#I’m really happy I’ve got (mostly) no spoilers for the prologue games

[0rangejulius]

Hee hoo, I’m still not over Lost Future!!

[radramblog]

Some thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 2

I’m going to try to avoid being effusively praising of this game…demo…chapter. I’m sure there’s plenty of people doing that already, and I am more than cognizant of the platform I am presenting this post on. That’s going to be tough, yeah, but I’ll make it work.

I’m also going to try to avoid spoiling the thing too hard, even though there are spoilers everywhere and certain supposed-to-be obscure things are widespread at this point. But, someone could still end up reading this before they play it, so I’m going to hold my tongue a fair bit as a result.

With that in mind: new chapter is obviously out, so how does it stack up?

…I think it might be better than the first one. In my opinion.

Undertale 22 over here is a continuation of the first chapter, released about 3 years ago, taking place literally the next day in-universe. Chapter 1 coming out was a Huge Deal, not in the least a result of how it was announced. Despite the distance since the release, the Undertale fandom was still simmering along, and with an announcement that appears tied to one of that game’s biggest mysteries, it was no wonder that it was going to make some waves.

Chapter 2’s release was a surprise for different reasons. I believe at the time of the first demo, Toby stated that the remaining chapters would release as one, but that it would take a long time on account of the game being so much more complex than Undertale and not playing as much to his strengths. Of course, a lot happens in 3 years, especially with the last couple being as they have been, so Chapter 2 got its own release about a week ago.

I suppose I should stop beating around the bush and explain why I think Ch.2 is better than Ch.1, huh? I think there’s three main factors that swayed me.

Prologues and introductions always have to do one thing, and that is to familiarise the audience with the setting and characters. Despite sharing many side characters with its pseudo-prequel, Deltarune Chapter 1’s main cast are all completely fresh, and those side characters are in an unfamiliar form, and so much of the game is spent establishing cast dynamics. We have to learn who Susie, Kris, and Lancer are, and how the dynamics between them will be working for the stories to come.

However, there is the slight difference that Deltarune Chapter 1 is kind of a complete story. It’s like the pilot to a tv series- you have to establish characters, yeah, but you still have to get the plot spinning, and those characters still need to have small arcs over the course of the story. Susie and Lancer are kind of the only ones to go through actual arcs across the first chapter, given Ralsei’s currently kind of static character and Kris being a blank slate entirely.

By contrast, Chapter 2 has these dynamics in play from the get-go, and we get to more deeply explore them as a result, making the character work overall stronger. And while there are new characters at play, two of the three (arguably four) new players are already established in Chapter 1, and so we don’t need to spend as much time getting to know them. Character interactions are at the core of many styles of storytelling, and with the quirky characters we have to work with, getting more time seeing them do that is great!

The second of why I like Chapter Two better is just the gameplay. A fair few little tweaks have been made to make the whole thing cleaner- enemies now have a parallel meter to their HP bar to show how close to sparable they are, so pacifistic players have a better idea of their progress in longer fights. For those players, actually having Susie and Ralsei get ACT options is great, seeing as it makes them substantially more useful (especially Susie). When I replayed Chapter 1 in preparation for playing Chapter 2, I found myself just Guarding with them over and over while Kris did most of the work.

And the creativity with the fights is ramped up a whole bunch. This is another Not Being The First Part thing, but now that the player is used to how fights in this game are going to go, the complexity gets to increase to match, and the characterisation of the bosses and even generic enemies can better be expressed in the gameplay. I remember being genuinely shocked at how much was going on with the Ambyu-Lance enemy’s highway bullet pattern, especially when combined with other enemies in the fray.

I very much enjoyed the secret boss. Oh come on, that’s not a spoiler, everyone knows about Jevil at this point, and you get hinted at it super early on! And it’s way easier to find than Jevil was!

Anyway. My final point is just that I do like the characters in Chapter 2 better- particularly the antagonists. As fun as Lancer is, the sort of annoying whacky child characters are never something I’m particularly fond is. Even though he’s written really well, it took a lot to sell me on him. As well, as sicknasty as the King’s boss fight was, as well as the scenes surrounding it being an excellent summation of the point of the game as a whole, he’s not an especially interesting character.

And while I suppose Queen isn’t particularly deep either, everything about her is so unbelievably fun. I was pretty much sold on her immediately, with that regal “ohohoho” laugh followed by just absolutely shitposting for the entire length of the game. Her presence makes so much of this game an utter blast. Her presence reminds me a lot of the characters in Undertale who were mostly just there for one area, Alphys in Hotland and the skeletons in Snowdin, constantly popping in to keep things moving, giving each area its own little arc, and generally be fun and amusing along the way. And since each chapter of Deltarune is a lot longer than one arc of Undertale, it’s for the best that Queen manages to make this much of a good impression about the whole thing.

As I’ve stated, I think most of the reasons why Deltarune Chapter 2 are a simple result of being a Chapter 2 rather than a Chapter 1, rather than being any fault of Chapter 1’s (and the last point is basically personal preference). Both are obviously still excellent, and I’m happy to wait patiently for the series to continue if it keeps up this level of quality. At the end of the day, like, this game is currently free. And it provides a better and longer experience than a lot of actually paid games I’ve played. Toby Fox has managed to be a big shot after literally releasing one and two sevenths of a game, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be slowing down anytime soon. Here’s hoping that the assistance he’s apparently getting for future chapters works out such that it doesn’t end up sacrificing quality, but I don’t see this happening quite yet. I suppose only time will tell, but I’m optimistic. Filled with determination, as some would say.

no that’s cringy cut that one sheesh okay let me out of here im done

[chixibrown]

Upon finishing the Stardew Valley comic

Since the Stardew Valley comic has been released by Fangamer, I am now able to write about what I had been doing in secret for one long year.

■ Gratitude

First of all, to the original creator Eric-san who entrusted the task in my hands, to Kari-san who helped me from early development all the way to printing, to Ryan-san, to Steven-san who did the translations, to Kari-san's mother who assisted in the creation of the envelope, to Erica-san for product photography -- And last but not least, everyone at Fangamer and FangamerJP.

