Fill me in: How do you like it on Switch? Screenshots on the eShop show no anti-aliasing and what looks to be sub-720p image quality. Does it run well? Is loading not too bad?
I WANT this game on Switch but I'm not jumping on that if it proves to be severely inferior to PS4.
Every time an action sequence starts, I just wonder how they will shoehorn dumb pervy shit into it this time.
Date must have been so much fun to VA for. He has to say murder mystery police detective stuff in some scenes, and then in other scenes he has to sound comically overenthusiastic about porno mags.
I feel like I'm getting close to the final ending. I'm starting to see locked routes unlocking one after the other, which I assume is what happens before the overall story gets revealed.
I'm enjoying the story, and some of the somniums do seem to try to follow some sort of theme or logic. The actions needed to solve them are still totally arbitrary, but visually, some of them do try to keep to a theme. The whole idea still seems half-baked to me, but it could have potential.
Fill me in: How do you like it on Switch? Screenshots on the eShop show no anti-aliasing and what looks to be sub-720p image quality. Does it run well? Is loading not too bad?
I WANT this game on Switch but I'm not jumping on that if it proves to be severely inferior to PS4.
I'm playing it on Switch, and tech-wise it seems not great, but not unplayably so. Normal framerate feels between 30 and 60, scene load times are okay, and the aliasing is always noticeable but not awful (though your standards may vary of course). The aliasing is way more noticeable on TV, but not so bad in handheld mode. I'm not sure how much of this is the switch and how much is just the game not being that much of a looker in general.
My biggest gripe is during conversations, when another portrait loads in picture-in-picture mode (this will make sense when you play the game) as a visual reference whenever the conversation points out a specific scene or person. There's a pause before these pictures load in, and while it's sometimes fine, the pauses can sometimes be several seconds long, which is long enough to distract from the conversation. I don't know if those pauses exist on other platforms, but they can get bad here.
No crashes or anything particularly bad like that.
I do like it on the switch, though. The portability is nice, because the game is a novel first and foremost. It makes sense to be able to just pick it up and read it for a bit whenever you want.
Fill me in: How do you like it on Switch? Screenshots on the eShop show no anti-aliasing and what looks to be sub-720p image quality. Does it run well? Is loading not too bad?
I WANT this game on Switch but I'm not jumping on that if it proves to be severely inferior to PS4.
There's a few framerate drops, usually just in conversations sometimes. The biggest issue with it though is that many times when Aiba shows something during a conversation, it takes a good 10-15 seconds to load, so there's a sepia tinted screen with silence during that time, then the image comes up and conversation resumes.
If you value the portability and other aspects about the Switch, then I think this version is perfectly fine. To me I am not that sensitive to framerate drops in a visual novel, and the QTE sequences keep a rock solid framerate. It's not near as bad as Zero Time Dilemma on 3DS. The framerate there could get abysmal at times.
Quick question for those having finished the game :
I've been playing the game trying to advance both sides of the flowchart, and i got to two different locked nodes. (Green and purple path.)
Is every path like this, or have i been unlucky?
Quick question for those having finished the game :
I've been playing the game trying to advance both sides of the flowchart, and i got to two different locked nodes. (Green and purple path.)
Is every path like this, or have i been unlucky?
I was refreshingly pleased to see it pretty much be avoided entirely. There's a good variety of intra-personal relationships, too.
I was absolutely convinced for awhile that he was interested in Renju. I mean... drinking buddies. At that particular bar? Yeah. The idea of amnesia blanking some subconscious societal norms one develops over time on gender is interesting at least.
Just finished the game and I've mixed feelings, if I'm gonna rank it among ZE games then I'd put it in the tail of the list.. VLR > 999 > ZTD > AI. Just because it has a better ending doesn't make it better game :p
Fill me in: How do you like it on Switch? Screenshots on the eShop show no anti-aliasing and what looks to be sub-720p image quality. Does it run well? Is loading not too bad?
I WANT this game on Switch but I'm not jumping on that if it proves to be severely inferior to PS4.
I would get it on switch. Like someone said above, laggy whenever characters pull up videos, but the portability is just a fantastic addition. visual wise i mean i don't think it would look that much more great on other consoles.
