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Hi everyone and welcome to the next part of second go-around/alternate route summary runthrough! This time, we have three more scenes, which I think may prove slightly more interesting than the ones we saw last time! So let's start first with another interesting bad ending! CHAPTER 4: REVEALING THAT IT'S THE REAL SUKEKIYO ON THE SECOND FINGERPRITING GATHERING! At the end of the chapter three, you will recall, Matsuko summoned everyone back to the house, for the actual fingerprinting of Sukekiyo to finally occur (without even realising that at this point Shizuma and Sukekiyo have exchanged places and she had the real Sukekiyo with her in the house). Of course, the fingerprints are a match and everybody is relieved. However, on the second playthrough, here it's possible to trigger an extra scene which leads to the discovery that Sukekiyo is the real one, with intact face, and ultimately to another (very) bad ending! So let's see how that goes. We join the story just after the successful results of the fingerprinting have been announced.            They leave.    All right, let's just use that keyword, shall we?       He leaves. A few moments later...   That would be the wake for Suketake since this is happening on the same day when he was discovered murdered.             And of course, as we already know, it's the real one this time! And now, it's time for the... Kindaichi epilogue narration, one more time! A good way to characterise this story, if I may say so.   The Inugami Family: Unsolved. So, that was pretty gruesome... the reveal of real Sukekiyo causes Shizuma to go on a rampage and murder the entire family! I'm definitely going to say that this ending is unambiguously bad! Oh, you might think that this ending is quite spoilery since it reveals Matsuko as the real killer, but there is no need to worry. As mentioned, you cannot see this ending on your first playthrough, so it's all good! For the rest of this update, we have two scenes which do exist in the book, and fill in some details of the plot that remained at least partially unaccounted for in the first go around. CHAPTER 5: CONVERSATION BETWEEN SAYOKO AND TAMAYO In this chapter at one point we learn that Tamayo was again attacked in her room by the war veteran person, just after the wake. There we have a chance to talk to different people regading what happened the previous night; one of those people is Sayoko, the sister of Suketake. She makes the following comment to Kindaichi:  But then she says that Tamayo didn't really want to discuss, so in the end nothing happened. In our second playthrough we now get to see the scene of their conversation and we can learn what it was about. We start in the hallway, outside of her room.           Then, in Tamayo's room...      Ah, so when she said that they talked about "her brother", she really meant Suketomo, not Suketake...  You should be able to easily guess where this one is going!     I think the phrase you're looking for is "well, that escalated quickly".             And so, the "mystery" of Sayoko's pregnancy is thus resolved. As you can see, it seems to have not much to do with the main mystery. Either way, it does provide one more update to our relationship diagram at this late stage in the game! Unsurprisingly, the only change is to mark the relationship between Sayoko and Suketomo:  (Click to embiggen!) I am also pretty sure that we are done with the incest at this point! We do, however, have one last added scene to see for today! CHAPTER 5: THE KIDNAPPING OF TAMAYO So, of course, you will recall that Tamayo got kidnapped by Suketomo, with less than honurable intentions at this point in the game (which also ultimately led to his demise). In the second go around, we can actually see how it all happened. Warning: Although there is no graphic imagery, Suketomo is very explicit when talking about his intentions, so if this is something that makes you uncomfortable, exericse caution with this section. Regardless, this is a fairly uncomfortable scene, but it is in the book. In any case, we find Tamayo running around the house, trying to evade her guardian, Saruzou.     He goes away, but then...   And she goes out on a boat...   She dozes off, floating on the lake.     But as soon as she climbs into his boat...  ...he puts her to sleep. He takes her to the old house...     But, suddenly, a creak of the floorboard is heard!    More creaks...   He goes out to have a look...      More creaks...    He tries to run out of the room, but...   Some time later that day, Saruzou receives a phone call...   And from there, the story continues as normal. Whew, that last scene was definitely a bit... In any case, that's all for today. Next time we'll see the last batch of added stuff in the second playthrough and then... I guess we're finally done with this game! For now, since I've been neglecting this a bit, let me leave you with some shots from the film! First of all, here is Tamayo, baiting Sukekiyo (but really Shizuma) with the watch...   ...only to carefully preserve the evidence after he refuses...:  ...so that she can give it to Suketake (yes, this scene is filmed in black and white like that):  And here are Tamayo and Sayoko having a "conversation" where Sayoko reveals that she's pregnant with Suketomo's child...     All right then, until next time! ivantod fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 26, 2020 |
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Jan 26, 2020 21:28
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That bad ending feels like a bit of a jump. "We didn't find Aonuma Shizuma and everything got confessed so...he went and murdered everyone". It feels like we missed a chapter there.
