will be HEAVILY abridging this. This update is already packed, so I don't have any room to go wasting time on a bunch of color swapped enemies spanning 25 samey floors.  ...That being said, there are some oddities in here... There's a Dance God in this world? Does he party with Star God?  Where does one go to receive a blessing from the Body God? Lord knows I could use some divine intervention in my weight training routine.  Arriving on Floor 8 causes Enzea to chime in using the PA System in God's Fortress. God forbid he just shut up and wait for us to get to him. Nooo, he just has to get his smug bullshit in.  Get out here, rear end in a top hat! Grow a spine and come out to face us! I will not run or hide. I am here, in the depths of God's Fortress.Well, I guess that's a fitting place for you to meet your end, considering how you killed Mark."Killed"? That is hardly an appropriate way to describe it. More precisely... You little poo poo...I do hope you'll all reach me. I'll be waiting for you. The 13th Floor hits us with this weirdo mini-boss. That one uses pretty powerful Light spells. As if that weren't bad enough, it has super-high stats! You'd better be ready! There's two of them. The only impressive thing about them is their HP. Moving on. Floor 14 has Enzea blathering on again.  It seems I should seriously look forward to our reunion.Why did you do all of this? Your money and looks and the company wasn't enough for you? You had to try and be God on top of that?The point I made before still stands. What I do is to guide the people of Aterra to a true and lasting peace. I will bring this about by erasing the contradictions in this world. The terror, the misfortune, and the burdens of the world always fall upon the weak. My father, that foolish hypocrite, embodied that philosophy. He didn't create weapons in order to promote world peace! It was all out of self-interest... to make money. His attempts to sound like a sympathetic supporter were all lies.So that makes it totally okay to kill him? Because he was a douche bag profiting from war?I'll put it in simple terms for you. This is poetic justice. Oh, right. So I guess Alec had to die because he was just the walking embodiment of evil, is that it? You're in no position to define right and wrong you bastard!Haha... And are you? Well, we'll meet eventually.Trust me. I'm looking forward to it.Next is Floor 20. Time to hear from Enzea one more time before we have to listen to him face to face.  Keep up the good work.You think this is funny, huh? You like making fun of us?Of course not. I'm merely showing my respect for you. You are the greatest force in having this Labyrinth revived, after all.Yeah, and I'll be the greatest force in wiping it from existence. That starts with you.I look forward to seeing you. Well, then, until we meet.Finally, Enzea shuts up for the last 5 floors of the Labyrinth. Let's get this over with so we can shut him up for good.   I've been waiting for you. I wished to show you this.And? Am I supposed to be impressed by the stupid looking floating statue?*Everything starts shaking like crazy* The Dark Mother... The ultimate Dusk Spawner, producing an infinite supply of Dusk Energy. Is that what's spreading Dusk Energy across the entire world? Quite soon, the world will be suffused with Dusk Energy.What are you even hoping to achieve? What is this little tantrum for?I've told you many times already. I will create a new world of equality.  A person's Star Energy is decided at birth and decides a person's station in life. This world is an imbalanced, grotesque joke, bound by such inequality.That is why I will guide the people to ultimate peace. Once the entire world is filled with Dusk Energy... The people of Aterra will all return to their primitive forms.Primitive forms...? You mean how the energy is turning humans into monsters?Those aren't monsters. They are the most natural, purest form of humanity, loyal to their own desires. That is how we are truly meant to be. That is the utopia I strive for... The Egalitaria.Oh god, just gently caress off already. Purest form of humanity? How we are meant to be? No society, loyal only to desires, blah blah blah. Take that poo poo back to your first-year Philosophy course so the professor can smack you upside the head.That's not going to make anyone happy, it's not going to satisfy everyone's desires, and it's not going to make everyone equal.You can't have a utopia where everyone is loyal only to their own desires you stupid prick! Desires can conflict with each other, which means you won't be able to satisfy them all. And if you satisfy the desires of some but not others, then that isn't equality! This entire little crusade of yours is flawed right from the start!  It is my duty to release people like you from their shackles to the Star God. First, I will dispose of you, the one who presides over the Star God's Ether. That is my first duty. Afterwards, I will use the power of Neo Ether to destroy the Rootstone. Then I will extinguish the Star God and return to my own primitive form.  Game... why is that an option? And no, choosing that option doesn't take us down an evil route.And who exactly gave you that authority? Let me guess, it was self appointed, right? You just decided that you had the right to dictate the future of the world.Well gently caress you, Enzea. We don't agree with your little vision. It's not the world that we want, it's not the world the Star God wants, and it's not the world that Alec wants.Speaking of which, I promised I would avenge him. It's about time I made good on that. But, if you want revenge for my brother, I will carry it out. His killer will be avenged, have no doubt.Please, you really think that's going to rile me up? You're the one who's responsible for how he turned out.So how about we cut this bullshit and just get to the part where I gut you like a fish? Alec's waiting for his turn in the afterlife, and I've kept him waiting long enough as it is.*The screen fades to white and then back again*  Wake, look over there! That's the machine producing the Neo Ether! That is correct. By linking the device to the Dark Mother, I have completed the Perpetual Star Engine. As long as I have this, Neo Ether will be manufactured for all eternity... Just like you produce the Star God's Ether. I will prove that Neo Ether is superior to the Ether granted by the Star God! Oh right, how could I forget all those times that the Assault Squad made me look like a fool by totally beating the Dusk Spawner? Or that time Rus and Clau ran circles around me and didn't get smeared across the floor of the Pride Labyrinth?Neo Ether has never been superior to the Star God's Ether you delusional idiot! Feene, kids, let's teach him that lesson first-hand!Wake, Enzea's wearing armor loaded with the Supernova Superchip. These two are both non-elemental enemies. Attacks, spells, healing... These guys don't have any weaknesses! You'll have to use all the skills you've learned against them! His suit is the strongest weapon AngelMaker has ever made! Be careful!Chlotz actually does say AngelMaker here. Not a typo on my part. Don't worry about it, Chlotz. He will not be leaving this place alive.Right everyone!? We will destroy you!  Sentai Enzea's stats are a tiny bit higher than Dark Alec v2. Fortunately, his turn speed is nowhere near as quick.  Dark Mother on the other hand is almost a non-entity in this fight. It has tough defenses, but possess no skills and middling attack. Despite what you might think, these two don't support each other in any way during this battle.  In fact, Enzea supports himself just fine. His regular attacks can heal a little bit of HP each time, which is sort of annoying. It shouldn't really make a dent in your damage output though. If your entire party is ganging up on him then 400-500 HP every time he gets a turn is nothing. You should be able to easily deal out 5000+ damage in between those attacks.  It's really not a hard fight, which means this is obviously only the first stage of the final boss. For that reason, I recommend taking down Enzea first and leaving Dark Mother for last. You won't be healed between fights, so you want to make sure you're in the best shape possible just before you end this first one. Dark Mother can be kept busy by a single Team since it has no ranged attacks, so it's easier to prepare before killing it. Enzea has a chance of popping High Dusk Release, which will hit everyone regardless of where they are on the field. Either way, it shouldn't be too difficult to heal up and then immediately deal the final blow. You should have an ample stock of Multi-Potions with you (since they make every healing spell in the game except Master Heal basically pointless). Just one of those should be good enough to get everyone in fighting shape before transitioning to the next phase.  You get okay experience from this fight. If it scores some of your team a level then great, but it won't really make much of a difference at this point. This seems more like a formality. Alright! Ngh...Pathetic, just like Rus and Clau. No wonder Star God gave me the power to fight you. You wouldn't be worth His time.Ha...Hahaha...Something funny?The Dark Mother was only a vessel for the Labyrinth's Dusk Energy. That vessel has been destroyed, but the energy remains... so I shall take it!Go ahead. If Dark Mother couldn't beat us with that power then it's not like you stand any better of a chance.   Dude... He's not even human anymore...The human shape... holds no meaning...Well your current shape sure holds meaning to me. Looking like a monster makes me want to kill you even more. Now I'm really going to enjoy this.I must admit, I too find myself more driven to destroy him in this monstrous form.What about you, kids? This creature shall be crushed under the weight of our might. He can change into whatever he wants. This guy won't scare us. We will show him what true power looks like, and he will learn to fear it.Family...It really has been a long time. I didn't realize how much I missed this feeling. Music: Dusk God's Hymn (Final Boss Theme) Welcome to the actual final boss, Dusk Enzea. The difficulty of this boss varies wildly depending on how you approach him. A lot of people online say that you should grind to where I am before you take him on (Mid 60's to early 70's), while a lot of other people say that you can easily fight him in the 40's. Honestly, I tend to side with the latter group. Level doesn't really make or break this fight. You can beat him in the 40's, train to level 60 or 70, then get completely wiped, easily. The key to this fight is in how you approach it. I kind of split the difference in my Vita play through. I beat the game with Wake and Narika around level 55, with Star Children that were between 45-50. I don't recall having to make more than one attempt.  Anyway, no matter what way you choose to go after him, he is a bit of a step up from Conception 2's usual enemy difficulty. Let's talk about the different battle plans we can employ. The "easiest" way to beat him, according to people who say they had no trouble beating him in the level 40 range, is to position the enemies in such a way that they get stuck in a loop. I've never really bothered with it, but I assume they mean you let one of the adds target one of your teams surrounding Enzea so that it's tempted to keep taking swings at them instead of using Dusk Release.  Really, as far as I'm concerned, the only real thing you need for this fight is good healing (preferably Multi-Potions). If you've got that, then there's no real 'wrong' way to tackle this fight. Well, I guess there is. Obviously you want to stick to the tried and true strategy of piling on one enemy at a time. Splitting up too much is almost never a good idea in this game.  My usual strategy is to leave the 'healer' team near Enzea as a distraction. This keeps him in place while everyone else goes off to dog-pile the adds. His strongest attacks deal out about 2000 damage, which is easily survivable and can be immediately reversed with a single Multi-Potion (they heal 3500). The adds have about 40-50k of health each, but the thing that makes them especially dangerous is that they have Dusk Release. I like to try and get rid of those two first because letting them hover around you while you fight Enzea runs the risk of them lining up Dusk Releases. Enzea can only attack things in his immediate area, but the Bit enemies can hit your entire party from anywhere on the field. So if the game decides that it hates you, it can line up the Bits with Enzea and spam Dusk Release while Enzea hits with Triad Gravity or Obliteration.  It's kind of the same thing that Dark Alec does. Enemy turns will just suddenly pop up one after another and you'll get slammed by repeated hits before you can act. Of course, keep in mind that if Wake/Heroine go down at any point then the battle is just over. So yeah, I do agree with people who say that this isn't really a hard fight. As long as you stay on top of healing and focus on burning down one enemy at a time, then you should manage just fine. Enzea himself has about 50-60k health, but I actually consider him to be the least threatening thing on the field. If you give him a target, then there isn't really anything he can do other than stand in place and swipe at said target. You won't have to worry about him throwing a High Dusk Release or something and weakening your party on the other side of the field. It seems like a lot of people swear by ignoring the adds and focusing entirely on Enzea instead. That's a fine approach, but it requires you to keep an eye on their positions and either forcing them to waste turns moving around or letting them swing at your party from behind while you fight Enzea. Between Bonding Drives and MECUNITE Code attacks, the adds shouldn't take too long to get rid of. Then you only have Enzea to focus on and he's pathetic by himself.  All strategies for this fight just rely on one important thing: Multi-Target Healing. Multi-Potions are kind of overpowered in this game. 3500 HP is enough to recover from basically any hit. Every member of your party is capable of popping them any time their turn comes up, and the recovery time isn't too bad because it's an item. They pretty much render every healing skill (besides Master Heal) worthless.    One final tip for the fight. If your Star Children have a lot of Chain skills (Gran Chain, Temple Chain, etc.), then Chaining will be a big help for this battle as well. Chaining can delay enemy turns and let you get some breathing room so you can heal or just pour on the damage. I only had access to one skill for boosting the Chain Gauge, so I only triggered it twice over the course of the fight (both unintentionally). Still, it's a useful thing to keep in mind if you have the means to take advantage of it.  Taking down Enzea for good scores a bunch of crap that you don't really have any use for at this point.  We're done here. Get out of our sight.As long as the Star God holds sway... there will be Dusk in this world. Yeah, well that's not your concern now is it? We'll worry about that, you just piss off and leave us all alone. Oh wait! One last thing. When you get to the afterlife tell Mark, Alec, and Star God that I said "You're welcome." They must be looking forward to having a few 'words' with you.Such... an rear end...