No idea why you spoiler tagged your question, but I guess I'll do mine too lol
There's the one couple of hour long arc in MLA that's pretty much there to just shock you with gore and heart-wrenching deaths but other than that, I don't remember it being very gory at all. Can't say I'm 100% certain, though, cause I actually enjoy gore if it's well made and it's been a while since I played MLA.
If gore bothers you, though, I gotta mention that all of the three games have some pretty fucking stupid sex scenes too. Pretty sure I recall a
I got that - thanks! I just used spoiler tags because I figured...eh...maybe it's for the better in the end. Plus, I had my mind on a few other things at the time.
It does bother me, that's for sure, but the sex scenes are less likely to do that.
Excellent news. I have no idea what the general opinion is on the All-Ages vs. 18+ versions, but it's good that they're giving people options. Also nice to hear about the higher quality assets. I'll almost certainly be backing this once it hits KS. Not that I need any more huge VNs to add to my backlog...
I like Ryukishi's progression, since Umineko takes Higurashi logic and deconstructs it, and then Higanbana also plays with the expectations you might have from having read Umineko and turns them on its head.
I get that the later episodes go to great lengths to show
how Ange's fixation with the truth was really self-destructive for her, and how self-delusion as a coping mechanism was a possible way to save herself and move forward with her life
, but I can't honestly say it was bad. It actually made me challenge the overly formulaic way I used to read mystery novels in, since Umineko doesn't take itself like a simple riddle where the only goal is to answer who, what, when, where and why before moving on to something else. The fact that
not everything is answered outright means you can continue debating about it with others almost endlessly... which is a perfect meta-concept for Umineko, since that's exactly what the series was doing with itself in-universe
. I would've loved reading each new episode as they were released, since I heard the community that gathered and debated about hints and red herrings, theories and leaps of logic and so on was really something back then.
Even if you didn't like the whole package, what did you think of the purple truth segment? I think that, given your concerns with the VN as a whole, that part might've been more to your liking, even if it was more or less a watered-down version of what you had been reading through for over seventy hours by the time you got there.
Higanbana seemed to be straight up horror to me. Reminded me more of a lighter Corpse Party than anything else Ryukishi did.
And purple truth segment was meh. I like figuring culprits out on evidence, not word games. It also didn't distract me from the nonsense that was going on everywhere else as it was just a side thing.
Higanbana seemed to be straight up horror to me. Reminded me more of a lighter Corpse Party than anything else Ryukishi did.
And purple truth segment was meh. I like figuring culprits out on evidence, not word games. It also didn't distract me from the nonsense that was going on everywhere else as it was just a side thing.
A girl with no friends who can supposedly see the unseen tells her classmates that the guardian spirit of a shrine they broke had cursed them. The purpose of this charade was to then show up as the girls' savior with her unique skill, but one of them didn't believe in the magic (a.k.a. lie), and the main girl almost threw a fire extinguisher at her from the school's roof, which could've killed her. In the end, you could read Marie and the main girl's conversation as a monologue where she finally realizes that the price of keeping the lie going would've been to throw the extinguisher at her classmate, possibly killing her, and decided that such a thing wasn't worth it.
Then there's the Black Tea Gentleman story, which gives us
a character so miserable that, after Marie helps her undo the magic that made it look like she was having a pleasant and nice school life when the truth was she was being bullied to hell and back, the girl voluntarily decides to go back to deluding herself into believing she had swapped places with a popular girl she envied.
I don't think the purple truth segment was about word games at all. It was more like a large puzzle where you were supposed to slowly cross out statements that were truth as you figured them out, and that'd narrow the suspect list.
The fact that red truth can be used to
mislead the readers
is something that's a constant in the series, hence stuff like
Battler and Beato's "Even if you join us, there's only 17 people on this island" to Erika
.
By the end of the game, you'll probably come to realize that Battler's
"18 < X < 19"
logic was on the spot in Ep1, since many tricks hinge on the fact that
Kanon is Shannon, so you could say that they don't count like two fully separate people wile still adding up to more than a single person
Since it's a Steam release, it is very likely that the release here will be the "Windows 7 support edition" (18+ version of the 360 ports), but with the all ages versions of scenes added back in. It won't be the original PC release, since that has technical problems on modern Windows. It'll likely basically be the same thing as buying the 360/PS3 version.