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Jan 27, 2020 00:10
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Yowch. I forget, was the forced fingerprinting an option on the first playthrough or no?
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Jan 27, 2020 02:08
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The extra scenes showing things that our detective did not see does show that Tamayo really is trying to figure things out more and kind of makes it less potential that she's the one behind the killings. Granted, I'm not sure how much of that opinion is retroactively justified hindsight but eh.
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Jan 27, 2020 07:14
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tomanton posted:Yowch. I forget, was the forced fingerprinting an option on the first playthrough or no? Blaze Dragon posted:That bad ending feels like a bit of a jump. "We didn't find Aonuma Shizuma and everything got confessed so...he went and murdered everyone". It feels like we missed a chapter there. In any case, and that brings me to my main point... there is only one update left until the end of this game, so seeing as I apparently intend to keep this thread running until the heat death of the universe itself (or possibly even further than that), we need to decide what to play next. I do promise this time to not unilaterally change the decision though, but I think it was worth it this time because this game was pretty decent as far as that goes and probably better than the ones we looked at as voting choices. Anyway, here are the options: Option 1: Play the second Kindaichi game As was mentioned already, there is another game in this mini-series by From Software, based on another Kindaichi novel: "The Village of Eight Gravestones". Mechanically and visually the game is pretty much identical to this one--it looks the same, plays the same, has all the period-appropriate newspapers to read, and you also again have to deal with the ever-changing relationship diagram as you progress through it, because you bet your rear end that that one too has a crapton of characters, but this time also some from a more distant past (Sengoku period, late 16th century) although the main game action is set in post-war Japan, just like this one! Option 2: Play another (slightly shorter) game first to clear the palate and then go back to Kindaichi And by play another game, I mean really "give it a try". I'm not doing the Batista thing again--if the game is not good or if it turns out to not be that interesting based on the reactions, we stop it and move on to the second Kindaichi game. I do have a game in mind for this already, and although it's still going to be a crime-solving chapter based VN, it's actually not a DS/3DS game this time to mix things up a bit! So, what do you think?
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Jan 27, 2020 19:11
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How do you feel about it? If you're feeling Kindaichi burn-out, absolutely go for Option 2, else Option 1 could be neat to keep who we know going.
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Jan 27, 2020 19:22
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I'd say option 2, keeps things from getting too repetitive
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Jan 27, 2020 20:32
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Yeah, palette cleanser sounds good.
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Jan 27, 2020 23:32
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Let's do option 2. I wanna see what's in the box.
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Jan 27, 2020 23:37
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Blaze Dragon posted:How do you feel about it? If you're feeling Kindaichi burn-out, absolutely go for Option 2, else Option 1 could be neat to keep who we know going. Kindaichi burnout? Yeah, probably a litle bit, although I really would have been fine with the choice going either way.  Nevertheless, I think it's not a bad idea to take a break before going back to the second Kindaichi game--and we're definitely doing that because I really enjoyed the first one, but it does require a bit more effort than typical since I did want to be able to e.g. provide context for all newspaper articles where I could. Often, it's not even possible to find any information in English, like for example with that article about the suicide of the owner of that lending company--ultimately it turned out that this is a well known case so there was an article on Japanese wikipedia, but sometimes you have to dig even deeper. So a nice and relaxing playthrough of a different game would serve as a good break before going back to it. By the way, I'm just amazed how many different TV/movie adaptations there are of Kindaichi novels--if you think about something like Poirot or other Agatha Christie characters here in the west, it's literally like that, there are tons and tons of them. And for the more popular ones like "Inugami" or "The Village of Eight Gravestones" there is typically at least 5 or 6 different ones. For some reason it seems that during the 1970s it was in particular a popular thing to do, although there are many others even from 1990s or later. In fact, the film I have been posting screenshots from (which is from 1976) was remade in 2006 by the same director and in 1996 he also filmed an adaptation of the "Village" too! So, yeah.
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Jan 28, 2020 19:06
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I guess it's kind of like how people keep rebooting and remaking superhero franchises here in the west.
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Jan 28, 2020 21:00
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I would liken it more towards Dracula and Frankenstein.
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Jan 28, 2020 21:14
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I vote option two as long as you promise to get back to our birds nest headed hero Kindaichi afterwards.
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Jan 28, 2020 21:20
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tomanton posted:I vote option two as long as you promise to get back to our birds nest headed hero Kindaichi afterwards. That is definitely guaranteed as I'm also interested in the second Kindaichi game, especially as it begins with these kinds of scenes:     It also seems to feature another weird family at its centre (but possibly actually weirder than Inugami). Not to mention an old samurai curse! So there's no chance I'm going to be missing out on that one! But, we'll talk about that in a few months when we're done with the other game (or sooner, if it turns out to be a dud!).
