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Just finished the Raging Loop main story, thought it was really good overall though the ending got a bit convoluted. Massive story spoilers the purges being an implausible murder panopticon set up by the main village with absolutely nothing supernatural going on felt like a bit of a let-down, especially as the entire premise of the story was an explicitly supernatural event i.e. the time loop. But it made up for it with the surprisingly heartfelt resolution with the god and the villagers, which felt like a good payoff for the way the story was at pains to humanise and sympathise with all the characters. As other people above have said, Fusaishi was a pretty fun protagonist. I liked the way he goes from seeming like a bit of a weirdo to a more conventional heroic role only to turn it round again and reveal he's a ridiculous sociopath all while feeling true to his character, and it helps some of the more left-field twists like his ex being the clerk, or the rules-lawyering he pulls to beat Rikako go down more easily. There's a real risk with protagonists like that just getting away with everything, but despite being a sociopathic genius there's plenty of times he gets outplayed or blindsided, and I like that he gets a happy ending that doesn't downplay all the weird poo poo he's done and experienced. Also I like that they didn't tie up literally every loose end such as what the hell was going on with Meiko but I haven't read the extra scenes so maybe that'll clear things up.
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Jul 8, 2020 22:01
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Raging Loop thoughts before I go into Myth: First, characters: - Haruaki's logic for not getting together with Chiemi yet, that they'll end up content in the time loop, actually makes a lot of sense. "We'll get together after we get through this nightmare" is a standard response for him, and one I can respect. Chiemi in general is an interesting character. Has some very believable reactions to being stuck in this looping hell. - Not exactly happy with Haru being a romantic interest, but at least nothing came of it. I don't know how accurate it is, and I don't care, but I'm choosing to read it as the actual interest being one-sided, and Haruaki humoring her to win as a wolf and because he does care about her in a platonic way. Yeah, I know this is also the route where you murder people, but come on. I was hoping the game would be better than that. - On the other hand, at least Rikako backed down on the sexual assault as soon as Haruaki was able to express that he wasn't interested. Outside of that, pretty standard Japanese love interest. Up until the reveal, I did just think that "Bedroom Womanservant" meaning "high-class prostitute" was just something they were being tasteful enough to not bring up. - Honestly, there are were a couple different things I though the game was just being tasteful enough to not bring up that turned out to be plot points. - Meiko is a complete nonentity story-wise, more of a macguffin than a character, but she's cute. - Of the minor characters, I think the only one who's unpleasantly one-note is Tae, who is never anything but horrendously unlikeable regardless of the loop. - Well, that and the old man, but I'll talk about him a bit more in the story bit. Now, story: - So, the three goddesses are definitely the Mountain Tripartite, the Badger who was once something much greater, and the dreaming kaiju. - I'm not remotely surprised that Chiemi's along for the ride with the loops, the game actually hints at it pretty heavily, but it's so early before the reveal that it's possible for a player to forget about it. - The timeloop being meta and involved in the plot itself also isn't a surprise at all, that's basically become the cliche of these kinds of games now. - Game, you cannot have your "this timeloop is an evil god trying to savescum its own revival" cake and eat a "ah, but the feast was entirely mundane the whole time!" reveal, too. "This is just some small-time deity caught up in something much bigger than herself" makes way more sense given the story, and I'm really hoping the 'it's actually mundane' twist is a double-bluff. Otherwise, there are some things that still can't be explained. - No, seriously, "modern technology did it" actually strains the suspension of disbelief way more in this case than "it's loving magic" does. - Even if they are going to do the tech route, they've drastically misused the old man as a tool for making it more plausible. "This ancient family compelling people to murder each other is worried about some info about centuries old slave-trafficking" is ridiculous. What does he even get out of staying in a destitute shithole? He doesn't even get to murder people himself, he's not a wolf in any loop. There's definitely more to him than this. - Still 100% sure the convenience store is involved in some way. Her name's ???, not Store Clerk, that's a dead giveaway. - Trying to figure out what the trigger for summoning the dead god is, or what makes it impossible. I'm not sure whether I can recommend this game yet. I think I need to see how it sticks the landing. The first half is great, but then it starts to stumble, especially once the Darkness arc comes. I don't know yet if it's going to recover and assuage all my fears about things getting dumb, or just complete its nosedive into the dirt. Guess I'll find out today. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jul 8, 2020 |
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Jul 8, 2020 22:06
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Gato posted:Also I like that they didn't tie up literally every loose end such as what the hell was going on with Meiko but I haven't read the extra scenes so maybe that'll clear things up.