See, this Umineko ep sums up pretty much everything I don't like about how things have played out so far.
The entire point of this seems to be concealing the truth. The portrayal is wildly in favor of showing the illusion side as the "right" one. Everything from the presentation to the deranged portrayals of Ange and Bernkastel to the former's exorbitant cost of learning the truth paints them as the opposing side. Even the goats, who clearly represent the audience that want to know what the fuck is happening, are shown as ravenous invaders that have no right to break the illusion. The good guys are pretty much doing everything in their power to make sure that won't happen, and because of that and what I've been able to gather from the posts in here, they'll succeed.
Is it a deconstruction? Sure, in the most unsatisfying way possible. The scary, yet moving nature of being crusaders for truth in other stuff in this medium like Danganronpa and Persona 4 is turned on its head in a way that just makes me see this as a massive waste of time. Hell, there was a protagonist in this that tried to reach out to the truth. The hell happened to that?
Battler's flipped role is among the most unsatisfying things here. Instead of becoming the badass "Phoenix Wright of magic" that I wanted him to be, he ended up becoming just another witch that speaks in riddles and non-answers.
Honestly, some of the dialogue is even making me think Ryukishi is intentionally giving a massive middle finger to the readers. But hey, with how many people like it, that either failed or I'm completely misinterpreting it. Either way, this is absolutely NOT the Higurashi successor I wanted.
Alternatively, have a far better solution to the mystery:
Kyrie Eleison
>Lord, have mercy.
>Kyrie
>The Lord
I think Kyrie was actually God, who in all His magnanimousness decided to put the unclean heathens from the Ushiromiya family into a test for redemption. Kyrie used His messengers, Maria and Yasu (it's a reference to Iesu - i.e.our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ) to deliver His message and to put forth the test. However, the Ushiromiyas, being a representation of all the sins, refused to listen to our Lord's merciful message, and thus, sadly, they had to be punished, and Rokkenjima became another Sodom and Gomorrah.
Not all of them were a lost case. There were 2 good sheep who deserved salvation. One of them was Eva. However, she had fallen prey of many sins, and thus, our Lord left her without her Adam. In addition, she had to atone for her sinful ways for the rest of her life. The other survivor was Battler, which would be a representation of Job. At the end, after seeing how the Lord - who all gives - took everything away from him, and accepted it, he was rewarded with a new life. And thus, Battler died, and Tohya was born. Together with his new partner, they write Christian stories to spread the word of our Lord.
As for Ange, she was viral marketing for hamburgers, nothing to see there.
This, my dear friends, is the truth behind Rokkenjima.
Good ol' Krauss-ojisan and his investments into moon tourism never gets old.
Almost done re-reading through the Ep6 manga, and it's kind of funny how Erika plays the role of the worst
metagaming
player ever. It's funny that she only manages to get close to the truth because she
keeps the knowledge of all previous games even as a piece in an individual game
, and manages to create
a logic error in Battler's story
thanks to that.
Still, that reminds me that for all the (post EP5 spoilers)
"Now I know the truth!" Battler goes on about after becoming the game master, he needed Beato's help to play the Kanon=Shannon card and fix his logic error, which is kind of weird since you'd think he has to know every single thing about the game as a Territory Master who can wield the golden truth.
Good ol' Krauss-ojisan and his investments into moon tourism never gets old.
Almost done re-reading through the Ep6 manga, and it's kind of funny how Erika plays the role of the worst
metagaming
player ever. It's funny that she only manages to get close to the truth because she
keeps the knowledge of all previous games even as a piece in an individual game
, and manages to create
a logic error in Battler's story
thanks to that.
Still, that reminds me that for all the (post EP5 spoilers)
"Now I know the truth!" Battler goes on about after becoming the game master, he needed Beato's help to play the Kanon=Shannon card and fix his logic error, which is kind of weird since you'd think he has to know every single thing about the game as a Territory Master who can wield the golden truth.
Not going to read all those spoilers as I'm still working through ep 8, but I'll get to those posts when I'm done.
Anyway, here's a part I actually find compelling.