*And with that, Enzea goes up in a poof of Dusk and is out of our hair forever. The entire Labyrinth then starts to shake like crazy.* The Labyrinth's starting to collapse! You've got to get out of there! Hurry!Alright kids, buddy system! Let's go! We're getting out of here!  The Savage takes a hit from falling debris and the left engine cuts out momentarily, but it quickly flickers back to life and the escape continues.     -Church of Aterra-  [Priest A]: High Priest! Dusk Energy density is dropping rapidly worldwide! [Priest A]: Dusk Circles around the world are vanishing one after another!  Star God... We've finally done it... At least until all of this inevitably happens again at some point in the future! Yay! What can I say, I'm not exactly the idealist type. More of a realist. Anyway, you get the chance to make a save here. If you maxed out multiple heroine bonding gauges, then you can load this one up to quickly check out all of the different endings. It's nice of the game to not make you have to re-fight the final boss each time.  A little over 40 hours. Not bad considering I was doing a bunch of grinding and idling for the sake of the LP. So, bad news time. This ending is rushed as gently caress. I'm going to take a few liberties and give a bit more exposition than the game does, because it glosses over pretty much every character and pretty important events. Case in point:  The Brand disappeared from all of the Disciples. Star God must have been pretty eager to get that borrowed power back.Unfortunately, that also meant that the Star Children went back to Him as well. Not going to lie, I was crying for a little bit. I got so used to them being around that I just figured they always would be...Of course, the crying immediately stopped when I looked up and saw something like a hundred and fifty points of light rising up from Fort City. I sort of forgot about how many of them I 'fathered'. Upon further reflection, it's probably a good idea for them to go spend some time with Star Dad. Aterran Dad does NOT have the time or money to support a family that size.-School Gymnasium-   We have finally put an end to the long history of war that has consumed us. I represent all the people of Aterra when I say this to you: Thank you, everyone! But we must all remember this...  As long as humanity has desires... The Dusk Circles are sure to appear again.I was the one who received the Star God's holy vision. Shouldn't I get to say that?[Priest A]: We decided that the Disciples will be more receptive to the message if Chloe says it.  What was that?[Priest A]: Sorry... I take it back...  In any case... Her podium isn't quite high enough...[Priest A]: Huh...?  [Priest A]: Uh... I'm starting to be glad we didn't allow you to give that speech... Ah, it sure has been a while since Mattero was a creep. I had almost forgotten about that. Well then, lastly...Let's have a few words from the God's Gift, now that he's safely returned! Hold on there a minute. You want me to give a speech? Well, okay. Fair warning, you are going to regret this.*Wake approaches the podium* Uh, so hey everyone. God's Gift here.Let's see... where do I start...?Well first of all, I just want to call attention to all of the assholes that I've run into since I arrived here. Not going to name any names, but I'm sure you all know who you are. I'm not exactly shy when it comes to telling you how much you suck. The crap you got on with really pissed me off, and since I helped save your sorry asses from certain doom, I expect you all to start acting like decent human beings.That includes the two shitwads that thought it was funny to make snide remarks about Alec to try and rile him up. You know who you are and I know who you are, so I had better see some drat flowers at the foot of Alec's grave. Understood?What else...Oh, right. The dick running the Field Hospital in Fort City is to be removed from his position. That's not a request, that's a demand. I don't care if you keep him on as a doctor, because I can't speak to his skill in that regard, but I do know that he has no right to be directing the care of sick people.Next up, everyone is to show proper respect to both myself and the Witches of the Seven Stars. You will start by referring to them as the Virtues of the Seven Stars.I don't know which one of you douche bags in the media started the whole "Witches" thing, but that stops now. I'm not saying I want people to worship us, but I've seen a severe lack of respect for the work we have done and I'm not tolerating it anymore.Oh, and I already registered "God's Gift" and "Virtues of the Seven Stars", so don't think any of you companies out there can start churning out merchandise. I registered "Witches of the Seven Stars" as well, just in case. Also, there's a guy downtown running a Takoyaki stand. He's a good dude. Stop in and grab a bite to eat sometime. Could you please say something hopeful? You know, about the future of the world?Fine, fine. I guess I should.Listen, everyone. Like Chloe just told you, the Dusk Circles aren't gone for good. Dusk is a natural part of our world. It gives us our desires, and our desires are what push us to reach for greater heights. But we have to make sure we control them. There has to be balance. If we allow them to get out of control then we'll find ourselves staring down this same situation in the future, and Star God may not be willing to bail us out a second time.We need to prove to Him that he didn't make a mistake when he chose to help us. So I want everyone to remember something that I once heard from a good man: "Nothing good can come when a man's grasp exceeds his means." So let's try and keep things in check, alright?That was actually kind of eloquent, Wake. It was very nice.I'll be honest, I was just kind of rambling there at the end. Started losing interest.-Heroes' Grave-  Alec...  I'm planning on watching over Luce until she fully recovers. ...I mean, I've got tons of time on my hands, after all. Things are crazy at AngelMarker. Now's not the time to have a part-time job there.Speaking of, I heard that the Church is letting Ruby go.It's all thanks to the information Mark left behind. It proved that Ruby wasn't deeply involved with Enzea's schemes. I still think she got off way too easy, but I can't really get in the way of a dead man's last wish. I'll just have to respect it.This Academy will be closing its doors after the current school year ends. What're you going to do after all this?I'm not entirely sure of the details, but I do have a direction in mind. We'll see what happens.I see. But before that, there's still the Star Conception Festival to go to. Who are you going to ask to go with you? This is where you choose the ending. You can select from any heroine which you have maxed the bond gauge with. Once you have seen one of the endings, you can repeat this scene for a new option where you tell Chlotz that you don't have anyone in mind. This is the "Wake ends up with nobody" ending. After unlocking every heroine ending, then repeating this will open up the option for the harem ending. But that's all stuff for the endgame wrap up. Feene was voted in as the top heroine, so her ending is the one we are going with. -Old Schoolhouse- So this is where you're hiding out.Yes. Today is a great day for photos. But it's sad, isn't it? That the Academy is closing down.A little, but it's served its purpose. Besides, we made a lot of good memories here. We'll always have those.Yes. I think so, too... I'm hoping that my pictures today will capture only pleasant memories.I'm sure you'll get plenty of them at the Star Conception Festival.Yes...-Star Conception Festival- Looks like there are a bunch of other would-be photographers here as well. We better get some pictures of our own. Will you... help me with it? Of course I'm going to help you with it. I'll only be getting your picture, though. I want you to take pictures of what you want. So go and take pictures of whatever you really want... And send them to me after we graduate...That's kind of what I'm doing. Huh?I'm taking pictures of you. That's what I want to do and it's what I want to keep doing, forever. A-And... forever...?Huh? Huh? Wh-What do you mean!? Going to make me spell it out, huh? I'm not good at this. Although I guess you aren't either and you still managed. Feene, I love you. I want to stay with you forever. Oh...... U-Um... I had tissues in my purse...Here, I'll wipe them for you.Sir...You really need to drop the "sir" thing.O-OK... Wake.... I love you... I want to love you for the rest of my life... I love you so much...Okay, okay. It's embarrassing when you keep repeating it like that. I just want you to stay by my side, forever.I-I will! You're really overdoing it. How about we just get our first picture together? I mean, officially together.Oh..... Yes!Music: Eternally (Ending Theme)  And there we are! Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars!  Well, mostly. That wasn't all there was to Feene's ending. The game might rush things, but if that scene was all there was then it would be pretty bad.  There's also a tiny little scene that I kept saying I really wanted to show off. Let's break from the credits and have a look-see.  Dude, I know you don't have anything to do today... I'm bored, okay? I asked Luce if I could tag along and she said it was fine. You're the worst wingman ever! You don't know when to pull out!Why are you even free today? I thought you took Miss Beautiful to the Star Conception Festival. Shouldn't you be spending all of your time with her?She's busy today. She said she had something she needed to do and I couldn't hang around for it. Not really sure what it is she's planning, but I felt it was best not to pry too much.Why are you so annoyed by this, anyway? What, you think I'm going to steal your girlfriend? Today's my second date with Luce! Wait, really? I kind of just assumed that the two of you were already going steady. You haven't sealed the deal yet? I mean, we're close enough that I've been able to help her heal emotional scars.But with regards to romance, I've still got a long way to go.Sorry. I guess it was kind of insensitive of me to assume you would just pounce on her.I just thought you two would have hooked up and I could spend some time just hanging out with friends. Not like I get to interact with anyone much anymore.Well... There won't be any more classes after the festival... We kind of lost our opportunity to see each other because of that.*Luce appears*  Chlotz... What're you two talking about? O-Of course not!You're not missing anything. I just wanted to tell Chlotz that I have some stuff to take care of. I'll see you guys later. Huh...? Is that so?Yeah, you guys go and have fun on your own. Y-Yeah, sure.Have a good time.Yeah...See you later.*Wake turns to leave* H-Hold on a sec!What's up?Do you really have to do whatever it is today?Well, not really, but... C'mon, whatever you were going to do can wait until later.Chlotz, I'm just trying--Look... I'm saying that I want to hang out with you, too....Fine. I guess I can put it off.-Curaoke Bar- Alright! We're gonna sing 'til we drop today!Alright, you're having a good time, I get that.But if you don't let go of my head in the next five seconds I will break you. Chlotz...What's up?If it's all right with you... Would you sing with me?  She's going to be just fine. One of you guys owes me an answer for Narika's screwed up transformation sequence!   And one of you guys needs to answer for the insane amount of spelling and grammar errors in this localization. Especially since the game was already localized once before.  Okay, I guess that's not entirely fair of me. I don't know what kind of deadlines and restrictions these guys were under. Still, you had testers for this, so how did none of that get caught? You've got to up the game a bit if you plan on doing your own localizations Spike Chunsoft.  And that's it for my time at the Academy, and I guess for my role as "God's Gift". In my last week at the Academy I got a chance to finally catch up with Triche. We had avoided mentioning Alec to him while he was still recovering. Thought it would be counterproductive to his health. He... didn't take it too well. He wasn't as badly hit as Luce, but it took a few days to convince him that it wasn't his fault. He tried to blame himself for not getting back on his feet quick enough and being there to help. It was really just shock, though. He eventually agreed that there wouldn't have been anything he could have done to help. Alec was determined, in shock, and angry. None of us could have held him back.Anyway, last I heard from Triche, he had opened a little Soba restaurant of his own back home. Glad to know he's living his dream.As for the others, Narika told me that she had received an invitation to join the World Peace Council. Fuuko was going to go back to her hometown for a while and was thinking of becoming a swimming instructor. Serina is still working at the cafe with Nazuna. Ellie kind of disappeared, but that's to be expected given her line of work. Since the Academy was closing its doors, Chloe decided to go back to being a singer and helping out the sick. Torri is still working on her planes, but at least she has someone looking out for her now. I heard Ruby and some of the AngelMarker staff were going to act as her guardians.I don't really care to ever see Ruby again, but at the very least it sounds like she's trying to find ways to make amends for her role in what happened.And then there's me. Turns out Feene isn't the type to waste any time...-Hillock- Wake hurry! Over here.So this is your home, huh? It's really beautiful here. Reminds me a lot of my hometown.*Wake snaps a picture*  My friends are all waiting to see you.So are my parents...Riiight... Your parents. Really looking forward to that meeting...What are you saying?  O-Of course I'm going to marry you. Calm down. Listen, I'm really nervous. Things are moving really quickly and I'm not used to it.*sigh* You're so different from when you were fighting monsters.But, I love that part of you as well...  Hey, over here! We're all here!Oh... It's all my friends!Let's go! I figured your parents would be kind of wary of me. Didn't think they'd have us hitched a few hours after you introduced me. It's like they thought I was going to run away or something.It just shows how much they like you. They were very excited.We haven't decided what to do from there. The only sure thing is that I will continue to take pictures with him. He will always be next to me, taking my picture... I don't feel lonely anymore...I'm sure everyone has a person like that waiting for them. That's how I feel now that I've met the person waiting for me...That sure is one way of looking at it. I guess. Maybe?  And that's it. For real this time. At least for the narrative portion. You get a chance to save a clear file here. Loading this up will give you the option of starting from Chapter 7. That will let you finish up any bonding events in case you want another heroine ending and didn't max everyone out before moving on to Chapter 8. I heavily recommend you save this to a new slot.  That brings the story to a close. I hope you'll stick with this thread for a little while longer though. I'll be going over the other heroine routes to let you know what happens in them, and then I have some character analysis on the heroines as well as a couple of major characters.