Just finished the game and I've mixed feelings, if I'm gonna rank it among ZE games then I'd put it in the tail of the list.. VLR > 999 > ZTD > AI. Just because it has a better ending doesn't make it better game :p
game-wise, i really enjoyed the puzzles from zero escape series and the life or death situations (basically Saw) type stuff. but i really, really liked AI for what it was and it was a very well-written story and the different somnium worlds were cool. i just love anything the director does and his staff.
also: has anyone else had the end game bug where even if you have japanese audio selected the voices singing play in english?! i mean, it is not a big deal but it really, really sucked to have characters go from japanese VAs i've identified with and played through the whole story, to an english voice cast that really takes me out of it. even on the dance menu i cannot switch to japanese.
I finally finished the game, and... if I'm gonna be totally honest, I have some mixed feelings on the True Ending route.
The ending scene with the dance number is kind of amazing, no argument there. However, Saito Sejima feels... profoundly under-developed as a villain, given how many wild-ass red herrings they throw at you during the other 80% of that game. Uchikoshi retains his strong sense of causality, so it all fits together, but the dude is basically every single wild-eyed anime serial killer. Sure, it's kind of fun to hear all of his crazy shit come out of Date's mouth, but it feels like such a low-stakes payoff compared to every other route.
The other thing is mostly a matter of taste, but I'm always a little tempted to roll my eyes whenever everything gets ultra-conveniently resolved in stories like this. I remember it annoying me in Ghost Trick as well (There are definitely some weird parallels I could draw between these two games) but everything being wrapped up in a convenient bow always strikes me as contrived, even if it gives everyone a happy ending. There's genuinely a part of me that kinda wishes the Mizuki ending was more canon, since I think she's a better character than Iris.
I guess the other thing I'll say is I was genuinely surprised how good the English voice acting was. The writing is generally also really good, but holy shit I continue to not be able to deal with just how much of the jokes are "Date is horny, lol." It's anime as shit, and I expect a certain amount of that stuff (I mean, I like Monogatari for heaven's sake), but for a game that is generally pretty respectful of its characters and heavy subject material, it's genuinely distracting that almost every single scene has at least one dumb horny joke in it. Fully on board with all of the dumb puns and dad jokes though.
Gave in and played the game since I was seeing so much positivity about it. I really didn't like it. Don't want to rain on things in here and go off on it but I think the problem for me is everything outside of the basic direction of the mystery. I actually kinda dug the mystery overall. I don't mind that it was less grand as some are saying. That's honestly a good thing after ZTD. They were too neat with it but I'm mostly okay looking past that. Just about everything else about the game bothered me. I think you need to have a high tolerance for "anime" hijinks to get into this. Wish I could've enjoyed this as much as most people seemed to.
Editing to add that the best part of the game was Ota's route. That's the only one that was emotionally resonant for me. And those feels were pretty strong.
I finally finished the game, and... if I'm gonna be totally honest, I have some mixed feelings on the True Ending route.
The ending scene with the dance number is kind of amazing, no argument there. However, Saito Sejima feels... profoundly under-developed as a villain, given how many wild-ass red herrings they throw at you during the other 80% of that game. Uchikoshi retains his strong sense of causality, so it all fits together, but the dude is basically every single wild-eyed anime serial killer. Sure, it's kind of fun to hear all of his crazy shit come out of Date's mouth, but it feels like such a low-stakes payoff compared to every other route.
The other thing is mostly a matter of taste, but I'm always a little tempted to roll my eyes whenever everything gets ultra-conveniently resolved in stories like this. I remember it annoying me in Ghost Trick as well (There are definitely some weird parallels I could draw between these two games) but everything being wrapped up in a convenient bow always strikes me as contrived, even if it gives everyone a happy ending. There's genuinely a part of me that kinda wishes the Mizuki ending was more canon, since I think she's a better character than Iris.