It's thanks to the support of many people that I was able to finish the comic, and I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude towards everyone involved.

■ Chronology

"Chihiro! Big News! Let's create a new merch together!" was a request that I received around autumn of 2018. At first I was wondering if I was going to be asked to design a T-shirt, but turned out to be an invitation to draw a comic book!

At that time, I was posting comics on Twitter at random. Not even in my wildest dreams have I thought that my little comics would be appreciated so, and thus I immediately burst into tears.

I'm very honored and thankful for the opportunity to pen Fangamer's very first comic.

■ Contents

I'll try not to spoil anything about the story in this section.

The content requested by the original creator Eric-san for the comic was: "The story before the farmer comes to the farm" "With focus on the community center and Joja" "And the protagonist should have no set characteristics"

These were really the ONLY information that we received from Eric-san throughout the whole process (whyyy).

I was definitely worried. In reality, for around six months when I did my preliminary research, I played Stardew Valley every day, took countless pictures, and absorbed myself in collecting materials.

I I ended up taking a little over 20 thousand screenshots total (lol).

I wholeheartedly agree with Eric-san's guideline not to give the protagonist any set characteristics. I think one of the keypoints of this game is that "Anyone can be the protagonist".

The story is set from a few years before the prologue of game, so I was rather careful not to show my own personal interpretation. In principle, the actions of the characters were mostly taken from their in-game dialogue where they mention having done something in the past (For example, the reason Sam got in trouble lmao).

It took a lot of effort outlining the story, which involved things such as "Which characters would be in contact with each other?" and "Which characters may not be present at the valley at the time?". This is the reason why the preliminary research took around six months.

By the way, I was the one who proposed to include a "letter" with the comic, both as a bonus and major spoiler, in a way. But uh, many fellow Japanese may not be able to read it, so... I'll secretly tell you the what's actually written on the letter:

It's the handwritten version of THE letter you receive in the English version of the game's prologue. It's in your hands now. So in conclusion, it's probably exactly what you think it was.

I was quite adamant about how the letter needs to be handwritten. And as who wrote it... I shall keep it a secret here.

The reason why the comic had little to no dialogue is because it was the style I had back from the time I was drawing Stardew Valley fan art. Since Stardew Valley is a media not originally from Japan, that style serves to fulfill my two wishes: "I want people all over the world to be able to read my work" and "I want to cherish the feelings of each individual player" -- That sort of idea, really.

To summarize,

"I want people all over the world to be able to read my work"

"I want to preserve the unique interpretations each individual player might have"

"Anyone can become a Stardew Valley protagonist"

I drew the comic with these concepts in mind.

■ About me

I would like to talk about my experiences throughout the development of the comic.

My name is Chihiro Sakaida (a.k.a. Brown Junimo), I was already working for a game company, so I took advantage of that experience to work on game design and illustration.

Of course, while I was working on the Stardew Valley comic, I was a freelancer and had other jobs to worry about as well, so I ended up spending a lot of time working on the comic at night after work. I also studied digital art for a month for the sake of the comic, and I think it helped improved my work efficiency.

Those were truly, very fun days for me. The only thing that did bother me was the fact that even though I was working on my favorite Stardew Valley content day after day, I couldn't really share it with anyone.

I didn't want to take the risk of accidentally running my mouth on Twitter, and I no longer had the time to draw and post online like I used to -- So I had to resort to posting only low-risk tweets, so to speak, and to be honest, it was quite disheartening.

As such, I felt truly supported by the trusted individuals who knew about the comic. Tori-san, Aki-san, Kari-san, and Ryan-san, thank you so, so much.

■ Those who supported me

Tori-san is my partner, and also a person I respect as a novelist and screenwriter. She kindly and carefully reviewed and summarized my messy story.

Aki-san knew about the comic existed, but also knew next to nothing about it. Because of that, I think it was more than a handful to support me. It must've been really hard on Aki-san, who didn't know the contents of the book and thus had no way to accidentally spoiling the surprise, but whom also probably held even more feelings of shame than I did in regards to social media... I'm sorry that you've had to put up with so much. I was very proud to have you be the first reader of the finished book.

Kari-san is the illustrator of the Official Stardew Valley Guide Book, and I respect her a whole lot.

Both her work are her personality are very kind and easy-going. Together with her partner Ryan-san, she's managed to assist and encourage me many, many times.

No matter what I drew, I was sure to be greeted with her "Chihiro, you're so great!" or "Chihiro, you really did your best!" (Even my own mother have never praise me this much!) Overall, she feels just like an older sister I've always longed for, and it makes me very happy.

No matter what merch was in the process of being created, she would say "Let's make a brown one!!", solely because it's my signature color. It makes me very happy, although probably a tiny bit embarrassed as well to have her value my one schtick this much. She's even came to Japan many times, and listened to me talk all day long. After all, I wouldn't have been able to get this job to begin with if it wasn't for Kari-san, so she's a real lifesaver.

I didn't get to talk directly with Eric-san, the original creator and developer of Stardew Valley. Obviously I received some feedback via Fangamer, but I was refraining from being in contact with him as much as possible. I didn't think I could convey my full sincerity towards him before the comic was completed. I strived to be able to earnestly understand the feelings he wanted to convey via his own words -- Whether it was the game dialogues, his words on the developer blog and interviews, etc.

There was, by the way, no revision whatsoever to the comic. Eric-san did, however, carefully check all of my ideas and always provided words of appreciation; which made me happier than anything else. Those words became my motivation to live, in a sense, which in turn allowed me to freely and happily work on the comic.

■ Going Forward

While I've been talking about how proud I am to have finished the comic, I also would like to talk about what's coming next. While I certainly plan to continue working with Fangamer for the foreseeable future, at the same time, I have also decided to work for another game development company, and I plan to devote my time working on game development for at least the next year.

It has been my dream for the past 15 years to work for this particular company, and I'm elated to see it come true.

However, as a result I think I will have less exposure to social media. I don't think it's going to be easy to recreate that warm and wondrous time where I could interact with people regularly, but my memory of that time is something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I'm really sorry that I have absolutely nothing to give back, but I sincerely hope the comic has brought a smile to everyone who's read or even merely noticed it.