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Jul 8, 2020 22:15
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Maybe don't read this until you've finished, but while I agree with most of your points, especially the modern technology one, I thought this one did make sense:PMush Perfect posted:- Even if they are going to do the tech route, they've drastically misused the old man as a tool for making it more plausible. "This ancient family compelling people to murder each other is worried about some info about centuries old slave-trafficking" is ridiculous. What does he even get out of staying in a destitute shithole? He doesn't even get to murder people himself, he's not a wolf in any loop. There's definitely more to him than this. Haruaki himself wonders if the slave-trafficking thing is really enough of a reason for the Miguruma to keep the old man around, but reasons that from their point of view he's so low-maintenance there's no harm for them in playing it safe and chucking him whatever scraps he needs to keep alive. He's perfectly content to live in garbage and gently caress with people, since he's a just a straight-up bastard on a level that Haruaki finds terrifying. I don't know if we ever find out whether his attempt to fake being the spider in the second route is because he's the badger, or because he just likes causing chaos, and he murders a child in the first route (where he definitely isn't the badger) for no real reason at all. As for the wolf thing, there's a throwaway line where Haruaki realizes the old man must have been a wolf in the feast 8 years before. Kanzo, the old man and the recently dead guy who let slip about the badger were the only survivors, and Kanzo knew they only got one of the three wolves.
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Jul 8, 2020 22:31
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Hey Gato, In the revelation mode, it tells you who has what role that game at the start of each game
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Jul 9, 2020 00:08
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And done! Time for Revelation Mode... later. Enjoyed most of the explanation... except for the part with child sexual assault being an important plot point. But I guess that's just VNs for you.
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Jul 9, 2020 01:17
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Also finished Raging Loop. Haven't touched Revelation Mode or the Extra scenes, but here are my brief thoughts on the main game: Yomi and Wit were great. They set up interesting mysteries with very refreshing characters. It was fantastic to have a protagonist as smart as Haruaki. I felt like all the subtle details were executed perfectly, and the writing did a great job of realistically portraying how the same characters would act in different situations without ever betraying their core personalities. Darkness was good, but it was where I started getting frustrated with the game for holding the answers so close to its chest. It felt like the point where some of the information dumps from the key 20+ branches should have been interspersed more naturally. Myth was mostly garbage that got worse the longer it dragged on. The first part, where Haruaki pulls off the best acting job of his life, was fantastic-- it had solid emotional climaxes for the majority of the cast, and it weaved its reveals in well. The second part with Rikako just felt kind of nonsensical, though the gambling swindle was cool. For what was ostensibly the climax to the main plot, it felt weirdly rushed, and I'm not sure I really understand everything it was getting at. The final part with the Miguruma just felt... cartoonish and pointless, and with nothing but faceless characters involved it lacked any heart or reason to care. Overall I enjoyed it, even if I feel like it botched the ending as completely and thoroughly as possible. I'm going to go back and read all the spoiler tagged stuff while I finish digesting the ending.
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Jul 9, 2020 01:19
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Okay, yeah, the killing God and creating a new story bit was pretty great. Though I think that defeat the family bit could've been handled much better and more simply by bringing back up their fear of being revealed to the public. Old guy was dead, so his contact would spill the beans, and there were reporters directly in front of them who couldn't be easily killed, and would be missed if they didn't return. A more logical resolution that would still fit Haruaki being kind of a sociopath would be more along the lines of him presenting the logic that their options were to either play along and accept the new story that still gave them some measure of power, or to end up in a PR shitstorm from as many different angles as possible. The former human trafficking in the village will be extremely easy to downplay as long as there's nothing else shady going on for anyone investigating the story to find, but if there's a broader conspiracy, and with no more supernatural protection, their power and isolation would be crushed under the wheel of modern society. And it'd fit Haruaki just fine, because he'd basically be encouraging them to stay in power, just in a more subtle way. It wouldn't do anything about the village still being a horrendously poor ghetto for undesirables.
