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Just beat the game on switch. A great game, the story was constantly interesting, the pacing was good, and the battle system was actually really fun. The final battle was pretty insane on intense - it was not only the first mission I failed, but took over a dozen tries to find something that worked. I wasn't sure it was even possible without grinding at first. Definitely a good narrative/gameplay match when I barely managed to hold together long enough to pull it off. I'm still going over things in my head, but a couple questions about the plot: What was the deal with the Sentinels? I know that Okino designed them and had them built by the automated factories in 2105, but they seemed to have some sort of deeper connection to the system than anyone realized. They had cockpits despite Okino not including them in the design, and those cockpits weren't just a simulated environment but the actual cloning pods the real kids were in. Why does entering your sentinel show you the real world, instead of just working like any other car/train/motorcycle/etc with a simulated interior? Why did the Deimos look like the terraforming equipment? If they came from the Deimos game code, shouldn't they have looked like whatever the fictional Deimos looked like? Why was there a UFO buried beneath the city if it was all a simulation? It doesn't seem like UC would actually need anything there to manage things. The game itself glosses over it, but the Chihiro/Ida/etc from the previous loop used to have physical bodies growing in the pods the kids are in now, and once their loop failed the bodies were destroyed and the system started growing the kids from the current loop, right? Perhaps most concerning of all... how do Tomi and Gouto have glasses in their cloning pod??
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Apr 24, 2022 18:48
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Snake Maze posted:Just beat the game on switch. A great game, the story was constantly interesting, the pacing was good, and the battle system was actually really fun. The final battle was pretty insane on intense - it was not only the first mission I failed, but took over a dozen tries to find something that worked. I wasn't sure it was even possible without grinding at first. Definitely a good narrative/gameplay match when I barely managed to hold together long enough to pull it off. I'll answer what I can: Honestly, not totally clear on that myself. The Deimos look like terraforming equipment because Okino didn't actually use the kaiju in the simulation, just the management programming. 2188 Shinonome found out about this and presumably modified the code to use the available designs for the terraforming equipment to stand in for the kaiju. I have no idea what the UFO is about. Yes, the system 100% killed their original bodies. Megumi isn't wearing her glasses when she emerges from her pod, so I think the accessories are a bit of artistic license, perhaps for the sake of the pilots.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:56
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It's been a while since I played the game, but my interpretation of it was: The UFO is kind of a like a developer debug room. Presumably the UFO setting is leftover from the Kaiju game code, and when converting it into the simulation it was left in for the purpose of poking around under the hood. Okino basically accidentally accessed the original video game in the form of the Sentinals- we don't really get enough insight into how they're developed to understand how Okino did it, but presumably he unintentionally wound up digging around in the simulation's code when he was researching tech to use againts the "Kaiju." When he started accessing the Sentinals the simulation went "OK, if you want to leave the sim and play a video game here you go" and provided the cloning pods as an interface. It only looks to Okino like he's building crazy super-science robots because that's how he and everyone else interpret the results. It helps a lot if you look at the events in "Tokyo" as just the characters intepreting the code/information that's being streamed to them in whatever context they have available, and that how it looks to them is not truly representative of what's happening. PsychoInternetHawk fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Apr 24, 2022 |
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Apr 24, 2022 19:59
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It's been a while since I played but my understanding of the "cockpits" is that the robots did not actually have cockpits in the simulation (ie: there is no hollow space inside them), but taking control over one temporarily removed the pilot's "body" from the simulation, resulting in a strange out-of-body experience where they were both more aware of their real bodies than they had ever been before, and also controlling a robot at the same time. Their brains interpreted this as a "cockpit" because it was the only way they could make sense of it. IIRC it doesn't actually have buttons or controls or anything, they just control the robots with their minds and feel mental feedback from it, etc etc.
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Apr 25, 2022 07:19
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Recently got this game on Switch and am having a blast with the story. I've only unlocked a few protagonists past the ones from the prologue but this thing is moving at a breakneck pace with the reveals and I love it! Gonna drop my (very) early predictions about where some of this is going so I can come back and laugh at myself when I'm completely off base. Protags All protags are androids from the future with memories of someone else (e.g., Shu -> Tetsuya Ida) Okino is some kind of construct in his head Overarching plot Earth is invaded by aliens because we either progressed too far technologically (e.g., self-replicating machines) or were harming the universe in some way (e.g., the time travel) or both We're working with the steins;gate style of time travel logic
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Apr 27, 2022 11:38
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I got the switch port on release and blitzed through the whole thing in a week. I would play about a quarter, watch Woolie's LP up until the point where I was, and repeat. Apologies for not live posting my theories in the thread, I was too paranoid to search for the thread (or anything related to the game). About a quarter of the game was very similar to an idea I had for a story years back, so I'm thankful someone else had a better version of it and put it out in the world so that I didn't have to worry about it. The work it reminded me of most, structurally, is the Illuminatus Trilogy. Only good prediction I had was realizing there were no cockpits and everyone was in a pod partway through Ogata's story because that was simpler than throwing a guy into a sentinel to interrogate him. Other than that I was screaming "Motherfucker! No. How?!" at my screen with great frequency. The Macross Moment in 2-10. It's like, this is exactly what I hoped for when a certain character showed up hours ago, and it's great. Watching in parallel with an LP was fun because I was immediately picking up on all the details I missed the first time through a scene and it stretched out the experience. Excellent and delightful game.