■ Finally

I'm such a fortunate person -- I've come this far due to everyone's support, and for that, I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude. Thank you so much, for everything, always.

It would delight me if all of you could stay with me from this point on.

As I try to polish my skills and improve myself as a whole.

PS: Thanks to my best friend Ryou-chan for translating this!

[datawyrms]

That’s Robophobic!

Is K1-B0 really too sensitive about being a robot, a far too long rambling thing digging through every bit of dialogue he has.

short answer: no. long answer: HOLD ON FOLKS I’N SERIOUS ABOUT EVERY BIT OF TEXT as i’m bored and i’m going to spit ideas about my Favourite good robot at you all day. It’s entire prologue and first chapter I am serious this thing is huge and way too many words.  Also spoilers everywhere so uh. Don’t...look at this if you haven’t finished V3ok.

Prologue 

Keebo doesn’t talk or do anything in this bit! He’s just there. Up front for the splash and then hiding in the back afterwards. Officially according to the art book he is in fact a robot at this point in time as well. He’s just covered up and apparently doesn’t have to have those lines on his face or the ear-analogues he’s got most of the game. The More You Know. (not that this should stop anyone from havin fun in fan work. do what makes you happy!) I mostly point it out as Being A Robot is a massive part of Keebo’s character, so the fact he’s always one isn’t really that surprising. We’ll get into that more when he actually...has lines... oh and the mild theory of Monodam basically being Keebo’s Bear Equivalent, they have similar plot beats/character progression though the Monokubs are shaky in general so :v MOVING ON

Ultimate Revival

aka we meet Keebo and Kokichi ‘properly’ for the first time. The pair should generally be the 6/7th students protag bumps into. (me replaying and going ‘lol Tsumugi makes herself the first not Shuichi person Kaede should canonically meet by the placements’) Get used to Kokichi, a massive amount of Keebo’s dialogue is with, in response of, or directed at him, and this introduction is a testament to that. You meet them mid interaction!

Kokichi- Heeey! Wait for meee!

That boy in white is chasing that other boy in the funny clothes... What's happening here?   

Great opening robot. You spend most of the time lonely but the first we see of you is running away from someone. (It’s an interesting difference to how he reacts to Kaede/Shuichi in their first FTEs.) That, and apparently Kaede doesn’t peg Keebo as a robot here. Shuichi says he’s ‘chasing somebody’, so he might have noticed.

Kokichi: C’mooon! Wait up! Lemme touch your body a little! I've always wanted to be friends with a robot! Kaede: What? A robot!? K1-B0: ...What is it? Are you another robophobe?  I have a recording function. If you make any robophobic remarks, I will see you in court. 

keebs you don’t have the money to take anything to court but we’ll let you keep that delusion ok. and you’re probably legally counted as property In fairness, the robot lad is not making the best first impression! Kokichi is kinda childish by just assuming he should get to touch the robot, but he is genuinely interested at this point. It’s easy to read this as Keebo being too touchy. He’s sensitive about that being a robot is the ONLY thing you care about. So Kokichi wanting to be friends with a robot and being grabby...well there he goes getting defensive. (and it turns out he probably has reasons to not like grabby hands. kaede)

Kaede:  Wait...you're a robot!? Are you, for reals, a robot!?  Shuichi:  A-Are you...one of the Monokubs—   K1-B0:  Do not compare me to those toys! I am not just any old robot! 

Keebo is completely justified here, visually he isn’t even close to a Monokub or an Exisal, and lacks a split two tone theme. Would you want to be compared to a Monokub? No. No you would not. He’s also showing at bit of that pride here, calling them ‘toys’, though they do seem as capable as thinking as he is. (keebo is also a robophobe oh no.)

Oh look it’s the reason you have SO MANY NAMES. Some people prefer the ‘Kiibo’ shortening, but all the screenshots are going to say Keebo so we’re gonna be consistent. We are never going to see another character refer to him as K1-B0, but everything interface wise will call him this. We might not think you’re a person, but we’ll use your preferred name no problem. probably because k1-b0 is a mouthful

Kaede:  A robot and...supreme leader? Neither of them make any sense. Kokichi: By the way, I learned the hard way that a robot's breath smells like gasoline. K1-B0: My breath does not smell like gasoline! I am powered by electricity! Kokichi: Nee—heehee...I'm just kidding. K1-B0: ...You're not funny. Kokichi:   Of course you don't think I'm funny. Robots can't understand human humor to begin with! K1-B0:  D-Don't mock me! I have studied the complete history of stand-up comedy! 

Things we learn: These two are weird. That, and Keebo is kind of terrible at interacting with people. He takes the lie/joke at face value, hesitates when corrected that it is a joke (But doesn’t go saying ROBOPHOBIA this time). and each time he’s responding he’s trying to prove something. The little stammer seems like Keebo knows he’s bad at it but darn it he’s going to tell you about the things he can do. Like study stand-up comedy. (Poorly)

Kaede: I think you should've just watched stand-up comedy instead of studying it...   K1-B0: Plus, I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you Shuichi: You're a high school student? K1-B0: I was created by Professor Idabashi, the leading authority in the field of robotics...  He installed in me a "strong AI," capable of learning and maturing like a human brain. That's why, at the time of my creation, I didn't know anything. I was like a baby...  But the professor raised me like I was his own child. He taught me so many things... Until finally, he enrolled me in high school. And now I stand here before you all! See? I’m just like everyone else! Kokichi: Hey, do robots have dicks? K1-B0: Please do not ask ridiculous questions! Kokichi: Nee-heehee... I only asked because your backstory is pretty flaccid for a robot. Kaede: Well, I can see how being a robot might be enough to be called the Ultimate Robot...