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Dec 31, 2018 02:50
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Psycho Knight posted:
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Dec 31, 2018 03:41
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Commander Keene posted:A bunch of these credits are actually for the Atlus localization. I recognize James Kuroki, Mai Namba, and Nich Maragos at least from MegaTen titles I've played. Maybe they were credited for the Atlus one? I'll have to double check the footage, but I don't believe these people were listed under Atlus in the credits. It was some different studio or company. If they did just reuse the Atlus localization, then that just raises all kinds of questions, since there are definitely errors that weren't present on the Vita version. Someone messed with the English text throughout the entire game.
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Dec 31, 2018 03:51
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Well, I can tell you that they're all hard coded password demons in Strange Journey for the DS, and iirc Nich Maragos was one of the admins on the old Atlus USA forums back before they went out of commission.
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Dec 31, 2018 04:29
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Commander Keene posted:Well, I can tell you that they're all hard coded password demons in Strange Journey for the DS, and iirc Nich Maragos was one of the admins on the old Atlus USA forums back before they went out of commission. Oh, I'm sure they were with Atlus. I just didn't see any reference to Atlus in the credits. If those translators are being credited though, then that means Spike either used their work from the Vita/3DS and somehow injected errors into it, or they were part of the company that did the Steam translation and redid everything? I don't know. I just want to know how all of these script errors cropped up when there was a preexisting translation already available. I didn't see any rewrites to character dialog or the story. It's just so weird. By the way Commander Keene, you know you were selected for a prize, right? Haven't seen you mention it so I'm just making sure. AweStriker and Sword_of_Dusk should take notice as well in case they didn't read the Update 18 Second Half.
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Dec 31, 2018 17:50
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So it looks like the Pandora Labyrinth spawned naturally, and the rise in Dusk energy was just a snowball effect from it. I had assumed that Enzea or Angelmarker were originally responsible, but it looks like Enzea was just an opportunist. I guess I had just assumed that the truth would be more interesting.
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Dec 31, 2018 20:43
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BlazeEmblem posted:So it looks like the Pandora Labyrinth spawned naturally, and the rise in Dusk energy was just a snowball effect from it. I had assumed that Enzea or Angelmarker were originally responsible, but it looks like Enzea was just an opportunist. Well, it's sort of both. AngelMarker/Enzea did have a hand in it. Dusk Energy was rising naturally (the database implies this is because the people of Aterra are advancing really fast), but the sudden spike about halfway through the game is likely because of Enzea. Enzea got the Dark Crystals to make Neo Ether, but he also used those crystals to manufacture Trigger and then helped spread it around. Trigger is like a steroid, but it also increases the user's desires because it pushes them towards something they want. So while Dusk Energy was going up naturally, Enzea artificially increased the speed. Given the level of Dusk Energy it took to activate Pandora, it's likely that it could have taken another 20 years to activate naturally. God's Gift shutting down the other Dusk Circles might have even ended up keeping it dormant indefinitely. So while Wake was turning off Dusk Circles, Enzea was working to increase people's desires and drive up the worldwide Dusk Energy levels in order to get Pandora going. He was able to do this because Ruby was handing over the sealed Dusk Spawners to him, and those things are basically Dusk generators. This is something I give the game credit for. Enzea is a pretty generic villain, but he pulls off a relatively flawless plan that couldn't really have been stopped by the heroes because nobody really knew what was going on. Dusk Energy and Circles are not fully understood, so people weren't suspecting that a human was behind the increase. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 31, 2018 21:17
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Psycho Knight posted:Oh, I'm sure they were with Atlus. I just didn't see any reference to Atlus in the credits. If those translators are being credited though, then that means Spike either used their work from the Vita/3DS and somehow injected errors into it, or they were part of the company that did the Steam translation and redid everything? I don't know. And yeah I know about the prize thing, it's just been a busy holiday weekend and I haven't had time to set up a temporary email yet. I'll try to get to it in the next few days or so, and I'm probably going to take the platinum upgrade.
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Dec 31, 2018 22:14
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Commander Keene posted:I can't say if any of the people credited in the localization work for Atlus aside from those three; any of the others could be Chunsoft guys. But since you said you haven't noticed any significant rewrites in dialogue or plot, it may just be that they brought in literally one editor to "touch it up a bit" and that one guy had to go through an RPG's worth of text in like a week, so he made a bunch of mistakes. Alright, just wanted to make sure. No rush. Also, I went back over the footage and the North American Localization was handled by Index Digital Media Inc. So it seems like they did use the Atlus translation and then screwed it up somehow. Without any other explanation, I'll just have to assume your theory is correct. They took the Atlus translation while they were porting it to Steam, and then handed it off to somebody to transcribe maybe? I'm still unsure of how they could take an already complete English script and gently caress up in various places without making any story changes. I don't have a side-by-side comparison, but everything has matched up with how I remembered it during my Vita play through. It's almost like someone retyped the entire script just for the hell of it.
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Dec 31, 2018 22:54
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I remember reading it and then consciously deciding not to vote for anyone that time.
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Jan 1, 2019 02:06
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AweStriker posted:I remember reading it and then consciously deciding not to vote for anyone that time. Are you referring to your prize? Because the draw you won was for the last Star Child Class vote, which: AweStriker posted:Team A: Bulletteer, Astromancer, Dark Knight I suppose. You did vote in. AecTalek was the winner of the Heroine Vote prize if that's what you are thinking I was referring to. On another note, I'm almost done with the wrap up and character analysis. Kind of hoping to have it out tonight so that I can finish the LP right on New Year's. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 02:36
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My god, you weren't kidding about the rushed ending. Kinda glad I never finished the game.