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jul 9, 2020 |
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Jul 9, 2020 01:23
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Gato posted:Just finished the Raging Loop main story, thought it was really good overall though the ending got a bit convoluted. Massive story spoilers the purges being an implausible murder panopticon set up by the main village with absolutely nothing supernatural going on felt like a bit of a let-down, especially as the entire premise of the story was an explicitly supernatural event i.e. the time loop. This is something that's been bugging me as well. I still need to get through Revelation mode, so maybe this is incorrect, but it's led me to speculate that there's definitely more supernatural stuff going on with the Migaruma and Feast behind the scenes than we're shown/led to believe in the first playthrough. (Granted, we're basically shown outright that there is a supernatural element in play outside of the Spider God, what with Haru/Badger and the "God" psychosis/end-route ritual, but I mean even more than that.) Why was Chiemi breaking apart like a yomibito in the first route and the Chiemi looping-reveal branch? Why were they never able to reach/cross the Saranaga despite hours of running when trying to escape in the first ending? How were the old man and the wimpy Kamifujiyama "werewolves" -- thrashed by three unarmed civilians in the final route --capable of killing Chiemi with the hundreds/thousands of loops of practice she's had with gunslaughter and escape attempts? She said she was never able to beat the werewolves when they showed up after she killed the dogs... but that doesn't make any sense given what happened in the final route. We can handwave a lot of this away by saying that it was just Rikako manipulating the dream, but a lot of it ends up making even less sense given what her own win condition is, or the extent of the power she holds. She doesn't have omniscience, nor does she actually seem to have much control over what happens in the dream. Otherwise, she could just conjure up a bunch of monsters to kill everyone she needs dead, or something else along those lines. Hell, since she's capable of getting just as much practice in the dream loops as Chiemi did, she could probably get to a point of killing everyone by hand herself. I think the Migaruma really were channelling the vengeful Ookami with the feast and making supernatural poo poo happen. It was supplemented by conventional technology and manipulation, but actual ritual and magic were happening at the same time. There are too many things that can't be plausibly explained by technology with the feast, like why the rabid dogs ignore the wolf players or the consistent, incomprehensible psychosis of villagers that gain the wolf role. Why, and how, the new version of the feast started after the war. Why the Migaruma are carrying it out and managing to pull it off for decades despite the real dangers and lack of benefit to themselves, and why they pulled out and agreed to stop after hearing Haruaki's "story" at the end, despite being fully capable of retaking control of the situation. And Badger herself says that there are three "real" gods present... though only one is Haruaki's enemy. The Ookami may well be a real force that were influencing and being influenced by what was happening. The supernatural happenings and elements that couldn't have been attributed to Badger, the Spider God, or Mitsuji's Organisation were caused by the Ookami and Migaruma. The Ookami probably wanted to be freed from the corruption that hundreds of years of Yomi-Purge Feasts had inflicted upon them, which came to a head after the return of the soldiers from the war and which instigated the first "real" feast -- an actual return of vengeful "grudge"-Ookami/evil psychosis from Yomi/PTSD/both (in the same way that Haru "resurrected" Badger), which the Migaruma ended up having to deal with as the ruling priests. I might be misremembering Rikako's explanation, but I think this is also why she needed to wait for the Feast to birth the Spider God, and not just contrive something to kill everyone she needed sooner -- the Feast really did cause a connection between the Earth and Yomi which the Spider would need to be resurrected. The Ookami in their protective aspect, however, also wanted to stop Spider's birth, and so actively worked against Rikako by enforcing the rules of the Feast against her and her potential pawns, bringing in Haruaki, and giving him and/or Chiemi the looping ability. When Haruaki did the "god-killing" ritual on the last route, that was one of the goals of the Ookami all along -- rehabilitation and freedom from the evil they had been shaped into and trapped within. e: Big wall of text with a lot of reaching, but yeah anyway werewolves 
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Jul 9, 2020 01:52
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Hiveminded posted:There are too many things that can't be plausibly explained by technology with the feast, like why the rabid dogs ignore the wolf players I think this can be explained with the dogs being trained to avoid water. quote:Why was Chiemi breaking apart like a yomibito in the first route and the Chiemi looping-reveal branch? This one definitely has me scratching my head.