Keebs loves talking about himself, this like the longest intro block of text. Then the justification to why Keebo is Pretty Garbage at fitting in! He speaks rather formally and uses contractions less often than he could and spends a lot of time clarifying things you could probably assume. His entire life up to this point he’s basically been home schooled by a leading robotics expert from scratch, and we don’t even know for how long. He doesn’t mention any other people, and even via FTEs and Salmon mode he never refers to having any other close relations or friends. (This isn’t uncommon for most of the cast there isn’t a ton of FTE time to bring up things that don’t matter, but they’ll usually MENTION other people/activities that you could reasonably assume would involve others.)  He says he was raised ‘like his own child’ but Keebo might have zero actual context to what a family relationship looks like! Kaede’s mental crack nudges at this, maybe our robot friend ‘knows’ what something is, but has he actually experienced it? Is he just assuming his experience is ‘close enough’ to whatever he was taught? We don’t know! For all we know Keebo has only been operational for like three years. He’s incredibly aware he’s a robot, he doesn’t use words like born and always clarifies he was like a baby or a child, but not literally so. So constantly being reminded like he doesn’t already know that might be annoying for him. Really he’s asking for respect and to be treated like an equal...but he’s expressing it by saying he’s the same as everyone.  Also: We’re just meeting him and we’ve already got two people going ‘this is a disappointing robot’. Kaede doesn’t even think he’s much of an Ultimate right now, and we all know Kokichi’s thoughts :v This trend will continue.

Kaede: Hey... Everything he's said so far has sounded like a lie, so that's gotta be a lie too, right? K1-B0: Just leave him alone. Everything he has been saying has been a lie. ...He's a far more suspicious person than I am, that's for sure. Kokichi: Well, of course you're not a suspicious person, because robots aren't people, silly. K1-B0: Grgh...! Kokichi: Oh, you mad? Are you gonna hit me with a rocket punch? K1-B0: I don't have that function! Kokichi: Aw maaan, you’re boring.

Keebo will use ‘person’ to describe himself! Never human. It’s likely the main conflict he’s having is having a different definition for ‘personhood’ than most of his fellow classmates. If you’re into marine life, you might know about how dolphins and whales seem intelligent enough that considering them ‘non human persons’ was/is bandied about sometimes, and the whole issue with that is well, we’re humans. Everything we judge is going to related to the human experience. (National Geographic had a neat article on the topic in 2015 I think?) Keebo is not coming from that experience. He knows he can think and feel like all the others, so of course if he needs a word, it’s ‘person’. Note how he doesn’t actually argue back when Kokichi says he isn’t one. They’re both ‘right’ in a sense, even if Keebo clearly doesn’t like it.

K1-B0:  I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you. From one high school student to another, I hope we can all get along! Kokichi: Who creates a robot without a rocket punch? Why do you even exist?

Yes, even in post conversation dialogue Kokichi comes along for the ride. Here Keebo goes trying to use ‘high school student’ as a describer instead of person since he is undeniably a student. The fact he flips from being proud of what he is to downplaying the fact he’s a robot is pretty interesting and the first look at the difficulty he’s going to be having. Fitting in=Respect.  While Kokichi is digging for more info, but Keebo doesn’t elaborate or react to the repeated rocket punch reference :v Shuichi and Kaede only comment on Kokichi in the post dialogue, so nothing to add from them.

Then we get to the gym. Kaede chastises Himiko for being lazy and then Keebo decides to add his thoughts. With an apology. This boy can’t decide if he has all the confidence or none of it.

K1-B0: Pardon me, but...we need to be on our guard. We do not know if and when danger will strike. Kokichi: D-don’t say that... I’m so scared... I don’t know what to do... Angie: There is no need to worry. Atua will protect us. Kokichi: Phew! That’s a relief!

oh look a Keebo line immediately followed by a Kokichi one i wonder if this will be a trend. Kokichi points out that Keebo phrased ‘uh we might be in danger’ rather poorly with his little emotion flip flop. We know that Keebo means it in the best way possible, he wants the best for everyone, but it’s unnecessary. Yes, nothing has happened, but they all know they’ve been kidnapped by weird colourful bears. Are you restating for the audience at home Keebs? (...he could be. Inner voice is a fun can of worms. we’ll get to that.) He doesn’t speak again until the killing game is announced.

Tenko: W—Wait a second. What did you say? K1-B0: I-If I heard him correctly— Monodam: KILLING-GAME

There he goes taking someone completely literally. Then not even getting to finish his sentence because Monodam cuts him off. The Monokubs do their jabroni throwdown thing annnnd Tsumugi: In a situation like this, is he just going to watch!? K1-B0: Either way, it's too dangerous! We need to get out of here or else—  Monokuma: Now, now, now... Kaede: What? Monokuma: My cute little cubs... You gotta knock off this awful fighting...

Cutting off other robots is apparently a family trait, because Monokuma does it here too! The fact Keebo is instantly suggesting running also shows he’s not really the aggressive sort. When you see his profile image in the Monopad you might think he’d be a scary sort of fighter bot. Buuuutnope. The Monobear gang do their chattering/properly introduce Monokuma

Maki: Headmaster? K1-B0: It appears to be some sort of autonomous robot with a built-in A.l., like me... Monotaro: Dong dong dong! The Exisals are different, though! They're brainless buckets of bolts!

He does recognize Monokuma/kubs as similar to himself here instead of continuing on with the current question of ‘how is this thing a headmaster of anything’. Keebo would probably be the expert on this, but no one asked. Time and place for information is also something Keebo is terrible at :v Monokuma: It's just...when I said it before, I kinda just phoned it in and now I feel awkward... I want you students with your Ultimate-level talents to participate in a killing game. Kaede: K-Killing game? Us? K1-B0: Please stop joking! Why would we agree to participate in a killing game!? Monokuma: Huh? You guys don't wanna do it?  

‘Maybe he’s joking like Kokichi was earlier!’ Sorry robot friend, Monokuma is not joking. Keebs cares about death, even if reasonably he could be as ‘replaceable’ as Monokuma (Though we sort of know he isn’t based on Tsumugi’s mentioning that she’s glad he ‘made it to the end’.)  Keebo doesn’t comment again after this

He is the second to show up after Kaede in the into though! Considering he is a ‘protagonist’ (for the ‘real world’) that’s not too surprising, while Shuichi is hiding in the 5th spot, after Rantaro.

Chapter 1

ohboy here we go. With the entire cast alive, Keebs is very much a background character. What’s his first line as everyone is learning the rules of the killing game?