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Jan 1, 2019 02:55
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Ahhhhh, I must actually have skipped over something then. My mistake. e: I'd like Platinum if that's all right AweStriker fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 03:09
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~Extra Update: Heroine Endings and Character Analysis~ Now that the game is all said and done, there is one last thing to go over. I promised to discuss the other heroine routes so that you could find out what happens in them. We've already seen Feene, Narika, and Chloe's respective routes. For the two that weren't selected for an ending, I'll just review what happens after the Star Conception Festival choice. For a recap of Fuuko, Serina, and Torri's routes, see the bottom of this update. Ellie's bonding events are all labeled in in the list of Updates. I don't have the room to recap them here. We've already seen Chloe's route, so let's get to the ending. Chloe's ending is pretty quick. Wake and her are just at the Star Conception Festival, the Disciples talk about how they want to hear her sing again, but they acknowledge that she seems to want to only sing for God's Gift now. Wake and Chloe decide to duck away from the festival to do some Curaoke together, which results in Chloe fulfilling her wish to dress in her Disciple uniform.  Wake tells Chloe that he wants to see her up on stage again because he can tell that she really wants to keep singing for everyone. Chloe is apprehensive, but Wake convinces her to do it since it's clearly something that makes her happy, and Wake is happy seeing her doing it. It ends with Chloe saying that, at least for today, she wants to sing only for Wake. She then says that she wants to sing a song she wrote for him called "You're the Only One for Me!" (very creative Chloe).  Wake has a chance encounter with Ellie and Lucian in the forest as they chase a "Heretic". It turns out that Heretics are a group planning to rebel against the Church and create a new world order. Apparently some priests once broke away from the Church of Aterra and stole a bunch of forbidden artifacts when they went. One of these was a spell that could create barriers which would brainwash people within it's sphere of influence. So the Heretics run around trying to set up these barriers, while the Gracia Church sends agents out to hunt them down before they can establish themselves. The X-Machina has a scanner that can search for the barrier's energy, but it has a short range and isn't pinpoint accurate, so agents like Ellie and Lucian have to drop everything and rush out as soon as a signature is detected because they have to drive around and try to zero in on the location of the Heretic. Ellie uses the mind erase spell on Wake after this event in order to wipe his memory of the last five minutes, but Wake still retains a gut feeling that something had happened involving Ellie just a little while ago. After that, Wake accidentally walks in to Ellie's apartment one day to find her writhing in agony with weird spell marks all over her body.  Having been busted, Wake finally drags the truth out of Ellie about what happened to her. It turns out that Ellie did actually die that time that Wake discovered her. Wake's immense Ether caused Ellie's Star Energy to be sealed and restored her to life, in a sense. The Church of Gracia fully revived her using a secret technique and turned her into what is called a "Stillblood". Stillbloods are humans that have died once and are then revived by the Church using their secret spell. It only works on young children that possess abnormally high Star Energy (like Ellie). The process cannot be forced either. The person has to agree to the terms of the Church in order to become a Stillblood, which involves acting in their service (such as hunting down Heretics). Ellie agreed to become one because Wake had told her not to die and she wanted to keep living for his sake. So that is the truth behind Ellie's servitude to the Church. The reason why the Church uses Stillbloods to hunt down Heretics is because Stillbloods are resistant to mind control and incredibly durable. They can recover from near fatal wounds, don't require much (if any) sustenance aside from water, have a high amount of Star Power, and have an enhanced sense of smell. This leads to them being seen as something like hounds for the Church, meant to sniff out and hunt down Heretics. Now for the hosed up part. No, having to hunt down people as a Church Assassin is not the worst of it. As seen in the CG above, being a Stillblood is not exactly all sunshine and rainbows. The Church can't just bring people back to life like it's nothing. All those powers that Stillbloods have obviously come at a price. First of all, it messes up the body (Ellie has completely lost her sense of taste for example), and it's also a constant drain on their energy since they are basically zombies being animated by their Star Energy. So in order to stay alive and be able to Wolverine their wounds, they have to periodically use a spell on themselves which forcibly restores their Star Energy. This spell is not fun. The process of using this spell can take upwards of 3 days, and the Stillblood is in constant pain during this time because their body is essentially being torn to pieces and regenerating the entire time. Basically, just imagine laying in bed for three straight days while wounds are constantly inflicted and healed and you feel all of it. Lovely. Sometime after Wake learns about this dark little secret, Ellie is captured during a Heretic hunt. Lucian goes to Wake for help, and the pair head off to rescue her together.    Ellie is rescued, although not exactly without incident. She recovers from having half of her face blown off since she is a Stillblood, but it still hurts like hell. After the rescue, Lucian comes to respect Wake a bit and he eventually leaves to head back to the continent. Wake and Ellie then get a bit closer and share a few moments together now that Ellie's secret life is finally entirely out in the open. It ends with Wake saying that he wants to stay with Ellie forever and telling her that he has asked to become part of the Gracia Church. Ellie is obviously not stoked about that, but it's what Wake wants to do and the two do love each other.  Lucian puts in a good word for Wake at the Church (which, why does he even have to? Wake is GOD'S GIFT). Wake's immense Ether is what allows him to fight the Heretics, so from that point on both Wake and Ellie are partners in Heretic hunting.  After some more bonding and Fuuko possessing, Wake starts to notice that Fuuko is getting bothered by something. Ms. Ghost also mentions that Fuuko seems to be repressing some kind of trauma, although she doesn't know what it is. The trio eventually focus their attention on a nearby underwater Nest that seems to hold some kind of meaning to Ms. Ghost. Ms. Ghost regains some of her memories and recalls that she died trying to seal/clear that Nest. They decide that this must be the regret that is holding the ghost back, so Fuuko agrees to let Ms. Ghost possess her body during an assault on the Nest.  It is eventually revealed that Fuuko once competed in a swimming tournament with a friend when she was younger. Her friend, Izzy's, father was very sick, but he came out to see his daughter compete in the tournament. Fuuko ended up beating out Izzy in the tournament however, and Izzy's father ended up passing away shortly afterward. This results in Fuuko blaming herself by believing that seeing his daughter lose the big tournament caused the sadness to overcome him and caused him to die. She feels guilty because apparently Izzy kept crying and apologizing to her father during his funeral, and Fuuko didn't know that she was going through so much pain while Fuuko was busy enjoying her victory. Izzy moved away to live with her mom after this happens, so Fuuko was never able to talk it out with her. This results in Fuuko downplaying her swimming abilities and trying to distance herself from it, even though she loves it. Anyway, the day of the Nest Assault rolls around and Wake and Fuuko are able to join in on it with some help from Chloe, who vouches for them when the Aquatics Captain seems unwilling to let novices in on something so dangerous. The mission starts going south when Wake gets grabbed by a monster and dragged towards the depths of the sea. Ms. Ghost starts to panic because she can feel that Fuuko's body isn't up to the task of getting to him, but Fuuko convinces Ms. Ghost to give her control and she ends up pulling off a Shift in order to free Wake.  The event reveals that Ms. Ghost is the spirit of Fuuko's friend, Izzy. More accurately, she is the ghost of Mary Isana White, who became a Disciple after moving away and was among a small few group of students who was able to master "Shifting". Unfortunately, Mary died during an underwater Nest operation that went wrong when she tried to rescue the other members of her team. With her memories finally restored, Izzy and Fuuko are able to finally reconnect, and Izzy then passes on to the afterlife.  With the weight finally lifted from her, Fuuko finds the courage to confess her love to Wake and asks for him to kiss her, like she had done to him while Izzy had been possessing her body.  In Fuuko's ending, Wake reciprocates her feelings and the two attend the Star Conception Festival. A few years later, Fuuko is shown helping her and Wake's daughter learn to swim. Their daughter is revealed to be named Isana, and Fuuko uses the same "Izzy" nickname for her, telling her daughter that "We named you after a great swimmer."   In Narika's ending, Wake approaches her in the Old Schoolhouse and she asks him if he has made up his mind about who to take to the festival. When he tells her he has, she congratulates him and tells him that he shouldn't wasting time standing her with her. Wake tells her that Narika is the one he wants to take, and although shocked, she happily agrees. Before leaving, she asks Wake to wait a moment while she changes. She returns wearing a dress that she made herself. Both Wake and Sasami (who was passing by, I guess?) tell her that they are surprised she would go with such a bold look. She says that she thought it would make her look cute, and then starts becoming self-conscious about wearing it. Wake offers to cover her by holding her in his arms so she won't be embarrassed, and Narika asks him if he will hold her like that for the rest of the night.  After graduation, Wake and Narika become members of the World Peace Council. Narika now has the courage to speak publicly without any issues and without the influence of the cursed pendant. Sasami says that she thinks Narika is very cool, while Mattero chimes in to make a pervy comment about liking her "ample figure". Wake states that Narika will likely remain a central figure in the meetings.   Wake learns more about Serina and Nazuna's past. Nazuna apparently used to run an Amusement Park before she opened the cafe, but said Amusement Park is now considering closing down due to declining attendance and the increased monster activity. Wake and Serina go to the park one day and Serina wants to take on a ride which is apparently very difficult to stay conscious on. The challenge to Wake hits a roadblock when Serina is found to be under the height requirements. Serina then demands to transform and the two tackle the ride. Serina wakes up later to find that Wake is carrying her on his back after she passed out on the ride. She's not pleased by this, but eventually relents and allows him to keep carrying her. Later on, Serina finds out that the Amusement Park is indeed planning to shut down. While there and in her transformed state, the owner approaches her and asks if she would participate in a Beauty Pageant the park is having to try and boost attendance. Serina rightfully realizes that she can't compete in the pageant in her transformed state because that would be cheating, but she has the idea that Nazuna could compete. The increased attention from the pageant could be an opportunity to implore people to help save the park and draw lots of attention from the public. Nazuna declines to participate however, which pisses Serina off. Serina accuses her of not caring about all of the memories they had there, then decides to throw out that whole "cheating" hang-up and just enter the pageant herself using her transformation.  Serina enters the pageant, but the park is attacked by a monster during the contest. The crowd is reassured by God's Gift being there and Wake proceeds to hold off the monster since Serina can't use her Star Energy in her transformed state. Serina grows frustrated and decides to revert to her normal form in order to attack the monster. She rushes it and starts punching it until it is defeated. Serina starts to apologize to the crowd and admit that she had cheated, but the crowd applauds her for her bravery in attacking the monster. Serina vows to protect the park because it is a very special place to her and holds a lot of childhood memories. She then admits that she knows the park will close at some point, but she's proud of what she did to try and prevent it.  During her ending, Wake's dorm is closed off due to a supposed water leak, so he is forced to stay at a lodge. The event seems to have been orchestrated by someone, because Wake enters the hot spring to find Serina bathing. Turns out that Nazuna was the one behind the encounter, tricking both of them into staying at the lodge at the same time. The two of them end up agreeing to stay the night so as not to waste the opportunity. In the morning, Serina asks Wake if he would take her to the festival and this moves on to her confessing her feelings for him in the following event. Serina decides that she no longer needs to transform because she found someone that loves her the way she is. After three months, it is revealed that Wake and Serina are now running the Cafe, while Nazuna has returned to running the Amusement Park. Serina asks Wake to stay with her forever and offers to cook him all kinds of meals.  Wake goes out with Torri one day and winds up losing track of her when she runs off. When she runs back, she seems to be freaked out about something. She states that she someone was following her. Wake does indeed spot a man hiding out around a corner, so he goes to confront him. The man turns out to be an AngelMarker employee named Kirks, who was Torri's minder while she was at the Lab. Kirks was following her because he saw her wandering around with a stranger (Wake) and was concerned for her well being. He wanted to keep an eye on her, but he relaxes when he realizes that Wake is God's Gift. When Kirks leaves, Torri reveals that she left her parents and has lived at the Lab for as long as she can remember. She says that the staff were really nice to her, but they wouldn't let her go outside (which is where her whole "wanting to be free/flight/birds" thing comes from). After watching some baby birds take flight one day, Torri asks Wake to teach her as much as he can so that she can learn more about the world and be free to explore it on her own. This is followed by Torri running off to meet up with friends on the Combat Team who wanted her to act as a substitute. Wake joins Chlotz at a concert, but afterward Chlotz mentions how hard it's been raining lately. Members of the Combat Team then pass by and talk about the venue of the match being changed due to a mudslide. Wake asks them where Torri is and they tell him that she never showed up. Wake correctly assumes that Torri is at the original venue just waiting there, so he goes to fetch her. He finds her standing outside in the rain and she tells him that she thought everyone was really late and she didn't want to leave because she thought it would cause trouble. Wake takes her to the nurse's office since she starts sneezing. The nurse is nowhere to be found, so Wake puts Torri behind a curtain and asks her where her change of clothes is. She tells him and he goes to fetch it from the classroom.  