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Jan 28, 2020 21:36
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I'll vote for Option 2 as well. Can't wait to see what game you've got planned!
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Jan 29, 2020 03:49
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All righty then, let's see one last bit with extra scenes/bad endings/alternate paths! CHAPTER 6: SAYOKO KILLS TAMAYO! At the beginning of chapter 6, Tamayo is being interviewed by the police and Kindaichi after having been recovered by Saruzou from the old house where she was brought by Suketomo (whose fate isn't yet known at that point). At one point, Sayoko joins that conversation wanting to know what's happened to Suketomo (at the time we didn't know why she was so insistent, but of course now we know), and you have to not really give her an answer in order to be able to proceed. However, if you start pushing the question about why she is so obsessed with Suketomo, things escalate quickly into another bad ending!   Considering that Tamayo was nearly raped by Suketomo, her calmness here is a bit odd. But then again, most of these bad endings feel a bit odd since they've been shoehorned into a story which is already mostly pretty tightly constructed.   Ha ha, no way. We're going to follow our hunch and use that keyword we just got!    Of course, we know that she has in fact told Tamayo everything.   In the meantime, Sayoko arrives.  "Tell her to go back" is our way out of this hole. If we want to avoid the bad ending, we can choose this keyword to get the conversation back on its original course. Of course, since we came here to see the bad ending, we're not doing that! Instead we'll tell her that Suketomo is responsible for Tamayo's kidnapping.        Sayoko just runs off at this point.  Tachibana leaves. Shouting is heard from the hallway...      Well then, let's hear the summary by Kindaichi...  The Inugami Family: Unsolved. Considering that Sayoko already got a bit violent with Tamayo in the scene we saw last time, at least this ending is plausible from the story standpoint, so it feels a bit less forced in my opinion. CHAPTER 6: MATSUKO IS KILLED BY HER TWO SISTERS! This happens at the end of chapter 6, when the other two sisters are already getting upset with Matsuko and start to believe she's the killer. It's possible use the right keywords, and then after, when Kindaichi goes finally to talk to Matsuko...      But, before the conversation can go anywhere...   The other two sisters burst in!            But she is killed by her sisters. Let's see the final comments from Kindaichi.  The Inugami Family: Unsolved. So this is actually very similar to the previous one, and also quite spoilery in a way. I'm pretty sure you CAN get this ending on the first playthough but it does require a non obvious use of keywords, so probably most people would not stumble upon it by accident. Anyway, before we finish, there is one more thing.... CHAPTER 9: A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT THAT WATCH There aren't any added scenes in chapters 7 or 8, and we've already seen a couple of bad endings from those chapters, so let's move on to the final part of the game. In the second playthrough, during the last conversation with Sukekiyo and Matsuko, it's now possible to find out a little bit more about that watch. First, during the conversation with Sukekiyo, Kindaichi talks to Tamayo for a bit, trying to figure out why Shizuma broke into her room, but they don't come to a conclusion. Now that we know about the watch, this goes a bit differently:     And then the conversation goes back to how it was. But later on, you can ask Sukekiyo about this watch, by using the keyword you just got.    Again, here we return to the normal course of this conversation. A bit later again, we can bring that last keyword up with Matsuko (since Kindaichi suspects that she has the watch in the end).    And then the conversation goes back into the whole story about him not being able to marry Tamayo, and so on. So this concludes the business about the watch, and to be honest, I am not sure why this was simply not included in the first go-around. Perhaps they felt they needed more material for the second round (I mean, not counting the bad endings, there is really not that much extra content), and since it wasn't strictly essential to understanding the mystery, then it got pushed into the second playthrough. I don't really know. This also concludes our playthrough of this game, as a matter of fact! Although I can hear you asking already, but, didn't you promise us a second ending? Well, I did, and the walkthrough I have claims there is one, but I'm pretty sure I did everything right, and the ending I got was the same as the first time (although all the other extra content appeared where it was expected to appear). So I don't really know what else you need to do to get the second ending, but if we look at the book, there is only one thing that is currently missing from the ending as we already saw it. Namely, before she commits suicide, in addition to asking Tamayo to take care of Sukekiyo, Matsuko also asks them to make sure that the child of Sayoko and Suketomo is also provided for, which to everybody's surprise Tamayo accepts to do. Apart from that little bit, there was nothing else missing in the first ending, so I suspect that that's what's added in the second round, since that's where the whole story about Sayoko's pregnancy really plays out properly. Interestingly, this is another thing that the book glosses over a bit, like with the revelation that the harp teacher is really Kikuno, there is not really any detail about the reactions of family members upon finding this out (after a big deal is made by Tachibana and others how they need to tread lightly about it). In any case, it's a fairly minor detail which is not really worth worrying about. So, as mentioned, this is about it for this game, I hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did (even if some of the extra second round content was a bit of a mixed bag here and there)! It was a fun and (in my opinion) well constructed old-school detective mystery, that was decently adapted into a game. Not to mention the added benefit of getting a lot of interesting little tidbits about life in post-WW2 Japan, which is a time and a place probably most of us here are not very familiar with. We'll get to the second From Software Kindaichi game in due course, but in the meantime, in a few days you can look forward to our little "palate cleanser" game, so to speak. Until then, I will leave you with two final screenshots from the film, with the first one depicting Kindaichi running to board his Tokyo-bound train at Nasu station, after solving the case.  And then...  (The End.)