Tsumugi: But...we looked all over that wall and there wasn't a single hole. K1-B0:  Now wait just a second. If there's no opening in the wall... Then how did we get inside these walls in the first place? Tsumugi:  ...Oh, good point.

Correcting Tsumugi. No horrified reactions or anything, but oh That Isn’t Logical I Will Correct You. Especially in group settings, Keebo generally sticks to factual statements, unless he’s being goaded. Once again, he has nothing else to say after this! But before you have Gonta open the manhole cover, Keebo shows up in Kokichi’s dialogue if you talk to him.  aka this is optional content.

Kokichi: Whoa, look at all these weeds. This place could definitely use a groundskeeper. Right, Kee—boy!? K1-B0: Why are you telling me that? Furthermore... I would prefer you address me as "Keebo." Kokichi: But you can pull weeds. Right, Kee-boy? K1-B0:  I can do all sorts of things just as well as any person! Kokichi: As well as any person...? But...you're not a person. K1-B0: Th-That's discrimination... Robophobic discrimination...

I don’t have anything to say, time to hassle the robot is a pretty common tactic for Kokichi. He’s also the only one to nickname Keebo a second time. No one else will be calling him Keeboy. It’s curious how he pulls Keebo into this conversation, and how Keebo doesn’t really seem to know how to react to it and just tries to correct Kokichi about his name. We can add our second example of him actually going ‘robophobia’ to the list though :v He seems a bit offended that he’s being underestimated/having the suggestion floated that he can only pull weeds and basically does a low key brag about his abilities ‘all sorts of things’. In fairness, ‘as well as any person’ isn’t exactly a useful metric for ability. People vary a lot! Again he doesn’t deny that he ‘isn’t a person’, by going ‘robophobia’ he’s practically agreeing. If you talk to Keebo directly...

K1-B0: ...There is a monitor here, too. That aside, this is a rather remote location to install a communication device... K1-B0: ...lt's a pointless expenditure, wouldn't you agree?

He’s making observations about the area alone and trying to be useful by posing a question. That, and getting someone to agree with you is a decent tactic to becoming more friendly, and it’s a pretty easy thing to agree with... He’s not actually being useful, since we have no reason to care why Monokuma would make pointless expenditures, but he’s trying. This is also the most dialogue any single person has (Kurumi gets close, but only has one textbox to Keebo’s two.) Time to lift a manhole cover aaaannnnd

Angie: Awwww, this manhole cover looks heavy. Can we even lift it? K1-B0:  I can try. Keebo placed his hands on the manhole cover, and with all his strength he—Grgh...! Grrrrrrrrrrrrgh...! How embarrassing. It won't even budge. Angie:  Huhhh? A robot's not even strong enough to move it? K1-B0: Oh, don't worry. My physical strength is approximate to that of a strong senior citizen. Miu: Th-That's fuckin' pathetic! K1-B0: Th-The professor did not want a repeat of the tragedy that occurred during trial production. Tsumugi: Umm... Now I'm just plain curious about what happened during that trial...

Yes, the first time Miu ever interacts with Keebo, she calls him pathetic. :v His want to help overroad the common sense that he probably wouldn’t be able to lift it at all. It is also possible Kokichi’s comments made him want ho show he can do things. Even though he literally can’t do this. Tsumugi was very much me at this moment, going ‘wait explain that please’ but no one else really cares so he won’t be clarifying. The fact he just goes there was a tragedy in trial production and no one bats an eye is low key hilarious to me. He’s just so matter of fact about it. Gonta then makes the cover look like a paper plate.

Kokichi: But Gonta is sooo much more reliable than some bean—counting robot. K1-B0:  Are you...talking about me? Because I can count many things, not just beans.

His objection is that he can count lots of stuff. Not that he’s a bean-counting robot, or less useful than Gonta. Keebo is adorable, okay. Keebo doesn’t speak again after this, meaning we’re back in optional dialogue time! This is right outside the death road of despair.

Miu: You're too weak, Keebo! Lemme remodel you and I'll make you the strongest robot ever! First, I'll soup up your crotch plate by installin' a nice, thick one, just how I like it! Hah-hahaha!

Miu is Miu. Keebo doesn’t respond to this! It is fun to see Miu’s already excited that there’s a robot around that isn’t evil to tinker with, but we don’t know how he feels about it for the moment. Her lab isn’t even open yet and she STILL is talking about remodling new robot pal :v (and yes i am putting down dialogue that relates to Keebo even if he doesn’t react/isn’t present for it. Knowing what the other characters think of him is important too.)

K1-B0: ...It's quite dusty in here. Prolonged exposure to this polluted air may be detrimental to one's health. Angie: Whaaat? Polluted air bothers you? But you don't even breathe air, right? K1-B0: W—Well, that is... While it's true that I do not breathe, I also do not like polluted air any more than you do. Kokichi: I see, you have a function for sensing poisonous gases! Well then, lead the way! K1-B0: N—No! I don't have that function! Do I look like a canary to you? Kokichi: Whaaat, you don't? Then you're even more useless than a canary! K1-B0: Grgh...

oh did you think he’d have a conversation without Kokichi. WRONG. Poor Keebo is already a bit flustered by being called out as different again when he was mostly just making an observation like he did upstairs. The whole not breathing thing is a pretty big difference and he’s instantly going I STILL DON’T LIKE IT, even though originally he might have just meant everyone’s health in general. Being able to sense poison gasses would probably be a helpful skill, and it’s a reasonable deduction...buuuut since he doesn’t have that it just gets to be an easy jab at him instead. The fact Keebo instantly goes for the canary comparison when as a robot he could be reasonably expected to not die because of the gasses is a bit odd, but sets him up wonderfully for a roast :v Keebo is one of the few that gets to ‘...’ at the death road failure, but doesn’t comment again until everyone is rallying themselves for another shot.

Tenko: My body is ready! You can tell by how outta control my pit sweat is! Kaede: E—Everyone! K1-B0: Isn’t it premature to say what we’ll do after we escape? Assumptions are all but useless. Kokichi: Geez, you're clueless... Why am I not surprised that a robot can't read the air? K1-B0: Robots can read the air! Thanks to innovations in pollutant-detecting technology, I— Kaito: Anyway, it doesn’t matter if Monokuma says it’s impossible! We’ll show him what we can do!