When he comes back, Torri is standing naked in the office with the curtain on the ground. She says it fell over somehow and she had taken off her clothes to try and dry out. She starts wandering around to look for a towel and is about to head out into the hallway before Wake stops her and makes her change into her spare clothing. Later, the Combat Team members ask Wake to pass on a message to Torri that practice is cancelled. Wake goes to look for her, only to find her standing out in the rain again, except this time she is wearing a swimsuit so that "her clothes won't get wet". Other Disciples and Chlotz find this incredibly strange, so Wake decides to change into a swimsuit and join her in the rain so as to make her feel better and not so strange. This results in Chloe, Chlotz, and Narika eventually joining in for a big game of tag in the mud and rain. The other Disciples all start cheering them on and Torri is happy. Wake joins Torri one day in the workshop as she tries to get the improved version of her plane air-ready. While they chat, Torri talks about why she wants to fly so badly and also asks Wake if he has anything that he really wants in life. Wake says that he really wants to stop the Dusk Circles and bring peace to the world.  Once again, Torri gets it in her mind that she needs to do this and make Wake happy. Everyone runs around in a panic trying to find her and Wake eventually remembers how interested she was in his "wish" to seal the Dusk Circles. After checking in with Chloe, she confirms that the Savage was activated recently and that there's even a God Brace missing from the labs. Wake immediately departs for the Labyrinth and manages to track Torri down as she is struggling to fend off monsters. The God Brace is making her head hurt and she is surrounded. Wake saves her and pulls her out of the Labyrinth, where everyone expresses their relief that she is okay. She is also chastised for how reckless she was being. She states that she did it because she really wanted to give Wake what he wanted most in life. Wake points out that he doesn't want Torri risking her life for his sake like that. She ends the event by asking Wake to take her to the Star Conception Festival because of how much he cares for her and helps her.  Torri's ending involves her finally completing her plane, and with the help of Wake's Ether, she is able to fly it anywhere she wants. Torri is overjoyed at finally being able to fly like a bird, and Wake promises to go with her wherever she wants and stay with her forever. The Harem Ending The Harem Ending is unlocked after viewing every heroine's ending. I originally thought that you had to complete every single event for all the heroines, but you actually just need to do all of the main ones. Sub-events and things like the School Festival heroine choice event don't count. In the Harem Ending, Wake realizes the problem with all seven girls asking him to take them to the Star Conception Festival. He starts to think that maybe he should turn them all down, since if he chooses just one of them then the others will be hurt. Meanwhile, the girls are all waiting in the Old Schoolhouse for Wake and wondering who he will ask to go with. They slowly come to the realization that all of them have asked him and start to wonder what will happen when he arrives. Even though the others might feel sad, they all agree that they have every intention of waiting for him and hoping to be the one he chooses. Wake is revealed to be on his way to the Old Schoolhouse, having admitted that running from this choice wouldn't be the right thing to do.  When he enters the Old Schoolhouse, he finds all seven of the heroines in dresses, awaiting his decision. They ask him to make his choice, and they also shout out that he can't say "everyone".  Despite saying that, it is shown that he did indeed choose everyone. The group leave to go on a tour of every heroine's hometown. Ellie solemnly admits to her work for the Church, but everyone states that they already know about it. They all pledge to be there for her in her duties and to assist her in stopping the heretics. Wake then ends things off with an incredibly badly fumbled line that did not translate well:   Yyyyeeeeaahhh. Apparently this is actually a really sweet line in the original Japanese that is a play on the title of the game. Unfortunately this 'play on the title' thing didn't work out too well in English, and Wake comes off sounding like a total rear end in a top hat. "Don't worry about anything, just focus on pumping out my babies" is a terrible line to go out on. This really should have been cut a sentence short, loyalty to the original be damned. ~Character Analysis~ This part is heavily opinionated. Fair warning. I wanted to do a small analysis of each of the main heroines, and what I like or dislike about them can easily be the reverse for someone else. So if you absolutely cannot take someone critiquing your favorite character, then stop here. For everyone else that is crazy enough to want to read my rambling discussion of character, let's get to it. If anyone wants to chime in with their own views, then go right ahead. I'm going to start with the character I like the most, which is also the character that seems to get called out as being the weakest on message boards. There isn't a big fanbase for this game, but from what I've read on Gamefaqs or Steam, people seem to consider Narika to be a flat character (lol, it's ironic because she has big boobs! Get it? I swear to god that's a comment I saw from like three different people). So why do I like her the most? Because she's the exact opposite of a weak or flat character. On the surface, Narika is a typical anime trope character. As others in this thread noted in the beginning, all she was really missing were glasses. She's shy, timid, and easily embarrassed. But here's an important part of why she's a good character: Her growth comes from her own desire to improve. The main character is not the catalyst that pushes Narika to be more outgoing and brave. Before Wake has even stepped foot on the island, Narika already became the Class VP and was taking up activities to get better at public speaking and being more confident. She volunteered at the Church, handled Vice President duties, and helped out when people came to her asking for it. Narika recognized that she had a problem, and strove to overcome it on her own. She wasn't a static object waiting for the main character to roll up and start pulling the strings of her life. Certainly, some of what she gets involved with is not because she wants to, but because it's foisted on her by others. Even still, despite how uncomfortable something like the Strategy Conference made her, she still buckled down and gave it her all because she saw that people needed help and she felt she had a duty to act. Wake doesn't convince her to stick with it or push her forward, he just acts as her support. What happens when Narika is nervous about collecting donations for the church? She goes to the rooftop to practice. What happens when she blows the first strategy conference and Sasami shits all over her? She's hurt and ashamed, she runs off, but when Wake catches up to her she tells him that she doesn't intend to quit. The next time Wake finds her, she's in the classroom practicing her speech and trying to iron out any flaws. That's not because Wake's dating game hero-ness convinced her to keep going. It's because she didn't want her classmates efforts to be wasted. It's because she wanted to change. That's a strong character. It's also referenced by her theme song "A Little Bit of Courage" as well as her title "Saint Brave". Not many people who don't like being in the spotlight would look at someone asking them to speak in a major conference and say "Okay, I'll do it. I'll give it my best." Even fewer people would, after nearly being laughed off stage, dig in their heels and try again. Narika has serious guts. We also learn a lot about her as a character over the course of her route, even though the latter half of it has her partially possessed by a demon or something. She's kind and generous, aware of her faults, has a strong sense of faith, and she's not completely rigid when it comes to her duties (she is willing to overlook Chlotz' open stupidity when he starts blabbing about potentially skipping classes, despite her being the Vice Class President). My only major complaint with Narika's route is the possession thing. I'm sure people will argue that it makes her route more interesting or exciting, but it also kind of drags down her character development. At the very least, they should have pushed that whole subplot back until just before the third conference. Narika should have been given the second conference to show how much she had improved entirely on her own. The demon pendant giving her the confidence to stand up in front of everyone kind of undercuts her natural growth. And yes, she does have the potential to reach that level with practice and determination. We see during her ending that she becomes a member of the World Peace Council and regularly presents with complete confidence. So I would have much rather seen her get to that point entirely on her own merits. But at the same time, I recognize that a lot of people would see that as not being exciting, or too pedestrian. So that's why Narika is my favourite of the heroines. She has a surprising amount of depth to her character, and she isn't reliant on the self-insert protagonist to help her spur her arc. Honestly, it's a little arguable as to whether or not Wake's involvement is entirely a good thing. She certainly may have wound up in that park and bought the pendant without Wake, and if she had then she definitely would have been much worse off (assaulted, dead, a monster, who knows). There's also a chance that Wake is the reason that they ended up in the park that day, though. Even if look forward to later in the route, Narika admits that one of the reasons why she didn't throw the pendant away when she noticed herself changing for the worse is because she didn't want to lose her relationship with Wake. Without Wake there, Narika may have thrown the pendant away when she saw it hurting her friendship with Fuuko or potential friendship with Sasami. Of course, that's all speculation and 'what-ifs', which is something I don't really want to do a lot of. Doing that just results in every heroine's route becoming "yeah, well if this happened instead then she would be a better character too and then Narika would still be the weak character". Also, as with every heroine, everyone has a 'preference' when it comes to character types. So Narika is probably just my favourite because I like this type of character, in the same way that some people think Serina is the best because they have a preference for Tsundere types. However, regardless of stuff like that, I wanted to offer up a defense of Narika in general. I'm a big fan of narratives, either in books, games, shows, or whatever. It lets you do a lot of examination of character motivations, personality, thought processes, and so on. I really enjoy that stuff (yeah, I'm kind of a weirdo). That's why it bothers me to see people write a character off as weak and boring without getting into any kind of solid reasoning outside of the character just looking like they fit a particular type. I'm sure someone could write up a response to this explaining why Narika is actually a completely flat and uninteresting character, and then turn around and write about how Torri is actually the most rounded character out of the heroines. I like reading that kind of thing as well, assuming that the person responding actually put some thought into it and analyzed the character. Feene is my second favourite. The reasoning isn't as in-depth as with Narika. Feene is just a very pleasant character to interact with. She's the typical "perfect girl" of the main cast. That type of character is often the "rich girl/noble lady" on top of that, which I am decidedly not a fan of (that loving laugh, man. Hate it so much). Thankfully, Feene is instead the modest type of this character. I thought her overly formal interactions with Wake to be cute, especially upon the revelation that she is secretly a little more rough around the edges when she was back home with her friends. She is also one of the few people in the game that actually shows Wake an appropriate level of respect. Most of the cast is either ambivalent to Wake (Aya, Rhiod, Alec to an extent), outright disrespectful (Watts, Ruby, the Hospital Director), or indifferent. Her modesty does go a little too far though. She even goes farther than Fuuko in brushing aside compliments she gets and playing up her imagined deficiencies. The good thing is that this doesn't crop up a lot, but it is noticeable. It's also a thing that a lot of the heroines do, so I can't really say that this is solely a Feene thing. Feene also has very supportive and enjoyable friends, such as Raul. Aya is a total pain in the rear end, but it's more out of over-protectiveness for Feene than any real malice. As much as I might hate how she gets on with Wake, she did notice Feene's feelings for him and knew when she was beaten in the pursuit of her affection. Chloe is maybe, kind of, my third favourite. It's a little difficult to pick between her and Fuuko, which sounds a little weird considering that Fuuko is not an especially well-liked character (or hated, she's very middling). Chloe is a very composed character and seems to have a better handle on her emotions than the other heroines. Basically, I like that there is a 'mature' character in the main cast of heroines. What drags her down is the fact that her determination is very quick to fall apart. She talks a lot about caring for her students and wanting to help people, but she buckles immediately under any sort of pressure. I understand that in many of these cases, she has to factor in unintended consequences of her actions (such as possibly getting the Choir club shut down), but it's still really disappointing to see a smart, strong, maternal character like this totally fall apart the moment someone scowls at her. Her taking responsibility for that voyeur student is also a massive strike against her. I know it is meant to make her look very protective of her students, but it comes off as being incredibly stupid. That kid committed a crime, and Chloe covering his rear end for it is not going to deter him from trying something like that again, either with Chloe or with a different girl. Chloe is relying on the idea that this kid made a stupid decision that he will realize he regrets, but that is a dangerous thing to take a chance on. The kid had this planned out, it wasn't a spur of the moment decision. He should have suffered some type of punishment for his actions, because that kind of behaviour is unacceptable. So Chloe is a bit of a mixed bag for me. She is both relate-able and not relate-able as a character. She is also very wishy-washy when it comes to what she wants to do. She likes being a teacher and caring for her students, then she likes to be a DJ and make the students happy, then she likes to sing at concerts to make people feel better, but then she decides to back peddle on all of that after all but 1 of the Dusk Circles is sealed. She still does it because she wants to protect and help everyone, but Wake actually has to talk her into singing on stage again