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Apr 28, 2022 03:33
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Paladin posted:
fnord
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Apr 28, 2022 06:34
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Clarste posted:It's been a while since I played but my understanding of the "cockpits" is that the robots did not actually have cockpits in the simulation (ie: there is no hollow space inside them), but taking control over one temporarily removed the pilot's "body" from the simulation, resulting in a strange out-of-body experience where they were both more aware of their real bodies than they had ever been before, and also controlling a robot at the same time. Their brains interpreted this as a "cockpit" because it was the only way they could make sense of it. IIRC it doesn't actually have buttons or controls or anything, they just control the robots with their minds and feel mental feedback from it, etc etc. this is essentially correct but to be more precise about why: when the kids are in the simulation their innerlociters are basically handling all of their sensory input and need tons of processing power to do that. When they’re flying the sentinels the innerlocitor has to now handle all their sentinel control as well so they stop perceiving the simulation as clearly.
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Apr 28, 2022 11:28
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Finished playing the game and also catching up with the thread. Really wanting the Hemborger gang tag now. The one gripe I have, and this has less to do with the game and more with the genre of anime VNs as a whole, is how much emphasis is put on the courting phase of relationships and not on the "being in a relationship" part. I get that it's narratively satisfying to end a story when the two confess to each other. But there is so much intrigue inside relationships that is never touched upon, which is a shame. This brings me up to Juro and Megumi's story, which I belive squandered the opportunity of the intrigue I mentioned above. Juro, for his reasons, makes all the telltale signs of a bad boyfriend (not wanting to be seen together, coming home late intentionally, eating out while knowing that dinner is already prepared back home) and Megumi is trying too hard to appease to that, turning into a doormat in the process. Not to mention that another man comes to live with them. It's a perfect stage to tell a story of someone falling out of love, or a couple learning to communicate and overcome hardships in a relationship. And they just... don't do that? It's resolved with Juro declaring his love to Megumi and that's it. I know I'm jumping over some important details (like Juro's memory loss and how that's the point of Megumi's plotline), but I really connected to that surface story I initially saw, and was disappointed by its outcome. Maybe this is just a me problem. I've been into a few relationships myself and have long grown out of the target demographic, and crave for more adult drama in my cartoon-game about teenagers who get into giant robots to fight their feelings.
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May 2, 2022 10:18
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I agree that that relationship working out was narratively unsatisfying and seemed like it was only there because it's a happy ending and couples are always supposed to get together for happy endings.
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May 2, 2022 11:23
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I strongly dislike Juro and Megumi as a couple on the whole but in particular I hate how they seem to be the one that gets the fated couple subtext and the imagery at the end and I'm like... this feels completely unearned. These two have the complete opposite of chemistry.
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May 2, 2022 11:43
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Some of you never had a girl make you hemborgar and it shows.
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May 2, 2022 14:26
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Yeah, Juro didn't seem too into Megumi and Megumi seemed way too into Juro. The ending really reeked of that comphet "everyone get together in straight couples" thing outside of Hijiyama and Okino.
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May 2, 2022 14:35
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Probably would've been better if they'd shown more of their relationship pre-mind wipe or post-game, but the former isn't particularly important to the plot and the latter is stuffed with 15+ characters that all need a moment to shine, so the rest is left as an exercise for the reader. remembering this quality meme MorningMoon posted:I was in the shower and I suddenly had an epiphany bees x1000 fucked around with this message at 15:40 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 15:37
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I thought it was fairly well-communicated that Juro did like Megumi, but he was avoiding her because he dreamed of killing her (though some of the logic there isn't actually made totally explicit). The really weird relationship to me was Iori and Ei, which veered into self-parody at times.