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Jul 9, 2020 02:09
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I think it can be inferred that while the real Ookami-sama was genuinely vengeful, they also started indirectly sponsoring Haruaki's attempts to break the ritual (at any cost) once they realized he had a shot at it. Ookami-sama wasn't ready to let bygones be bygones just yet, but if someone made the right efforts...
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Jul 9, 2020 02:10
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There are explanations for a lot of stuff in Revelation mode, but there are also a few details that are only in Japanese interviews/blog posts or in the official material book. I believe Chiemi's body breaking down is one of these. Speaking of Japanese, maybe it's time to write my feelings about the translation. As usual with games I'm playing for the podcast, I've read it in Japanese and then again in English so I can be in sync with my cohosts. I have very mixed feelings about the translation of this game -- it's not horrible by any means but it does a lot of questionable things that make me feel the overall experience is much lesser in English. To start with, this is a very functional translation. I'm not a big fan of embellishments original texts so I'm happy that the translation is accurate, but sometimes it's accurate to a fault. In some places it even goes into the "literal translation that loses its meaning" territory. At some points lines that were translated too literally just sound completely wrong in English, of funny when they're not meant to be. That said, I also feel like some characters lost their voices. The Japanese dialogue is far from being a masterpiece of character writing, but characters do get well thought of mannerisms and speech patterns that are more than just the usual cliches. The English dialogue mostly felt like they all had the same voice with some accent quirks thrown in. There's also the game's handling of classical and old-style Japanese, which range from just ignoring it (i.e. in the Shin'nai counting song) to a complete translation failure where they are forced to translate it into a version of old English that turns the scene from creepy to comedic. Amphibian is very fond of plot-significant wordplay, and the translation just does the worst thing possible: literally saying "hey, there's wordplay you don't understand here" over and over. A lot of these moments were genuinely neat a-ha! moments for me, and made me feel if I had been paying a little more attention I could've figured them out ahead of time. And finally, though the game does a good job of explaining real-world Japanese history and mythology, I still feel like it was written assuming the reader has at least the base level of knowledge people who went through the Japanese education system have. There are some Japanese words thrown in without explanation, and again a lot of a-ha! moments that I think will go over your head if you're not already familiar with the subjects. Now, none of this is easy to solve. The game certainly doesn't make the translator's job easy. I have no idea how to handle most of this stuff myself. But still, it's something to keep in mind.
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Jul 9, 2020 02:13
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orenronen posted:I have no idea how to handle most of this stuff myself. But still, it's something to keep in mind. Which reminds me, I really liked the tell that Haruaki always says 'umm' before lying. It'll make things extremely interesting on a reread, noticing what's a direct lie, and what's not. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jul 9, 2020 |
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Jul 9, 2020 02:15
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orenronen posted:There are explanations for a lot of stuff in Revelation mode, but there are also a few details that are only in Japanese interviews/blog posts or in the official material book. I believe Chiemi's body breaking down is one of these. I'm trying to look it up but I'm not having any luck. Do you remember what the deal is with that? quote:Speaking of Japanese, maybe it's time to write my feelings about the translation. If nothing else, I wish they'd shown us the kanji that was used in some of the wordplay much earlier. At least make it possible to realize there are double meanings hidden around 
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Jul 9, 2020 02:21
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PhysicsFrenzy posted:I'm trying to look it up but I'm not having any luck. Do you remember what the deal is with that? The particular blog post that answers some unanswered questions is here: https://kemco.adv-game.com/?p=4602 Let me try and do a rough translationof this particular answer. - Why did "that thing" happened to Chiemi at the end of chapter 3? a: The same "end of dream" mysterious death that happens when loops end is happening here (i.e. this is around the time when "that woman" dies) b: This game's concept for mystical phenomena: "If the input matches the output, the process to get from one to the other can be anything" a+b: The "waking-dream-like conclusion both could consent to" resulted from Haruaki and Chiemi's shared unconscious grasp of the situation. Addendum: The werewolves who kill Haruaki here are "real werewolves" who appear for those same reasons.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:07
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Because I don't really know kanji whenever characters in a vn start talking about some clever reading or writing of kanji I just kinda turn my brain off and accept whatever they're saying at face value. Maybe one day I'll learn more. Full game spoilers: Even though I didn't get anything out of what was being explained I noticed not too late into the story that Fusaishi talked multiple times about the kanji making up his name and didn't, that I can recall, give the same explanation each time. I think that was the first thing that made me doubt his identity, though at the time he could've just been lying about the way his name is written for kicks. Also the rabid dogs and water thing is easily the element of the story that strains my suspension of disbelief the most mainly because I don't get how you would train rabid dogs to follow any particular rule, especially staying away from water, something all life needs to survive. Picking literally any other substance would've been less unbelievable.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:26
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Nep-Nep posted:Also the rabid dogs and water thing is easily the element of the story that strains my suspension of disbelief the most mainly because I don't get how you would train rabid dogs to follow any particular rule, especially staying away from water, something all life needs to survive. Picking literally any other substance would've been less unbelievable.