during her ending. Even with the world at peace and the Academy she taught at closing its doors, she was going to avoid singing again in order to make a romantic gesture to Wake. The reason I place Fuuko so high in terms of character is because she was a really fun character to have around. Sure, her entire theme is that she is a very boring or exceedingly average girl, but that's endearing in its own right. Out of the heroines, she felt the most natural, I guess. Her early interactions with Wake and Chlotz are especially good, because she just acts and sounds like a pal. She's very easy to talk to and joke around with, friendly, supportive, and pretty outgoing. Wake needs to push her a bit during her route, but she is quick to accept to things like a ghost talking to her or flat out being possessed by said ghost. Even though her backstory is a little cliche and involves the typical "I feel guilty about something that I had no control over, so I constantly put myself down", the story itself is still pretty heartwarming. She never got the chance to talk to Izzy or tell her that she felt guilty about what happened, and Izzy never got the chance to tell her that she doesn't blame Fuuko for what happened. Fuuko carrying that weight on her shoulders is somewhat understandable when the last thing she hears about her friend is about how that friend was crying at her father's funeral and apologizing to him for not winning the tournament. It would be hard to shake that feeling, even if you stepped back and looked at it from the logical view of "Her father was already sickly, so him dying didn't have anything to do with me winning a swimming contest". Fuuko also gets major points for having the guts to straight up ask Wake for a kiss. Serina does this out of a desire to trigger that transformation thing, and she wants Wake to kiss her hand. Fuuko just goes right for it once she comes to terms with her feelings. So while she might not be particularly exciting as a character, since her design is meant to invoke the "tomboy/girl next door" type, she is surprisingly strong and likable. Oh boy, Ellie. Ellie is positioned here on my list mainly because I dislike Serina and Torri, rather than me overly liking Ellie. She isn't a bad character exactly, but there isn't really anything I can point to with her that I really enjoyed. She's pretty cheery and fun in her normal interactions with the rest of the cast, but she is also absurdly self-depreciating in her interactions with Wake and it kind of chafes me whenever she starts talking about how much she sucks or how she's a weirdo, or too small, or secretive, or etc. Even more so than the other heroines, Wake has to act as her personal cheerleader by constantly reassuring her. So I don't really have a strong feeling on Ellie as a person, one way or the other. She's just kind of there in my opinion. Part of that may be the fault of her route. Ellie's route is by far the most interesting out of the heroines, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Ellie herself. Let me try and explain. Conception 2 doesn't do a great job at world building. The game takes place in a very narrowly focused on part of the world. We are told extremely little about life on the continent, the Church, the government, or anything that isn't directly related to Dusk Circles. We only get little bits and pieces from the other heroines, such as Feene's home town, the Strategy Conferences, that kind of thing. But Ellie's route is a loving treasure trove of information about the stuff going on elsewhere in Aterra. We learn about the structure of the Aterra Church and about the holy capital of Shelgard. We learn about the Church secretly fighting a rogue group of fanatics called Heretics that are trying to brainwash people and overthrow the Church. Then there's the stuff about Stillbloods and X-Machina. It's a really interesting plot thread that I wish was tied into the main story somehow. Except all that interesting stuff is only tangentially related to Ellie. Ellie is really just there to be the vehicle for the player to experience all of that. If you removed Ellie from her own route and just had Wake interact with an NPC Stillblood or Lucian or someone, then the route wouldn't really lose any of its interesting qualities in my opinion. In comparison, if you remove the other heroines from their routes then none of it is particularly interesting. Feene? Without her you would just have Wake taking pictures and maybe getting harassed by Aya since she hates men. Narika? You would learn a bit about the Strategy Conference, but the Strategy Conferences are mostly just a backdrop to the focus on Narika's character arc. But Ellie isn't really the focus of her route. It's the stuff Ellie is involved with that is the focus. Shady Church things, Heretics, Church Assassins, brainwashing cults, Star Energy animated living dead, that's cool poo poo. Ellie's character arc even repeats itself several times. The cycle is pretty much: Ellie doesn't want Wake to learn her secret because she's scared of what he'll think of her -> Wake learns her secret -> Wake reassures her that he still likes her -> Wake tells her that they are friends and she should trust him and let him help -> Ellie is relieved and thankful -> Return to Step 1. As a recap, Ellie's actual character arc is this: Actually met Wake 10 years ago when he saved her -> Wake eventually remembers -> Ellie says she was afraid to say anything but Wake tells her that he doesn't think she's weird or dislike her -> Ellie is happy -> Ellie can't tell Wake about her work for the Church -> Wake finds out anyway -> Wake reassures her -> Ellie is happy -> Heretics -> Wake finds out, reassures her -> Ellie is happy -> Stillblood -> Finds out -> Happy She is a very tiring character to interact with, but you stick with it because you know that there's something interesting going on behind her. Maybe it's just because her character archetype doesn't appeal to me, but I ended up caring more for the backdrop than the character. It's kind of like going to a play and ignoring what the actors are doing because you're too busy admiring the craftsmanship of the set. The game also leans heavily in her favour because of that. Ellie receives a lot of attention, even during the main story. Her introduction hints towards her having a history with Wake and there are some skits I had to cut with Mark and Chlotz where they talk about rumored spells that the Church has to raise the dead. The game nudges you towards Ellie, her first two events hook with by revealing her history with Wake, and then it keeps going from there. Don't get me wrong, this is a well designed route. I just wish that the other heroines had this kind of attention given to them. It's a tough call between Serina and Torri, personally. Even with me trying to be unbiased during the LP, you could probably tell pretty easily that I hate Tsundere characters. Serina just pisses me off with her attitude. But it's also because of that that I have to rank her higher than Torri. At the very least I feel something towards Serina, even though that something is annoyance and anger. Serina at least has a developed personality, it's just a personality that doesn't appeal to me. But anyway, staying on the topic of Serina, I really don't like her or her route. She the kind of character that walks around basically begging for a fight. Always with a chip on her shoulder. It's even worse in this case because there's no evidence that anyone actually looks down on Serina, yet her belief of that is her motivating factor for wanting to be different. Outside of that one NPC jerk during her introduction, and Chlotz, I don't recall anyone making any snide remarks about her height or body or anything. She seems to have some friends from her class and they don't treat her any differently. Her sister Nazuna is supportive, if maybe a bit too protective of her. But Serina is convinced that she needs to have a big bust and be 6 feet tall in order to be taken seriously as an S-Rank. This is a girl that worked her way up from the bottom rung of the Elites to S-Rank entirely through her own hard work. She wasn't just automatically placed there due to her Star Energy or something. That's really impressive, but it doesn't seem to matter to her at all. She appears to look at that achievement as an unimportant stepping stone. Just a piece she needs to fulfill her vision of who she thinks she should be. I just can't relate to her at all. She's really annoying and comes off as being kind of entitled. The major theme of her arc is obviously the tried and true "love yourself the way you are", and while there's not anything wrong with that message, it's not all that well delivered. Serina ends her route with the realization that someone loves her for who she is and she doesn't need to change just to try and get people to like her, or something to that effect anyway. However, the thing that doesn't really get touched on during the route is that the reason why transformed Serina was so well liked is because she was confident and approachable. She didn't look like she was going to bite your drat head off if you so much as said "Hi". Ignoring the fact that there's no real evidence that people look down on her, all Serina really needed to do to get people to like her more and respect her is to be less antagonistic towards people. There's also the complete mess that is the Amusement Park plot thread. Serina wants to save the Amusement Park and rightfully states that it wouldn't be right for her to cheat in the pageant in order to do it. Her brief show of honor goes almost immediately out the window when her brilliant backup idea is shot down though. She plans on just using Nazuna, but when Nazuna refuses to enter the pageant then Serina tears into her and goes straight to the cheating route. And when Serina's cheating is ultimately exposed? She's rewarded for it. Sure, she did the right thing by dropping her transformation in order to help protect innocent people. But she didn't do that because she had some kind of moral crisis about what she was doing, she did it because she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't just stand back and watch Wake fight to protect the crowd while she did nothing. It's not as though she had a moment of clarity where she looked at what she was doing to achieve her desire and felt it was wrong. The crowd cheering for her and voting for her to win the pageant is meant to seem like a big heartwarming moment because Serina gave up her chance to win in order to protect people, and she had the noble intention of trying to save the Amusement Park because she felt it was an important place. But that isn't how I see it. That event comes off looking like 'the ends justify the means'. The message is that it doesn't matter that Serina knowingly cheated in order to fulfill her personal interests, she did her duty as a Disciple and therefore deserves to have everything she wanted. This situation is similar to what happened with Narika. The major difference there is that Narika didn't knowingly buy a cursed monster pendant to help her win. The shopkeeper told her that if she prayed to it then it would give her strength. That's the kind of bullshit salespeople use all the time. By the time anyone realized what was going on, Narika was already under the influence of an outside force. That didn't happen with Serina. Serina openly stated that doing what she did would be wrong, but as soon as her Nazuna plan falls through she turns her back on her principles and goes right ahead with cheating. Narika also felt guilt about what happened, despite it not being her fault. She gets on stage in front of the school and acknowledges the contributions of everyone, then calls herself out as a weak coward, and admits that she caused a lot of trouble for Wake. She admits her feelings to the one she loves, but she isn't under any belief that Wake will return those feelings. Serina only starts to apologize once she's been caught with her pants down. There's a crowd of people that just witnessed her change form, there's not really any way out of it other than to admit to what she did. She doesn't end up apologizing though, because the audience chimes in to absolve her of any wrongdoing. The Amusement Park stays open, Nazuna sets her up with the guy she likes and she gets him in the end, she takes over a cafe, and her sister goes off to run the Amusement Park that Serina wanted to save. Serina gets everything she wanted, and I don't really believe she did enough to really deserve it. The brings me to Torri. I don't know if I hate Torri, but she's certainly the least interesting character to me, mainly because she largely lacks character. Torri is a very reactive character. She really only does things in response to others. Her only driving motivation is that she wants to fly, because flying is symbolic of freedom. What is she outside of that? Naive and honest to a fault since she doesn't understand anything about the world or social interaction. Just look at her route. She routinely wanders around the city by herself, falls asleep on park benches, doesn't know how to manage her money, walks up and stares at food when she's hungry and can't afford it like she's a starving animal, is wary of strangers but will follow them if they give her snacks and treat her nice, the list just goes on. Kirks is right to be worried about her, because she is not prepared to be out in the world on her own. Not to mention that she endangers herself and others. She builds a makeshift plane and nearly crashes it into a group of onlookers as well as the Academy, but manages to crash it somewhere else that doesn't cause damage but could have easily injured her. Twice during her route, when Wake makes a passing and innocent mention of something, Torri runs off and nearly dies in order to give said thing to him. Hell, if you felt like it you could probably count Wake as having saved her life three times. Remember that she stood outside in pissing rain waiting for a group of people that wouldn't arrive because the event got moved for weather reasons. Given the kind of person she is, she likely would have stayed there well into the night if Wake hadn't shown up. It's honestly a real shame. Other than the weird hair split she has, I really like Torri's design. The Monokuma inspired monochrome look is pretty cool. It's just too bad she is such a poor character. I think I would have liked her a bit more if her route involved Wake becoming something of a father or brother to her and helping teach her the ways of the world so that she could live a regular life. That doesn't happen though. It's a dating sim, so the protagonist is meant to be a romantic partner to Torri, which honestly kind of creeps me out. I try not to judge people for what appeals to them, because to each their own, but this Rei/robot/barely functional human being character type thing is something I just cannot understand. It's like sticking an Alexa on a hug pillow. Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately for a lot of you, I don't have room to get into the side characters. I've already gotten Ruby out of my system at least, which was the one I was most opinionated about. All that's left is a small wrap up about the game itself and this LP will be complete. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 05:37
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OK, I set up a redirect at zodiacsupport@crapmail.org
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Jan 1, 2019 05:52
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Psycho Knight posted:
This scene was the only other reason that I liked Serina, though I avoided mentioning it before. Her running in and punching a monster to death is amusing.
