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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 9, 2016 21:29:55 GMT -8
Well, Alpha identified Claude as a god not even halfway through Liberation Day. Back during the convesation between The wanderer and Alpha, if you had the Japanese voices on it was literally thrown in your face that Claude was the wanderer. So the reveal at the end wasn't really random or out of nowhere, as previous events began falling into place after that discussion, with the Liberation Day Massacare providing the keystone for it all. Honestly though, I still feel claude hasn't yet revealed her true motives. I think it's more that we were never really given any indication before LibDay (as in before that game entirely) that we were dealing with someone on the level of an entity/god such as Claude. A time-traveler maybe, but not someone who seemed to be capable of manipulating reality at will. That Claude was the Wanderer was indeed foreshadowed - that she was practically a god as opposed to a literal "wanderer" through time was not.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 4, 2016 23:45:42 GMT -8
Formulate your opinions, I'm not stopping you. :3 Yes. Yes you are. By not answering - by dodging the questions and outright trolling, you are derailing the thread and effectively trying to suppress opinions in any debate with you. It's the kind of attitude that makes one wonder why you even bother coming to the forums - especially since you didn't seem to be TRYING to act like a dick until something as pointless as language was brought up. If you don't plan to stop me, nor plan to debate... why are you still here commenting?
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 4, 2016 19:49:16 GMT -8
:3 Thank you for getting it. You're still dodging the question. Hell, at this point you're just trying to derail it by trolling. And if you're not interested in debate, then just answer the questions. What exactly are you afraid of? You claim "It is perfectly normal for one to formulate one's own opinions", but you sure try your damndest to suppress them.
To get back on topic (in spite of seeming attempts to derail it), Kuushana's introduction felt a bit forced purely because it came out of nowhere for such a major character - to be blunt, it felt like it was more a forced attempt to connect the Veniczar novel to the series as quick as possible instead of it having been a natural progression and introduction of her character. Give little hints here and there when introducing new characters - especially main antagonists/factional leaders. When it comes to background stuff - things that are extraneous or the like, Dextix's suggestion of a Codex seems sound. Of course, the big issue is the same as it's strength - it may be just nothing but text, but a consequence of that is that you're devoting a lot of time to said nothing but text. Of course, you could simply delegate that task to someone else - I'm sure there'd be no shortage of volunteers who'd like to write codex entries for you. As for something to help Sunrider in general... I'm sorry - personally speaking, I still think a new midgame-arc for LibDay is sorely needed, because of something that I feel was pretty badly overlooked and still has been. Something that, after all the talk I'd heard from Vaen, I'm honestly surprised the devs never addressed; Chigara. (Bear with me on this for a moment - it'll take a moment to explain in detail... as usual ) One of the biggest reasons the LibDay "railroad romance" failed was because it, personally speaking, felt far too stupidly picturesque for the situation and circumstances - it was executed so artificially that it was almost impossible to take seriously. [RE]Turn doesn't fix that because it's only the future-Kayto that references doubts about the pace and state of the relationship - present-Kayto never has any problem. But the bigger issue is neither V2.00 nor [RE]Turn really expanded on Chigara's side of things - it didn't focus on any of her own doubts, fears, emotional moments or the like; she was portrayed as almost a token-character with no purpose other then to be the "dere girlfriend" or the "object of the game", even in [RE]Turn. We're told things but we never actually see them with her - we never actually see HOW or WHY Chigara is so comforting to Kayto in LibDay besides being "dere". For all we know, Chigara might have felt the same as Kayto - that her desire to prove to herself she was/could be a "normal girl" might have been a/the key factor for her wanting the relationship to move as fast as she did. A mig-game arc showing Chigara dealing with doubts about how fast she's pushing the relationship, fears of whether or not Kayto is reciprocating out of love or lust and even guilt/paranoia that she might have come between him and Ava, would have grounded her more - made us sympathize with her more. Personally speaking, I'd think a good way to do that would have been to make said mid-game arc about the Ceren Resistance - contacting them and getting their support for the retaking of Cera by springing a bunch of their captured members from a PACT prison ship/facility. It would be a storyline that would really force Kayto and Chigara to think about what exactly kind of a future it is they're trying to build together, illustrating that they DO in fact have doubts about how things are going and weather or not it'll even last after the war's over, yet opting to go for it anyway. After that though, on the matter of future Sunrider games... my personal recommendation would be this; do not go back to the way it was. In [RE]Turn, we saw the crew actually start to break away from the Kayto of LibDay as it became more obvious to them that he was emotionally compromised to the point of being unfit to lead - I think there should be more of that. I do not think the crew should just default back to implicitly trusting the captain - I think that, once their knee-jerk happiness that he survived everything has worn off, there ought to be doubt and conflict; periods where his competency is actually brought into question by them after everything that happened because of his actions. Thinks like claiming what he did in sacrificing the Sunrider was just him trying to run away from his guilt all over again, or weather or not what happened with Chigara is just going to happen again with another girl, ect. If the goal was to show Kayto wasn't perfect in LibDay, do the same for the other characters - make it so that he's not just instantly let off the hook for what happened. Or at least that's my suggestion on how to go forward.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 4, 2016 16:58:55 GMT -8
I suppose I'll bite again... It's not as bad this time. Forgive me then, I didn't phrase myself clearly. But you have received the message now so take it as you will. No use going back to reinterpret something. I'll bite. Indoctrination and culture. Something that is clearly not enforced these days. There, I've expressed my opinion. Would you like to know more? Hm, alright. (Tch, you didn't get the reference.) Hmph, it's not strange at all. Here, let me explain myself again. In reality, if someone does something you feel is disrespecting you. You either 1: ignore (aka, walk away since you have something better to do), 2: address them (since you don't have anything better to do), or 3: punch them in the gabba (since this is the best thing you're going to do). Does that mean you have to censor yourself? Of course not! It just means the other person won't talk to you. I am afraid to list anymore examples because I fear if I do, you will debate each and every one of them. It will never end. You see, I've never directly stated you can't curse. My only bargaining chip in this matter is to end my conversation with you and go about my way. Does that affect you in any way? Does that bother you? Do I matter? Do I matter that much? I don't. I'll also bite about censorship. I. Don't. Care. I do not walk away to change things. I walk away because I don't care. If being suppressed will result in order and stability, then so be it. But I suppose that sort of ideology does not sit well with you. I do not understand. You've received my message, but you are still debating my statements and opinions. I am not sure what you are debating about, but if you'd like. We can continue? Um... what? It kinda looks like you dodged the first question - I asked where in that debate about Kuushana did you ever agree with me about any of it at any point like you claimed to? Again, that IS strange - #1 is the SAME as censoring because you're demanding they conform to your standard simply to talk to you. #2 is not limited to that - it's pretty much the default choice. And #3 is the SAME as censoring because it's a threat of pain if they don't do what you tell them to. How is "speak as I do or I walk" not the same as forcing a standard on the debate - AKA; censoring? See, this is another issue in how you debate - "I'll bite", "I suppose I'll bite," "don't have anything better to do", ect. It comes off as quite a bit arrogant - like your position is so much greater then the other's that you treat them like kids. Even if it's not your intent, it comes across like you feel you're more "intellectually enlightened" then the other. And then you turn around and try to paint the other person as the culprit of a breakdown. If this really doesn't affect you that much - if you feel so confident in that standard - WHY are you trying to throw so much focus on it instead of the actual point if the debate?? (which was suggestions for the Sunrider series from this point on) Obviously you do care or you wouldn't have kept at this for multiple posts.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 4, 2016 12:35:55 GMT -8
Even when I agree with you, your responses and rebuttals to my acceptance are these long explanations. Why? I stated my own opinion and view, while agreeing with you. Yet you continue this, why? Is it because my misconception must be clearly and utterly explained to where there is no doubt? Do I care about how well you think the execution in Sunrider was when I personally felt it was fine? Do I need examples on what kind of surprises is good and what kind of surprises is bad? Do I not know perfectly well what I like and what I don't like? You see. We both share ideals that are very set in. There is nothing I can ever say to change your view (Or not provoke a super long response) and there is nothing you can say to change my view on certain things. Do you really think our conversation, our posts amongsts the thousands of others, really significantly impact the game? Developers are busy, extremely busy and our views are simply one among many. They look at the community, generalize how it reacts, and rolls with it. There is no room for micromanagement. They cannot appease everyone. You see Stanley, I am not here to debate. Which is something I'm sure you love to do, on every single possible thing. I started this conversation knowing and expecting your reaction to confirm a few things and... Discover a couple new interesting points on how Kuushana could have been better integrated into the game. Language should matter less, to you. I am not you, I do not care as much as you think about the topic on hand. There is a certain basic mannerism one reserves for strangers, especially strangers. Distant, but cordial. That is not the internet, that is reality. If you say that because this is the internet, that you can drop all forms of mannerisms then... Well. Look how close we've gotten already. I never would have gotten this friendly in a conversation with a stranger. And no, I do not hate censorship. It is as a part of life as free speech is. It is the one right each and every individual has when met with something they do not agree with, walk away. A game that they do not find enjoyable? (Put down the controller and) Walk away. A stranger that they felt is being rude to them? Walk away. To separate oneself from the conflict, is that not the beauty of things? Don't answer that, I expect another long paragraph out of you. Now, depending on your next post. You can either make me look like a halfwit by posting something significantly less in effort as a response. Or you could respond in full in to which I'll simply smile and happily accept whatever it is you will say. "Agree with me?" Dude, every paragraph before now has been you saying you DIDN'T agree with me about Kuushana's appearance feeling like an asspull - when exactly did that change? Where did you ever "agree" with me in that? Moreover, that's kinda the POINT of a debate - disseminating points and rationalizing your own; showing the other person your point of view. In fact, I thought having it "clearly and utterly explained to where there is no doubt" was what you WANTED, given your stigma against casual cursing. Not true, actually - Marx was the one who eventually dissuaded me from my original belief that LibDay was total garbage. I'm not unreasonable - no human being is ever totally "set in" something. In a word, yes - yes I do. Because that is the whole purpose of having a community forum to give feedback on - the existence of V2.00 and [RE]Turn are kinda proof of this being true. And yes, there is room for micromanagement depending on the scale and quality of what the post/critique is - keep in mind that LiS is NOT a big-time company like the others you're probably talking about, so there's a bit more room. And in the last part... that IS still wanting to debate; it's wanting to discuss what could or couldn't have made it work better. (also... who the hell is Stanley??). Um... you just said you didn't care about a debate... so that just makes it STRANGER that you'd care about the language so much if you saw it as something topical. In "reality", people speak their minds. Being "distant but cordial" - that again only goes as far as not DIRECTLY INSULTING them; it does not give any implication that they can't curse or the like at all. Acting otherwise is IGNORING REALITY - it's acting like you can force how people do or don't speak or behave. As for the last part, that's a simple answer - "Kayto Shields Syndrome:" The belief that just running away from whatever you don't like is somehow a "strength". Say what you want about me, but censorship isn't a part of life or it's freedoms - it's the result of them being suppressed. Walking away doesn't change that.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 4, 2016 1:36:55 GMT -8