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Jul 9, 2020 07:56
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Nep-Nep posted:Because I don't really know kanji whenever characters in a vn start talking about some clever reading or writing of kanji I just kinda turn my brain off and accept whatever they're saying at face value. Maybe one day I'll learn more. It's not that unbelievable; rabies is also called 'hydrophobia,' and you have trouble drinking because of your intense fear of water when it's in full swing. ...For humans, anyway. Dogs don't get that symptom. So it's wrong, but not crazy.
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Jul 9, 2020 08:03
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Just in case there's any one else interested, the Vita version of Root Double has finally gotten an EU release.
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Jul 9, 2020 11:46
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Wait, people other than me actually read I/O?klapman posted:The A route of that was kind of confusing but interesting enough as an opener, the B route was actually pretty charming and fun, and then C and D were very confusing. And then there was D', C', B', and A'. That game was way too long and way too obscure about every single thing it was trying to say about whatever it was about. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on I/O as well. As much as I absolutely loved the A, B and E routes (to the point that if it were just those, I'd probably have it as a solid favorite) and the general atmosphere, I can't help but feel like it would have been better served by excising the ' routes and sticking to a couple of consistent stories, without the nanoassemblers, actually going backwards in time, quantum computer children whatevers and so on.
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Jul 9, 2020 14:52
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Umineko Ep 1 speculation Just got to the first murders, something is definitely up here. Natsuhi having constant stress headaches and doubting her self worth, only for the Family head to tell her how valued she is is extremely suspect. And if your writing a mystery, even a subversive one you simply cannot waste a good locked room. I believe Kinzo was actually murdered that night in his room a long with the rest of the party and put somewhere else, perhaps the gold bar room. If I accept the prophecy that would mean one of the people in the store house was actually alive. In the Character section all but two of the people had their faces totally smashed in. Shannon and Krauss. Kyrie made a mention of shannon dressing up as Beatrice, I'm guessing shes actually alive and will pose as Beatrice. I'm totally speculating here but I'm thinking there's more than one Beatrice on this island. Kyrie is also suspect as hell but she seems pretty drat dead so I have no idea what her angle is The whole furniture thing is also suspect, they keep talking about observing, If this whole thing is a sort of game the "Furniture" servants seem like some sort of referee or spectator. Lastly the character bios are maybe written by Maria? the one on her mothers death says she won't be lonely because she'll see her again, reference to maria's death or the witch resurrecting souls? More lastly I swear I've heard a sort of clicking during certain dialogue scenes, don't know what that's about but I'm keeping my ears open Most lastly I just noticed Shannon seems to have the Crest tattooed on her thigh instead of wearing it, that is very not good for her not being a suspect. Also Kyrie mentioned Romance's having a better mystery than mysteries. This game is definitely a Romance game and not a murder mystery, I'm assuming everyone else has also been dropping these crazy clues and foreshadowing but I'm missing it.
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Jul 10, 2020 05:58
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Anything I should know before cracking open Steins;Gate?