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Jan 1, 2019 09:07
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quote:Later, the Combat Team members ask Wake to pass on a message to Torri that practice is cancelled. Wake goes to look for her, only to find her standing out in the rain again, except this time she is wearing a swimsuit so that "her clothes won't get wet". Other Disciples and Chlotz find this incredibly strange, so Wake decides to change into a swimsuit and join her in the rain so as to make her feel better and not so strange. This results in Chloe, Chlotz, and Narika eventually joining in for a big game of tag in the mud and rain. The other Disciples all start cheering them on and Torri is happy. This seems like the only genuinely sweet part of that shitshow goddamn. And agreed on Fuuko; wow an actual display of romantic affection? In my dungeon crawler visual novel?? Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 16:08
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Aww, Feene's ending is pretty sweet. Felt like the marriage came on fast, but I guess that's the nature of the game. Also, RE: Narika, I like her ending a lot, especially once you wrote your interpretation of her route. I feel like the thread either focused on hating Sasami or her going crazy from the pendant so the fact that she had actual character growth on her own accord got glossed over. That's definitely pretty rare in a genre like this so it's nice to see it. Lastly, did they have a quota or something for Mattero being gross? I'd mostly forgotten about the pervy things he said at the start and then they just had to circle back around to them at the end.
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Jan 1, 2019 18:03
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BlazeEmblem posted:This scene was the only other reason that I liked Serina, though I avoided mentioning it before. Her running in and punching a monster to death is amusing. It is a nice scene, I will admit that. It's just too bad that the lead up and what comes after is poorly done. She did the right thing, but it was only through a chance event. If that monster hadn't shown up, then all signs pointed to Serina being totally willing to cheat her way to victory for the sake of trying to save a flagging business. This isn't the local rec center or playground, it's a business venture. Serina even admits afterward that she realizes the park will probably close at some point. She just plays it up too much. SSNeoman posted:This seems like the only genuinely sweet part of that shitshow goddamn. As hokey as I think it is, it was a nice moment. It also reinforces my belief that Torri's route should have ended in more of a family moment. That tag scene really plays out like everyone coming together to be like a family to Torri, which is a sweet moment because that's what the girl needs. OOrochi posted:Also, RE: Narika, I like her ending a lot, especially once you wrote your interpretation of her route. I feel like the thread either focused on hating Sasami or her going crazy from the pendant so the fact that she had actual character growth on her own accord got glossed over. That's definitely pretty rare in a genre like this so it's nice to see it. My only issue with Narika's ending is that it is very short. Some of the heroine endings are extremely quick and it really feels anti-climactic. Chloe's has a similar problem. I didn't really see any issues with how this thread saw her or the focus on Sasami/Devil Pendant, but I take major issue with people on the Steam/Gamefaqs boards calling her a flat character. Maybe it's because I'm kind of an English nerd, but that really bothers me because you don't even have to look that hard to see strong character traits in Narika. If it wasn't for that random out of nowhere cursed pendant, Narika is possibly the only heroine that would have been okay on her own. Everyone else basically needs Wake in order to get anywhere with their routes. Ellie would have been tortured by the Heretics, Chloe wouldn't have gone on to do the Hospital Concert, Fuuko wouldn't have even joined the Aquatics Team let alone reconciled with her deceased friend, god knows what would have happened to Torri without Wake sheparding her around (Wake's Ether is what helps her plane finally fly reliably), Feene wouldn't have started the Photography Club, and Serina wouldn't have done the transformation thing and instead continued to try and pursue a perfect body in the belief that it is the only way she would be loved. But Narika? She still would have done the strategy conferences and she still wouldn't have given up trying to get better. She probably wouldn't have gone on to win, but that also means she wouldn't have been the target of hitmen. Sasami would have eventually approached her as a friend, since she blames her attitude on the conferences, so Narika would have still ended up with someone to support her. The only real difference is that it would have taken her a bit longer to become the person she wanted. The only way I would consider that a weak or flat character is if you look at her purely as a dating sim heroine whose value is based entirely on how much the MC gets to play the White Knight. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 19:00
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This thread is incredibly content-dense. I've been reading it for a while now and I still haven't completely caught up, it's quite amazing for barely 15 pages. My thought for the day is that I really can't get over the word classmanting. It's like "gar for Archer" in how much it sounds like the kind of idea a fandom would come up with. "Get it? hur hur because they're men hurhur." It's like the game is trying to pre-empt its own audience and does the creeping and awful fan lingo for you. [edit]: Gay threesomes for science! Let's play Conception 2! Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 23:32
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~Final Thoughts~ So that's Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars. As I mentioned before, I really don't think this is a bad game. It has a certain charm that really endeared it to me, despite the dull game play that makes up the lion's share of the time you'll spend on it. I'll start with what I think is the most charming part of this game: The Star Children.  I love the designs of these things. They all have a very distinct look and are very colorful. I really grew attached to the little buggers, and the game does do a few things right with giving them a bit of personality. The random comments they make throughout the dungeons are a mix of funny and heartwarming (especially when they comment on their mothers or dad). You'll also head back to the Dorm Room and occasionally see a pop up telling you an independent Child has sent you a gift and a message, which is sweet as hell. Finally, the Child's hair color matching the mother that created them is a nice touch. Unfortunately, the game also drops the ball on them a little bit. Despite these little touches that make each child feel unique, they are incredibly samey in a game play sense. It's difficult to see any difference between some of the classes. For example, Paladins and Dark Knights are higher tiered Lancers, but during the final Labyrinth I used a team that contained two Lancers and one Paladin that carried their weight just as well as the team composed of end game classes (Dark Knight, Ninja, Bulleteer). There are some minor changes to skills from class to class, but it doesn't do a good job of really separating them from each other. Now, you are meant to use higher tiered classes as they become available, and abandon the 'starter' ones, the same thing you'd do in a game like Fire Emblem. It's just a shame that with so many uniquely designed classes, it somehow feels like they all blend together. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there are 30 of them.  The other thing I think the game does well are the characters. Not all of them, mind you. However, a lot of the main cast is very fun and enjoyable. Serina is the only one of the heroines that I found outright irritating, and that's probably because I hate that character type. Ellie is the only one with a weird character tic, namely her "Ahehehe" laugh. All of the heroines are enjoyable to be around. Wake has just enough character to not be a blank slate, but I do kind of wish they had avoided the stupid "oblivious to love" thing that a lot of these Main Characters suffer from. It's an especially bad choice in this game considering that it gives you dialog options for Wake to be a total perv (such as directly telling Serina's sister that she has a great rack). You can make him incredibly inconsistent if you want. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the final confrontation where the player can make Wake, who legitimately wants to bring peace to the world and make everyone happy, shout "I will be this world's ruler!"   The extended cast are a bit of a mixed bag, though. Alec is a very well done rival character in my opinion. He is driven to improve himself in order to make his father proud and also bring peace to the world for the sake of the Disciples (like his friend Luce). Wake's appearance initially bugs him because God's Gift will be accomplishing everything that Alec has been working for. He doesn't exactly hate Wake, but he clearly harbors some envy. The incident with the Disciple-monster pushes him to be more antagonistic towards Wake, but even this is just Alec taking out his personal frustrations and powerlessness. In the end, he grows to become great friends with Wake. Throughout the entire game, both of them push each other to get better in the name of achieving their common dream of bringing peace to the world. I think their relationship works really well, and it really does feel bad to face him down after he has been overcome by Dusk energy. Knowing that you've got to put him down, plus the way Luce reacts to the news, is pretty heartbreaking. Triche was also a great character. He didn't get a ton of focus, but he was a really likable guy and seemed like a good friend/partner for Alec. I'm glad that he manages to survive the game, but it's kind of sad that the game completely forgets about him after the Chapter 7 to Chapter 8 transition. We don't get to see his reaction to Alec's death or even find out what he does after the Academy closes. Chlotz started out fairly annoying, but he really comes into his own by the end of the game. I appreciate the fact that, even though he still acts like a creeper sometimes, he starts growing up and taking more responsibilities in order to help. He gets part-time work at AngelMarker, he steps in to support Luce in her pursuit of Alec even though he has a crush on her, and then he steps back in again to support her after Alec's death. He becomes a really good guy, and I'm really glad the game doesn't pull the 'frustrated jealousy of the hero' card with him. It really seemed like he was being set up for that early on. I already talked at length about Ruby. I may constantly rip her apart and have a deep loathing for her, but I have to admit that she is a well written character (the first Asmodeus encounter notwithstanding). It's also great to see how her character traits are turned back on her by Enzea and exploited perfectly. Enzea was able to use Ruby to secretly provide him with everything he needed while keeping his distance from people that might suspect him (like Wake). After all, if he had been interacting with the heroes regularly, then they might have started to grow wary of him if he made any slips. Ruby was trustworthy to them, though. She didn't have evil intentions, so Enzea didn't have to worry about his Golden Goose getting scared off. And speaking of Enzea, he may have been generic as far as villains go, but drat if he didn't construct a near-perfect plan. The only real ways his plan could have failed were God's Gift dying or Ruby losing her crush on him and getting suspicious. The only stupid move he makes in the game is that time he pulled Wake aside for an ominous chat. He was obviously trying to see if Wake could be persuaded to agree with his view, but that was a really stupid chance to take considering that there was still a Dusk Spawner left out there. He may have gotten too eager about nearing his goal. The other member of the main Lab Trio is Mark, who was a solid character in his own right. A little bit eccentric and an infatuation with Ruby, but he also had his head on straight enough to foresee that him trying to go public might be stopped. Despite how much he admired Ruby, the man had a clear enough head to take precautions in the event that she couldn't be persuaded. Not only one precaution either, he had a backup on top of that (he left a message with Wake concealed on the Vis-o-Matic, while also hiding data on his own Vis-o-Matic). It's a shame that he dies, even more so since he was either tortured or left to starve in a cell, but he definitely made the save for the heroes in the end.      