Ikuko picking up a guy that I can only assume is Battler and then having him live with her for a bit. That's the kind of development I want. It gives us hope that people somehow survived the explosion, and a character that is simultaneously existing alongside his "fantasy" counterpart no less, which I hope confirms they're all just delusions.
Now I'm interested in how this all turns out, but I've definitely tempered my expectations after the other posts in here.
Well, I decided to go with Fragment's Note just because VN GAF is not familiar with it and it might be a good visual novel.
After three hours, this is really weird. I won't make comment on it right now because I think the game pulled a NTY! on me after three hours and threw me back to the home screen where I hadn't saved my progress and I'll have to start over now.
I heard the manga makes some changes, particulary with Ep8, where
Erika supposedly explains the fifth and sixth games during her duel with Battler, and we're kind of shown what Ange sees in Eva's diary when she reads it, which finally unveils Rokkenjima prime.
The drawings are nice at first, and they get even better as you get closer to the end. My only regret is not being in Japan to get my hands on the chapters that got released after I left last year (got up to Ep7 part 7 and Ep8 part 5). Oh, and only getting my hands on Tsubasa #2.
Well, I decided to go with Fragment's Note just because VN GAF is not familiar with it and it might be a good visual novel.
After three hours, this is really weird. I won't make comment on it right now because I think the game pulled a NTY! on me after three hours and threw me back to the home screen where I hadn't saved my progress and I'll have to start over now.
Well, guess I found something to buy with a bunch of Google Play credit I have Only $2 too! I don't usually get mobile games, but eh why not if I'm bored and only have my phone on me. Never heard of it either and at least it's a FULL game. I would get more of these mobile-only VNs, but I don't want to pay a bunch per chapter or whatever :/
Hey guys I noticed that Memory's Dogma's Kickstarter is about to end and wanted to make a placeholder pledge. I wanted to know if anyone knew how long Sekai Project keeps their backerkit open for after their projects are funded.
Hey guys I noticed that Memory's Dogma's Kickstarter is about to end and wanted to make a placeholder pledge. I wanted to know if anyone knew how long Sekai Project keeps their backerkit open for after their projects are funded.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but how much could I reasonably sell my sealed, limited edition copy of Steins;Gate (the JastUSA release) for?
The next few days are going to be exciting for VNGAF. MangaGamer is announcing 3 new partners, and I think they're also announcing that they're re-signing their deal with 07th Expansion. Sekai Project also has a few announcements. Then, we have whatever Aksys has to announce (ZE3?, New Infinity game?, Infinity series on Steam?) Finally, we'll also get more Muv-Luv Kickstarter info.
Umineko finished and I'm just as confused as I was before it started, if not more so.
And now I'm exploring the wikia and within 2 entries, I've already found something EXTREMELY important that was never revealed.
Sayo Yasuda? Are you fuckin kidding me? And that's a great, mind-blowing picture of her right there!
WHY was this not in the actual product!? That's the kind of reveal that would give me a super satisfying "oh shit!" feeling that I look for in this kind of stuff.
I've been cold on it this whole time, but I really don't like the idea of important plot points being treated as supplementary material not even revealed in the main work.
So anyway, now that I beat this nonsense, I have a few questions. Well, really a ton, but it's late and here's the main ones at the top of my head. I don't want any "open to interpretation" answers or anything like that, just clear facts if they exist.
So Beatrice was Shannon the entire time and also Kanon. Were these multiple personalities of Yasuda, or actual physical manifestations? It seemed like Shannon and Kanon could interact with people at the same time, but did this actually happen or was it another Rokkenjima illusion brought on by the unreliable narrator? If it was just Shannon and Yasuda, I'd chalk it up to a Fight Club type situation, but throwing Kanon into the mix kind of fucks that up. If she truly was leading those three lives without tipping anyone off, then that's damn impressive.
And my other question (Higurashi spoilers).
As a successor to Higurashi, I had known there would be some kind of paranormal shenanigans going on, but I want to know just how much of those were real. Do witches actually exist with all their crazy magic, or were "Voyager Witches" merely fancy terms for those that could hop between different timelines like Rika? If so, would that also explain their supposed old age, as they had just experienced so many different worlds within the same time period and not exactly been alive since the 1000s? For that matter, what is the relationship between Bernkastel and Rika?