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May 2, 2022 15:39
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Most of the scenes with Juro and Megumi interacting, especially the establishing ones, made me think Juro was uncomfortable with Megumi's affection and didn't like her. With the conclusion in mind I can see how the bit about how he was scared about killing her after the dreams was possibly supposed to re-contextualize it? Like, you're supposed to see it and go "Oh, he doesn't dislike her, he's just uncomfortable because of the dream". But if that was the intent it went over my head completely. Right up until the confession I was expecting the conclusion to be Megumi finally accepting that Juro Kurabe was his own person and not the same guy she fell in love with
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May 2, 2022 15:47
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Iori and Ei is fine for me. It's kind of silly, but it's believable that she'd fall in love with the cool mysterious dude, and he never seems to dislike her or anything so why not? For Juro though, he was certainly, like, physically attracted to her I suppose, but he showed not even the slightest hint that he thought of her as anything more than a creepy stalker who was blackmailing him into staying at his house. There was nothing even slightly romantic about their situation.
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May 2, 2022 15:50
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Ultimately, I think the relationship is fine, if it could use more of Juro's side, but it just suffers from the unprecedented format of the game so you can't dwell too much into Juro's memories, and there's just more possible sequences of events for you to tackle where it looks like Juro has no interest in Megumi and you shotgun her whole arc on that assumption, than seeing Juro's struggles and then take it as Megumi knowing them and trying to help.
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May 2, 2022 15:52
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It's kinda wild that you can make an overarching plot this complex, but the interpersonal relationships of the characters with eachother are cookie-cutter anime tropes. My guess is that it's executive meddling to make them more merchandisable.
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May 2, 2022 15:54
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It's more likely to me that they just wanted to get across each character's deal really quickly with shorthand so there's less to explain.
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May 2, 2022 15:57
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The tropes are all intentional. The game is a large entangled mass of references. re: fated relationships, don't forget the final unlocked scene that shows the struggle is playing out differently in other parts of the galaxy.
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May 2, 2022 16:00
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Solar Tornado posted:It's kinda wild that you can make an overarching plot this complex, but the interpersonal relationships of the characters with eachother are cookie-cutter anime tropes. There is only so much time in the day and for a plot with such a crazy narrative structure there needs to be some elements that are kind of straightforward.
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May 2, 2022 16:13
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I doubt there was much "executive meddling" considering that Vanillaware consists of like 30 people, and the script was single-handedly written by the President of the company.
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May 2, 2022 16:31
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Oh and even within loops the relationships play out differently, as shown with Izumi and Iori. Anyways now I'm thinking about how incredible the Seaside Vacation moment was and wishing I could play it again for the first time.
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May 2, 2022 16:48
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Hunt11 posted:There is only so much time in the day and for a plot with such a crazy narrative structure there needs to be some elements that are kind of straightforward. Yeah, having to write 13 distinct characters would necessitate that. Idea for a game in the thread: which characters would you remove, and which's story would you buff? I'd remove Iori, Ei, Ryouko, and Tamao And expand on Gouto (because The Ace-Attorney cross-exam moment could've been worked up to and punched up ) And Okino (specifically his lazy programmer days copying scripts off stackoverflow) Personally, I think Natsuno's story is the most solid of them all. 5 stars, scenario writer
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May 2, 2022 16:52
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I will die on the hill that Megumi was a fantastic character and she deserved her happy ending 1) Juro Kurabe still has residual feelings for her, and is in fact attracted to her (he makes a comment fairly early on about hormones). He is trying to avoid her because of the murder dreams, which is typical Noble Idiot behavior. We are not supposed to, as a rule, support Noble Idiot behavior 2) If the love of my life got amnesia and a whole new personality AND I was told I was never to see her again, gently caress OFF with that. I don't think I'd go so far as follow the whims of a talking cat only I can see; therapy exists, after all; but I would do everything in my power to get her back. 3) At roughly six months, Izumi and Megumi actually had the longest-standing relationship in the game, pre-mindwipe. And six months to a pair of sixteen-year-olds is basically an eternity 4) Megumi's story being one of grief and loss would go against the major themes of the game: namely, severe existential dread followed up with unrelenting hope. The person you love is lost forever (dread) but they are right there in front of you, and some part of them still carries that love (hope). Even the most depressing of the 13 stories ends with the poor girl straight up killing her abuser and carrying on the will and determination to fight for the future. The other hill I will die on is that Iori is also amazing, her story may not be the most relevant to the overall plot I mean other than all of her other versions being pretty much central to it but at her core she's a completely unremarkable teenage girl; she oversleeps (complete with toast-in-the-mouth-running), she falls for the cute boy she ran into, she gets treats with her friends, she questions her sexuality, etc. It's a nice balancing factor to all the other buckwild poo poo that's going on with literally everyone else. Then she finds out the cute boy is a time-traveling assassin from the future with orders to kill her(?), and she's just like "that's cool!  " because she's an unremarkable teenage girl. But of course, in the end, she's as she says, a schoolgirl with a giant robot, and she fights to protect the ones she loves.