Ahh, my mistake. I viewed exiled and imprisoned as the same. Trapped in one place, will be in a lot of trouble if left said place. But yes, what you mentioned certainly would ease her appearance. Though still in my view her original appearance was perfectly fine. I'm not expecting a grandiose work of art, I expect the author(s) to surprise me. Indeed, that is exactly what I am saying. That is called respect, that is called discipline, and that is called civility. I care more about the way you speak to me than the way this conversation is going. This is not a discussion regarding the fate of a nation, the budget of a company, or any other critical matter that will impact many many individuals. This conversation will not determine the course of this game nor impact the decision making of this company. This is a conversation between you and me, sharing our viewpoints and ideals about an entertainment good. And I expect basic civility out of it. I do not have the right to stop you from talking, thus I will stop myself from talking if I am to be treated that way. Not really - being imprisoned means you are trapped in a cell or prison of some sort with no freedom. Exile simply means you cannot return to a certain place but you retain all your other freedoms, which is in no way the same as being trapped with nowhere to go and no other options to take in life. And maybe it's personal belief, but being surprised by something doesn't mean that it was good - it just means you didn't expect it to happen. Example - you could have all the main characters suddenly turn into snowmen of George Tekei (Sulu from original Star Trek); that would be surprising, but that sure as hell wouldn't be a good twist if it came out of nowhere with no rhyme or reason to it. Surprises in stories need to have some degree of good execution done to them, or they feel like asspulls - they fall flat and underwhelm when they should be big reveals. And for a character like Kuushina, who DOES seem to be a character with a grandiose reputation and backstory to her, you kinda do need those kinds of expectations - otherwise it's the same as saying you just have low expectations (in my opinion at least). Kuushana's original appearance might have been fine for a new lackey or lieutenant, but it's rather out-of-nowhere for a character that's supposed to be as important as she's being made to be. And no - if you ask me, that is DISRESPECT because you are implying, if not ordering, people you hardly even know to meet some kind of self-appointed standard simply to speak with you. That, to a good degree, is censorship no different from what you claimed to hate. To say "that is called discipline, and that is called civility" - that is another strawman argument; those only go as far as not insulting the other person in the debate or demeaning them/treating them lesser then yourself, none of which is done simply by cursing in general. It does not have any stipulation for even constant foul language, let alone occasional. And if anything, that last bit actually rings opposite for me - for multiple reasons. First; the whole point of a community form is to give feedback and discussion the devs TAKE ACCOUNT of, and it's because of that feedback that V2.00 and [RE]Turn exist, so you're wrong on both counts in saying talking here wouldn't change anything. Second; even if we DO say it's solely "a conversation between you and me, sharing our viewpoints and ideals about an entertainment good", then language should matter EVEN LESS because, by your own admission, there is no business-edict/criteria it needs to follow. It in no way applies to you being "treated" in any form of insulting way. Third; when having a debate, I expect people to... you know, debate? Not to write extra paragraphs demanding some kind of stigma on how it's worded - it's just derailing things at this point. I know it's blunt, but this is the internet - people will curse. You can't change that, let alone demand others stop as if it's your choice, dude. You deciding to "stop (yourself) from talking" doesn't change the fact that you ARE indeed acting like you CAN "stop (me) from talking" because it's a "my way or the highway" mentality.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 3, 2016 22:08:24 GMT -8
But those are entirely different contexts. Speaking of 7th episodes, let's look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens as an example. It's an entirely new time period and storyline with a brand new cast of leading characters - it's basically FIRST FILM of a new series, where said new cast must first be introduced before being properly established. Also, Episode 7 introduced it's characters as having some form of fame or infamy in their setting that we see - that they were known in the wider universe as threatening people. We hear about characters like Snoke before we actually see them, even if just in passing mention, so that there is some form of build-up or expectation present for this new face; thats a good way to build up the big bad of a new storyline. By sharp contrast, Kuushana is a character who is introduced several entries into the current storyline as someone who's apparently as famous as Arcadius herself... yet we've never heard anything about her. Not so much as a single peep. And yet she's pretty much becoming the new big bad out of nowhere. This is a pattern that's arguably very detrimental to games. Also, I think a boss is the worst way to describe it - Kuushana is an antagonist, which is not necessarily the same thing as a boss; Cullen proved that since he was a recurring villain in FA but not an actual unit we had to fight. See, your claim only works as far as battlefield nobodies go - however, random small-time bosses or lieutenants are one thing, while faction leaders, especially ones who you're giving some kind of legend-enshrined backstory as this "Kuushana of the Many Miracles" does, are another story entirely. With Cullen and Fontana, they were readily established well before their respective confrontations, their characters showing the core of who they were even before we had their full backstories such as in Fontana's case (his wasn't revealed till MoA). Even Crow Harbor is being foreshadowed and built up better because we were alluded to him from the very start as a historical figure. With Kuushana... nothing. Unless you've read the patreon novel, which isn't even complete by the way, you're not going to know anything about her. It's pretty much the same as saying you were expected to have read Veniczar by this point (and even if that's not the intent, that's still how it feels) instead of being able to connect with this character from an in-game perspective. Stuff like this all comes down to execution and how you build off of it - and for the role of a long-term antagonist like what Kuushana seems to be pushing for, it wasn't done well enough to make her appearance feel like much else but an asspull. Edit: Ugh, again with this? This is not some college-debate forum - what does the language have to do with the topic? Dropping a topic over that of all things is ABSURD - it's whether or not the person doesn't stoop to personal attacks or the like (calling someone a dumbass over differing views or the like) that tend to make people drop a topic. Then in what scenario could we have safely introduced Kuushana? Considered how she was imprisoned throughout most of the game. And most of the story is told from Shield's point of view with only tidbits from the other side. What would be a good scenario to ease her introduction. I believe this is the first time I have brought this up but indeed, language is everything in a conversation. The moment one stoops to using obscene language is the moment when they stop respecting the other individual's input into the conversation. I ask for the same amount of civility as I give out and thus I will not respond if treated as such. Call me old fashioned if you wish, I come from an environment where censorship is everywhere mind you and I do not particularly wish to indulge my free speech in uncivilized conversations. Well, personally speaking, I'd have there be some allusions for her beforehand during interactions with Fontana. For example; - #1st: During the meetings between Gray and Fontana, Gray could ask exactly who it is Fontana intends to place in his new, redesigned PACT government, to which he references that there were "many people - some of great virtue - who would return to PACT's cause" now that Alice is ousted, explaining that there's no longer any threat of those who speak up against Alice being executed or exiled by Alice as they were during the start of her regime. This sets up that PACT had good people exiled who might return at some point now that Alice is gone and that, when they do, it'll be into a position of power (it could also set up the Denari character Samu mentioned they wanted to include in V2.00, who is probably another exile returned the same as Kuushana). - #2nd: A cutaway at one point or another where Fontana is shown contacting "someone" and saying that "your exile has come to an end", touching on how the war and division between PACT has stretched their forces thin and they need "a miracle to recover... or close enough, as it were". (as you said, "most" of Sunrider takes place from Kayto's viewpoint, but not all of it - there've been scenes showing moments between the other crew or between the PACT characters in every game). This sets up that someone who was once exiled from PACT is now returning. - #3nd: At point during a briefing for a difficult battle or during a bad situation in battle (like say, when Alice takes over the PACT fleet at Cera, or when facing the Nightmare Ascendent), Fontana could remark he knows "one person" who certainly could have turned their near-hopeless situation around - and if you want some humor in there, have Kayto think Fontana's talking about either himself or Kayto only to have Fontana give a deadpan reply that it's neither - remarking that "sadly, she's nowhere near here." This sets up that Fontana knows someone who he actually considers a better strategist and "miracle-worker" then himself or Kayto and identifies them as a "she" (as well as setting Kayto up as someone who could rival her as he does in fact manage to pull off a victory out of said situation when Fontana had doubted it possible for anyone else but Kuushana to do). All the above wouldn't require/have required all that much effort to include into the game, and would foreshadow the return of someone who has a degree of reverence in PACT the way Kuushana apparently seems to. If introducing a bunch of new characters is going to become a thing in the latter games, best to do so in a way that makes them not feel like asspulls or fanservice or the like. Also... what are you talking about? Last I checked, Fontana said Kuushana was EXILED, not imprisoned(?). As for the matter of language... no surprise, but I really disagree. If anything, I think it matters very little - I think it's more the point the argument's making that is "everything". Maybe I'm just more used to frank discussion, but I think obscene language really shouldn't be a factor of judgement - what matters is weather or not their beliefs have any truth behind them. Hell, I actually think that's a very shallow way to judge an argument - it's like saying you care more about how they say it then whether or not what they're saying is right or not - and I think asking, if not demanding, others censor their own language just to talk with you is no different then you forcing them through your own circumstances.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 3, 2016 19:41:26 GMT -8
No - that is again a strawman argument and so is trying to claim it a "face-value argument"; quite honestly, that's bullshit to me. They are the same character - their personalities, their history, their backgrounds; those DID NOT CHANGE. "Without reading more into depth", that is how it is and that does not change simply because we know Alice's true name. No - no it really didn't. It was the same person it was in MoA - the only thing that changed was the name, and that alone changes nothing. You're trying to take semantics and make it seem like some big definition that isn't there, and fighting over it is derailing from what the original point was; that an character being just dropped on us all of a sudden like Kuushana is simply isn't a very good way to introduce a new antagonist. You can get away with that in introductory games where everything is still being established, but not this far in the game so to speak. Hm, again. It's only the se- third episode. There's presumably going to be many, many more bosses in the future. Having one dropped on us is as sudden as a new boss dropping in on episode 7. Edit: Note, anytime you start using any cursory language with me on a topic, I will immediately drop it. But those are entirely different contexts. Speaking of 7th episodes, let's look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens as an example. It's an entirely new time period and storyline with a brand new cast of leading characters - it's basically FIRST FILM of a new series, where said new cast must first be introduced before being properly established. Also, Episode 7 introduced it's characters as having some form of fame or infamy in their setting that we see - that they were known in the wider universe as threatening people. We hear about characters like Snoke before we actually see them, even if just in passing mention, so that there is some form of build-up or expectation present for this new face; thats a good way to build up the big bad of a new storyline. By sharp contrast, Kuushana is a character who is introduced several entries into the current storyline as someone who's apparently as famous as Arcadius herself... yet we've never heard anything about her. Not so much as a single peep. And yet she's pretty much becoming the new big bad out of nowhere. This is a pattern that's arguably very detrimental to games. Also, I think a boss is the worst way to describe it - Kuushana is an antagonist, which is not necessarily the same thing as a boss; Cullen proved that since he was a recurring villain in FA but not an actual unit we had to fight. See, your claim only works as far as battlefield nobodies go - however, random small-time bosses or lieutenants are one thing, while faction leaders, especially ones who you're giving some kind of legend-enshrined backstory as this "Kuushana of the Many Miracles" does, are another story entirely. With Cullen and Fontana, they were readily established well before their respective confrontations, their characters showing the core of who they were even before we had their full backstories such as in Fontana's case (his wasn't revealed till MoA). Even Crow Harbor is being foreshadowed and built up better because we were alluded to him from the very start as a historical figure. With Kuushana... nothing. Unless you've read the patreon novel, which isn't even complete by the way, you're not going to know anything about her. It's pretty much the same as saying you were expected to have read Veniczar by this point (and even if that's not the intent, that's still how it feels) instead of being able to connect with this character from an in-game perspective. Stuff like this all comes down to execution and how you build off of it - and for the role of a long-term antagonist like what Kuushana seems to be pushing for, it wasn't done well enough to make her appearance feel like much else but an asspull. Edit: Ugh, again with this? This is not some college-debate forum - what does the language have to do with the topic? Dropping a topic over that of all things is ABSURD - it's whether or not the person doesn't stoop to personal attacks or the like (calling someone a dumbass over differing views or the like) that tend to make people drop a topic.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 3, 2016 16:19:34 GMT -8