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Jul 10, 2020 06:09
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PMush Perfect posted:Anything I should know before cracking open Steins;Gate? I Don't remember anything in particular that should trip you up. Enjoy it's a good story well told. More Umineko Speculation Okay Maria just mentioned seventh circle of the sun, It's tentatively confirming some stuff I've been thinking about. The most obvious reference to seven circles is Dante's Inferno and it's sequels. Obviously Beatrice is his guide through heaven, the thing I'm thinking, and this is based on almost nothing but literary reference and my knowledge of how much VN writers like to gently caress with the whole conceit of the medium. The novel stars Dante and he is guided by Beatrice. But both these characters are only literary one's based on the real life Author and his crush. So I'm thinking it's a whole duality thing, I've already seen a little but of it with Rosa being a nice kind woman, who also beats her kid, but I'm guessing there's also a bigger medium utilizing thing here. A sort of Character Battler and a "True" battler. Perhaps he's the one in the actual narration like ever 17 style. He is my most likely candidate for a Dante type either him or the Family head. Don't really know what this means for the actual novel but I guess this "game" is somehow a trip through the circles of hell in some way. The golden land is a sort of heaven then. Hideyoshi also mentioned the Magic circle as looking like an Iron Cross. I once heard someone as describing the correct way to read Gene Wolfe as to treat everything as true even the things that are contradictory, I'm gonna use the same logic here. So it's both a Dante reference and a Germany reference, It tracks with the whole family 2nd gen being named after Nazi's. I thought that it might just be Cause they're all total assholes but they must have something more to it if it's being referenced this way. There's only four names on the magic circle and four people had their face smashed in. Only four are dead in that store room, someone else is dying this day for the witches prophecy I apologize if my writing is incoherent I'm slightly drunk and posting here is helping me to organize my thoughts. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 06:37
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Eva and Krauss sure but which nazis were named Rudolf and Rosa? Also not to confirm or deny any of your theories but the 7th circle of the sun isn't something the author made up, it's a "real" thing from astrology and its supposed effect is as Maria desribes.
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Jul 10, 2020 06:45
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Droyer posted:Eva and Krauss sure but which nazis were named Rudolf and Rosa? Don't know if I thought that far ahead on Rosa but Rudolf could be Rudolf Hess. I know jackshit about astrology so I'm gonna assume it's some reference to Beatrice guiding Dante through the seven celestial spheres, the irony being that the game is referencing circles which is what Hell is made up of as it's an imperfect recreation of God's domain. Idk man I should probably just keep reading You got me thinking about Rosa, I was thinking the Bitch of Buchenwald was called rosa klebb but that's actually a character from james bond so scratch that, but that means I can't find a high ranking nazi called rosa which means she ain't actually part of the Utsunomiya family, that's why she feels her position is so weak. Maybe shes the Daughter of the Old lady servant? Thematic naming giving out clues is a terrible thing to base speculation on but gently caress that I'm rolling with it. Just fot to battler saying he didn't have the Scorpion charm. I knew it was a red herring that mirror natsuhi had must've reflected her bad fortune to be chosen onto the family head. So shannon killed the people in the dining room after locking them in, went to kill Natsuhi couldn't get in and then killed Kijo for the last sacrafice then put all the people in the Rose shed. Also I noticed the Inverted cross that battler shares with Kyrie. That's the symbol of saint peter, I speculate that there's a connection unseen between him and Kyrie, Either she is actually his mother or his instincts are right and she's his older sister. Peter is catholically the successor of the church after jesus so Battler must be the old man's true successor. The prophecy mentions taking all that the Utsunomiya clan has as repayment but one of Kijo's scenes mentions that Battler has rejected his place in the family, not sure but there's something there It's looking to me like George committed the murders with the help of shannon, what a dick [/spoiler] Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 07:19
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PMush Perfect posted:Anything I should know before cracking open Steins;Gate? Not much, really ! Steins is probably the most self-contained out of all the Semicolon;Games, so apart from having a guide handy for the phone triggers (seriously, whoever designed the trigger system in the Semicolon;Games needs to be punished) there's not much in the way of prerequisites.
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Jul 10, 2020 07:49
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PMush Perfect posted:Anything I should know before cracking open Steins;Gate? You'll need to follow a flowchart or something for the true end, just ignore it until you get your first ending. Otherwise enjoy
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Jul 10, 2020 08:32
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Gaius Marius posted:Edit: Woops sorry guys
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Jul 10, 2020 08:40
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Thanks, y'all.Yakiniku Teishoku posted:You'll need to follow a flowchart or something for the true end, just ignore it until you get your first ending. Otherwise enjoy
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Jul 10, 2020 08:44
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Don't forget to check the phone regularly, you sometimes get neat little tidbits that way that are very missable.