I guess the other thing I'll say is I was genuinely surprised how good the English voice acting was. The writing is generally also really good, but holy shit I continue to not be able to deal with just how much of the jokes are "Date is horny, lol." It's anime as shit, and I expect a certain amount of that stuff (I mean, I like Monogatari for heaven's sake), but for a game that is generally pretty respectful of its characters and heavy subject material, it's genuinely distracting that almost every single scene has at least one dumb horny joke in it. Fully on board with all of the dumb puns and dad jokes though.
For me, the real villian is So Sejima. Saito is just a symptom of his shittiness.
A shit parent who doesnt give a fuck about anything other than his own career.
I finally finished the game, and... if I'm gonna be totally honest, I have some mixed feelings on the True Ending route.
The other thing is mostly a matter of taste, but I'm always a little tempted to roll my eyes whenever everything gets ultra-conveniently resolved in stories like this. I remember it annoying me in Ghost Trick as well (There are definitely some weird parallels I could draw between these two games) but everything being wrapped up in a convenient bow always strikes me as contrived, even if it gives everyone a happy ending. There's genuinely a part of me that kinda wishes the Mizuki ending was more canon, since I think she's a better character than Iris.
I don't necessarily agree that it's any more down to personal taste than many other things people talk about here. Happy endings themselves are for sure, but a convenient happy ending just for its own sake is definitely worth criticizing,
and the one they pull off here is boatloads of that. While Iris' getting cured just like that definitely got an eye roll from me, the most egregious part of it for me was Aiba just getting resurrected because fuck it why not. It completely undermined any emotional impact the climax could have had for me and it was an asspull of the highest order, not even at the eleventh hour or anything like that but literally minutes before the end credits. And worst of all, it was just completely pointless.
I also thought the credits sequence was dreadful, but it seems I'm in the minority with that lol.
There are people who think the sexual jokes in this game are a bad thing? I think they're hilarious just because how over the top and frequent they are.
So I haven't been in this thread to avoid spoilers and I've just been going through it with a group of friends. Our final time was 28 hours.
I absolutely loved it, yeah there's a few times to scratch the head at and the general Somnium gameplay isn't great, but overall I loved it.
The game was very funny, I was not expecting it to be. Some of the interactions in Somnium are hilarious.
The LGBT content also made me smile, Mizuki is the best character, facts.
I would get it on switch. Like someone said above, laggy whenever characters pull up videos, but the portability is just a fantastic addition. visual wise i mean i don't think it would look that much more great on other consoles.
game-wise, i really enjoyed the puzzles from zero escape series and the life or death situations (basically Saw) type stuff. but i really, really liked AI for what it was and it was a very well-written story and the different somnium worlds were cool. i just love anything the director does and his staff.
also: has anyone else had the end game bug where even if you have japanese audio selected the voices singing play in english?! i mean, it is not a big deal but it really, really sucked to have characters go from japanese VAs i've identified with and played through the whole story, to an english voice cast that really takes me out of it. even on the dance menu i cannot switch to japanese.
Not that I dislike it and regret buying it, it's actually good and there's some touching moments, but some times it was hard to take it seriously with those ridiculous action scenes. Also I found the gameplay sequences average at best, the puzzles in ZE games were one of its highest point, so that was disappointing as well. Overall, I liked ZTD more and I find it more memorable
And same here about the bug, it was weird, but they probably just recorded it with only English VAs so it wasn't a bug
Well I certainly didn't expect it to turn out where the body was not Iris, but her mother. As soon as they started remarking on how she was pregnant, I knew it had to be Iris' mother. I had forgotten about Hitomi's mention of Manaka before, but knew the name sounded familiar when they revealed who it was. Even before though I always thought her hair looked a bit weird for supposedly being Iris, even without the cat era headphones on.
Are you only giving one option when you finish this somnium the first time? I only saw "Believe Iris" option (touching the star), didn't see any other option.
Are you only giving one option when you finish this somnium the first time? I only saw "Believe Iris" option (touching the star), didn't see any other option.
The decision point for that one is actually earlier in the level than the timeline indicates, and is possibly the most convoluted solution in the game.
Are you only giving one option when you finish this somnium the first time? I only saw "Believe Iris" option (touching the star), didn't see any other option.