Kaito has joined the ‘people who cut off Keebo mid sentence’ club. Keebo is TERRIBLE at interacting. The question is probably genuine, logically they’re thinking too far ahead but like he’s told...now is not the time to be throwing reality in people’s faces Keebs. Or for desperately trying to prove yourself as able to read the air by completely misunderstanding what Kokichi is saying. he’s such a little disaster. i adore this silly robot. Once Kokichi calls Kaede out for ‘torturing’ everyone, K1-B0: Given the circumstance...the most logical course of action would be to give up...

No mentions of how he’s feeling. Just logic and trying to relate it to facts. I assume he expects feelings to be ignored so he sticks to facts for that reason...but that’s just my reading. He does it again when Rantaro speaks up.

Rantaro: Hey, guys? Just...as a warning...We shouldn’t let our guards down. We’ll be easy targets at night. Gonta: C-Cuz of killing game, you mean? K1-B0: I see no need to worry about something as illogical as murder taking place here. Rantaro: I know, I know. Just a warning.

Even though he says there’s no need to worry, he’s absolutely sporting a worried sprite. Yet he goes for saying it’s illogical for murder to be taking place. He can’t see any way doing such a thing would be justified at the moment, and you can see Keebo is a bit of a stickler for things ‘making logical sense’. When he’s not just taking the advice of a voice in his head anyway. We don’t hear from him again until the next morning in the dining hall.

Korekiyo: Now...all of us have arrived.  Kehehe...I'm glad. It looks as though there were no victims. K1-B0: But of course! Kokichi: By the way...are you okay, Kaede? Kaede: Huh? What do you mean? Kokichi: Well...you looked pretty bummed out after everyone started blaming you yesterday. Tsumugi: H-Hey... What are you doing all of— Kokichi: Seriously, you guys are so mean. Poor girl... She tried her best to encourage everyone, and you sore losers got mad at her anyway. K1-B0: What's the point of bringing that up again? Tenko: Actually...didn’t *you* blame Kaede first?

Oh look, Keebo’s being positive. Since everyone lived and he can confidently say that now. He’s also showing that Understanding Kokichi For Dummies was not in his hard drive, but he is trying to figure him out a little. Why did you bring it up? They don’t know, because Tenko gives him an easy out here. Not that he was likely going to answer anyway, but hey! A direct question! Which he follows up on after the rest of the class squabbles about it here..

Kokichi: Phew, cool beans! Now everything’s settled! K1-B0: ...But you did blame her first, didn't you? Kokichi: Well, that was a lie. Y'know, one of those lies to make us more united or whatever. Did you know half my lies are actually told with good intentions? Himiko: Now *that* sounds like a lie.

Kokichi actually answers! Genuinely, no less, even though he’s already got his lying reputation by this point. Kokichi is surprisingly up front with Keebo a decent chunk of the time, even if most of the time it’s just His Opinion On The Robot. Maybe he knows no one’s gonna take anything he says to Keebo very seriously now that he’s laid out the constant mockery groundwork. and then monokuma shows up

Maki: ...Motivation to kill? Monokuma: In short, a motive! That oughta add some mystery to the proceedings! Even if a killer is exposed, they could whip up a sob story to deceive everyone! K1-B0: Wh-What are you saying? Your logic is impossible to understand...! Monokuma: I will now announce the first motive! Make sure  you record this moment for prosperity! Now then, the special motive I’ve prepared is called the First Blood Perk!  Wow! For the first murder that occurs, no class trial will be held! Can you believe it? That means the first one to kill someone will get to graduate, no strings attached! Maki: No class trial will be held? Monokuma: I'm sorry that I made the class trial seem more important than it really is... So for the first murder, I've decided not to hold a class trial at all. Please just relax, calm down and kill! After all, the first one’s free! Miu: Huh? That's all!? We just gotta kill someone to get outta here!? K1-B0: "That's all"!? What's that supposed to mean!? Please just calm down! Tenko: First Blood Perk!? Don't make it sound like some kind of game show bonus!

Keebo is super anti-murder, though it’s sort of funny how his plea to Miu is very close to Monkuma’s own wording to ‘just calm down’. He doesn’t understand why you’d want to kill someone or make someone kill another, and seems genuinely surprised someone would do it based on how he reacts to Miu here. Leaving is not a justifiable reason to murder for Keebo, and we get that fact pretty fast. Then he just watches until Kaito gets himself in trouble by threatening Monokuma.

Monosuke: Youse bastards better pay attention! This is what happens when you mess with us! Kaito: Wh...what? What are you guys planning to do? K1-B0: P-Please, don't! Kaede: Run, Kaito!

More pleading to reconsider, because watching people die is Not Fun. Asking the Monokubs to not do something over encouraging Kaito is a bit notable though, no one really tries to reason with them. Keebo might not like them, or like being compared to them, but still seems to think they might be able to be reasoned with. They are AIs like him after all...and he doesn’t remark on anything after Monotaro messes up and crushes Monokuma either. I wonder if watching Monokuma die bothered him at all. (I think it might have, on the walk to the library Shuichi takes Kaede on, Keebo is one of the few characters that isn’t around to talk to.) You don’t see him again until the next morning where he’s hanging out near the main entrance.