That IS "Alice" - that is who Arcadius was behind the mask. It is the same character by a different name. So yes, we did have plenty of screen-time with her - we learned she was ruthless, pragmatic, clever and a fanatic. You're basically giving me a strawman argument here - it's the same as saying we simply never got to know this character period. Which hurt her development. That's the same for Kuushana. No - the "big bad" in MoA and LibDay never changed. Only the title we knew her by. Yes, we know that is Alice with hindsight. Without hindsight, they may as well be different characters. Whether or not his is a strawman's argument, this is a take it at face value argument. Without reading more into depth, this is what we have. Perhaps big bad isn't the right word then. The one that took the spotlight as our main enemy certainly did change. No - that is again a strawman argument and so is trying to claim it a "face-value argument"; quite honestly, that's bullshit to me. They are the same character - their personalities, their history, their backgrounds; those DID NOT CHANGE. "Without reading more into depth", that is how it is and that does not change simply because we know Alice's true name. No - no it really didn't. It was the same person it was in MoA - the only thing that changed was the name, and that alone changes nothing. You're trying to take semantics and make it seem like some big definition that isn't there, and fighting over it is derailing from what the original point was; that an character being just dropped on us all of a sudden like Kuushana is simply isn't a very good way to introduce a new antagonist. You can get away with that in introductory games where everything is still being established, but not this far in the game so to speak.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 3, 2016 15:16:40 GMT -8
Respectfully, I completely disagree - considering the position she's coming into and the supposed history she has both with the PACT main characters and her apparent status as a war-legend, it didn't feel smooth in the slightest; it felt very abrupt. And no, Alice was not in fact "one big bad with little screen time" since she was present since FA - rather, I think she was a big bad with little (in-game) BACKSTORY, which is arguably a far worse state for a character to be in. Especially when you're trying to push them into such a pivotal position. Also, I think LibDay is technically the third episode - First Arrival and Mask of Arcadius count more as the first and second. I did not mean Alice, I meant the "Arcadius" that was shot by Fontana. And considering the amount of time we knew Alice to be Alice, which did not happen until LD, it's still relatively little screen time. On second thought... Each arc seems to have their own big bad. In FA, it was that chubby red-mustached person whose name I can't recall. In MoA, the big bad was Arcadius. In LD, it was Alice. And now in XXX, it's Kuushana. That IS "Alice" - that is who Arcadius was behind the mask. It is the same character by a different name. So yes, we did have plenty of screen-time with her - we learned she was ruthless, pragmatic, clever and a fanatic. You're basically giving me a strawman argument here - it's the same as saying we simply never got to know this character period. Which hurt her development. That's the same for Kuushana. No - the "big bad" in MoA and LibDay never changed. Only the title we knew her by.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 2, 2016 21:16:41 GMT -8
I don't think Kuushana's entry was sudden at all, it was relatively smooth. We've just reach the halfway point and all we did was toss one big bad with little screen time and replaced it with another big bad with little screen time. We're only two episodes in, if we went any faster then I'd feel like we've been rushing through it. Respectfully, I completely disagree - considering the position she's coming into and the supposed history she has both with the PACT main characters and her apparent status as a war-legend, it didn't feel smooth in the slightest; it felt very abrupt. And no, Alice was not in fact "one big bad with little screen time" since she was present since FA - rather, I think she was a big bad with little (in-game) BACKSTORY, which is arguably a far worse state for a character to be in. Especially when you're trying to push them into such a pivotal position. Also, I think LibDay is technically the third episode - First Arrival and Mask of Arcadius count more as the first and second.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 2, 2016 17:16:47 GMT -8
OK - Spoiler expo over. Big point being - Kuushana in V2.00 was largely just exposition set-up to recap the events of Veniczar, Alice's reasons for hating humans and waging war, as well as set her up as what's effectively PACT's new chief strategist and High Admiral (which comes right the hell out of nowhere since there was zero allusion to anyone as supposedly legendary as a "Kuushana of the Many Miracles" before at any point - exiled or no, there ought to have been some sort of mention for someone like that if one wants her to not feel like an asspull character for anyone who's not read the still-incomplete Veniczar novel). I don't think everything needs foreshadowing. Just be made consistent with what has been established before. For example, I disliked Alice beause how her presence lead to the original Arcadius being completely trashed in LD. Even if Arcadius was but a mask, not even an attempt was made to salvage his character. But Kuushana, I didn't feel so bad about because there was no need in the narrative for her to be mentioned and she hasn't done anything to cause problems yet. You could even argue that such characters popping up was inevitable if Fontana was to really overthrow Arcadius, since it's been clearly implied that Arcadius' PACT was not the same as what it started from. Cullen, a former imperialist, being a good proof of this. That being said, the infodump sucked though, that I agree. Not so sure about the Ryuvian DNA though, might be more related to some function of the Nightmare Ascendant as there is no reason for Alice not to have awakened inside the Sunrider in [RE]turn otherwise. Ditto for Asaga; I'm more inclined to view what happened with her as simply part of the script than as part of any actual objective on the prototypes' part. How would they know if Asaga was qualified to awaken if they didn't already have her DNA? The Ryuvian bloodline is said to be very diluted by now. Besides, if they really wanted subjects, I'd assume that there were other targets more readily available than the bloody crown princess of the nation.
maybe in the far future ethnicity will disappear as DNA mixes more evenly in an ever more interconnected world. racial distinctions arose due to populations living for long periods far away from each other, but we may be at the cusp of an age where the opposite happens. then again, on a galactic scale perhaps there are regions that are hardly ever visited by other groups, causing the same thing to happen again. *shrug Well, thinking about it, the most likely explanation I'd attribute it to would be founder effect and the formation of a new colonial identity that probably related to their skin colour. Interesting to think about how ethnicity and race works as distinctions between social groups would work in this universe. I don't think a concept of ethnicity will disappear any time soon though- physical features are one of the easiest ways to identify groups, and even if developing communications and transportation technology make everything grow tighter together, the scale of things would also continuously be expanded, making it moot. The issue with that though is that we're expected to take Kuushana as pretty much Arcadius's REPLACEMENT as the driving force behind PACT's military - there is a very dire "need in the narrative for her to be mentioned" purely BECAUSE she hasn't been mentioned or even referenced once, yet she's supposed to be a legendary figure among PACT with fame matching that of Arcadius and Fontana. Even though we didn't know Fontana was going to overthrow Arcadius in the beginning, he was still set up in FA as being clever, courteous and moral simply by the small interaction he had with Asaga - there was something in the beginning from which we could see the progression of his character and understand how he'd inevitably conflict with the amoral methods Arcadius used. If this was some new PACT underling or some other random no-name Veniczar that was being made Fontana's second or the like, I would have agreed with your assessment, but Kuushana's pretty much being tossed at us as the new PACT lead (or at the very least the co-lead) who's supposedly as big a legend as Arcadius was if her title was "Kuushana of the Many Miracles". It's true that not everything needs foreshadowing, but this isn't everything - it's a specific role that's being filled by a character we knew nothing about if we didn't get the Patreon-exclusive novel, who is supposedly legendary yet we've heard not so much as a peep about in-game. For this specific instance, it feels like dropping the ball when it comes to introducing a character. As for Alice, the reason I have this theory is based on her dialouge in [RE]Turn, where she hints to the idea that she gained Awakening from the emotional turmoil she experienced in the Compact Revolution the same as Asaga did at Far Port and Helion. That points to it being something closer to a blood-trait she already had.
Also, I point out that Alice is the only surviving Prototype out of the original generation - all the others were made after her, including Alpha, so it's possible they (save Alpha) were diluted too far to have it, or perhaps even intentionally barred from it so that the power remained with the "most pure." Alice and possibly Alpha may simply be the only ones with pure enough genes to Awaken.
As for Asaga, - again, that's WHY they would have had Chigara monitor her; to see if she WAS qualified and observe her growth. Also, may I point out that because of Ryuvia's devolved status and Asaga seemingly being the ONLY daughter of the royal family (remember, Sharr's are Warrior Princesses - as in girls only?), there is pretty much NOBODY ELSE besides the bloody crown princess of the nation. Besides, if they wanted to reclaim Ryuvia and it's secrets, they'd need the Royal Family under their thumb to begin with regardless, and they would be the only ones to go to in rediscovering lost Ryuvian tech, so there's already nobody else to go to. Think of it like this - if the Prototypes were cloned from ancient samples, a fresh living one would be unquestionably more pure no matter how diluted it is over the generations (and it's obviously not been enough considering the strength of Asaga's awakening is impressive even to an ancient like Sola), so of course the genetics from that would be better for use once she "matures".
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 2, 2016 1:00:12 GMT -8
Yeah, it seems quite strange that such an important part of Sunrider lore is locked away. Im not against people having early acces to it. But when you lock important story bits, its really bad for the story. IF im not mistaken, someone in the steam forums told me that the female Pact general that we saw uncovered at the end of Lib Day was in the novel where she was expanded upon. Knowing about her more would have been better because currently she just seems a random addition. In response to the last bit, yes - Kuushana was a character from the Veniczar novel. In fact, the entire dialouge between Kuushina and Fontana in the V2.00 ending is recapping the overall plot of Veniczar, which is: The origins of Alice as the first Prototype - or at least the first one considered a success by her creator, Dr. Ashada, who is revealed to be a complete callous sociopathic dick as opposed to the loving father Chigara believed him to be. It details her causing the Diode Catastrophe after murdering Dr. Ashada as revenge for her false life and to prevent other clones from suffering it, though her "sister" - her fellow clone - died in the chaos when she tried to save her.