When you are given the option to use the crafting table the first time (making the diso ball, lol) that is where the path diverges. Instead of making the disco ball, click the option "craft something else" and from that point on you should be on the path to not believing Iris.
So I haven't been in this thread to avoid spoilers and I've just been going through it with a group of friends. Our final time was 28 hours.
I absolutely loved it, yeah there's a few times to scratch the head at and the general Somnium gameplay isn't great, but overall I loved it.
The game was very funny, I was not expecting it to be. Some of the interactions in Somnium are hilarious.
The LGBT content also made me smile, Mizuki is the best character, facts.
Are you talking about her speech at the bar with Mama? Yeah, that really was a beautifully written moment. It didn't feel forced or anything but a normal inclusion into the game. It was great.
Okay so I am still at odds with that plot point. In the true route - where Pewter puts boss to sleep and threatens Date to stop his investigation, as an order from the higher ups - it just didn't make sense considering his relationship with Renju and the lengths he went to in other routes to help his lover. Like he went bad guy for a second against Date and instead of helping Renju he was more hurting the case. I dunno, the whole Renju relationship never panned out and made sense
Are you only giving one option when you finish this somnium the first time? I only saw "Believe Iris" option (touching the star), didn't see any other option.
When Iris tells you to craft the Monument, don't do it. Instead, go to where Marble would be if it was actually Golden Yokocho, and you'll see there's a "???" person there. Try to talk to them, something will happen, then go back to the workbench and there will be a new crafting option that's not the Monument. Do that, then go into the shrine and to the right of where you would normally place the Monument, there's a wall you can interact with, everything else from here should be taking you on the alternate path.
Okay so I am still at odds with that plot point. In the true route - where Pewter puts boss to sleep and threatens Date to stop his investigation, as an order from the higher ups - it just didn't make sense considering his relationship with Renju and the lengths he went to in other routes to help his lover. Like he went bad guy for a second against Date and instead of helping Renju he was more hurting the case. I dunno, the whole Renju relationship never panned out and made sense
Pewter as a character was extremely underdeveloped. Nothing surrounding him made sense, he was essentially a male version of Meika from Punchline, but without any context or background.
The decision point for that one is actually earlier in the level than the timeline indicates, and is possibly the most convoluted solution in the game.
When you are given the option to use the crafting table the first time (making the diso ball, lol) that is where the path diverges. Instead of making the disco ball, click the option "craft something else" and from that point on you should be on the path to not believing Iris.
When Iris tells you to craft the Monument, don't do it. Instead, go to where Marble would be if it was actually Golden Yokocho, and you'll see there's a "???" person there. Try to talk to them, something will happen, then go back to the workbench and there will be a new crafting option that's not the Monument. Do that, then go into the shrine and to the right of where you would normally place the Monument, there's a wall you can interact with, everything else from here should be taking you on the alternate path.
My copy, shipped on the 18th of September, is still nowhere to be seen.. and I won't get the refund until the 18th of October. Not it is available on Amazon.it and I would get it on Monday, but what if then the parcel from 365games comes? I would have two copies... I really don't know what to do. Maybe I will wait, then I will buy on Amazon and play during Christmas holiday, since in the meantime there will be Luigi and Pokemon..
Agreed. I knew Pewter was gay beforehand due to the descriptions when you click on the lockers in the Psync chamber room, but with Renju it was a total surprise. The fact it wasn't elaborated on anymore than that was disappointing, it really felt undercooked. It's never brought up again. And Date's reaction doesn't make much sense either.
Are you talking about her speech at the bar with Mama? Yeah, that really was a beautifully written moment. It didn't feel forced or anything but a normal inclusion into the game. It was great.
Mizuki really surprised me in that scene, it seemed a few people knew this beforehand, but I didn't:
it's not that I disbelieve her character would be so compassionate, just that I didn't expect it. It was such a lovely surprise to encounter. The games writing is not perfect when it comes to LGBT content (see above, and certain writing concerning Mama), but you could tell nothing was malicious (unlike Atlus' games *cough*). So seeing Mizuki's speech and the LGBT entry in the appendix did get me a tad emotional.