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Feb 4, 2020 22:09
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huh, so you never hear shizuma's side of the story.
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Feb 4, 2020 22:26
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Okay, given the incest thing, it came up unrelated when I was doing some research for a project, but cousin marriages was actually considered not that big of a deal in that time - it was only when we started to have a better understanding of genetics and there's great mobility for the general population (so wider pool of marriageable partners) that it starts to become a taboo and/or the butt of jokes. Not that is to say that makes any of the gnarled relationships in the clan any healthier, just contemporary readers of when it was originally published wouldn't be quite as repulsed by it as modern ones.
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Feb 4, 2020 23:50
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Those scenes felt really vestigial and for the most part didn't do anything for the story IMO.
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Feb 5, 2020 00:33
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SSNeoman posted:Those scenes felt really vestigial and for the most part didn't do anything for the story IMO. I agree, they seem mostly just to try to get some replay value, which is kind of an issue for pretty linear games like these.
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Feb 5, 2020 04:16
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I have to agree, this whole thing with the second playthrough seems forced in and not in a good way--I don't even know why they did this, because the game is fine as it is. But to be compeletely clear, other than a couple of bad endings, the only actually added things are: (a) the conversation between Tamayo and Sayoko about Sayoko's pregnancy (this could have been simply included in the normal playthrough via Tamayo telling about it to the police), (b) Tamayo's kindapping (we already knew or could infer more or less all we needed to know about that one--therefore if the goal was to keep the POV on Kindaichi, this one scene could probably have been omitted completely); and (c) the business about the watch (apart from the brief conversation between Matsuko and Sukekiyo about it which really served no purpose, this whole thing could have been a part of normal playthrough as-is and pushing it to the second lap just made the whole thing awkward). Apart from this, there are also a couple of bad endings that you can only get on the second playthrough and that's it--the other stuff, such as meeting Wakabayashi and most of bad endings you can already see on the first go around. So it's kind of a half-baked thing shoehorned into a game that really didn't even need it. I have also concluded that most of the bad endings aren't really that interesting, so I will probably not go into as much detail when covering the extra scenes in the second Kindaichi game (and you better believe that it follows the same pattern as this one, but what can you do, sigh--the rest of the game is good and very much worth playing, so...) Anyway, yeah, sorry that these last couple of updates were not especially interesting, but at least now we have a whole new game to discover, so let's see how that goes in a couple of days! 
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Feb 5, 2020 20:25
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Well, this exists. SelenicMartian posted:Incidentally, are there
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Feb 11, 2020 01:33
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Use the healing touch to stop the bioweapon that makes cavities!
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Feb 11, 2020 04:43
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Is it safe?
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Feb 11, 2020 06:51
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Mraagvpeine posted:Well, this exists. Ok, I'm just kidding, I'm not playing this thing, even if it's literally titled "THE Dentist-san"  On a more serious note, I'm working on the first update for the real next game and that should be posted this weekend. Sorry about a bit of a delay, it takes me some time to get organised with a totally different game platform. But the good news is, I have also been aple to rip the high quality music files from the game ISO so I'll be able this time to post also clips from the game's score (which you'll definitely be wanting to give a listen to, for reasons which will be explained in the first update!). Rockopolis posted:Is it safe?