Alice crashed on a desert world and met Obarin Knight - the previous Arcadius - and one of his lieutenents; Jemhyr Vars, a female Denari (dark-skinned human), whom Obarin detailed info about how her people lived in an entirely different expanse of the galaxy then the fair-skinned people of worlds like Cera, Solaris or the like. It even expanded on how the Denari, after originally being enslaved by the Ryuvian Empire and then "liberated" by the Solar Alliance (in reality they're pretty much backwater second-class citizens in the Alliance at large - and if I were to hazard a guess, the Denari are probably going to be one of the outlying groups the Sunrider crew draws new allies from in upcoming games). But that's neither here nor there, since Fontana doesn't even mention Obarin by name or Jemhyr and the Denari at all. Anyway, long story short; Alice joins the Compact Revolution and, over time, falls in love with Obarin/Arcadius through how much unconditional love he has for humanity, eventually drawing others like Kuushana and Fontana to his cause with her.
However, when they finally liberate New Eden, things take a violent and tragic turn when the people of the Compact demand blood for blood, intending to lynch the emperor of the New Empire. Obarin/Arcadius actually tried to save the Emperor, so as to judge him fairly I'd imagine, but in the end the very crowds of people he'd fought to liberate ended up killing him in the chaos when they stormed the palace anyway. Alice, enraged and grief-stricken, went insane from it and felt that humankind was not worth the compassion Obarin/Arcadius spent on it, believing it to be a blight that would doom the galaxy with what she felt were endless self-destructive ways. She took up Arcadius' mask with the intent to start a new war with only one goal in mind; digging humanity's grave. Kuushina, even though she was regarded as a miracle-worker in battle akin to Kayto, was ultimately exiled since she objected to Alice's vendetta and plans for war.
(NOTE - The story of the Veniczar novel never made it to the events in the last paragraph since it's writer, Woolyshambler, seemed to take a nose-dive off the face of the earth shortly after Liberation Day was released - or at least that was the last time I ever saw him active around here. As of now, we only know this based off of what Fontana and Kuushana say in V2.00)
[RE]Turn expands upon Alice and the Prototype's origins further, implying that the Alpha Prototype was created after Alice as a "purified" example of the Prototype's genomes. Additionally, Alice's later dialouge in one of the routes, commenting that she has "Sharr Myren's ghost" within her - Sharr Myren being the original pilot of the Nightmare Ascendent. It's just a fan-theory, but perhaps the reason for Alice being able to awaken and utilize a Sharr's machine is because the Prototypes might have actually been cloned from samples of Sharr Myren's DNA - and that perhaps the purpose of the Diode experiments in time-travel on cells was to help restore those DNA samples. It would also truly explain the Prototype's acute interest in Asaga and why Chigara was originally created to monitor her - they were watching her development for the day she would reach maturity as a Sharr and, from there, capture her and harvest her DNA to use in reinforcing their own and allowing them to fully reclaim their degraded Ryuvian genetic heritage, giving them full access to the Ryuvian secrets of old such as the Sharr'Lac weapons. OK - Spoiler expo over. Big point being - Kuushana in V2.00 was largely just exposition set-up to recap the events of Veniczar, Alice's reasons for hating humans and waging war, as well as set her up as what's effectively PACT's new chief strategist and High Admiral (which comes right the hell out of nowhere since there was zero allusion to anyone as supposedly legendary as a "Kuushana of the Many Miracles" before at any point - exiled or no, there ought to have been some sort of mention for someone like that if one wants her to not feel like an asspull character for anyone who's not read the still-incomplete Veniczar novel).
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 1, 2016 21:15:01 GMT -8
As a small spoiler, yes, there are dark skinned people in the Sunrider galaxy, but they do not inhabit the Neutral Rim, which is why we have not yet seen any. They primarily inhabit Denari Space, the area around Diode. (As discussed in the Veniczar Novel) A Denari character was *almost* introduced in V2.0 of LD, but we didn't have the time to design her. We have been preparing to introduce the Denari Arc for a while though, which we hope will be a more substantial and more complicated story arc than the Ongess arc in MoA. Will we see them in the next installment? Probably so, but I don't know. Depends whether the story will finally leave the Neutral Rim and go into Denari Space. ... You do realize putting such an arc in mid-game LibDay probably would have done wonders for the approval rating of the game, no(?) As for the Veniczar story, if Wooly (I assume they're still the writer for non-game stories/novels, right?) is absent, why not split the thing into two separate "issues" like the Lord of the Rings series? Book 1 & Book 2, or something like that? Then release at least some of what you currently have on the Patreon? Also... going out of line asking blunt questions, but was Veniczar's writer going MIA in any way connected to LibDay's plot being cut short?
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Jun 1, 2016 21:11:49 GMT -8
I... am honestly not sure whether you are actually sincere or just trolling me here. But by the benefit of doubt, here I go: So here is the core point of your request/argument. This, and one other sentence to actually state what you want is all you need. The rest? Is basically an unwarranted rant based on what you think should be, arguing against people and arguments that don't even exist. And suddenly, this request has turned into a bloody essay. To top it off comes your little recollection, and basically a post that reads like "I am bothered by this but not that bothered by it. Oh this is a problem, but not that big of a problem," as if you're somehow afraid of offending us, or as if you're dealing with children. Or both. The end result is basically "How to be Patronising 101". As a matter of fact, I'm being quite sincere, and I'm not trolling you. Unfortunately, we're dealing with plain text, and nuances of tone tend to get lost. So, for example, my previous post was not intended to say, "Oh this is a problem, but not that big of a problem," nor was it intended to come across as condescending, and I promise you that I am not afraid of offending anyone. My point was that I was making a suggestion with this thread, and it was intended in that spirit. If that didn't come through and instead gave the impression you took, then I suppose that comes down to my inadequacy as a writer. To put it another way, if I have a hypothetical friend, and I realize something that might improve his life, then I will offer that notion as a suggestion, which is his to take or leave. Obviously, LiS and I are not friends, but I definitely feel friendly toward them and respect them as creative people. So I'm certainly not going to try to dictate to them or threaten them in any way; that would hardly be friendly. If that gives the impression of timidity or indifference on my part, then let me say that nothing could be further from the truth. If I understand what you're saying, your objection is not to my suggestion, but to the way it was made -- that my original post was too long and too full of what you consider irrelevancies. Well, that's fair enough. As I said, it's entirely possible that the things that irritate you stem from my poor writing ability, and again, I assure you that any offense was completely unintentional. You say that... but weren't you, in a different thread a while ago, saying something TOTALLY DIFFERENT from this? You know, back in the "It should be possible to (spoiler) to (spoiler)" thread in response to Dextix? In that thread, you were VEHEMENTLY REJECTING the idea that someone should make such protestations based on what they felt was a justified recommendation. Example - I argue that we need an extension to mid-game story to flesh out and stabilize the main plot we're actually supposed to follow in the next game, and you see that as some form of demand for entitlement instead of a widely-shared opinion. You start going off about racial diversity in a fantasy game just because of the fact that human culture in it is loosely based off our own as a mock-template, and yet you feel that it should be acknowledged simply because you feel there's truth to it but don't see that as entitlement itself? Maybe I'm missing something here, but it sounds like there's just a little bit of bias going on here about what you do or don't think is an important issue and who you do or don't think has a right to comment on it.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 30, 2016 19:31:03 GMT -8
Our viewpoints seem to differ in where the two plans diverge; I only see the divergence at the very end, while you seem to see it as being somewhere... else. I find the latter viewpoint questionable since there is no reason for Alice to have gone so far playing the act and leading everyone on. Also, it is implied that Alice did not want to directly confront Alpha over their differences, as well as being a death seeker, which leads me to believe that Alice would not have wanted to make her decisive action be something which she needed to take the spotlight for. The Liberation Day massacre, in which she pulls the trigger but plays out by itself, seems much more likely like a primary course of action than a last resort. But I digress. My main question was not as to Alice's motivations, but the technical details as to why the mindstream is necessary. The current answer given seems to be that Alice's 'death' negatively affects her ability to control Chigara remotely, but even then, I don't see a reason why she could not have simply moved herself to another clone and accomplished the same deed. After all, it seems doubtful that Alpha would have planned for Alice's death to be permanent so a backup seems highly likely. Unfortunately, I do not find qwerty848's speculations about the prototypes simply not keeping any clones in reserve particularly satisfactory, since the entire thing is one big play, and there is no rerason to commit so much to a battle they intend to lose anyway. EDIT: To clarify, I'd like to point out how Alice is flat-out controlling Chisaga in [RE]turn as to why I'm raising the question at all. "Else"? I don't see what you're talking about - our viewpoints don't actually diverge; you just seem to THINK they do. Alpha and Alice ALWAYS had a difference of opinion on what to do about humanity. The entire reason Alice took up Arcadius' mantle was because she intended to force humankind into a war of self-destruction. Alpha wanted the opposite - she wanted humanity united under Prototype rule. When Kayto became a factor in the war, both sides developed their own intents for him - as Alpha to use him as a figurehead, Alice desired to undermine that goal. The "division" at the end about what to do regarding Kayto, the newest element of the war, was the end-result of a long-standing segregation in viewpoints between the two Prototype leaders. The reason Alice went that far was BECAUSE she wanted to lead everyone into self-destruction - the loss of the original Arcadius, whom she loved, drove her to obsessive lengths to exact a self-righteous revenge on humanity. Also, I think Alice was less a death-seeker and more an anarchist/nihilist, in that she wanted everyone to die WITH her - she sought death for all humankind and she refused to die until she did that. If she just wanted to simply die as you claimed, I don't think she'd have clung to Chigara after her own death. And her demeanor during the final battle of Cera, both in the main game and [RE]Turn, seems to contradict a "death-seeker" mentality - she was shocked, perhaps even horrified, at the idea that her Nightmare Ascendent could be bested and that she'd die before seeing the end of humanity. So to me, the Liberation Day Massacre seemed a secondary plan as opposed to a primary one. As for the Mindstream... again, I think Alice's motivations ARE the reason it was necessary. If she had tried to take over Chigara normally, Alpha would have been aware of it and might even have stopped her - Alice basically "faked" her (mind's) death so that Alpha wouldn't realize her plan had been sabotaged until too late. And she could not have "moved herself to another clone and accomplished the same deed" because (A) no other clone existed behind enemy lines, and (B) no other clone was so closely tied to Kayto that she could destabilize ALL OF HUMANITY in one blow. And that's not quite the point I was making - Alpha planning for Alice's death isn't affected by weather or not Alice's mind survived; all that's required of the plan is Alice's physical body die in battle to rally humanity. Alice's MIND betraying Alpha wasn't expected, though. If they were "intending to lose" so that humankind could be united, then it was undermined and ruined by Alice destroying that unity at the last moment. As for [RE]Turn, at that point it's just a simple override - the whole reason for the subterfuge in the main game was to keep ALPHA from knowing what was going to happen until too late. But in [RE]Turn, the timeline becomes so skewered that it becomes impossible for Alice to get what she wants at that point anyway, instead settling for the only other take-away she has left; making sure the Sunrider goes down with her.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 30, 2016 5:49:54 GMT -8