So yeah, lingering curiosity aside, I'd say that was a waste of time. Not a COMPLETE waste of time, as the soundtrack was stellar and there were some good parts, but it was not even close to being worth pouring 100 hours into. Such a disappointment after Higurashi.
Honestly I'm surprised you didn't know that already since they pretty much flat out told you that without saying it in Will's Episode.
Each instance of them being together is misremembered or manipulated by them to seem like both of them were present. In Will's chapter IIRC they explicitly present a scenario where Shannon, Kanon, and Lion can not be present at the same time too with a them presenting a red text response to that effect. It's multiple personalities manifested through the orphanage upbringing.
Thank you, ANN, for confirming that the main freaking characters will be in the remake. I never would have guessed. Still, it's good to hear that this really is happening, though them adding a new character is certainly an interesting choice. Wonder if the rumors about a Satsuki route are true.
Cool. Probably won't make that last stretch goal, but that's alright. I backed for a dollar to get into backerkit, since I just can't justify putting down any more at the moment with the game still a year and a half out.
This should be an exciting few days all right, but I'm interested in far more than just what partners MangaGamer will be announcing. To be honest, I didn't know they even had as much planned as they did for events like AnimeExpo. I feel old knowing that they do so many MtG tournaments there.
I'm also going to look into Muv-Luv a bit more before jumping headfirst into it, and there will be plenty of news in the next few months anyway. It'll be quite the wildcard no matter what, and chances are the decision will make itself. It doesn't need to be a Key or Eden level of work or emotion for me to back it or at least try it anyway.
So Beatrice was Shannon the entire time and also Kanon. Were these multiple personalities of Yasuda, or actual physical manifestations? It seemed like Shannon and Kanon could interact with people at the same time, but did this actually happen or was it another Rokkenjima illusion brought on by the unreliable narrator? If it was just Shannon and Yasuda, I'd chalk it up to a Fight Club type situation, but throwing Kanon into the mix kind of fucks that up. If she truly was leading those three lives without tipping anyone off, then that's damn impressive.
I really didn't expect you to miss this until the end, since Ep6 kept hammering the concept that
Kanon, Shannon and Beatrice were not able to love their respective partners and get away with it, which hints to the fact that their "deaths" are metaphorical as Yasu decides to give up on that persona
. Didn't it bother you that
Kanon's body would often disappear into nothingness through magic
? That's because
there was no corpse to be left behind, since it was more like a metaphorical death, where Yasu would leave one of her/his personas behind
.
As for how it could be pulled off, you've got to remember that
Yasu is supposed to be Kinzo's illegitimate child, and that means Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo are on Yasu's side and are aware of his/her Kanon/Shannon personas
As a successor to Higurashi, I had known there would be some kind of paranormal shenanigans going on, but I want to know just how much of those were real. Do witches actually exist with all their crazy magic, or were "Voyager Witches" merely fancy terms for those that could hop between different timelines like Rika? If so, would that also explain their supposed old age, as they had just experienced so many different worlds within the same time period and not exactly been alive since the 1000s? For that matter, what is the relationship between Bernkastel and Rika?
he sees his characters as actors, which means that Rika showing up as Bernkastel in Umineko supposedly means nothing, and the same should apply to young Takano showing up as Lambdadelta
.
As for witches, you could
explain their powers as the "magic" they use. Since Umineko's definition of magic from the "truth" side more or less ammounts to lying or making stuff up in a way that makes it hard to refute, and you should also know that magic can't let someone do something they couldn't do in reality, you could deduce that magic always has to have a realistic explanation, so it's destined to lose because, through requiring a viable way to explain magic without magic, it denies itself. Still, Umineko's magic manages to live on in that minuscule chance of the event actually being magical in nature, as per the principle of uncertainty.
The fun comes when you realize that denying witches entirely would mean denying the red truth they handed to you, and which was a vital clue to properly fight against them. Feeling confused yet? Welcome to Umineko.
In a nutshell,
the priniple of uncertainly
is what governs the Umineko universe. The message I derived from all this is that
there is no truth, since what you see/hear/understand might be biased be your own paradigm or the people/soruces you're relying on. After all, even history itself is reinterpreted and rewritten every now and then, which means that even those hard, cold facts you might want to hold on to can be read in a nearly infinite number of ways.
