Just finished this. Incredible stuff. I didnt think VNs could surprise me anymore. I was wrong. I definitely think it helps to have played something like one of the Sakura games first.
In retrospect, Monika's line about "leaving Sayori hanging"... damn!
I'm actually really interested in trying out some of the Fan mods. Any recommendations?
Have fun! The game is mostly straightforward so I don't have any advices really , well, maybe there are 2 instances in the end of the game where you may need help if you didn't figure it out yourself by then, don't read the spoilers unless you are stuck there
-Don't be afraid to press "ctrl" and skip if you felt the need
- when you are with certain character, she will tell you about a certain something for a reason , pay attention to that something and maybe do something with it
Am I in the right thread to post my first impressions, it's so empty, lol.
So after having this game in my steam library for a while already, I finally started playing it.
I had heard great things and after someone even released an iOS port (JB required), I had to give it a try.
Unfortunately, I'm not going in completely unspoiled, which probably isn't the case for most ppl anyways? Why would I play another generic VN, if there are so many great one's. So similar to the 1st Muv-Luv that I only played through as preparation for the later games.
Going in I knew the following:
Depression, possible death, unpleasant things in general...and considering all the Monika memes/jokes on the internet that you hardly can avoid probably the most important one with Monika breaking through the 4th wall
The poem word choices only confirmed my half knowledge since they seem to paint a pretty good picture of the girls' mental health.
Being (half) spoiled isn't all bad though since I developed this persecution complex about whether stuff like me saving/reloading is taken into account by the game, e.g. I abused the save/load a lot in order to get 100% Yuri poem words in my fist playthrough with her as the main heroine since I wanted to see what the game does if you behave like a normal VN player, which means focusing only on one character (without "mixing up").
Anyways, I just reached my first (bad) end and call me cruel, but I could only laugh bitterly since I kinda expected it to turn out the way it did.
Sayori commited suicide and I wonder whether I could have avoided that by helping her with the festival preparation instead of going with Yuri.
I don't think lying at the final one (instead of friendzoning her) would have changed too much.
So of course I tried to reload to that festival decision point, but Monika won't have any of it and first screwed up the save and then deleted them all together. Which is annoying (as it should be probably) since I'd like to know how the game handles the "mixing up" of decision points.
I did a quick google check how to do a clean reinstall of the game, but quickly gave up since that wouldn't be fair to the game I guess.
I only have the following question:
Right after that the game restarted the normal way but with Sayori's name replaced by random letters and her chara portrait broken, but still kinda there. Could I have continued playing like that? Or does the game "crash" and forces me to get back to the main menu a 2nd time?
I honestly don't remember if it's me who then went back to main menu or if it's the game that did it. Anyways, the 2nd time Sayori was gone for good and the story is now playing out without her.
My guess is that this'll continue until only Monika is left, but we'll see.
Anyways, taking a break now and continuing tomorrow.
Looking forward to more crazy stuff. :D
Yeah this thread is pretty much dead. I guess despite the popularity there hasn't been any new developments and we ran out of memes. Probably will remain like this until Team Salvato give out any new info.
As for your progress yeah just keep playing (if you haven't already). The story isn't finished yet.
Somehow made it this long without knowing anything about the game other than its reputation for taking a certain kind of turn. Started playing last night. Only one ending deep but I'll just spoiler it all.
The early going was a bit tedious since the game doesn't hide the fact that it's going to take some kind of dark or horror turn, but I was interested enough, keeping an eye out for hints and writing down an ending/reveal guess for fun. Kind of laughed when it first showed the line-up of all four character portraits on screen at once and it became immediately apparent that only one of them is ever directly facing the camera, lol.
The game makes itself clear up top with all the content warnings you have to click through, and from the start it's chock full of references to self-harm and death. Given the warnings and the game's reputation contrasting with the mega-light tone, many of these wound up playing as humorous, and I honestly couldn't tell if it's intentional or not? Either way, those references kept coming, and there's an air of grim inevitability hanging over the otherwise saccharine tone. And like, sure, all good. I'm on board with stuff like this.
But once things with Sayori start to pull into focus and you hear her brief but unusually frank and raw description of hopeless depression, I could feel my hackles raising. The game was obviously building toward suicide, but it turned that "real shit" knob up just one slight notch further than usual. It then went as far as presenting you with the kind of dialogue choice that's clearly meant to evoke thoughts of "Will I look back on this moment and think I could have saved her, had I just said something different?", just as the game is also starting to go meta and reference the notion of rolling back to earlier saves. And you walk in on her dangling corpse and the game glitches out and takes its cute and clever meta turn, fun! And like actually, fuck this? Fuck this, actually?