As I understand it, it was because there was a division of interests between Alice and Alpha. Alpha seemed to have wanted Chigara to be the tool with which to control Kayto as a puppet-leader over humanity so as to "properly guide" their development. As far as I can tell, Chigara was originally created to observe and monitor Asaga's growth, but by chance and fate she ended up on the one ship that proved pivotal to the conflict. Alpha then sent Claude in to play matchmaker so as to manipulate Kayto into becoming humanity's figurehead under their control. However, Alice had other plans - she wanted humanity to be wiped out and went against Alpha, opting to embed herself in Chigara so as to attack when everyone's guards were dropped and spark another conflict; Kayto trusted Chigara as Alpha intended, so what other Prototype was in such a perfect position to bring it all crashing down. In fact, if Alice had the foresight to know entering the Mindstream was the only way Kayto/Chigara could have countered her control over the PACT ships, it's possible that this was all backup-plan in case the "impossible" happened and she was defeated/killed -ensuring that, no matter who won or lost at Cera, humanity would fall into a war of self-destruction and Kayto, who was key to Alpha's plans of "unification for humankind", would end up disgraced or dead and his value as a figurehead shattered. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm under the assumption that Alice's 'death' was a core part of the prototypes' plan to unify humanity in a Lelouch-esque scenario. The only part that Alice changed being the LD massacre that followed it. Am I missing something here? That's what I said, isn't it? That had been the plan from Alpha's perspective - however, Alice didn't go quietly down said path of martyrdom. Like I said though, after Kayto became a pivotal factor in the war, making him the figurehead whom Alice was to be defeated by became the newest part of the plan - she chose him to be the final piece of the puzzle. It's also because Alice's "death" was potentially planned by Alpha that I personally wonder if Alpha herself planned Chigara's entering the Mindstream and the Liberation Day Massacre as the backup against that, even though she believed the chances of her own loss were minuscule to nonexistent (though that would wholly depend on whether or not Alice even knew Alpha planed on her dying). What you're saying was the general plan as far as humanity goes. What I did earlier was illustrate how Alpha used Claude and Chigara to incorporate Kayto into that plan after determining him suitable for the position of "mankind's figurehead" - and how Alice turned Alpha's intents for Kayto against her to doom Alpha's goal of unifying humanity under Prototype rule. What was originally asked was "why did Alice go through the trouble of mind-hacking and "incarnating" into Chigara instead of any other Prototype?" - my response was because (A) she wanted humanity eradicated, (B) Alpha's unification plan eventually coming to hinge on Chigara and Kayto's ties made Chigara the perfect one to destabilize it all from, (C) Chigara was the only Prototype behind enemy lines at that point, save for the incarcerated Lynn, and (D) Alice had no issue with dying if it meant she succeeded in ensuring humanity's destruction; she only cared if she died before that point. Chigara's entering the Mindstream was necessary for Alice because that was the only other way she could hope to destabilize things if she was actually bested.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 28, 2016 18:38:59 GMT -8
Here's another, more plot-related question: Considering the degree of control the prototypes are shown to have over Chigara in [RE]take, why is Chigara entering into the mindstream even necessary again? The rationale seem to be given in-game is that while Alice can control Chigara, she somehow can't do it while being 'dead', as per the prototypes' plans, thus she needs to move herself onto Chigara's body beforehand. If the problem is Alice dying during the battle of the Nightmare Ascendant, couldn't she simply have moved herself to any one of the other clones in the mindstream, then control Chigara anyway as per shown in [RE]take? As I understand it, it was because there was a division of interests between Alice and Alpha. Alpha seemed to have wanted Chigara to be the tool with which to control Kayto as a puppet-leader over humanity so as to "properly guide" their development. As far as I can tell, Chigara was originally created to observe and monitor Asaga's growth, but by chance and fate she ended up on the one ship that proved pivotal to the conflict. Alpha then sent Claude in to play matchmaker so as to manipulate Kayto into becoming humanity's figurehead under their control. However, Alice had other plans - she wanted humanity to be wiped out and went against Alpha, opting to embed herself in Chigara so as to attack when everyone's guards were dropped and spark another conflict; Kayto trusted Chigara as Alpha intended, so what other Prototype was in such a perfect position to bring it all crashing down. In fact, if Alice had the foresight to know entering the Mindstream was the only way Kayto/Chigara could have countered her control over the PACT ships, it's possible that this was all backup-plan in case the "impossible" happened and she was defeated/killed -ensuring that, no matter who won or lost at Cera, humanity would fall into a war of self-destruction and Kayto, who was key to Alpha's plans of "unification for humankind", would end up disgraced or dead and his value as a figurehead shattered.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 27, 2016 21:54:19 GMT -8
I completely disagree that Chigara was subtle or nuanced. The whole reveal hit like a train and you were given everything in LD to suspect her. If you would say that Chigara was subtle and nuanced in the first two games, i would agree. But in the third that went out the window. It was as subtle as a goddamn train. You were instantly revealed that she is the spy despite Kayto being a complete dipshit and thinking with his dick instead of his head. You could see what is going to happen Miles away! I completely hated what they did with Chigara, since again, there was no goddamn realistic build up and that forced romance was horrible. And yes, in my opinion it was all subtle before LD. But LD fcked everything up with its horrible writting. Um... dude? I WAS talking about FA and MoA, where, even after seeing Arcadius unmasked, there was enough of a nuanced background to Chigara to imply she might not have been one of the clones as opposed to their source-template. My whole point was that LibDay was where the ball was dropped on that - and not before LibDay, like Marx keeps trying to claim. On a more on-topic note, that brings be to perhaps the one really big thing that [RE]Turn got wrong (and I say this judging it as a spin-off instead of a "story addition" since it doesn't actually serve as part of the main story) - and that is there was no development on Chigara herself. Think about it - one of the biggest issues with the romance was not only that we didn't see Kayto's inner thoughts, but also that we didn't see Chigara really struggle or worry or develop; we didn't see her in any of her own moments of weakness or be comforted. LibDay painted Chigara as some kinda angel, while [RE]Turn, in spite of being good, kinda demonizes her even while acknowledging what happened wasn't really her fault, so that's probably the single biggest criticism I could give [RE]Turn on it's own merits (not going to touch on how, again, it doesn't fix the issues of the main story since it's pretty much a separate spin-off altogether, but that's another gripe and not truly the focus of this thread).
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 27, 2016 14:03:23 GMT -8
Point though; the links between Chigara and the Prototypes was done in such a way that it didn't set off alarm bells or conclusively prove anything - it was NUANCED and SUBTLE (you know, the very thing you kept trying to claim Sunrider didn't have/was terrible at?); something LibDay glossed over doing for it's characters. In hindsight it was foreshadowing, but in present-tense it was nowhere near heavy-handed enough to paint Chigara as a villain as opposed to just being connected in a general sense. ... I didn't plan to answer seriously in this thread, but if you feel need to nip at me on every passing moment wherever I post, fine. No, it wasn't nuanced nor subtle. Even just after the end of MoA, all polls in the old forum pointed to Chigara being the first choice for the traitor, even with Kryska's presence making her the obvious choice. After Academy (and the very subtle sister switch), the main reason people though Chigara may not be the traitor would be because it was too obvious; even when at that moment Chigara's popularity was near Ava's and her fans were clearly in denial. While the camera and zapping things where supposed to be framed comically (though for me the zapping was not justified, specially considering how just talking would have solved or that the fair thing would have been to zap either Asaga or all of them), together with her thoughts about technology it painted a clear picture of her. She is childish, too naive and clearly doesn't realize her power and talent.The alarm bells had clearly sounded, and even while a lot of people were joking about her going yandere, everyone knew she had the most potential of all if something bad happened. The question was more on how and why, which couldn't be predicted considering that mind-hacking was introduced 1 hour before her betrayal. You could argue that perhaps the transition from "framed-comically" to "taken seriously" could be a good twist, but subtle? Or nuanced? Taking a comical archetype and making it serious can be a good subversion and betrayal of expectations, but has nothing of neither. It's not even fleshed out, as comical archetypes are very simple by nature. Now, I will stop derailing this thread and post my impressions on REturn when I manage to finish it. Not to be rude, but I was kinda here first, dude. Yes, it WAS nuanced AND subtle, because it wasn't a flat-out 'this is the villain!' cry that you or Vaen are saying - not until the very end of MoA was the idea of clones or the like even introduced yet, and even then, because of the set-up of her parents being scientists, it bred the possibility that Chigara was, as Kayto in [RE]Turn believed, a rouge product of her parent's/homeworld's work that she or her parent's DNA was the template for. There was speculation but nothing solid - nothing that definitively proved one thing over the other. That IS nuance and subtlety. Also, did you ever stop to think that maybe; - (A) People just WANTED her to be the traitor even if it ended up she wasn't, just for the sake of drama? - (B) People felt Chigara might have been a sleeper-agent who DIDN'T KNOW she was a spy, therefore it could be an interesting character twist that would make her all the more better? - (C) People, like now it seems, Chigara was starting to just plain lose favor among fans? - (D) That the old polls were largely knee-jerk instant-reactions that dissipated once people had a moment to stop and think post-reveal? Also... sorry, but what? Last I checked at that point, I'm pretty sure people felt Kryska was going to be standing with the Sunrider because of the whole 'family over duty' cliche that seemed to be building between her and Icari, so Kryska was hardly the "obvious choice" compared to Asaga's budding envy or Ava's dispassionate duty-over-love approach. And with the camera and zapping things, again - she was born and raised in a LAB. She grew up around and was raised by scientists with only dispassionate, depersonalized textbook definitions of what social interaction actually is - she was never really taught how to function in the real world, let alone have any experience in what is or isn't awkward or odd for the average person. Hell, Chigara herself FLAT-OUT SAID that this very thing was why she was so nervous in groups or talking with others; because she had no real grasp of what "social norms" were (and Asaga hardly counts considering she hardly fits any social norms herself). In the end, NONE of those are cases where "the alarm bells had clearly sounded" - they're markers you could reliably find in ANY sheltered life, potential notwithstanding. Asaga fits the bill as well, being "childish, too naive and clearly doesn't realize her power and talent" just as much as Chigara, simply because she too don't have very much experience in the world beyond her preconceptions - she simply expresses it in the opposite-extreme manner. Hell, even Kryska fits those criteria with how diehard faithful she is in the Alliance and her beliefs of justice and righteousness always winning out. As a result, those two had as much potential to "go yandere" as Chigara if they'd had their own "one bad day" - and Asaga herself actually did so first, whereas Chigara was taken over by Alice and therefore didn't actually "go yandere" by choice at that point. So given all the above, YES - it can actually be called nuanced and subtle because it had the potential to be all these things at once. Given how the backstory was laid out, one could take her naiveté just as seriously as they could comically - pragmatically or humorously. You could see it both ways without either interpretation being wrong, and neither one could prove for certain whether or not Chigara was Prototype or human, so I don't see how you can try to claim it's not nuanced, subtle or fleshed out. I mean... do you really just not WANT to acknowledge anything pre-LibDay (besides Ongess) as being more nuanced or subtle then what LibDay gave out? The fact of the matter is that [RE]Turn did what LibDay should have done when it came to this - it went back to being nuanced and subtle and got a bit better at it. Yet it still stings because this is all a moot point - it's not cannon; it's not the story we're building off of in the next game, so even though it's good it still feels empty in a way.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 26, 2016 18:45:40 GMT -8
Something I feel many players didn't consider or are familiar with. Chigara was flagged as 'bad news' to me ever since the scene in MoA where she was caught installing spy cameras on the ship. for some reason everyone glossed over it, mostly because that was before the whole 'omg prototypes are a thing and they look just like chigara!' but in hindsight that was some heavy foreshadowing. If I can defend with something, I always claimed, even before Academy, that Chigara would go yandere! And was always rubbed off the bad way by her childishness (which also actually makes some kind of sense considering she probably barely has a year or 2) and "oh, I zapped two random guys by accident, that's supposed to be cute, right?". *cough* Obvious things aside, I'll probably comment on REturn when I've, you know, actually played it. I'm hearing good things, though I probably won't be doing a super-long review this time. Repeating this a bit for personal thoughts; I personally think the reason people didn't feel ill of Chigara with the cameras is because she was illustrated as being socially dense due to an isolated life in a lab - where everything being monitored for security reasons would be completely normal - so they understood why she wouldn't see the cameras as intrusive. Nor would she possibly see zapping people in defense of someone who couldn't take them on as bad - rationalize and compartmentalize, which she is able to do in the main games all the time (kill people in her Ryder even though she hates killing). Same with the Prototypes looking like her - given her lifestyle and parents, it bred the possibility that maybe Chigara wasn't a Prototype but rather that she or her parents were the human template(s) they were cloned from; if the Prototypes were a creation of Diode that went rouge, it could be easy to see it go either way. As for her going "yandere", I admit that it's easy for "Dere" characters hyper-sensitive to emotional crap to fall into that state, but in the end the Yandere transformation's really possible for any character if they get pushed far enough the right (or maybe wrong?) way - in the words of the Joker in "Batman: The Killing Joke" ~ "All it takes is one bad day." And LibDay - where Chigara got body-jacked, turned into the mass-murderer of the Alliance leadership, doomed her love's homeworld and the galaxy to destruction, was mind-fucked learning she WAS a Prototype with artificial memories and a fake identity, felt the trauma of dying painfully in her love's arms and, finally, had her mind be dissolved into the Mindstream with her obsessive love/guilt/self-loathing being the only things strong enough to keep her individuality intact (plus possibly having Kayto disown their relationship as a comfort-stress mistake) - was DEFINITELY Chigara's "one bad day." Point though; the links between Chigara and the Prototypes was done in such a way that it didn't set off alarm bells or conclusively prove anything - it was NUANCED and SUBTLE (you know, the very thing you kept trying to claim Sunrider didn't have/was terrible at?); something LibDay glossed over doing for it's characters. In hindsight it was foreshadowing, but in present-tense it was nowhere near heavy-handed enough to paint Chigara as a villain as opposed to just being connected in a general sense.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 25, 2016 20:43:52 GMT -8
