Yeah I know they mentioned about reattaching but I thought was only only of they left it attached with damaging nerves/vessels which he clearly did, that and he had to do it for both the psyncer and psycnee, though I guess you didnt see how he did it for others. You would think he wouldn't have done it for his original body anyway.
I will say, it sounds like he didn't actually care about his initial body until he realized that his brain was "special" and that killing in other bodies didn't give him a high so that could maybe explain why he treated his old body as expendable for that first switch. Still doesn't make sense what the "plan" was when he was in Rohan's body though
In-game, the other characters assume that he is remembering this that he knew as Falco, prior to losing his memories (the whole 'fractal memory' thing). He knew about the true nature of Psyncing and a few other big twists / reveals before he lost his memories. Between the tutorial Somnium and a couple of other things, the seeds are planted for him partially / wholly recovering his memories, so that doesn't come out of nowhere.
Some things I've been trying to grok re: Pewter...
Can someone explain what his motivation was for helping Saito in some of the timelines? Was it just that he thought he was helping Renju? Political leverage being applied by So? Pewter seemed like a fairly stand-up guy when not, y'know, betraying you. I feel like I must have accidentally skipped through the in-depth explanation.
In-game, the other characters assume that he is remembering this that he knew as Falco, prior to losing his memories (the whole 'fractal memory' thing). He knew about the true nature of Psyncing and a few other big twists / reveals before he lost his memories. Between the tutorial Somnium and a couple of other things, the seeds are planted for him partially / wholly recovering his memories, so that doesn't come out of nowhere.
Some things I've been trying to grok re: Pewter...
Can someone explain what his motivation was for helping Saito in some of the timelines? Was it just that he thought he was helping Renju? Political leverage being applied by So? Pewter seemed like a fairly stand-up guy when not, y'know, betraying you. I feel like I must have accidentally skipped through the in-depth explanation.
I got the lovers part; even given that, though, you'd think he would have balked at "kidnap a young woman and bring her to me at this remote, heavily guarded location." Did Saito-Renju say or do anything to justify his request other than just say "trust me"? Under the circumstances, with Pewter being one of the few people who knew about body-swapping and about the missing Psync prototype, you would think he'd have smelled a rat.
...Honestly, you'd think the government would have put in far more effort to find the missing prototype than they apparently did. Did nobody at all stumble across it during the process of cleaning up the chemical factory district over six years?
I know, I know. It's only a game, I should really just relax.
The hardest thing about AI is realizing that it's not a puzzle game like VLR or 999. It's an adventure game, it's a visual novel game, but it is *not* a puzzle game. The sooner you can kind of accept that, the more fun you'll have with the game.
Obviously I have to treat it like that, or I won't enjoy it, but the problem is that the game clearly sets up these *self-contained very much puzzle room-like segments* with mechanics and time limits and things to "solve", and then just says fuck it ha ha who cares let's just do dumb random shit because it's a dream.
If the game never had these, or just had you interact in Somnium's the way you do the rest of the game, that's a VN. As it is, they set something up and then fail wildly in the process.
What's the verdict on this ZTD quality or VLR quality? Kind of trying to decide if I should way or go at it. I still liked ZTD though if that helps although I do agree on all the things that made it disappointing to others. Also if there are any meaningful differences to what I should expect out of a Uchikoshi game feel free to share I stayed out of the marketing for this 95%.
What's the verdict on this ZTD quality or VLR quality? Kind of trying to decide if I should way or go at it. I still liked ZTD though if that helps although I do agree on all the things that made it disappointing to others. Also if there are any meaningful differences to what I should expect out of a Uchikoshi game feel free to share I stayed out of the marketing for this 95%.
What's the verdict on this ZTD quality or VLR quality? Kind of trying to decide if I should way or go at it. I still liked ZTD though if that helps although I do agree on all the things that made it disappointing to others. Also if there are any meaningful differences to what I should expect out of a Uchikoshi game feel free to share I stayed out of the marketing for this 95%.
I posted earlier that the story doesn't fall into the same problems that ZTD did and doesn't rely on incredibly dumb twists or character motivations. There are some issues with the dissonance between how seriously the game treats itself but it's a weird quirk imo, not a deal breaker. The "gameplay" segment falls flat.
Overall I put it behind VLR, way over ZTD, and above or on par with 999. When this game is strong, it's really fucking strong.