Look, art can do whatever the hell it wants and I'm not going to say a game "should" or "shouldn't" do something, but in the moment this just struck me as crass. You could distill these events (including the suicide and subsequent weird shit) down to bullet points and it might not sound like something that would bother me much, but there's something about that "real shit" knob being turned up a bit that makes it really not jive with "fun meta shit" for me. I don't know anything about the developers but Sayori's dialogue as she unloads on you had the feeling of being written by someone with experience, and maybe it's just me and my own head but something that raw just isn't what I want mixed in with save state meta weirdness? It didn't offend or hurt me, it just made me angry.
I dunno. I can be into some really fucking grim stories dealing with this type of subject matter, and I'm an absolute sucker for this brand of meta shit, too. But the way this particular pairing of the two is balanced just rubbed me all the way wrong. Went to bed feeling shitty and pissed. And I dunno, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, maybe I'm wrong in assuming that the glitchy meta stuff is supposed to be fun/pulpy like in other games. Maybe it's intentionally making me feel this particular way.
Maybe I just needed to rant about it, lol.
Anyway. I'm familiar with this kind of structure, I played a minute of a second playthrough and I took note of the signposting for what to return to later. And I guess I'll probably continue playing it today; I'm really not sure I trust the game to actually mix the things it's trying to and stick the landing, but I feel like I should at least give it the opportunity to.
Somehow made it this long without knowing anything about the game other than its reputation for taking a certain kind of turn. Started playing last night. Only one ending deep but I'll just spoiler it all.
The early going was a bit tedious since the game doesn't hide the fact that it's going to take some kind of dark or horror turn, but I was interested enough, keeping an eye out for hints and writing down an ending/reveal guess for fun. Kind of laughed when it first showed the line-up of all four character portraits on screen at once and it became immediately apparent that only one of them is ever directly facing the camera, lol.
The game makes itself clear up top with all the content warnings you have to click through, and from the start it's chock full of references to self-harm and death. Given the warnings and the game's reputation contrasting with the mega-light tone, many of these wound up playing as humorous, and I honestly couldn't tell if it's intentional or not? Either way, those references kept coming, and there's an air of grim inevitability hanging over the otherwise saccharine tone. And like, sure, all good. I'm on board with stuff like this.
But once things with Sayori start to pull into focus and you hear her brief but unusually frank and raw description of hopeless depression, I could feel my hackles raising. The game was obviously building toward suicide, but it turned that "real shit" knob up just one slight notch further than usual. It then went as far as presenting you with the kind of dialogue choice that's clearly meant to evoke thoughts of "Will I look back on this moment and think I could have saved her, had I just said something different?", just as the game is also starting to go meta and reference the notion of rolling back to earlier saves. And you walk in on her dangling corpse and the game glitches out and takes its cute and clever meta turn, fun! And like actually, fuck this? Fuck this, actually?
Look, art can do whatever the hell it wants and I'm not going to say a game "should" or "shouldn't" do something, but in the moment this just struck me as crass. You could distill these events (including the suicide and subsequent weird shit) down to bullet points and it might not sound like something that would bother me much, but there's something about that "real shit" knob being turned up a bit that makes it really not jive with "fun meta shit" for me. I don't know anything about the developers but Sayori's dialogue as she unloads on you had the feeling of being written by someone with experience, and maybe it's just me and my own head but something that raw just isn't what I want mixed in with save state meta weirdness? It didn't offend or hurt me, it just made me angry.
I dunno. I can be into some really fucking grim stories dealing with this type of subject matter, and I'm an absolute sucker for this brand of meta shit, too. But the way this particular pairing of the two is balanced just rubbed me all the way wrong. Went to bed feeling shitty and pissed. And I dunno, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, maybe I'm wrong in assuming that the glitchy meta stuff is supposed to be fun/pulpy like in other games. Maybe it's intentionally making me feel this particular way.
Maybe I just needed to rant about it, lol.
Anyway. I'm familiar with this kind of structure, I played a minute of a second playthrough and I took note of the signposting for what to return to later. And I guess I'll probably continue playing it today; I'm really not sure I trust the game to actually mix the things it's trying to and stick the landing, but I feel like I should at least give it the opportunity to.