Got all the character ends. Am just missing three of the Bad Ends - #4, #5 & #6.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 25, 2016 20:25:25 GMT -8
Against all my obligations I took some extra time off to play Return, and I’ll get straight to the point: I have some issues with it. I’ll be focusing on the negative aspects in this initial (first impressions) post, since I've so far seen more praise than negative feedback and want to point out the issues I had with it. (Future) Shields just wakes up and accepts the role which is imposed upon him. He was heavily committed to Chigara, to a point of being completely emotionally compromised and dependent on her. Dangerous, ruthless, and ignorant in his attitude towards people who challenged his relationship even. How did he get from that point, to not giving a shit about Chigara anymore all of a sudden? Where’s the development and/or inner-struggle that made him change so significantly? People finally get their agency in regards of Shields potential love interest, problem is: Most characters don’t really have an established emotional/romatic connection towards Shields. If you go for Icari for example, he suddenly starts to drop lines like how he’d always watch/protect her on the battlefield, and is upset that that’s not an option at that moment. As a player you just have to shake your head and say: “Fuck, I played this guy for three games, where is that all of a sudden coming from?” Eva was the positive exception here, her route was for obvious reasons the most grounded and believable. The rest felt extremely off. Asaga/Shields for example always had a completely one sided relationship, and then in Return you can hook up with her after less than a day. (Shows how hard Kayto took the loss of Chigara ) Some transitions were incredibly nasty (for ex: Shields explaining the ridiculous situation to any other cast member, and ALL of them just being: Alright! 100% behind you Captain! Let's go!) I’m not too fond of Icari’s character regressing more and more since the start of LibDay. I’d like to encourage people to compare her portrayal here to how she was on Versta and judge for themselves, she’s gradually becoming a blank archetype rather than a character. I get that it’s easier to write in extremes, but in Return she was for the first time so obnoxiously unstable that it was borderline annoying for me. And this is coming from one of her most “high ranked supporters.” A pretty alarming signal if you ask me. Claude is a real problem, not necessarily in this DLC, but regarding future installments. I am always skeptical of omnipotent characters in stories generally, because they usually drag bags of shit behind themselves. It doesn’t matter whether this character is an ally, enemy, or neutral, it kills suspense, and Return proved it once more. I got her secret ending in my first play-through and everything was looking fine until she stepped in: The nightmare ascended handily dominated the Sunrider crew, and the suspense slowly grew. Can it be stopped? Or is it over?…. And then Claude makes her “god move” and it basically felt like I drove a bus into a fucking wall. That’s how atrocious it was. Isn’t it great when a story hits its lowest point, where normally the climax was supposed to be? You can’t create real suspense with a character like that, she could literally step in any given moment and function as a deus ex machina if required. She should (in her current form) be written out of the story as soon as possible. Outright killing her off or at least defeat/ make her unable to use her powers via. “Worf-Effect” might be a good choice. This would also mean great establishing for the next main antagonist. (Crow?) Note: I respect Return for what it is. But I sincerely believe 2.0 is a far better setup for Sunrider 4 than any Return ending. I'm going to take a crack at this. And as a surprise, I'll be defending [RE]Turn in points - even if I think it doesn't fix LibDay's issues, it as a stand-alone spin-off is very good. And - SURPRISE - this is gonna be a long post (Also gonna put under spoilers for the time being). Regarding Chigara... I think the reason for Kayto's emotional turn-around is the same as when he was defending her. If there is one thing that has been a constant of Kayto, it's that he's arguably his own biggest critic, perhaps even more-so then Ava - when he feels he has failed or made a mistake, it haunts and consumes him. Much of Kayto's near-physical need to protect Chigara (someone who unconditionally cared for and accepted him as "Kayto Shields" instead of "the Captain) can be seen as stemming from his failure to protect Maray, which, as you said, made him "dangerous, ruthless, and ignorant in his attitude towards people who challenged his relationship", even though he KNOWS they're not trying to be antagonistic. This is basically the same, only the situation's reversed - he's consumed by a need to correct his "mistakes" in dooming his ship and his perceived failure to protect and acknowledge the feelings of his crew, which is leading him to instead treat Chigara with the same ruthless disposition even though he knows it's not her fault. It's the drawback of reckless characters who have such strong senses of morality - they throw themselves into everything too much and often give up more then they actually have to lose to fix their "wrongs", only to never fully do so because their own expectations are too demanding. That said - and this'll probably surprise you - I DO think you have a point about how it was handled. Like in LibDay, there's something of a failure to properly build that part up - it's not impossible for the above events to happen anymore then the 'railroad romance' in LibDay is, but you must explain it properly or else it will certainly FEEL unlikely/hard to believe. Even the normally-airheaded Asaga lampshades this, left shocked at how jarringly-unconcerned Kayto is about detaining his former love interest in her route (granted, she didn't know he was a future-Kayto, but then again from his perspective things only ended a few days ago at max - and Asaga herself doesn't show even half the concern for Chigara that she did in the first games anyway, so there's that). In terms of the other girls... well, same as above; guilt and a feeling of failure led to him falling into a relationship with Chigara that quickly, and you know the old adage of "old habits die hard". It's possible that [RE]Turn's secondary point was to illustrate that even when you're armed with hindsight, it doesn't mean you can escape your vices - as well as the fact that guilt and feeling like you owe someone something can make you act without thinking in the heat of the moment; a lesson that I think was SUPPOSED to be one of the points of LibDay (which it botched) that [RE]Turn executed a bit better(?). - In the case of Asaga, I could understand it because, out of everyone in the crew, she might be the only other one besides Ava that Kayto feels most guilty over. She over-exerted herself to the point of insanity with her Awakenings for his sake (BTW, nice to know that they do apparently cause madness if you're not careful with how it's used, especially as a beginner), was the one who pretty much knew from the start that something was wrong with Chigara, was suffering from hallucinations and stress that he never noticed while making googly-eyes at Chigara, and Kayto very nearly had Asaga killed for the sake of protecting Chigara. Kayto's never been good dealing with guilt, especially over people close to him he feels he failed, so he might feel Asaga "deserved" it to a degree(?). - In the case of Icari, it might be because Icari is someone who's been through the loss of family and quite possibly been through the exact same kind of romantic garbage (a love interest in someone who wasn't what they seemed, ect). And in an odd sort of way Kayto probably respects and admires how Icari was able to keep going when half the time his own failures made him want to crawl under a rock and die. Also, unlike Asaga, Kayto and Icari didn't take it above playful flirting and teasing each-other, which is something the two have kinda done for a while now if you look close enough at the past games, and in the re-written timeline they've probably been dating for a month or so before the scene on the beach. - In the case of Sola, it might be due to her being a very stable and reassuring presence akin to Ava, as well as someone who's already gone through everything he has and then some - lost her family, lost her home, lost her people, she didn't even have the satisfaction of winning it all back; she even "died" in a suicide-by-battle the same as he tried to at Cera. The only thing she hasn't done is get into a bad romance (though then again, we've no idea what kinda political bullshit, including possibly pre-arranged marriages, were set up for her in her time by her father to solidify her standing as a princess). Yet at the same time, she shares Chigara's quality of not tending to judge him for what he's done, though she doesn't sugar-coat things. Also, like Icari, Kayto doesn't go beyond a simple kiss with Sola, with an actual romance only consummating in the remade timeline were there's presumably a month or so of dating between them. - In the case of Claude... well... she's a goddamn God. And the universe just imploded, which Kayto has no clue how to fix, so it was practically done at gunpoint. "War makes strange bedfellows" - especially when you're desperate and can't sink any lower then you already have. The allegiance of the girls also wasn't too bad for me, though I might be biased on that count. Ava expressly said she doubted him at first, even saying front-up that she was only willing to trust him after seeing there were two Kaytos - plus, it gave her a chance to confirm her suspicions on Chigara. Sola's already a time-traveler and, as revealed in V2.00, she had suspicions about Claude for a bit before that, so her approval was easier to understand. Asaga... well, keep in mind that, according to [RE]Turn, she's kinda mentally compromised from the Awakenings she's done in quick-succession so soon after getting it, not to mention was always something of an airhead (and she had a best friend who's a super-genius, which strengthens her ability to suspend disbelief), and this Kayto actually puts stand-alone faith in her like she fantasized about, so... that's not to hard to get. With Icari... well, after everything she's seen so far (Black-Hole generator-superweapons, mass-produced army of psychically-linked clones, a Ryuvian Princess from 2,000 years ago, special abilities that allow interface with machines, lost technology that can alter the fabric of time or shift one through it like the Wishwall, ect), time-travel isn't going to be too horrible stretch, though she DID balk at it for a bit. With Icari's Tsundere changes... I think one could gauge that in a similar vein to how Kayto changed as the series progressed. Icari, by her own admission, has boxed up her feelings for so long that she doesn't even know what's what anymore when it comes to her emotions, so being in a socially-dependent environment like the Sunrider is awkward for the long-time loner. She wants to fit in, yet at the same time doesn't want to lose her independence or come off as desperate. Add to that there being a certain blue-haired pro-Alliance foil to her personality who's pretty much taken a steel mallet to her shell with all the subtlety and grace of a bull in a china shop, and Icari is basically trying to rebuild her ability to have "normal" feelings from scratch without wanting it to be obvious she's having trouble doing so. Now granted, I do think you're right that the Tsundere thing is becoming DANGEROUS overdone on Icari thus far, but at the same time I could understand herself becoming a bit (but just a bit) like that as a coping mechanism to help acclimatize to a life she's really not been cut out for since childhood - not to this extreme perhaps, but certainly the overall path. With Claude... yeah, I agree largely. Though what makes it a bit more acceptable for me is when reality pretty much collapsed because of her actions and Kayto apparently had to go on a decades-long trip through time and space just to find a way to fix it, proving she can't in fact just jump in like that lest it be game over in a different sense. In fact... in a twisted sort of way, if the final scene of Claude's ending is to be believed, it kinda points to a Mortal Kombat 9 scenario where, like Raiden with his past self, the Kayto of [RE]Turn's timeline is the one who gave the original, human Claude Triello the means to become a (Demi-)God in the first place, setting up the events of Sunrider itself and making what happened in Claude's end of [RE]Turn part of the whole 'end of reality' fiasco the main-timeline Claude is trying to fix in the main series' events (just a mindless theory granted, but no less interesting to think about). On a more grounded note, the device Claude gave Kayto (which Kayto remarks pretty much makes himself a God by way of it's abilities) seems to definitively point to Claude's Godhood being born of technology - and therefore possible to annul, if someone possesses and/or understands it or similar tech. In closing, I agree that [RE]Turn is good for what it is and that what's in LibDay is a good setup for the next game - however, I also feel that LibDay would be better served if parts of [RE]Turn (namely the more introspective stuff and the tidbits about "Awakening = Insanity risk", Kayto's nervousness about a quick relationship, ect) were spliced into it's main story.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 25, 2016 19:09:33 GMT -8
(Also... WTF are you talking about with Fate/Stay Night - it was repeatedly stated that NONE of the routes are more or less cannon then the other in that game; in the writer's opinion, they all happened, by way of multiverse theory I'd guess. So if anything, that's the worst game to make a comparison with.)