Obviously I have to treat it like that, or I won't enjoy it, but the problem is that the game clearly sets up these *self-contained very much puzzle room-like segments* with mechanics and time limits and things to "solve", and then just says fuck it ha ha who cares let's just do dumb random shit because it's a dream.
If the game never had these, or just had you interact in Somnium's the way you do the rest of the game, that's a VN. As it is, they set something up and then fail wildly in the process.
You're not wrong. The most uncharitable reading would probably be that at some point in development there was an intent to make each Somnium react logically according to a "rule" and be a self-contained puzzle -- some of the Somniums do indeed appear to follow a simple rule set which would give credence to that notion. But some of the *other* Somniums are so devoid of any perceivable logic or rule sets that you have to entertain the possibility that they just gave up on the whole idea somewhere in development. Certainly, further in the game, the Somniums do get harder, but it is on the basis of the built-in meta game of trying to hoard timies and making "smart plays" about usage rather than anything the idea makes good on.
Ultimately, the gameplay falls on its face and only works as well as it does thanks to Aiba and Date's interactions being mostly hilarious, or because the story moves forward in interesting ways in some Somniums.
The story itself is, in my opinion, on par with VLR, which is what brings this game back from being a disappointment. If the story had been weak, it'd be in 6/10 territory, but as is, I'd give it an 8.5.
I got the lovers part; even given that, though, you'd think he would have balked at "kidnap a young woman and bring her to me at this remote, heavily guarded location." Did Saito-Renju say or do anything to justify his request other than just say "trust me"? Under the circumstances, with Pewter being one of the few people who knew about body-swapping and about the missing Psync prototype, you would think he'd have smelled a rat.
...Honestly, you'd think the government would have put in far more effort to find the missing prototype than they apparently did. Did nobody at all stumble across it during the process of cleaning up the chemical factory district over six years?
I know, I know. It's only a game, I should really just relax.
The way the game handled Pewter is a mess that I'm still kinda bitter about. I wonder if Uchi got any pressure from higher-ups not to give the gay relationship too much of a spotlight or if that was his own fault despite his good intentions. Considering how fleshed out most aspects of the story were, the way the game danced around that specific point stuck out like a sore thumb. Date asks if Pewter gave Renju the watch and when he confirms it, Date's inner monologue is like "Okay, got it, I understand, that's all I needed to hear!" and it's never really acknowledged again.
The weirdest thing about the Somniums to me is that I'm still not sure what's up with the timies you're given after performing actions. Sometimes they seem to just change for no reason. I'd look at an object and all the interactions would give unknown or bad timies, and then later I'd come back to it after messing with something else or retrying/restarting and they'd be good or vice versa. In the final Somnium for the Annihilation route where timie management is really important, I made it to the end and saw that I needed to do two actions in a row worth 999 seconds and I didn't have the timies necessary to have time left over, but I had just received and wasted a 1/10 timie that would have allowed me to finish with time left. So I went back one lock but this time it gave me a 1/9 timie instead which made me go just over time so I had to restart the entire Somnium.
This exact thing happened to me. I was less than thrilled, especially because that Somnium takes so long to do. I'll go back and get it if I feel like going for the platinum, I guess.
Anyway, finished! I'm reviewing the game for a site so I'll brain dump most of my thoughts into there, but overall I really liked it with the exception of some of the Somnium segments and out-of-place humor.
I do like that despite this being an Uchikoshi game and all the timeline shenanigans that implies, the game really doesn't use the timeline stuff at all except for some flavor (like Date remembering Iris talking about parallel worlds at the end of the Annihilation route or a few comments in the epilogue). All of the things Date "shouldn't know" that are used to break the locks are just things from his life as Falco, so in-universe it's just him starting to remember as opposed to morphogenetic field stuff. It does make the locks feel a bit more arbitrary, since there's not an in-universe reason why you can't continue down those paths right away - it's just there to make sure the player gets the reveals elsewhere as opposed to Date randomly remembering things the player's never seen before.
Also in my last post I said I would die laughing if the true end involved a VLR-style flowchart except for body swapping and lo and behold. They didn't show it on screen but that was all I could think during the Annihilation End.
Also, one question: how many bad ends are there? I got one when I refused to swap bodies with Saito in the Annihilation route (though given how that route turns out it's not like it matters that much). I assume there are others for shooting So in Mizuki's route and Saito in the Resolution route?