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Feb 11, 2020 18:16
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ivantod posted:But the good news is, I have also been aple to rip the high quality music files from the game ISO so I'll be able this time to post also clips from the game's score (which you'll definitely be wanting to give a listen to, for reasons which will be explained in the first update!). Awesome! I really loved the OST links to LifeSigns, it really elevated things. Shoeless fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Feb 12, 2020 |
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Feb 12, 2020 00:26
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All righty then, let's have a look at our next game! And here it is: I've posted two different covers that the game was released with over time, where a somewhat stylish look has been applied! In any case, the game is called アナタヲユルサナイ (Anata wo yurusanai), a title which, thanks to the ocassional vagueness of the Japanese language is a bit hard to translate, but let's just say that it means something like "You will not be forgiven" (which was indeed the game's official English title on the publisher's website--even though the game ended up being Japan-only). As you might read from the cover, the game was published in 2007 by AQ Interactive, a company you may or may not have heard of, but they used to be the corporate parent of outfits like Cavia and XSEED (before it all got merged into Marvellous), so they are not exactly an unknown. Apart from the fact that, as you might guess, the person depicted on the cover is our main character and that the game consists of five chapters in which you solve detective cases, I'm not really going to say too much else at this point, especially since the game will anyway do its own exposition dump right at the start. Actually, a couple more things... First, as you can see, for this one, we'll be moving to Sony's PSP platform, which means much improved graphics and sound compared to what we've experienced so far (although, this being PSP, it does mean a slightly awkward screen size which on screenshots comes out as either a little too small or a little too big). Presentation wise, this game is actually a bit special, as we'll see in just a moment! And second, speaking of sound, this game features a pretty great score/soundtrack--the reason for this will also become obvious in just a couple of minutes; but in any case, the soundrack features mostly funky jazzy tunes, including some old standards from Gershwin and others. What this means for you is that I will actually be posting the links so you can listen to the music while you read--I just think the score is that good so I would highly recommend that you click on them! Well, all right, can't keep putting this off any more, so without further ado, let's start the game! Oh, hey, isn't that neat! Don't you just love it when the first thing you get when you start a game is a warning sign? What could possibly be wrong this time... Oh... I see. Looks like the game wants us to... ...hold the console vertically! Although on a console like Nintendo DS I'm aware of several games which do this, I've never seen it so far on a PSP game. Well, we'll see how this works out, but for our LP it does mean that I will sometimes post multiple images side by side. In that case, they will be meant to be read in the "western" order, i.e. from left to right--just so that there's no confusion over that. Also, since we are on the topic, the usual reminder that all names will be in Japanese order, with family name going first. All right, having passed this hurdle successfully, we can now start the game proper. Since the intro is quite interesting, I'm going to be "quiet" for a bit! What is that anyway? Well, my father explained it to me a long time ago... When the ball goes there, you can never find it again. But he always said, he liked to play there. Why? Why would you want to play in a place like that? The thoughts of adults seemed strange to me. Golf is supposed to be a bit of fun when the weather is nice. Why would you bother playing on a course full of tall grass? He worked hard to become the chief of the investigative division... but then, he just simply decided to give up on that. It was because back at that time, my mother got sick. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do. It was liver cancer. My father had told me that when he learned that my mother had only six months to live, he became really depressed. Still, he desperately took care of her, and she lived for three more years. I remember my mother, but I'm not really sure how real that memory is... maybe I just look at the photos that are left of her and think that I remember it. It's like remembering anything from back when you were six. Although that's a pretty ordinary sounding name, it is a little bit odd to have a private detective agency work out of a former kindergarten building. * * * * * * By the way, it's probably best if you get used to the narration by the main character, as there's going to be a lot a lot a lot of it in this game. So I let this go on for a while without comments, because the dialogue really seems to be moving quite fast at least in this initial part, but let's pause so I can mention two things... First of all, as you can see, we are in a full on exposition dump mode; don't worry, soon we'll be done and be getting on with the case itself. And second... something tells me that this is probably going to be anything but standard in the end! He is talking about a typical Japanese sweet, manju: rice and flour buns, usually with red bean paste filling. They look like this: By zisk - Self-photographed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6854452 Well. As you can see, our leading lady Ririko has a super healthy situation going both in her personal life and in her work life and there is totally no weird blurring of boundaries there at all. This can only end well, I'm sure. Not to mention, referring to her father as "Boss"... Anyway, no time for that, as we are about to meet our new client, Kamiya Shizuka, who apparently has some issues with her husband's fidelity. Let's see what that's all about. Well, Shizuka certainly seems mildly standoffish... we'll see