You're right, of course, that none of the routes are officially more or less canon than others, and yet there is clearly "a" canon route for the purpose of the sequel, Hollow Ataraxia, which doesn't cleanly match any of the three main routes from Stay Night. For example, Hollow Ataraxia takes place in a universe that closely resembles UTW's end, and yet Ilya is alive, which of course didn't happen in UTW. So I'd argue that my characterization of UTW as non-canon is accurate in the context of the sequel, despite the official "all routes are canon" Nasuverse line. Actually, Hollow Ataraxia follows a completely separate timeline that is an amalgam of all three. The In-Universe explanation is that an experiment of Tohsaka Rin's regarding the creation of the Gem Sword Zeldrich (IDK if that's spelled right) backfired and created a brand-new timeline that is a merger of the three routes of Fate/Stay Night. Said new timeline exists alongside the other three. Not only is Illya alive in this new timeline but so is Rider, who is still Sakura's Servant with Sakura herself practicing magecraft (which doesn't happen outside of Heaven's Feel) and Saber is still around too (which only happens in Unlimited Blade Work's good end, "Sunny Day"). Also, Shirou is apparently earning money in London as butler of Rin's nemesis, Luviagelita Edelfelt, which to my knowledge didn't happen in any of the three routes' endings (Unless it happened during the aftermath of the "Fate" route). To put it bluntly, none of the routes could be more or less cannon then the other in that instance.
Also, since Hollow Ataraxia additionally takes place in what is actually an illusion-world built by the grail off echoes/memories of the fifth war, it might be more accurate to say Hollow Ataraxia is the one more at risk of being non-cannon in context to the other games.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 25, 2016 18:57:25 GMT -8
I'm very happy to hear this, as it's pretty much what I hoped for. Even if Sam didn't intend for it, I feel by showing the main story from a different perspective it becomes apparent that not everything was to be taken at face value. It's been said before, but going into the game knowing the genre it's part of (and its conventions) really changes how you view things. for example: to me it was always weird to see people complain about the 'railroaded' romance with chigara when it was so obvious to me personally that it was part of the 'main route', meant to set up events later down the line. of course, if you don't know the story is only getting started and went into libday expecting the resolution of the 'harem' aspect of the series you're gonna have a bad time. And here we have REturn blatantly shoving the players face into the ' unreliable narrator' aspect of the series. Something I feel many players didn't consider or are familiar with. Chigara was flagged as 'bad news' to me ever since the scene in MoA where she was caught installing spy cameras on the ship. for some reason everyone glossed over it, mostly because that was before the whole 'omg prototypes are a thing and they look just like chigara!' but in hindsight that was some heavy foreshadowing. In fact, for what should be a harem game all the way till the end of MoA I had very little trust in most of the waifu, which is very strange for a harem game. you could say the 2 genres are very much at odds with each other, and expecting one and getting the other is always going to taste sour. "What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me which ones were true and which ones weren't?" "My dear doctor, they're all true." "Even the lies?" "Especially the lies." Okay... I'm going to need a long post, here. As is usual for my somewhat-overdramatic tangents The thing is... the fact that it's a separate story kinda disconnects from such an outcome, in my opinion. Kayto's perspective isn't really all that different from the one we as players already had in observing the story from a third-person player-perspective - if anything, it feels as though this is so critical to the main story that it's confusing it didn't get put THERE. Again, the reason for that was the horrid build-up - it felt like a 'railroad romance' because it WAS a 'railroad romance'; by that I mean that it was painfully straight, predictable and uninteresting. Had Kayto expressed these kind of doubts or hesitance or even off-handed exasperation at Chigara's desires - even as just an internal monologue of surprise or mock-horror at how fast it's going - at least ONCE, it would have made things much more believable even if ended the same way. And you know something - whether or not it was a 'main route' is completely semantical; it's HOW it was executed that got people upset. When dealing with a story about romance, you either need a slow build-up or, failing that, a well-explained one to make believable - yet here it's like there's an entire chapter's worth of events between MoA and LibDay because we saw only the start and end of the romance, which makes it far too clean-cut to be believable given how short it is/how little of it we actually see. Nobody was expecting such a 'harem' resolution - they were simply expecting the character development to be better done. If it were done well enough, people wouldn't have been so mad even if the game ended with Kayto dead and unloved - disappointed certainly, but not outright calling the game's story "horrible" as opposed to "heartbreakingly tragic." That it was part of the 'main route' was NEVER the problem, Vaen - it was that it wasn't done well enough to justify what happened. But the thing you're just as blatantly missing is that there's a difference between an unreliable narrator and an inhuman one - and another difference between narration and observation. The whole point of an unreliable narrator is that we see things from their FIRST-PERSON viewpoint - we see their internal thoughts, their ideas on what's happened, how they rationalize the choices the player makes for them, ect. We NEVER actually saw that with Kayto in LibDay the way we did in [RE]Turn or even in the prior two Sunrider games - in LibDay, Kayto was a character we were guiding instead of an actual narrator because we never saw his internal thoughts anywhere near as much; we never saw him question himself, never saw him conflict with himself the way we did in MoA. We can't call him a narrator, let alone an unreliable narrator, because we never actually saw him narrate anything regarding the relationship he had or the key moments of the game. For example, the scenes in which he and Chigara were talking about kids - it would have drastically helped if Kayto had some witty or comically panicked internal monologue about whether or not he was ready to even be a husband, let alone a father, since he's still in the "comfort romance" stage. Something that showed he was settling into it or the like - the Chigara romance was where these internal-thought sections were most badly needed, yet it was where they were most absent. Also, for the record, I personally think the reason people didn't feel ill of Chigara with the cameras is because she was illustrated as being socially dense due to an isolated life in a lab - where everything being monitored for security reasons would be completely normal - so they understood why she wouldn't see the cameras as intrusive. Same with the Prototypes looking like her - given her lifestyle and parents, it bred the possibility that maybe Chigara wasn't a Prototype but rather that she or her parents were the human template(s) they were cloned from. The stuff was done in such a way that it didn't set off alarm bells or conclusively prove anything - it was NUANCED and SUBTLE; something LibDay glossed over doing for it's characters. In hindsight it was foreshadowing, but in present-tense it was nowhere near heavy enough to paint Chigara as a villain as opposed to just being connected. MoA BALANCED the concepts out, whereas LibDay didn't - so I think what gave a "sour taste" is that it abruptly leaned to one side.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 25, 2016 17:07:27 GMT -8
I was not one of those people who expected [RE]turn to fix all my problems with Liberation Day; I expected a nice diversion, a fun bit of lagniappe. The fact is that I was pleasantly surprised. For all that it's non-canon, [RE]turn actually managed to address a lot of the beefs I had with the main game. Spoilers follow: We now have more in-game information on Alice's origin and motivations. We now see Kayto's crashing the Sunrider put in proper perspective as the rash act it was, and his fragile emotional state is clearly highlighted as the root of his poor decisions. We even get a nice bit where Kayto himself vents about how absurd the relationship with Chigara is on the face of things: how ridiculous it is for him to give up his military career for Chigara's dream, how daunting her insistent vision of having a big family is, and how she never stops going on about that damned bakery. There are all kinds of nice fourth-wall breaking asides too, like when Kayto wonders how they ever managed to beat the Nightmare Ascendant in Liberation Day and surmises that his former self must have been playing on easy mode.
Perhaps most importantly, we now have the player agency that fans wanted so desperately in Liberation Day. Your choices, even seemingly unimportant ones, matter to the game's storyline and your relationships with the women in the game. It was fun to go through [RE]turn multiple times and see which decisions led to which outcomes and to hear Claude take you to task for your bad choices. In fact, I personally hope LiS makes Bad Ends and Claude lectures a regular feature of the series going forward.
I was surprised, as I said, that a non-canon add-on could do so much to improve my opinion of Liberation Day, and yet maybe I ought not to have been. Fate/Stay Night has three major routes, only one of which is canon. Yet each of the routes contributes unique information about the game's characters that can't be found in the others; rather than being superfluous, they're all necessary to understanding the full story. And the non-canon status of the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works routes takes nothing from the quality of those storylines; for me, my time playing Unlimited Blade Works is a particularly pleasant memory, for all that it officially never happened. It's like the conflicting retellings of the same story in Rashomon: They can't all have happened, and yet each one illuminates a different facet, a different viewpoint; they're all valuable, even if they're not all true.