K1-B0: Good morning, Kaede. Kaede: Morning, Keebo. K1-B0: Everyone appears to have gathered at the dining hall again. Kaede: Yup, looks like it. K1-B0: I'm thinking about heading over there as well, but... ... Kaede: But? K1-B0: Oh, nothing. I was just wondering...when someone is going to come rescue us. It's been almost a full day since Monokuma was dispatched, but our situation hasn't changed. I'm just speculating, but what if... ...only Monokuma knew about this place? What if this location is not on any map? What if...no one is coming to rescue us? Kaede: Huh? K1-B0: Maybe...we'll just be forgotten, and no one will ever find us again... Kaede: D-Don’t say that! Besides, we should be trying to escape, not waiting for someone to rescue us! K1-B0: Y-Yes...I apologize. I was overthinking things. It would be impossible to discreetly construct a facility such as this in the first place. Plus, if the professor knew I was missing, he would not rest until he found me. With his technology, he would rescue us! No matter where on earth this place is! Kaede: Yeah... K1-B0: On the other hand...it *has* only been one day. As much as we'd love to go home right now, we must wait in a calm, dignified manner! (you need to talk to him a second time to get this line)   

This poor boy has thought himself into a tizzy and is looking to Kaede for some of that positive thinking that he’s not super great at. He goes from ‘good morning’ to ‘oh it’s nothing but I’m worried we’ll never be found :v’ in two seconds flat. Keebo DOESN’T SLEEP. He’s probably been overthinking all night! He has no trouble finding reasons to not worry once Kaede shakes him out of it, and once again shows us he thinks a great deal about the professor who made him. Look at him going all ‘we must wait calmly’ like it wasn’t just him having a miniature breakdown there. Keebs is fond of ‘we’. Not a shock, since Fitting In and being part of the group is kinda big deal for him. At breakfast he’s taken the whole ‘don’t worry’ thing to heart.

Gonta: But...when someone coming to get us? K1-B0: Whoever does...I assume they will come today. There's no need to worry. Rantaro: ...

he’s probably a bit over positive in thinking they’ll be rescued in a single day after Monokuma’s demise though. Logically they’re going to be saved, therefore it should be quick. Keebo kinda runs down bad logic paths like this to extremes instead of staying a middle ground. there’s levels between we’re all gonna be stuck forever and rescue today keebo.

Monokuma: After dying in a tragic car accident, I've been reborn as a Yo-Kai! Call me Jibakuma, kuma! K1-B0: Jibakuma...? Monokuma: From now on, I'm the headmaster of the Ultimate Academy, kuma! You might feel uncomfortable at first, but eventually you'll get used to it. 

Keebo’s the only one to even sort of play along. Considering he has everyone call him something other that his name, I can see him continuing to use ‘Jibakuma’ if Monokuma had kept up the bit for more than ten seconds :v audience stand in keebs always on standby if a bit is falling flat for the other participants. Next motive gets given, Kubs do their shitk with the one of a kind thing and Kaede: Of course! We never left! K1-B0: Why are you doing this!? How much suffering do you want to put us through!? Monokuma: I see... Well, if you're suffering, you all better hurry up and start the killing game. Puhuhu... then you can say bye-bye to the suffering.

monokuma is directly answering the audience at this point I swear. Keebs does do a decent amount of the ‘obvious protag questions’...it is kinda his job. It’s interesting in hindsight. Bears leave, panic happens.

Kaito: W-We can’t panic about something like this. I’ll...do something about it. K1-B0: ...Did you have a course of action in mind? Kaito: I'm...gonna start thinking of one right now!

Kaito is so salty about Keebo pointing out he has no actual plan that he doesn’t invite him to the ‘fight Monokuma’ meeting on the final day. (or doesn’t trust a robot/think he’d help after the manhole debacle.) Keebs, once again bringing down the mood with reality/ genuine questions he doesn’t think through very well. (And honestly Kaito’s whole believing in people thing is inherently illogical, so they don’t really see eye to eye...) They then discuss fighting back.

Ryoma: You're going to go against those machines barehanded? Isn't that too reckless? Tenko: B-But...we have to do it! If we don't, we'll die! K1-B0: Wait! We still have plenty of time to calculate all possible options— Korekiyo: We’ve no time to be indecisive. We are being urged to make a decision... To die fighting... Or die from the time limit.

That’s four members of the cut Keebo off club. :v Keebo might react in the moment, but when it comes to making a plan? Yeah he’d rather take the time to think over everything, but apparently that’s not an option here so he gets trampled over.

Kaede: Miu! You better not do anything shady, okay!? K1-B0: There is no need to worry, is there? No one is going to...kill anyone, right? Himiko: If someone is going to kill, they should just go for the robot. K1-B0: That's even worse!

It really isn’t Keebo’s day. Korekiyo goes right into talking about ‘why does everyone think killing is wrong’ here, no one goes ‘hey maybe don’t threaten the robot’. Poor guy hesitates to even say kill and then gets told he should die first and no one stands up for him. being keebo is suffering. People start leaving and Rantaro starts being Mysterious

Kaede: Ultimate Hunt? What is that...? I've never heard of it. K1-B0: What about it?  Rantaro: ...Nothing, forget it.

Curious robot is curious. That and is doing the whole protag thing again by following on weird unanswered questions, not that it goes anywhere this time. When you talk to him after Rantaro leaves, he’s still thinking about it.

K1-B0: That Ultimate Hunt Rantaro mentioned...what do you suppose it is? ...Any theories, Kaede? Kaede: I don't know... It's the first time I've heard of it... K1-B0: It sounds so...violent. It sounds like it involves us somehow...No, disregard that. Nobody has any clue what it could mean, so it is illogical to continue thinking about it. Our more pressing concern...is the current predicament we find ourselves in. Kaede: Yeah, you're right... K1-B0: We have until nighttime, two days from now... What should we do until then? (once again you need to talk to him a second time for this line.)

He’s pretty much on the right track, but dismisses it before he can drop into that overthinking spiral he was doing earlier in the day, and decides to refocus on the current problem, probably trying to be helpful again. Yet again, reason why is ‘it’s illogical’ to keep worrying about it. Of course, he doesn’t actually have any ideas here. Logic can only take you so far Keebs. He has nothing else to contribute until Free Time. If you chat to him in the first time slot...

K1-B0: A killing game... Why are we being forced to do such a thing? I cannot believe we're being subjected to this purely for the entertainment value!

Keebo has apparently found the script and read chapter six. oknotreally, he’s clearly basing this off the fact it’s called a game and Monokuma basically answered his ‘why are you doing this’ with ‘lolcuzican’, and can’t accept this as a valid reason. Yet he’s not gonna get another one! In time slot two he’s hanging out at the gym

K1-B0: I'm tired of everyone's prejudices! Yes, I'm a robot. But I'm also a high school student like everyone else, you know!?