Even if you don't want to go down the philosophical rabbit hole, you can just look to
biographies and history books and see how they can tackle the same subjects in an infinite number of ways
Honestly I'm surprised you didn't know that already since they pretty much flat out told you that without saying it in Will's Episode.
Each instance of them being together is misremembered or manipulated by them to seem like both of them were present. In Will's chapter IIRC they explicitly present a scenario where Shannon, Kanon, and Lion can not be present at the same time too with a them presenting a red text response to that effect. It's multiple personalities manifested through the orphanage upbringing.
I really didn't expect you to miss this until the end, since Ep6 kept hammering the concept that
Kanon, Shannon and Beatrice were not able to love their respective partners and get away with it, which hints to the fact that their "deaths" are metaphorical as Yasu decides to give up on that persona
. Didn't it bother you that
Kanon's body would often disappear into nothingness through magic
? That's because
there was no corpse to be left behind, since it was more like a metaphorical death, where Yasu would leave one of her/his personas behind
.
As for how it could be pulled off, you've got to remember that
Yasu is supposed to be Kinzo's illegitimate child, and that means Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo are on Yasu's side and are aware of his/her Kanon/Shannon personas
it was Kanon. I was thinking he somehow ran away before coming back as a new persona, and the thing with Shannon always having a single room was just part of the "fantasy" side of things along with Gaap and the rest and didn't actually represent reality.
But really, I just forgot Shannon was supposed to be 16 and thought she was older, while I remembered Kanon was 16 and so the 3 year lie made sense for him.
I don't know if you played Higurashi, but in Kai the existence of an higher version of Rika is already hinted several time, she's the one play as in the order-the-fragment minigame in Matsuribayashi-hen iirc and she even talks to the player. She's hinted to be a sorta of "collective subconscious", every time Rika dies she's "stored" in this higher version of herself (who resides in the sea of fragment, I think R07 even re-used it 1:1 Umineko. The background I mean.)
Now, it's not until Rei novel that stuff gets cleared up. When Rika dies at the beginning of Rei she realizes she no longer feels like Furude Rika and starts to call herself "Bernkastel", after the wine she's drinking. At the end of the episode, after Hanyuu teaches Rika the importance of her life and how she shouldn't rely on Hanyuu powers anymore, Rika goes "Ok, I should stop with this witch Bernkastel bullshit" and goes back to just being "Furude Rika", a normal girl in Hinamizawa. She will no longer hop between fragments and just live her life, so her "connection" to the higher version of herself (Now called Bernkastel) is severed.
Alas, I don't think Mangagamer translated Rei despite how important it is and the anime basically cut half of the plot. There was a translation floating around years back if you want to check it, Rei isn't too long anyway.
I don't know if you played Higurashi, but in Kai the existence of an higher version of Rika is already hinted several time, she's the one play as in the order-the-fragment minigame in Matsuribayashi-hen iirc and she even talks to the player. She's hinted to be a sorta of "collective subconscious", every time Rika dies she's "stored" in this higher version of herself (who resides in the sea of fragment, I think R07 even re-used it Umineko).
Now, it's not until Rei novel that stuff gets cleared up. When Rika dies at the beginning of Rei she realizes she no longer feels like Furude Rika and starts to call herself "Bernkastel", after the wine she's drinking. At the end of the episode, after Hanyuu teaches Rika the importance of her life and how she shouldn't rely on Hanyuu powers anymore, Rika goes "Ok, I should stop with this witch Bernkastel bullshit" and goes back to just being "Furude Rika", a normal girl in Hinamizawa. She will no longer hop between fragments and just live her life, so her "connection" to the higher version of herself (Now called Bernkastel) is severed.
Alas, I don't think Mangagamer translated Rei despite how important it is and the anime basically cut half of the plot. There was a translation floating around years back if you want to check it, Rei isn't too long anyway.
Only $2 too! I don't usually get mobile games, but eh why not if I'm bored and only have my phone on me. Never heard of it either and at least it's a FULL game. I would get more of these mobile-only VNs, but I don't want to pay a bunch per chapter or whatever :/