It goes without saying that Liberation Day's current state, after two major additions, was not a planned result, but in many ways a fortuitous accident, a reaction to fan outcry. And yet I have to admit that its troubled release seems to prove the saying that it's an ill wind that blows no good. It would have been best had all these changes been worked from the start into the linear storyline that fans were expecting, and yet the game's current state isn't so bad either. Instead of getting drip-fed data as you go along, the game is effectively jump cutting, providing background in a way akin to Pulp Fiction's nonlinear direction. You play through Liberation Day and get the "true" storyline. Then you play [RE]turn, and as you go through the various endings, more and more of the story and characters are revealed. They absolutely complement each other, one providing fleet combat and the canon route, the others providing richness and context. Incidentally, non-canon storylines are also something I hope to see more of in the Sunrider series going forward: they're terrific. The more the better.
Had the game somehow been released in something close to this condition -- if LiS itself could somehow go back in time and rework [RE]turn's time traveling mechanic more organically into the main game, for example, providing multiple routes (but still only one canon one) -- then I, for one, would have been delighted by what I took to be LiS' skillful game design. The thought that the company managed to engineer this kind of turnaround in three months amazes me. And maybe that's the real lesson that LiS ought to be taking here. Not just about the importance of listening to fan feedback, but about the importance of getting things right the first time. Had they taken the additional time to polish Liberation Day before release, I think it would have seen much more commercial success. Producing work in white heat is well and good, but cool reflection can help temper a game.
Needless to say, not all is perfection. [RE]turn is as riddled by typos as the rest of Liberation Day (glean, not gleam; Fereldan has multiple spellings, etc.), and yet the fact is that LiS has done solid work here. It works. It absolutely works.
The big problem with this though... is that much of what you said is a double-edged sword. Everything is as important as you said... but what might jar or even piss people off is why the hell none of this was so much as referenced in the main game.
Regarding player agency... I feel this is, to be blunt, just plain wrong. It ties into something Marx said a while ago about the "illusion of choice" RPG's tend to thrive off of - that your actions alter short-term events but do not actually shift the main story itself, similar to Mass Effect. [RE]Turn is perhaps the biggest example of this all, since all that player agency you mentioned IS an illusion - it changes the story drastically... but because this story's not cannon to the main game, none of it matters going forward.
In fact, the above is kinda why [RE]Turn... actually lowers my opinion of LibDay further. Because [RE]Turn is it's own individual thing - it itself is not LibDay. It proves the writer can write well, and it proves the main story could be made better - but that the devs just don't want to do that. All this stuff about the story and characters could have been put into the mid-game just as easily - hell, it arguably would have been far easier and more (cost-)effective to do so. No matter how good a non-canon storyline may be, the fact of the matter is that it's still not cannon - we won't see it be built off of in the future, yet a main story widely panned as flawed will.
(Also... WTF are you talking about with Fate/Stay Night - it was repeatedly stated that NONE of the routes are more or less cannon then the other in that game; in the writer's opinion, they all happened, by way of multiverse theory I'd guess. So if anything, that's the worst game to make a comparison with.)
So yes, [RE]Turn is good - but at the same time, it blows the original story out of the water so fiercely that it actually is somewhat aggravating that this isn't the story we're going to be following.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 23, 2016 8:32:12 GMT -8
Samu-kun. Just remember that there's been some that had been following you since 2014, including myself (even if sometimes I've been grumpy about it). I think I can talk with context and at the same time with some distance: specially as someone who enjoyed the story through the series but didn't think super highly about it (I would give it an 8, to say numbers). While MoA certainly had a lot of similarities with Lib Day (forced romance, just with Ava instead of Chigara, relatively short, "cliffhanger" ending, no routes, etc), the writing, while not stellar, was leagues better. You yourself admitted that Ongess was the part you were most proud off of bthe series (and indeed in some parts of Ongess the writing got good). I wasn't particularly impressed by the story part of First Arrival, but I felt MoA tried to do things with it that were ambitious, yet also grounded. That grounded part disappeared in Lib Day, and it really felt like sometimes the story was going through the motions, awaiting the entrance of the next plot device. And I think I know clearly which anime you were trying to imitate, but I also think you got lost in that sea of cool twists forgetting the foreground and everything that was set up in the earlier 22 episodes. Now, I don't agree with adding stuff in the middle. Before the release I would have been all for it, but as you say, I feel now it would be useless, simply adding stuff to places "that people doesn't like". I don't think the new content can overturn people's ideas about some parts, even if they make them formally a lot better. I also agree with you in the way the VN market is set; despite what some people believe, I think the latest VN releases prove that good writing alone simply doesn't sell. So I understand your skepticism in a lot this, specially with you having detailed sales data. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the superior writing of MoA and I don't want it to return (or improve!) in a sequel. I wrote that review specially focusing on the writing because I realized that, while most of all the general objections (shortness, lack of routes, forced romance, cliffhanger ending) would disappear in the sequel simply due to the nature of the game, there was a chance for some of the failures there to persist. All in all, I don't want to tell you what to do or how to do it. I think that is simply out of place and rude. But I wanted to tell you wholeheartedly that I enjoyed some of the writing in MoA, and I simply want to enjoy myself with similar writing again. But that's just it - dragging in the middle was why much of the ending felt so rushed to begin with. What time it's done (before release, after release, during release) has no bearing on that - getting it done does. The parts "that people don't like" are the endgame, and it's really nowhere near as hard to overturn those ideas as you might think. If [RE]Turn - a game that has no impact on the story at all - isn't "useless", a mid-game arc wouldn't be either. And once again, that claim about the current VN market's a total misnomer - good writing is what makes games sell better then others because fanservice for fanservice's sake doesn't hook any better. It depends on how much of the game's TOTAL POTENTIAL you use, and LibDay didn't do that when it came to story even in comparison to the prior games. Also, just to note, I personally think you're wrong about MoA's "forced romance" (we had hints of Kayto having feelings for Ava all the way back in First Arrival, plus it showed that she was really more of an unresolved old flame as opposed to a forced current-tense romance - if anything MoA was building up Chigara more then Ava, or maybe even setting up choosing between the two).
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 23, 2016 0:17:14 GMT -8
Quick question for reference - but since all the complaints so far are on grammatical stuff, I'm guessing nobody has fault with the story itself, correct?
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 22, 2016 14:13:33 GMT -8
Here is where we discover that Sola gets his awakening ability from contact lenses and she put them in incorrectly for that battle. How is the further STory planned? I liked the LD2.0 ending after all; but with the DLC this one feels obsolates?! Which ending is canon? LD2.0 (Sunrider destroyed, intergalactic war, Sunrider crew scattered) or DLC (LD-Massacre did not take place; Chigara in Prison untill Alpha is hunted done; new crew Member; new adventures)? As I wrote, I like both endings, but my heart's ill if I don't know which one is canon :S You do not need to worry the DLC sits in its own timeline, it does not affect the main story. Saying that I doubt Samu could resist sneaking in a few bits of foreshadowing for example the fact there are multiple time travel devices of Claude's design and that she is able to make them. ... also you know like how Icari demonstrates implosions in such a detailed manner? That could also be foreshadowing. Saying that I hope Dr Shields and his Assistant gets its own series even if it was just a silly doodle comic. Um... that's actually going to be more worrying to some people - if they think it's that much better then LibDay's ending, they're probably going to feel gypped that it's all non-cannon (and before you start, no - if it's in it's own separate timeline, it's not cannon to the main series) and doesn't affect the story, or it might make the DLC feel a bit hollow in a way.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on May 22, 2016 11:54:54 GMT -8
I agree that Dextix is taking Samu's words out of context. And I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise behind some posts here, that there is some sort of natural law, some bill of rights that requires that all fans' whims be unfailingly catered to and that their wishes are coequal to what a writer wants to do. To my mind, this attitude is very reminiscent of those extreme idol-otaku who think that because they've shown some devotion and bought some CDs that they have the right to control how the objects of their affection live, to demand that they remain pure, virginal, and prevented from having any sort of normal social life. It betrays an extremely unpleasant sense of self-entitlement and a delusional view of reality that has no basis that I can understand. I can scarcely believe this needs pointing out, but LiS has much more skin in the series' success than any fan does. If their games don't sell, then they're out on the street and probably in hock as well. Fans, meanwhile, may be saddened (although the attitude of some people on this board makes me question whether they might not indulge in schadenfreude instead), but they won't be starving. I'm a simple-minded man, but when I see one person with skin in the game and another person with none but only a big mouth, my sympathy runs to the one with skin -- and the one who's actually doing the work. These veiled hints at market blackmail by some supposed silent majority are contemptible. It's all very well to talk about how easy it would be to add some more story arcs, but talk is cheap. Let the fans who think it's a walk in the park write up their own scenarios and post them here for other fans to appraise -- if they dare. LiS is a business, and if there are some halfway competent efforts that get the job done, then I'm sure they would be happy to use those scenarios and give cowriter credit. "Natural law"? A series depends on it's community as much as it's writing team - yet half the time it seems like you're saying the latter has the right to completely ignore the former if they choose to do so. No game can be sustainable under that kind of criteria - the whole point community forums exist IS to give feedback and opinions on what did or didn't work. "What a writer wants to do" doesn't mean they're always right, and acknowledging that - and that you likewise can't cater to them/make them thing anything is okay, because what they want might be coequal to what's best for the very story they made - is rather important. Except that it's not just one person - it's quite a lot. Just by looking at the Steam reviews shows that much - nearly every other review criticizes the mid-game story. That's not self-entitlement or a "silent majority" - it's a pretty clear general consensus on something. Say "it's diverse" or "there's no unified opinion" or whatever you want - that doesn't change the point; there's a clear general opinion on it and just ignoring it doesn't say much about the game-makers. But it's precisely because they love the series that they DON'T want that to happen - preventing that's the whole reason they even give criticism in the first damn place! Hell, that's not even unique to fans of the series - if a product's good or bad, you support or critique it. But the problem is that this is a huge misinterpretation - if someone's made a mistake, whether or not they had "skin in the game" is completely irrelevant. It's like saying you'd defend a criminal just because whatever they stole from was a project they worked on - it's BAIS to do that because it's instantly defaulting to one side over the other without looking both ways; the very thing you claimed was contemptible to do. And the whole problem with that "talk is cheep" speil - [RE]TURN EXISTS. Being rude, but he fact that work was put into an 18-ending, double-LibDay script-size spin-off means talking about what they'd have to work is academic - because they've arguably done MORE work then would be needed for a mid-game arc on a non-cannon scenario. They've PROVEN with ACTION they'd be willing to do the work - and so for the sake of correcting fan-complaints since Samu himself admitted he did [RE]Turn thinking it would solve all story-complaints (even though it's probably just going to make people hungry for a main-story update to LibDay).
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