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May 2, 2022 17:34
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All that said, I don't really think you could get away with cutting any of the 13 protagonists' stories. Ryoko's is probably the least critical, but somebody needs to kill Ida and nobody else would be anywhere near as satisfying. Miura is himself somewhat milquetoast, but he's around for most of the biggest reveals, and his other version is the best boy. As for expanding, Ogata's train loop scenario deserved better. He's got the best final story beat in the game, but it'd be nice if all the business with the "key" turned out to actually resolve somewhat more meaningfully than it did. There were in general a few pairings I'd have loved to see more of; Ogata & Natsuno and Megumi & Tomi spring to mind the most.
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May 2, 2022 17:42
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Gouto's story is just like two scenes of final exposition because you don't unlock him until the end of the game, boy is boring the whole way.
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May 2, 2022 21:15
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Gouto I think was admitted to have been shortchanged because of budget cuts, there's definitely a lot to dig into there but it is a great deal of exposition that just didn't get a chance to get dramatized.
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May 2, 2022 23:02
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May 3, 2022 00:22
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Ace Transmuter posted:The other hill I will die on is that Iori is also amazing, her story may not be the most relevant to the overall plot I mean other than all of her other versions being pretty much central to it but at her core she's a completely unremarkable teenage girl; she oversleeps (complete with toast-in-the-mouth-running), she falls for the cute boy she ran into, she gets treats with her friends, she questions her sexuality, etc. It's a nice balancing factor to all the other buckwild poo poo that's going on with literally everyone else. Then she finds out the cute boy is a time-traveling assassin from the future with orders to kill her(?), and she's just like "that's cool! Agreed about Iori Iori, Nenji, Natsuno, and Miura are my favorite chapters. At first, I thought Nenji's taking place on the train platform the entire time was kind of stupid, but the way its framed as you learn more from the other chapters cements it as one of the best for me. Also has one of the best endings
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May 3, 2022 08:49
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Solar Tornado posted:Yeah, having to write 13 distinct characters would necessitate that. I'd cut Juro. You've already got an "everyman" character in Iori, and Iori is better characterised overall. The presence of the Juro arc and its lack of interest in Megumi directly weakens Megumi's arc, and doesn't really reveal anything on its own, so if Juro was an NPC like Okino or Tamao, the various mysteries around Izumi would have been stronger. Maybe keep him for the prologue and epilogue, but just make him non-playable for the main story.
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May 3, 2022 10:37
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I'm in what I think is probably the last hour of the game (100% remembrance, like 97% destruction), and while there are some weaker characters, on the whole I thought the game has done a really good job communicating its characters considering the size of the ensemble. Between the three modes, you probably spend what, 1-2 hours on each character's pov, if that? But I still feel like I got a good grip on everyone's personalities and relationships. Really impressive game, I'm looking forward to the finale.
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May 3, 2022 12:30
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This guy usually covers animation, but he did a video for this game and it's pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUo6AlfuVV0 Some spoilers involved Also it's been what a year and a half? and I still think of this game randomly sometimes, what a gem a kitten fucked around with this message at 23:07 on May 8, 2022 |
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May 8, 2022 22:56
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a kitten posted:Also it's been what a year and a half? and I still think of this game randomly sometimes, what a gem Every now and then I remember 13 Sentinels and mention to whoever's within earshot that Fedule posted:13 Sentinels feels like a miracle, still. A lot of the time you play a really good game and it's like, it shows you something that feels newly possible, it's pushed something about the medium forward a little bit and now we can look forward to future games learning from it now that we've all been shown how. 13 Sentinels still feels impossible even having played and absorbed it, it feels like it couldn't and shouldn't have worked, like its astonishing success is some kind of aberration, like maybe it didn't work and somehow just deludes everyone into thinking it did, like we cannot possibly ever see its like again, and if we ever do it will be as much of a shock again.
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May 8, 2022 23:51
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Played through the game together with a friend. Game's so loving good. We've been basically just staring at it in disbelief and going "What the gently caress?" for 40 hours straight. This kind of storytelling is extremely my poo poo. Plus I've never seen a game with such dense plot before. Every 5 minutes there was some kind of grand world changing revelation, it felt like. The combat was only okay though. It wasn't bad but I did get tired of it by the end. EDIT: oh and also it's the only story I've seen that does It's all a dream trope without completely destroying its own story.
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May 9, 2022 06:53
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Sorry if this has been answered before, but are there any significant differences between the switch and PS4 releases?
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May 11, 2022 00:13
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S.J. posted:Sorry if this has been answered before, but are there any significant differences between the switch and PS4 releases? The combat gameplay has been changed somewhat. Certain things like turrets were nerfed and characters were given more abilities iirc. Other than that it remains a very similar experience
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May 11, 2022 00:15
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Everyone has two new unique skills, iirc.
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May 11, 2022 00:20
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poo poo, that's good enough for me
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May 11, 2022 02:06
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