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Jul 10, 2020 11:25
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I'm getting ready to jump back in to Higurashi, and I'm finding that trying to figure out what actually happened is harder a month later than it would have been at the time, since a lot of details have escaped me now, especially about the first game. I had some thoughts I meant to write up a few weeks ago, but I never got around to it and now I don't remember all of what I meant to say then either. Oh well, I didn't expect to figure it all out anyway. Here are some quick thoughts, but I'm mostly going into the answer arc looking for answers instead of looking for confirmation that I have them: I'm suspicious about that actually being Mion at the end of game 2. She makes a big point of saying I Mion Sonozaki am guilty of blah blah, and offers to take off her shirt to show her tattoo, but since Keiichi and Rena took her word for it, I'm thinking that was a bluff and it was Shion. The inability to tell them apart was such a big part of that installment in particular, so I feel like it had to be a bigger deal than just a phone call here and there. I don't remember the details of what happened in the torture room well enough to know if it all lines up with what everyone was saying there, but I'm going with my gut on this one. I still don't know why Keiichi wasn't just killed in the torture room though, or what was going on after that, particularly in the hospital where Keiichi at least believed he was being attacked again in a place where you'd think he'd be safe. For game 3 my crazy theory is that some segment of the Japanese government might have been behind destroying the village for getting in the way of the dam project and causing so many problems, just because the curse explanation seems too easy. Ooshi still being alive in the latter part of part 4 suggests it wasn't Keiichi wishing everyone dead that did it, unless he has some kind of immunity as an agent of Oyashiro or something. The interviewer dying the way Keiichi suggested is still weird and hard to explain, unless someone heard the interview and arranged it to help with the coverup? I guess I think Keiichi probably killed the wrong guy given what happened with Satoko (and the missing cop), and his classmates were probably being weird about him being at the festival because they were trying to cover for him but did a really lovely job of conveying that to him since he was losing his mind to paranoia (which calls his sanity into question in the other installments as well). Game 1 is honestly the most opaque of the three big mysteries to me, and I feel like rereading it would probably be useful, but I'm moving ahead anyway. The only reason I can think of for people turning on Keiichi is that he was talking to Ooishi and lying about it, but in a super tight knit village that's hostile to outsiders anyway, maybe that's sufficient. It still feels like his friends could have just leveled with him instead of hinting mysteriously in ways that freaked him out and made him turn to Ooishi even more, but as in part 3 I guess if they communicated effectively it would short circuit the story. I do question Keiichi's sanity, but I still think there probably was something supernatural going on between Rena's episode at the school in the other city and Keiichi's apparent hallucinations. A big question I still have is if Shion was active in this episode in a way that might be apparent with a reread. Hopefully I got at least something right there and don't just look like a moron. I guess I'll find out soon enough! Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 13:22
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orenronen posted:The particular blog post that answers some unanswered questions is here: https://kemco.adv-game.com/?p=4602 Thank you! Very similar to the last VN I read, in that regard. Gaius Marius posted:Umineko Ep 1 speculation I don't know how to comment on this without spoiling anything so I'm just gonna leave it at 'this is incredibly entertaining to read, please keep it up for another 120ish hours' 
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Jul 10, 2020 13:51
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PMush Perfect posted:Anything I should know before cracking open Steins;Gate? Make a separate save at the start of chapter 4 for later.
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Jul 10, 2020 14:01
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Aesculus posted:Wait, people other than me actually read I/O? I read about half of it and lost steam. Well, I say half... I don't know if I was even that close. I went through several of the non-' routes anyway. I had some vague ideas of where it was all going but felt like it was taking SO long to get there that i just couldn't anymore. IIRC my interpretation of the plot had to do with altering reality by creating a perfect simulation for people who did not know they were in a simulation and their complete and perfect belief in the reality presented to them would change reality on a quantum level or something like that
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Jul 10, 2020 15:15
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I/O is the only visual novel I've dropped Maybe it gets really good later but man I couldn't even get through the first route
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Jul 10, 2020 18:50
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Squiddycat posted:I/O is the only visual novel I've dropped It gets worse
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Jul 10, 2020 19:13
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Squiddycat posted:I/O is the only visual novel I've dropped Which first route did you start with? Because letting the player pick C or D at the very beginning, before clearing A and B was just... why, but I actually quite liked A and B.