This exact thing happened to me. I was less than thrilled, especially because that Somnium takes so long to do. I'll go back and get it if I feel like going for the platinum, I guess.
Anyway, finished! I'm reviewing the game for a site so I'll brain dump most of my thoughts into there, but overall I really liked it with the exception of some of the Somnium segments and out-of-place humor.
I do like that despite this being an Uchikoshi game and all the timeline shenanigans that implies, the game really doesn't use the timeline stuff at all except for some flavor (like Date remembering Iris talking about parallel worlds at the end of the Annihilation route or a few comments in the epilogue). All of the things Date "shouldn't know" that are used to break the locks are just things from his life as Falco, so in-universe it's just him starting to remember as opposed to morphogenetic field stuff. It does make the locks feel a bit more arbitrary, since there's not an in-universe reason why you can't continue down those paths right away - it's just there to make sure the player gets the reveals elsewhere as opposed to Date randomly remembering things the player's never seen before.
Also in my last post I said I would die laughing if the true end involved a VLR-style flowchart except for body swapping and lo and behold. They didn't show it on screen but that was all I could think during the Annihilation End.
Also, one question: how many bad ends are there? I got one when I refused to swap bodies with Saito in the Annihilation route (though given how that route turns out it's not like it matters that much). I assume there are others for shooting So in Mizuki's route and Saito in the Resolution route?
I've gotten 2 bad ends I think. The atami ending with the receptionist, and letting hitomi die in the annihilation ending. I want to say there was a third bad end, but I forget
Just finished up. My overall feelings are pretty positive. The plot was great, the cast was likable, it nailed the really emotional bits when it mattered, and it certainly took me by surprise a good number of times. It's a shame that it was packed full of some of the cringiest shit I've ever seen in my life with all the pervert jokes and especially those godawful action sequences, but the rest was good enough to make sitting through all of that worth it. There is one thing in particular besides the game's horniness that is leaving a really sour taste in my mouth, though.
Pewter. Holy shit was he handled poorly. As soon as the game first hinted that he was gay I feared that he'd be a villain and fall into that shitty trope, but I did the entire left branch first before moving to the right and Uchi went out of his way to vocally express strong support for the LGBT community there so my concerns were eased somewhat and then the game hit me with it anyway. It would've been so easy to at least have him like... be conflicted about kidnapping Iris or commanding a bunch of (wildly incompetent) armed mercenaries? But he didn't really seem to be, and although the game goes to great lengths to elaborate on pretty much every other plot and character detail, it feels like there's a gaping black hole surrounding Pewter and Renju's relationship. It refused to say anything about it beyond "they had one," and so Pewter's character ends up feeling like a black hole as well. I might be mistaken, but I don't even seem to remember Pewter having a noteworthy reaction to Renju's death in the left branch, and I was paying pretty close attention to him the whole way through because of the gay tease.
I rolled my eyes a bit at finding out he was gay by opening the cabinet and it being full of BL manga, but it was whatever, and for a while it seemed like he was going to be a "gay but it doesn't play out in his character", which... fine. Not every queer character needs to have their queerness define them.
Then we got the reveal that he was Renju's lover, which... like, I did the "of course" when I realized he was "the regular" at Marble, that was some decent foreshadowing, but everything they did with his relationship with Renju was just not handled well. In a game that mostly treats interpersonal relationships with a lot of depth and caring, Pewter and Renju's was really, blatantly nothing but a plot device, and it kind of sucks that it turned him into a de-facto villain even if he was ignorant about the swap. Like, sure, let queer characters be villains, but this just left a bad taste in my mouth.
31 hours, I liked it. I never got the mindblowing reveals I expected like in the nonary games but the cast is great. Aibo's cool.
Also, all that switching between the left scenario and the right one got me so confused I was suprised when Boss showed up in the true end because I was sure she got killed when it actually happened in that other scenario.
This exact thing happened to me. I was less than thrilled, especially because that Somnium takes so long to do. I'll go back and get it if I feel like going for the platinum, I guess.
Anyway, finished! I'm reviewing the game for a site so I'll brain dump most of my thoughts into there, but overall I really liked it with the exception of some of the Somnium segments and out-of-place humor.