Pewter as a character was extremely underdeveloped. Nothing surrounding him made sense, he was essentially a male version of Meika from Punchline, but without any context or background.
Yeah, so, so true. He is really the only character that seemed just to be so under developed and that is odd considering he is such an important figure in the setting - invented AIBA and the psynch technology.
Agreed. I knew Pewter was gay beforehand due to the descriptions when you click on the lockers in the Psync chamber room, but with Renju it was a total surprise. The fact it wasn't elaborated on anymore than that was disappointing, it really felt undercooked. It's never brought up again. And Date's reaction doesn't make much sense either.
Mizuki really surprised me in that scene, it seemed a few people knew this beforehand, but I didn't:
it's not that I disbelieve her character would be so compassionate, just that I didn't expect it. It was such a lovely surprise to encounter. The games writing is not perfect when it comes to LGBT content (see above, and certain writing concerning Mama), but you could tell nothing was malicious (unlike Atlus' games *cough*). So seeing Mizuki's speech and the LGBT entry in the appendix did get me a tad emotional.
It is probably the most beautifully written comment on the LGBT subject in any video game, imo. Honestly when she first started talking i was entranced by it. I dunno I may sound like i am over hyping it but it really did touch me. It made me feel a lot softer towards some of the sex jokes.
The decision point for that one is actually earlier in the level than the timeline indicates, and is possibly the most convoluted solution in the game.
The trick that caught me off guard is that you have to do it in the right order. If you interact with the second crafting table before talking to ???? it locks that path out without being obvious that anything has been locked. I figured out that you had to craft "something else" and talk to ???? but I still got stuck on this one for a frankly shocking amount of time.
Yeah, so, so true. He is really the only character that seemed just to be so under developed and that is odd considering he is such an important figure in the setting - invented AIBA and the psynch technology.
Which never got explained either. I mean, the world in AI doesn't seem all that different from ours, but misteriously, a single guy invented something so out of this world and no one bats an eye. I really thought the technology would be an important part of the plot, specially having played Iris's route first and her conspiracy theory, but it's only really glossed over.
So I finished Iris Route and Mizuki Route (Mizuki deserved that ending, you don't get to hug her as often as you should), and I think at the end of Iris Route I began to have a clear understanding of the game's plot. I'm sure there's still some stuff out there and I haven't fit all the pieces yet, but I'm surprised it's telegraphed so early. It's not to say that it's a bad thing or that the game is easy to figure out, if anything it's fun to be able to piece stuff together by yourself without some last minute "complex motives" ass pull.
(I jinxed it now, haven't I?)
Looking forward to seeing the rest of it. Currently on Ota's Route (I assume).
There's a lock on the green route which was the first one I hit that doesn't want to unlock, grrrrr.
Literally the only lock I hit so far.
I'm so impatient, which route do I have to finish to get that one?
Putting my current theory here in spoiler tags for me to revisit once I'm done. My first theory wasn't correct, so I assume I'm still a bit off, but probably not far now.
After seeing the concept art of crazy Date I was convinced he's the baddie somehow. Halfway through the green route, when #89 tells his story, I understood that 89 is not the cyclops killer, but has confessed the crimes to serve jail time and escape the Yakuza, without bringing their crimes to light (so they leave Hitomi alone). Since you see Boss in his Somnium, I assumed then she might the killer (and then she goes and offs So, dang), but I understand now that while she is the "friend" that #89 turned to, she's probably just a friend from his days at the police. She must know the real killer's identity for sure though, to agree to incarcerate 89, who I'm sure she knows to be innocent at least of those murders.
At the end of Iris' route, when you use the Psynch prototype, and Iris loses her left eye from it, I understood that Date must have lost his eye that way, 6 years ago, with the reason for his Amnesia being that the psyncher's consciousness was transferred into his body, which is probably the original cyclops killer. Since Aiba keeps mentioning Date's medication, they might have him on hormonal therapy to make up for his body's inability to produce pheromones.