where that goes. So, here the game tells us that we can press "up" on the D-Pad to view the report--you might have noticed the button prompts at the bottom of the screen already! Yeah, just hold on a second, we haven't finished looking at the report. Anyway, if we press "up", this is what we get: It's basically like a summary of the case so far, but there are also some highlighted words (in this case they are just the people's names) that we can click on to get a more detailed info. So, let's see what's in there. I was asked by my husband Kusanagi Manabu to meet with a new client. Her name is Kamiya Shizuka and she wants to investigate the cheating of her husband, Kamiya Shuichi. Not much there for now, but it will expand as we work on the case. For the time being, let's see what's behind the highlighted names. Kusanagi Manabu: Chief investigator at the Takeuchi Detective Agency. Also, my husband. Kamiya Shizuka: Our client. She is suspecting that her husband may be having an affair. Kamiya Shuichi: The target of the investigation. Kamiya Shizuka's husband, works as a systems engineer at "Tokyo IT". Oh, yeah, here's what the "more details" screen looks like (this one is for Kusanagi): Generally I will be posting these as text (like I just did above), so we won't be seeing these screens much (unless there is something really interesting to see on them, of course). Anyway, let's get back to our story. Kusanagi, you were saying...? There's another game mechanic that's about to get introduced... this game is nothing if not front loaded will all the exposition and tutorials. But I guess it's probably good as we get that over with and can then continue playing without interruptions! And I'll summarise it so we don't get too bogged down in long explanations. Basically, during the dialogues, sometimes you will get a "check" symbol in the upper right corner, like so: This means that you can go into the "check mode", which allows you to observe the person more closely and focus on a particular detail. Sometimes, there will be only an additional description to be read about it, but sometimes you can also trigger a conversation with the other person on that topic. For example with Kusanagi, we can focus on his eyes: (There is a challenge in the way he's looking at me. He's testing me.) In this case, we can also focus on the ring on his finger: (Huh? I don't know that ring. Did he buy a new one?) This one also gives us a "talk" option, which means that we can also raise it as a topic of conversation if we want. He also gives us brief instructions on how to save the game and indicates that we should definitely save regularly, especially after something important happens. Obvs I will not bore you with the details of that particular tutorial, so let's just move on with the game! And so he goes on his way... Her thoughts are interrupted... Before we can continue this conversation, we are given the "check" option on Yuuji. Here we can check out his glasses, in order to get a bit of an extra dialogue. (I think he wears glasses because he's nearsighted.) And this does indeed conclude the first in-game day! While Ririko is sleeping, I'm just going to make a note... not sure if it's the same for you, but somehow it seems like the dialogues in this game have a slightly different feel than what we're used to so far. I don't know, they somehow feel a lot faster paced, almost like they've been stripped of all unneccesary words or something like that. This is also noticeable in Japanese, among other things by an almost complete lack of honourifics and an extremely casual talk between Ririko, Kusanagi and Yuuji. Ririko's father and Mayumi (and Shizuka, of course) are a bit more standard in the way they talk. Either way, I'll try to make that "sparseness" in the dialogue come across as much as possible. As promised, the next morning, Ririko is arriving at our client Shizuka's house, in order to discuss the case in more detail. Again, before continuing, we can do a "check" on Shizuka. Some of the things Ririko can look at: Necklace: "She's wearing a rather expensive necklace." Here there is no additional dialogue. Her face: "An innocent looking face with soft features. You wouldn't think she's been married for a while." Here, we can find out a bit more. Uh, that was a bit awkward! But, nevertheless, here is a more interesting thing to look at: (On her left hand finger, a ring with a large diamond is glittering.) Uh, that doesn't really answer the question... then what made you ask? A side note, I quite like these "pillow shots" that the game will ocassionally insert around the beginning or end of a dialogue scene (of course in this case it's literally a pillow, but...). But we're not quite done yet... A moment later... Well, that sounded all kinds of messed up as far as that married relationship goes, but we'll have to figure that out as we go. For now, though, it's time to leave. Wow, Ririko, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel! And then, after quite some length of play, finally the game decides to give us the title of the first chapter (or episode as they are called in this game)! Incidentally, all chapter titles are in English and are in fact the titles of well known jazz songs! "Satin Doll" (you might not know the title, but you have absolutely definitely heard the song before) was written by Duke Ellington and Johnny Mercer, and you can click here to hear Duke Ellington and his band perform it! And then, back at the office/kindergarten... ...it looks like that the boss/our father wants to talk to us about something? However, before we do that, let's see how our case report looks now. I was asked by my husband Kusanagi Manabu to meet with a new client. Her name is Kamiya Shizuka and she wants to investigate the cheating of her husband, Kamiya Shuichi. Visited the Kamiya residence and met with Shizuka. Ut seems that Shuichi has been staying out frequently over that last six months, but there is no evidence of cheathing at this point. Received the photo and the address of the person who introduced them, Director Arakawa. Not much there for now, but it will expand as we work on the case. For the time being, let's see what's behind the highlighted names. Kusanagi Manabu: Chief investigator at the Takeuchi Detective Agency. Also, my