On the other hand of the character argument is the collection of jackasses this game trots out. Characters like Sasami and Aya start out being unbearably douchey, but they at least come around to being decent people. Watts is a little bit of a mixed bag, since he is a real hard-rear end that I believe is severely overstepping his authority, but he does have some points about the way that Chloe causes stampedes and gets a little too relaxed with Disciples that are supposed to see her as their teacher. Lucian comes close to absolutely ruining Ellie's route because of how much of a mouthy prick he is. The Hospital Director is by far the worst of the entire NPC cast, though. This is a man that has been entrusted to direct the care of a the patients in a Field Hospital, but does everything he can to stop a simple concert. Even medical professionals in the real world understand the importance of keeping up a patient's spirit and trying to improve their mood. Not only that, but Aterra has loving magic. That's not some kind of rumor or legend or witchcraft or some poo poo, it's very common knowledge. How could you possibly guffaw at the idea that an Elite Disciple's Star Energy might be dispersed through song and have a positive effect on people's health? Curaoke is described as doing just that, and that's just a drat Friday night hobby for students! Both Mark and Chlotz talk about rumors that the Church knows a spell that can raise people from the dead. Magic is a very active force in this world, but this moron somehow got appointed to the position of Hospital Director while thinking that poo poo is hogwash. Then there are characters like Mattero, who had the potential to be good but was ruined by being a creeper in an attempt to be funny, I guess? Rus and Clau were a total non-factor, but I can't help but like them given that they just drip smugness and try-hard threatening attitude, only to get steamrolled by Wake's team the second they raise a sword to him. They were bodied so hard that they actually get erased from the rest of the plot, never being mentioned or referenced again except for a DLC rematch quest. That's just funny. Rus' only accomplishment in the entire game was to assist Clau in killing a single monster that was already restrained. Clau only did slightly more by killing a few NPC non-Disciple bodyguards, then killing a defenseless old man after surprising him with a kiss. Solid work guys. I like to imagine that Rus and Clau were the first members of Enzea's Red-Shirt army, but the face-concealing helmets got delayed by Amazon at the last moment.  Another high point for the game is the overall design direction. The colors in this game's artwork are beautiful. AngelMarker is very heavy on black and purple, which even extends to the design of Wake's default costume. The Academy has a stark divide between Elites and Standards with the Elites wearing a combination of pure white uniforms lined with gold/blue/red trim, while the Standards wear very drab tan and dark green. The heroines all have bright color schemes and elaborate designs. The whole visual novel portion of the game just looks really really nice. Some people might find it overbearing, but I absolutely love the mix of colors in this game.  They also showed a lot more restraint on the costumes than I would have expected from a game like this. The heroine costumes are all pretty modest. Narika's is a little exposing, but she's still largely covered. Chloe is the nail that sticks out here, as her costume looks like it got run through a shredder. Not only does it not really match her character (she's a teacher, and her pop-idol outfit isn't particularly bold), but it also looks really out of place next to the other heroines. Finally, the game does have some pretty catchy music tracks. The dungeon music is mostly forgettable with the exception of that awesome main Engrishy battle theme. The overworld, shop, Star Child Class selection, and opening tunes can get stuck in your head for ages. The stumbling block are the heroine's themes. Some of them are distinct and appropriate such as Fuuko's and Narika's. Fuuko's is light and bouncy, and it has this effect that I think sort of sounds like the crunching of a sneaker or cleat hitting dirt. This is in line with her character type of being the sort of tomboy/sporty one of the group. Narika's is very gentle and calming, which matches her character of being shy and kind. But then you have themes like Serina and Torri's, which have a very similar beat. They do match the characters (Serina's sounds very 'tiny' or 'childish' in a way, while Torri's is kind of weird and slightly off), but they don't sound especially unique. Chloe's theme sounds more like lobby or elevator music, when you would expect something more catchy and pop oriented since she becomes a pop idol. Ellie and Feene's themes are okay, but I can't really pin down how they match to character traits. Those two themes are just kind of... there. The ending theme is fine, but it doesn't sound very uplifting compared to the game's ending. It's a vocal track with a piano accompaniment, which I think is a bit too low energy in my personal opinion. It sounds like the kind of song you would play during the second half of the credits sequence, once the main ending theme had run its course.  As far as Conception 2's major faults, it should be obvious what this game does wrong. Dungeons get longer and longer as the game progresses and none of them are particularly interesting to explore or look at. Enemies don't have good enough AI or skill variety to provide much of a challenge, so you can breeze through the game without having to use half of the systems that the game introduces you to. MECUNITE is rarely necessary, even for bosses, and Chaining is very difficult to make use of since 90% of enemies will drop in 2 or 3 hits. Not having any difficulty modes is a big strike as well. The regular difficulty of the game is just too easy. Enemies don't work very well together or coordinate, so it's very easy for the player to just pick them off one by one while the other enemies run around in circles trying to attack. The Visual Novel portions are also surprisingly short. The beginning and middle portions are full of story beats, but the closer you get to the end the quicker the game blows through them. It gets to the point where the ending is over with before you've had time to blink. Wake provides some very light narration that last a few sentences each, and that's about all you get. The heroine endings are either very involved (such as Feene's and Fuuko's) or are skipped over in a few seconds (Narika's and Chloe's). Routes like Feene's will talk about what her and Wake do after graduation and how their life together begins, but Narika's only does a brief mention of her and Wake being on the World Peace Council. It's kind of disappointing. There's also the problem I mentioned in the character analysis where Ellie's route gets significant attention while the other heroines are less developed. The world is not well built either. As mentioned in Ellie's analysis, we learn extremely little about the world outside of the main Fort City island. The story gives no information on the government, we never get to see the holy city or interact with other members of the Church aside from Mattero and some Priests (which is very strange considering Wake is God's Gift), and we only get to see brief glimpses of cities throughout the world when Enzea does his broadcast. The database provides some background, but it still doesn't provide a clear picture of what kind of world Aterra actually is. This is why Conception II is a very mixed bag for me. It does a lot of things right, or at the very least competently, but it has roughly an equal amount of poorly done things. I can only imagine that a lot of it is due to some kind of budget or time constraint. Spike Chunsoft isn't an overly large studio, and this series isn't one of their cash-cows like Danganronpa. I don't have the first game to compare quality with since it has not been localized, but I would be interested to see if a lot of the issues this game has were present in the first title. A PS4 release is happening in Japan, but I don't see much chance of that making its way to English. Even still, this game was enjoyable enough on its own. It's just a very safe, middle of the road, JRPG.  With that said, this brings an end to my first LP. I want to thank Commander Keene for finding a site that hosted the complete art assets for the game, since that made my work significantly easier. I also want to thank everyone that followed along in the thread and took part in the heroine and Star Child voting. It was nice to have some thread participation going on for such a low-key title. I really enjoyed doing this LP, and I'm glad that my first attempt at one didn't end in complete disaster. I still have some stylistic issues to work out, but at least I have a little experience with the process and have found a work flow that fits me. So thank you everyone in the thread, any lurkers that followed along from the shadows, and anyone that might be reading this on the archive in the future (hopefully). Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 01:40
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quote:That tag scene really plays out like everyone coming together to be like a family to Torri, which is a sweet moment because that's what the girl needs. Going back to Elizabeth from Persona 3, I think it helps that unlike Torri she is shown to have her own personality and job. Like if Igor said she went out into a Shadow-infested labyrinth, you wouldn't be worried about her, she is shown to be competent and able to take care of herself (and that's before she rips you a new one as a bonus boss). And none of her forays into the real world require you to rescue her, she's kind of got her own ideas about the human world but she's not nearly as out of it as Torri is. Which is why romancing her doesn't feel as awkward as with Torri, as you said, you're not acting like a surrogate parent to Elizabeth, just as a friend/lover.
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Jan 2, 2019 02:53
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SSNeoman posted:Going back to Elizabeth from Persona 3, I think it helps that unlike Torri she is shown to have her own personality and job. Like if Igor said she went out into a Shadow-infested labyrinth, you wouldn't be worried about her, she is shown to be competent and able to take care of herself (and that's before she rips you a new one as a bonus boss). And none of her forays into the real world require you to rescue her, she's kind of got her own ideas about the human world but she's not nearly as out of it as Torri is. Which is why romancing her doesn't feel as awkward as with Torri, as you said, you're not acting like a surrogate parent to Elizabeth, just as a friend/lover. Elizabeth is a different situation because she is only naive to the ways of the protagonists world. She understands her own world and her life just fine. She also has some knowledge of things that should and should not be done. Elizabeth is just innocently curious and excited to learn about something she hasn't experienced. Torri isn't like that. Torri is flighty and somewhat reckless in her learning of the world. She bolts off on her own at a moment's notice and disappears from the sight of her friends or protectors. She is loose with her limited money and frequently roams around hungry. She has no sense of what is proper or improper (she was just going to wander off into the Academy hallway stark naked). She almost dies multiple times because she seems to value getting other people what they want over her own well being. Elizabeth is a fish out of water. Torri is a child. That's the big difference and the reason why one relationship is creepy and one is not. I stand firm in my opinion that Wake's relationship with Torri should have purely been that of an older brother or a parent/guardian. Torri doesn't need a boyfriend in her life, she needs an adult. She needs someone that can raise her into a functional adult so she doesn't end up getting abducted or dying in a homemade plane or getting herself killed because a friend offhandedly mentions wanting something. I wish I was exaggerating her naivety, but she literally commandeers a one-of-a-kind airship and an experimental Brace that has known negative side effects on her, then charges headfirst into a monster infested maze with the intention of clearing it out. She does this without informing anyone or leaving any notes about where she went. All of that was done because Wake responded to her question with "I really want to bring peace to the world and stop the Dusk Circles". Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 03:33
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Conception 1 got an anime adaptation which just ended, and I have heard nothing but awful things about it. The few people I know that watched it all the way through did so entirely out of spite for what they'd seen up to the point they decided not to drop it, in order to give it scathing commentary, rather than out of actual interest (or hope it would improve). Apparently Mattero and Chlotz combined are like maybe 10% as creepy as the designated creepazoid character in C1. To be honest, if the game was as bad as the anime sounds - and given the fuckups the second game made, I'm inclined to think the first was significantly worse as a game, even before you think about how it apparently had more than double the amount of dateable girls and possibly more dungeons as well - I'm surprised it got a sequel game at all!
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Jan 2, 2019 04:40
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Thanks for this LP! I might go back and finish my run of it, but at least I know what happens if I don't.
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Jan 2, 2019 05:32
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