During Mizuki's route So calls himself Date's father, I assume he means the killer/body, which probably explains the hold he has over the police department - I guess they reached an agreement where he wouldn't talk about their psynch-fuckup that mushed his son's brain and in return they wouldn't publicly declare his son a killer. Also, he's probably also Iris' father, which explains how she and Hitomi factor into all of this (on top of #89's existence). Iris mentions that she feels like siblings with Date. I also started thinking that #89 was the psyncher, since Date has some of his memories of young Iris, and Iris is so obsessed with him/#89.
Which means that 89 might currently house the killer's consciousness. So he's in jail for his crimes correctly after all, lol.
I haven't figured out why the hell Renju would help the killer though. Or why he and his ex-wife were targeted - I assume the reason their eye is missing must be that someone is messing with the psynch prototype however. Not sure what they are looking for in those people's somniums, but they clearly want the evidence disposed and sent as a warning afterwards. So it's not someone that could just ask them to cooperate for the info they search.
I'm also unclear how the chemical plant explosion will factor into all this.
So yeah, the mystery part is really fun at this point in the game.
If they could tone down the "everything is solved with PORN" part though, that would be greatly appreciated.
Also, thanks to the person that confirmed that I heard Chris Hackney as Renju, I was going crazy a bit since they don't mention him in the credits, hah.
I was like "Dimitri, oh no, what did you do this time?"
Yeah, same here. Agreed, when you make some of the selections in some of them reactions can be really funny. I also like that being able to walk around in them breaks things up a bit.
So I finished Iris Route and Mizuki Route (Mizuki deserved that ending, you don't get to hug her as often as you should), and I think at the end of Iris Route I began to have a clear understanding of the game's plot. I'm sure there's still some stuff out there and I haven't fit all the pieces yet, but I'm surprised it's telegraphed so early. It's not to say that it's a bad thing or that the game is easy to figure out, if anything it's fun to be able to piece stuff together by yourself without some last minute "complex motives" ass pull.
(I jinxed it now, haven't I?)
Looking forward to seeing the rest of it. Currently on Ota's Route (I assume).
There's a lock on the green route which was the first one I hit that doesn't want to unlock, grrrrr.
Literally the only lock I hit so far.
I'm so impatient, which route do I have to finish to get that one?
Putting my current theory here in spoiler tags for me to revisit once I'm done. My first theory wasn't correct, so I assume I'm still a bit off, but probably not far now.
After seeing the concept art of crazy Date I was convinced he's the baddie somehow. Halfway through the green route, when #89 tells his story, I understood that 89 is not the cyclops killer, but has confessed the crimes to serve jail time and escape the Yakuza, without bringing their crimes to light (so they leave Hitomi alone). Since you see Boss in his Somnium, I assumed then she might the killer (and then she goes and offs So, dang), but I understand now that while she is the "friend" that #89 turned to, she's probably just a friend from his days at the police. She must know the real killer's identity for sure though, to agree to incarcerate 89, who I'm sure she knows to be innocent at least of those murders.
At the end of Iris' route, when you use the Psynch prototype, and Iris loses her left eye from it, I understood that Date must have lost his eye that way, 6 years ago, with the reason for his Amnesia being that the psyncher's consciousness was transferred into his body, which is probably the original cyclops killer. Since Aiba keeps mentioning Date's medication, they might have him on hormonal therapy to make up for his body's inability to produce pheromones.
During Mizuki's route So calls himself Date's father, I assume he means the killer/body, which probably explains the hold he has over the police department - I guess they reached an agreement where he wouldn't talk about their psynch-fuckup that mushed his son's brain and in return they wouldn't publicly declare his son a killer. Also, he's probably also Iris' father, which explains how she and Hitomi factor into all of this (on top of #89's existence). Iris mentions that she feels like siblings with Date. I also started thinking that #89 was the psyncher, since Date has some of his memories of young Iris, and Iris is so obsessed with him/#89.
Which means that 89 might currently house the killer's consciousness. So he's in jail for his crimes correctly after all, lol.
I haven't figured out why the hell Renju would help the killer though. Or why he and his ex-wife were targeted - I assume the reason their eye is missing must be that someone is messing with the psynch prototype however. Not sure what they are looking for in those people's somniums, but they clearly want the evidence disposed and sent as a warning afterwards. So it's not someone that could just ask them to cooperate for the info they search.