husband. Kamiya Shizuka: Our client. She is suspecting that her husband may be having an affair. Kamiya Shuichi: The target of the investigation. Kamiya Shizuka's husband, works as a systems engineer at "Tokyo IT". Arakawa Hideki: The accounting manager at "Tokyo IT", where Kamiya Shuichi works. He introduced the couple and was at their wedding. One thing I should probably note is that when the same person's name is bolded multiple times in the text, both links go to the same place (e.g. in this example with Shizuka). All right, now let's see what the boss/our father wants from us. That totally wasn't awkward at all. I think we may have to work a bit on fixing this particular relationship (not that it's hugely better with our husband, it seems, but...) Speaking of whom... Ok, I can already see the confused faces, because if Kamiya is actually Shizuka's maiden name, then why does her husband also have it? In Japan, like in most western countries, it's common for a woman to adopt her husband's name after marriage. However, in Japan, there is a concept called "mukoyōshi" (婿養子), which literally means "adopted son-in-law" or "adopted husband". This typically happens when there is a "well established" (for whatever meaning of that) family without a male heir, but with a daughter of a suitable age; then she will marry a man (usually chosen for her) who is well suited to running a business. Then this man is basically adopted into the family and takes his wife's surname. Basically, this can happen in any situation where the woman's family is considered to be of a "higher rank" than the man's. Also, this is nothing new, and the same practice has been going on for centuries already. Then presumably, Shuichi's boss not only "introduced" them, but acted as a sort of a "matchmaker" in what is now looking like it was mostly an arranged marriage of sorts. In any case, we'll see how this develops. Also note that this husband is actually legally adopted by the family for real--this kind of adoption currently makes up about 98% of all adoptions in Japan. This is how many of Japan's most famous companies remain "family run businesses", such as the car maker Toyota. And here we get also a check option on Kusanagi: We can get comments on the following things: Necklace: "Necklace I gave him for his birthday. He always wears it." No additional dialogue. Mouth: "I feel he's putting an unnecessary emphasis on 'adopted son-in-law'." No additional dialogue. Eyes: "When it's about work, he's always very serious." No additional dialogue. If there is anything to click here that yields any extra dialogue, I've not found it. I had a look also at a Japanese LP of this game, but the person playing also couldn't find anything here, so maybe there isn't. Now let's continue the conversation from before. Umm, we ARE still talking about Shuichi here, yes? It's time for a check! Let's see (all three options give extra dialogue): Her figure: "A slender, model-like body that makes me envious." Trousers: "She is really into fashion." Face: "A boyish look that goes well with natural make up." Unfortunately, in some cases, you can only choose one of these to talk to. But I'm pretty certain that the game doesn't let you miss the important ones. However, here we do have to choose, so I guess let's talk about fashion? Is it just me, or does there really seem to be a huge obsession with brands espacially in parts of East Asia, like Japan and South Korea? Well, that was a fun bit of conversation, but now let's go back to brooding! Unfortunately, there is. And here is Yuuji, to give us a report after a day of stalking Shuichi... Some time later... Probably not the best idea in the circumstances, but you do you, Ririko! In any case, we find ourselves in "Limelight", Ririko's favourite bar! We'll return to the conversation, but now it's time for a check (and also our first chance for a bad end in this game, believe it or not!): Bowtie: "A black vest and a bowtie is the typical bartender attire." Badge (on his chest): "The badge says 'Munakata'. Apparently that's actually his name" I suppose the joke here is because it's written like this: 宗像, where the first kanji means "religion" and the second "symbol, figure", so you know, because he was a priest and all... Eyes: "He's looking at me with a gentle expression in his eyes." Here we get some extra dialogue. You can also trigger a bad end here, but let's select it anyway! So, I said, bad end. Basically as the conversation goes, you'll have constantly the opportunity to do the "check". Everytime, he'll give you a drink refill. And, well, eventually, Ririko gets way too drunk and quite belligerent at that... so she gets thrown out and you get a... game over! I can go back and show this if there is interest, but we maybe a bit burned out on bad ends at the moment? Let me know. Anyway, getting back to our previous conversation... And so, back at the kindergarten... Sound of the swing going back and forth... And with this, we shall stop for now. It has been a long two days for Ririko, and it has also been a long first update, but you know how I like to get things going with a longer one at first, so we don't get lost in exposition for weeks! Next time, we'll definitely get on with some proper detective work, and start figuring out exactly what is going on here. * * * So, that's the beginning of our next game! I wonder what everybody's opinions are! As for me, I find it fascinating the kinds of games you find in Japan which never ever leave that country (and this isn't some random low budget shelf filler--I meam come on, it has music by Uematsu!). From the technical side, I also like it visually, although there was not that much variety in this update--but that will start getting better as we get more into the case. The story is certainly interesting, and clearly there's going to be some kind of an overarching story, what with the whole house fire seen in the intro and all that; but we haven't really seen any of that yet. Anyway, thoughts? Opinions? Do we continue with this? Anything else? ivantod fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 16, 2020 22:48
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This seems very interesting! I can see the personal relationships getting more complex as this goes further.
