eroticfishcake

Good read. Not much to add myself since this is more or less the same thoughts I had when it comes to relationships and choices in games, my particular examples being The Walking Dead series and Fallout. Somebody already mentioned it earlier but Persona 3 had your (female) social links revert to a "Broken" status whenever you engaged in social links with other girls, though oddly enough you can get around the system by maxing the links one at a time. Even if it was broken you can be easily fixed.

Persona 4 kind of got around this system by letting you decide whether you wanted a romantic relationship with the girl but it was a bit useless (in terms of a game) by the fact that the "Broken" status was removed, although technically speaking it's still there albeit only in the Naoto route for different reasons. In a way I wish they kept the system or designed some other way (though Golden does acknowledge the multiple relationships at certain events.) It's highly unlikely it'll ever have it but I've always thought the concept of a polyamory relationship would be interesting to have (assuming that everyone involved is 100% honest with each other, if not it can always be a catalyst for drama as they are want to be.)

As you mentioned however, the realities of game development mean that having so many different permutations is a messy and difficult business to handle properly. Fallout handles it via the image montage with a voice over which does work even though it does feel rather sterile and a bit "gamey" while the Walking Dead does make your decisions feel different but ultimately superficial in retrospect. It's a tough design to implement properly for sure.

I can understand why designers avoid these mechanics as they're terrified of locking players out of content though personally I can admire them if they can pull it off (Dark Souls does this pretty well.) Thing is though, whenever do they give you a big choice it can be easily corrected down the road. Whether you kill Kaiden or Ashley in Mass Effect might as well be random choice as they both fill the same roles, granted they're both very different characters but one wished they provided vastly different content off the beaten path rather then have them fill the same gap in the overarching story. But hey, realities of game development and all that bollocks.

(On a side note, School Days has on official English version which might be worth looking into. Might give it a shot myself.)

Dubliner here. More of a bleeder than a fighter but I'll wouldn't mind a few pints with some folks.

@fredchuckdave: Don't know the specifics but *apparently* every time you get invaded the giant corpse has a 10% chance of actually spawning one. I haven't tried it myself so I can't clarify.

Well this is all pretty new to me. I should probably spend more time on these forums again. Hmm. But yeah, glad to hear you're adapting well to it. I've been following a lot of transgender people on Twitter in the past year to expand my horizons so to speak and it's been really interesting hearing about them. Nice to see people are more accepting about it lately too. Can't wait to hear more.

If there's one thing they've done right is that the multiplayer works really well this time around. I like how the cracked blue/red eye orbs are limited now since it prevents people from spamming invasions. The main problem I had with the previous one was that there was no penalty for invading so now that it does it makes each and everyone more important.

I believe wooden chest contain things like consumables such as human effigies and arrows, stuff like that. Whereas iron chest contain weapons and gear. I'm not 100% certain but I believe it works like that.

Edit: I meant I'm NOT 100% certain. Crucial word missing there.

Oh wow you wrote a lot didn't you? Kinda makes me feel bad since I don't have much to add though in fairness we already had a chat about this on Twitter. But on a side note, reading this had reminded me how complex JPRGs have always been especially on a story telling level whether it's through themes, lore and gameplay. There's a lot of moving parts to it so inevitably there's going to be some cracks in it.

As a I said I haven't touched FF13-2 but I understand a lot of people have problems with the story which makes me think whether they don't like the story itself or just how it's told. I believe "contrived" is the word I hear get used a lot when describing the story. At the same time I know a lot of people's problem with FF13 was the characters themselves (Lightning in particular) so I understand bringing these characters back aren't exactly tickling anyone's fancy.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this really. The whole franchise and the Square Enix themselves are so strange it's hard to know what I should feel about them. Regardless, it was an interesting read and as I said before I'm glad you enjoyed it for what it is.

Great write up Patrick. There's a lot more you could say about the game from the story, game play mechanics or analysing and breaking down each level piece by piece. It really has a tonne of depth to it which is rather impressive given how so few games give us this much content within a small "footprint." I believe Jason Killingsworth of is also writing a fair bit on the game with Press Select actually.

But the point of the write up is that you "get it." Which, whether one likes the game or not, is the key to understanding what makes this game so special. The rainbow of emotions it provides is unparalleled and it really does remind one of why video games are great when they fully embrace the medium rather than trying to be something else.

Where's the option for all of them? Because I have. They're interesting to look at it but in truth they don't do or offer a lot when you kill 'em.

Yeah as Karkarov says you need to kill all of the maggots and before a certain point. But yeah, you gotta give the game credit for making the characters really interesting despite the fact that they don't exactly say a lot. I'd say more about the other characters but you haven't finished it by the looks of it so I won't. It really is tragic but it fits the theme, something it's really been consistent about.