I do like that despite this being an Uchikoshi game and all the timeline shenanigans that implies, the game really doesn't use the timeline stuff at all except for some flavor (like Date remembering Iris talking about parallel worlds at the end of the Annihilation route or a few comments in the epilogue). All of the things Date "shouldn't know" that are used to break the locks are just things from his life as Falco, so in-universe it's just him starting to remember as opposed to morphogenetic field stuff. It does make the locks feel a bit more arbitrary, since there's not an in-universe reason why you can't continue down those paths right away - it's just there to make sure the player gets the reveals elsewhere as opposed to Date randomly remembering things the player's never seen before.
Also in my last post I said I would die laughing if the true end involved a VLR-style flowchart except for body swapping and lo and behold. They didn't show it on screen but that was all I could think during the Annihilation End.
Also, one question: how many bad ends are there? I got one when I refused to swap bodies with Saito in the Annihilation route (though given how that route turns out it's not like it matters that much). I assume there are others for shooting So in Mizuki's route and Saito in the Resolution route?
I've gotten 2 bad ends I think. The atami ending with the receptionist, and letting hitomi die in the annihilation ending. I want to say there was a third bad end, but I forget
Btw. something I noticed that I thought would be a big deal turned out to be nothing:
"6 years" seemed to be so important, as the incident back then was 6 years ago and nearly all characters ages are multiples of 6.
Mizuki 2*6 = 12
Iris 3*6 = 18
Ota 4*6 =24
Date 5*6 = 30
Pewter 6*6 = 36
Boss 7*6 = 42
And I am pretty sure I also saw 48, 54 and 60. I was so sure this had to mean something, but it was nothing.
What's the verdict on this ZTD quality or VLR quality? Kind of trying to decide if I should way or go at it. I still liked ZTD though if that helps although I do agree on all the things that made it disappointing to others. Also if there are any meaningful differences to what I should expect out of a Uchikoshi game feel free to share I stayed out of the marketing for this 95%.
It's the most Uchikoshi game ever. There are scenes and endings as light hearted as Punch Line at its warmest (there's also a couple of ridiculously over the top bits that feel like Punch Line too), and parts that are as grim and gore-y as ZTD at its coldest.
In terms of twists and how it sticks the landing, I dunno. I've only cleared two routes, and neither of them really gave any answers. I really liked the ending to one of them though, and the other was pretty good too.
Still can't believe i reached the classified part first, all that teasing is killing me!
I've done two ending after that, guess there's like 2 or 3 other before i can reach the true ending!
We'll see
oh shit, i did ota and mizuki route on the left path... now i went to the right path by doing the other lock in bloom park... damn it's already taking a weird turn
anyone got any idea how i get to the day 5 Kenzai path? i know it says to trust or not to trust Iris but i can't find any way not to trust her at the split
anyone got any idea how i get to the day 5 Kenzai path? i know it says to trust or not to trust Iris but i can't find any way not to trust her at the split
The choice isn't made at the split, you have to have been not trusting her during the entire psync. Don't craft anything she asks you to craft and destroy important things that she wants you to use. Listen to AIBA at every turn.
Because Uchikoshi is trash when it comes to this. They kind of play with him getting excited by violence in the ending where he kills So and there are mild bits by Aiba once or twice in conversation but that's all. The porn stuff stimulation is moot when the dumbass guards are just as horny anyway.
why porn lol? Was she rewiring murder excitement into porn one? From my understanding she was just supplying the gland so it he wouldn't carve it, but he could still get kick off it if he went too far.
I always thought when he was X-Raying and getting excited it was because of bones and implied death (so I was kinda wrong but also kinda right).
Plus Falco seems like grounded guy, not a pervert in the slightest
Just finished it! You're in for a wild ride :D
I've been lying low for these past few days trying to finish without encountering any spoilers. Now looking forward to reading this thread.
I'm at around day 4 now. Starting to enjoy it now that the plot seems to be moving. I felt the opening was pretty slow.
I like the story so far, but the constant juvenile sex jokes are pretty distracting and unnecessary. It feels like someone wrote a decent story, and then someone else stepped in and decided to insert stupid middle school humour everywhere. I think they've all made me roll my eyes instead of laugh, so now I'm wondering if I'm just older than the target audience for this game. Same goes for the anime cutesy dance shit. I just feel too old for it.
I like the MC and his supporting cast so far. Most of the people outside his unit are annoying, though. Date and Aiba have great voice acting and generally good banter.