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Feb 16, 2020 23:18
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Our protagonist's interpersonal relationships are totally healthy, and she's totally not repressing any sort of negative emotions over anything! On a serious note, I do find it telling that the first bad end you can get basically at the start of the game is to get trashed and angry.
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Feb 16, 2020 23:21
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I doubt he's talking about his own house (especially since that's apparently owned by his father-in-law) so you probably meant the other K last name here. Also man...I know I'm repeating what's been said already here but nothing about this woman's relationships looks good. She calls her husband by his last name (which they apparently don't share?) and their relationship is absolutely more like co-workers than husband and wife, her relationship with her father is cold and distant, she's perfectly willing to get so drunk that the game ends right there and then...yikes. Not like our other marriage here looks particularly better, it's clear that the wife is not a great person and her husband is likely in entirely for the economical benefits of the relationship. Seems broken marriages and weird father/daughter/son-in-law relationships are the name of the game here. But hey, on the plus side, Uematsu music! I love him so much I went to see him live so I'm always up for that. On the bad ends note, I'd rather see them all. Bad ends are always fun and they add to the LP.
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Feb 17, 2020 02:18
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looking forward to some painfully messy relationship drama
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Feb 17, 2020 02:43
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I've never really been sure if the brands thing was real or just, what was depicted in East Asian media. Product placement. Eh, I must just be getting overly cynical without the cool, refreshing taste of Tsingtao beer.
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Feb 17, 2020 02:53
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We've been putting off the honeymoon for 2 years? Jesus lady. So we have a husband who likes gambling and is in a loveless marriage. That surely won't blow up in our face.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:42
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yeah, this is not gonna bode well, especially with how our protagonist didn't just say it - she yelled about his gambling habit, which suggests a lot of pent up anger of either she bottling up her issues or she had previous tried to talk about it and got stonewalled or told to drop it.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:45
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I was so excited for a protagonist in a relationship; it’s unusual in these types of stories. Too bad it looks to be an unhealthy marriage. I’m interested to see where this all goes. As far as the bad ends, unless they’re really interesting, I’d say don’t worry about showing them off.
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Feb 17, 2020 06:52
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When the husband was introduced I was initially thinking, "oh, a married lady detective! Novel! So this guy's totally going to die to raise the stakes later" but now it's established they are in this weird and awkward territory, maybe not. Also the way everyone's eyes are drawn kind of freak me out a little, I'm not sure what it is.
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Feb 17, 2020 08:14
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Blaze Dragon posted:I doubt he's talking about his own house (especially since that's apparently owned by his father-in-law) so you probably meant the other K last name here. Yeah, that's exactly what happened! I've fixed it now, thanks. I'm glad that everybody is finding this game at least somewhat interesting. I mean, we'll see how it develops, but it certainly has an interesting beginning. Also, I hope that everybody is OK with the format--and by this I mean the size of the screenshots and the size of the text on them, that sort of thing, but also the decision to sometimes put more than one image next to each other. I feel for example that I was able to present the opening intro in a much better way by doing it like this instead of having all images one after the other vertically on a page. But, nonetheless, if you see any issues with this, just let me know and I'll see what I can do. Regarding the character design, in case you like it, here is actually the website of the artist who did them: https://st-artdream.com/. I do like that they are not stereotypically anime looking! Also, speaking of Uematsu music, here is the version of the game's opening theme performed by his band "Earthbound Papas": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7QsxDaBlCc
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Feb 17, 2020 08:50
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Kitala posted:As far as the bad ends, unless they’re really interesting, I’d say don’t worry about showing them off. I'll second that. Otherwise, the game looks interesting so far! There's gotta be more to the whole cheating thing than appears. People don't just suddenly decide for no reason that their spouse is probably cheating on them without any suspicious activity. It's probably too early to speculate, but what the hell: I bet that the lady isn't happy with the marriage and wants an excuse for her husband to get disowned so she can marry someone else or be single.
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Feb 17, 2020 10:25
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Shoeless posted:I'll second that. Otherwise, the game looks interesting so far! There's gotta be more to the whole cheating thing than appears. People don't just suddenly decide for no reason that their spouse is probably cheating on them without any suspicious activity. It's probably too early to speculate, but what the hell: I bet that the lady isn't happy with the marriage and wants an excuse for her husband to get disowned so she can marry someone else or be single. Honestly that's my thought, it seems like the marriage was arranged, her 'I don't care if cheats long as he didn't lie about it' is a huge flag.
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Feb 17, 2020 17:51
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Well now you have to finish this game or else everyone will never know about their speculation!!! About bad ends, my opinion is show if interesting otherwise don’t bother. Even knowing you can do one here is enough for me.
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Feb 18, 2020 00:15
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