I'm also unclear how the chemical plant explosion will factor into all this.
So yeah, the mystery part is really fun at this point in the game.
If they could tone down the "everything is solved with PORN" part though, that would be greatly appreciated.
Also, thanks to the person that confirmed that I heard Chris Hackney as Renju, I was going crazy a bit since they don't mention him in the credits, hah.
I was like "Dimitri, oh no, what did you do this time?"
LOL the best part about this director's games is even when you think you have a grasp on the plot, you have only scratched the surface. when the truth hits you, you will be like 'oh wow' just like in all the other games. you have plenty more to reveal ;-)
that's so annoying to me. i mean, VA english cast seemed good. but it is so jarring if you played and knew the characters from how they sounded in japanese and then hearing them in english at the VERY end (and even the frickin dance menu option is all in english, it's pretty frustrating).
Finished the game tonight. I marathoned like the last 4-5 hours and loved it! Uchikoshi still has it (and I liked ZTD).
I figured they would do something with the body switching capabilities of the Psync machines, but didn't think it would go that far! I was a bit confused at first at who #89 actually was on the right side of the flowchart, but then I realized he has to be Rohan if Seito was still swapping bodies and killing people. That would explain why Renju and #89 escaped together. Pewter's betrayal seemed really bizarre and out of left field to me.
I am glad there was a justification for Date's extreme horny that made sense, and even more than Sigma in VLR. Most of the action sequences were kind of dumb (like a bunch of armed soldiers ignoring the guys with guns to chase porn magazines said guy with a gun just threw. The QTEs really didn't add much to the game and I felt like could have been done away with, still keeping to the idea that Aiba's calculations (and baiting him with porn magazines) were what was winning him those fights. I also liked that Saito's motive was more than "he's just crazy" and actually had some scientific explanation to it.
I'm a bit torn the puzzles as sometimes the logic seemed too obtuse, but I think the focus of them was efficiency rather than clever puzzles. They did say from the start the logic would often be weird. Overall I think they were good for trying something different than what Zero Escape did. The ShovelForge Somniums were great and seeing Aiba in that form and dancing was funny. I also liked that all of the timeline splits were where you solve a puzzle in a Somnium differently. One thing I don't know if they ever really explained though: in Iris' Somnium of the factory and in So's at the port with the warehouses, why was Iris appearing instead of Manaka? I get they wanted to make you think he was kissing and killing Iris respectively, but why not just have Manaka in a different outfit where she could convincingly look like Iris?
I liked all of the characters in the game except for Ota, but I kind of think you're supposed to find him annoying. Every time the Mermaid spoon-fed him was uncomfortable as all hell to watch. Moma was funny and while I have never played a Yakuza game, he acts like he belongs in one.
Overall this is easily one of my favorite games this year, and definitely has the Uchikoshi quality. Of the games I have played:
999>VLR>Ai=ZTD
I don't think ZTD was bad, in fact I consider it to be quite good, but I think Ai and ZTD did different things very well. ZTD did have the better puzzles, Ai had a better story.
I love this game, my Ai's are open, don't sleep on this one!
I really hope this game is selling at least decent numbers, but I also remember the original DS version of 999 also only really had it's success in the west for the most part.
I'll be curious to see how Ai does in Japan vs the west. It does seem like they tried to do some of the things they tried with VLR to make it appeal to Japanese audiences... That didn't work out well with VLR and got ZTD cancelled for a while.
I really hope this game is selling at least decent numbers, but I also remember the original DS version of 999 also only really had it's success in the west for the most part.
I'll be curious to see how Ai does in Japan vs the west. It does seem like they tried to do some of the things they tried with VLR to make it appeal to Japanese audiences... That didn't work out well with VLR and got ZTD cancelled for a while.
Ai came out in a stacked September, it's rated Z and a long VN might have better than average digital sales, but it's hard to spin those numbers as anything but disappointing. They invested in a bigger budget 3D anime presentation but it sold like your typical low-budget VN.
Hope it did better outside Japan, the game deserves it and I'd really like to see another game set in that world.