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Jul 11, 2020 01:36
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There was exactly one part of I/O I recall liking and that was 'matryoshka.'
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Jul 11, 2020 01:57
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Gaius Marius posted:Umineko Ep 1 speculation A couple things that I think are good to know for anyone playing Umineko for the first time: - Don't even try to solve the epitaph unless you're fluent in Japanese (fortunately it's not even remotely necessary) - Try to focus more on learning about the characters and their circumstances and motivations rather than strictly the mechanics/logic (though that's also obviously useful to consider - it's just that it's basically impossible to solve in a way that makes sense if you only focus on the mechanics) - I don't know if you mentioned this, but if you're playing the Steam version download the PS3 sprites or use the original sprites - it physically pains me that there are people playing the game with the default Steam release sprites. The second thing there is really the most important IMO. Many people end up confused (including me when I first played it) because they focus mostly on the logic of where characters are, etc. It's very different from typical mysteries in this way. The most important information to gather from the early episodes is information about the characters, and the characters are also unquestionably the best part of Umineko - they're all very well written and (in some cases uncomfortably) realistic.
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Jul 11, 2020 02:52
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Just Started Ep 2 of Umineko Tea party was pretty fun, Beatrice is a fun character I'm sure I'm gonna see a lot more of her and i'm thankful for that. With the way the whole deal was framed though I've become convinced that the Narrator is not in the same timeframe as the characters in the story, he's definitely post killing. I'm also not convinced that it's actually battler but I'll suspend judgement until later. The believe in magic makes it real conceit is going to be the main focus of this so I'll postulate. Something did happen on the Island that killed nearly all the residents. Beatrice is trying to convince the narrator, possibly a surviving battler, that it was actually a witch. This way none of the family can be held accountable, whomever else survived is also buying into this fiction in order to releive their own guilt. What actually happaned is the families rampant greed led to a series of murder's and fake murder's over Kinzo's gold. I'm guessing George killed the Adult's to clear his succession using Shannon so he could keep pretending she loves him. The servants or someone else killed Georg'es parents by hiding in the room unbeknownst to them before they entered the room. Genji or the Doctor maybe killed the Master first, probably in accordance with his wishes. The body in the furnace probably wasn't his though the story made it clear the Six toe's ran in the Utsunomiya family so someone else is probably has that trait unbeknownst to me. After ruminating on the story last night I'm also almost a hundred percent certain I can no longer put any trust in any scene that Battler isn't directly present for, assuming his post island self, everything else is just conjecture he created in his head after seeing the evidence. It seems that whenever he isn't directly present people take on a more stereotypical version of themselves. It really hit me with George and Shannon of course Battler seeing as he's a decent dude would think their secret relationship was cute and wholesome. I bet George does as well, but frankly shes been shown to follow any order the family gave her, even admitting she'd let Battler feel her up. If she'd do that for him why not for George as well. Honestly It's gross I was also gonna go into some real Platonic poo poo about how beatrice exists, after so many characters keep saying it, and one mentioning that she has form. I'll skip the Plato element but say Beatrice is definetly real but is most likely a character being played, most likely by shannon, and maybe by multiple other guest's as a tool to their own nefarious ends. I keep rolling around the idea of Shannon and Kanon somehow switching places or something, but frankly as crass as it may be, I can't see how she'd hide her bust. Them being "Siblings" and sharing a symbolic character means something though, the game is giving me a ton of duality symbolism, or incomplete duality symbols eg: the Eagle crest. He has to be assisting her in some way at the least. Hideyoshi is my biggest question mark, his sprite is weird and I don't know what the gently caress he's doing in the story. His name is one of the three unifyers but I don't got a clue how that fits anything. The old woman probably has a secret half Uroshima childm maybe the one in the furnace? But other than that I think she's more of a hanger on than a critical plot piece. There's more I've thought of and forgot but this is getting long and I need to keep playing, That said three things I'm 100% certain of Beatrice is not the bad guy There is no 19th person There are more than the 18 people on the island Jesus George using that magic logic to justify your "relationship" with Shannon, disgusting. She is your loving employee, you pay her to say this poo poo. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jul 11, 2020 |
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Jul 11, 2020 03:08
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