Himiko literally said kill him first, I think he’s allowed to be a bit miffed about being treated differently. He’s still not arguing that he’s not different, but wants to be treated the same way the others are in ways they can be. sadly for Keebs he is this game’s easy target and he will not be getting a break ever and he needs a hug. Instead we’re going to make a mockery of him again when Shuichi recruits Kaede for operation ‘Get Miu to Make Stuff For Us’ as go near the Casino area.

Kaede: Morning Keebo. K1-B0: Ah, good morning. Your timing is impeccable. I have something I wish to ask you both. Shuichi: Huh? What is it, Keebo? K1-B0: What are your thoughts on this door? No matter how hard I try, it will not open... Kaede: Um, well...it doesn't seem like an exit... K1-B0: What do you think is on the other side of this wall? Kokichi: Why don’t you fly over and see for yourself? K1-B0: Whoa—!? Shuichi: K-Kokichi!? Kokichi: C’mon! I wanna see you fly! Robots have jet packs or whatever under their feet, right? K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Whaaat? You...don’t...? K1-B0: ...No, I don't. Kokichi: ...Have a dick? K1-B0: Wh-What are you talking about!? Kokichi: Oh yeah! If you had a jet pack... then you could've flown over the wall and called for help! K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Geeeez! You're just a huge disappointment, Keebo! K1-B0: ... Kaede: K-Keebo? K1-B0: ...I’m fine. Please just let it be. I...don't like sci-fi functions like flight. Kaede: But aren't you already pretty sci-fi? K1-B0: ... Kaede: Um...it might be better to leave them alone... 

Oh look a big semi important conversation. Keebo’s just asking questions again, he seems to put a lot of importance on what other people think over what he personally does. (he listens to a voice in his head that he knows isn’t himself. listening to other people first is probably preprogramed into him so he’s more malleable >> You can also take it as having a lot of doubts about himself.) Of course, neither Kaede or Shuichi can have any more idea than he does about the wall and what’s beyond it, but he’s asking anyway! Then Kokichi shows up and completely redirects the conversation to Keebo’s abilities again. And robot just can’t follow this! He knows he’s going to disappoint Kokichi ability wise again and clams up instead of stating yes or no clearly here, it takes a second nudge to get an answer. Honestly it reads like he feels bad that the reason he can’t fly is because of something he personally doesn’t like, so he’s unable to help again. He just assures Kaede he’s fine and then clams up again. He’s probably not fine! Like Kaede thinks, Keebo is..pretty sci-fi on his own, but he’s not elaborating on why he doesn’t like that sort of thing. It makes him stand out too much, it makes him less ‘like everyone else’ is probably a safe bet though. And all of this is completely missable dialogue :v In free time slot three he’s in the B classroom alone.

K1-B0: ...Tsumugi just asked me if I can perform a "rocket punch." Why does everyone automatically assume that robots have a rocket punch function!? I don't have a violent function like that! 

it’s a common robot trope, but keebo doesn’t know this, apparently. But hey, bonus reafirrming that Keebo would consider rocket punching violent, and probably doesn’t have any other similar features. Nor does he want any. (For now.) In time slot 4, the final one...

K1-B0: ...At this rate, the time limit will expire before we know it. We must take action somehow... 

He’s worried again! That, and still using ‘we’. Killing someone and only looking out for himself isn’t an option here. He does have good reason to be worried though, if you swing on by to talk to Himiko at this time... Himiko: The time limit is tomorrow night... Maybe...we should kill the robot? Kaede: That's just a joke...right? 

seriously himiko you’re a jerk. I get it, you’re magic and he’s all science and wouldn’t buy a magic trick for a second but you have seen him around for a few days now and are just calling him ‘the robot’ and saying someone should kill him!  For the second time! At least he’s not in the room this time but come on! Himiko clearly has a division between human life and Keebo’s life, and she’s going to stay that way, Which, fair enough, a human can value human life over other forms of life (and guess what we usually do) but...he’s literally sitting and talking with you guys and in the exact same boat. He’s closer to human than a lot of things... After this free time we don’t see him at all until it’s corpse time. So I’ll throw down his Kaede FTEs now. With all the options. As I’m nuts.

K1-B0: If you have come to talk to me...that can only mean you are interested in me, right Kaede? I certainly do not mind. After all, I am the Ultimate Robot. Naturally, I will attract interest. Kaede: Yeah, I've never talked to such a human-like robot before... Well, any robot, really. Hey, if you don't mind... Can I ask you a question? K1-B0: By all means, ask me anything. Oh, but I cannot answer any questions about the technology used to create me. Kaede: Don't worry, I won't ask anything too difficult! Okay, first question...do you sleep at night? K1-B0: I have no need for sleep. However, it is necessary to recharge my power cells. Kaede: Oh, so you recharge! K1-B0: Yes, but I am still conscious while I recharge, so it's not quite the same as human sleep...A single charge generates a week's worth of power, so I don't need to do it very often. Kaede: Ooh, for one week, I see... I always assumed robots needed a lot of electricity. K1-B0: That's what's so incredible about me! My energy efficiency is truly incomparable! Kaede: Hmmm... K1-B0: ...That's it? Kaede: Huh? Was he expecting me to be more excited? To be honest, it's not *that* amazing... May I ask you another question, then? K1-B0: Yes, go ahead... Kaede: Do you eat? K1-B0: ...No... Kaede: Huh? He looks pretty down... Sorry, did I say something wrong? K1-B0: No, I'm sorry too...Though I cannot eat, food still looks delicious to me. The unfairness of it all pains me... Kaede: Yeah, that seems pretty rough. Do you like girls? K1-B0: ...Huh? Kaede: Are you attracted to human girls? Or do you prefer female robots? K1-B0: Are you suggesting...that robots should stick with their own kind? Kaede: I didn't mean it like that! I was just curious! Honest! K1-B0: Then...are you saying...that you...and me...? Kaede: Th-That's not it, either! K1-B0: ...Of course. I apologize for being overly self-conscious. I have never felt romantic attraction, so I cannot answer questions on that subject. Kaede: How do you feel about the Roomba? K1-B0: You mean...the disc-shaped cleaning robot that scoots along the floor Kaede: Yeah, that! Do you see them as, like, younger siblings or something? K1-B0:  ...Kaede, it's very robophobic to suggest that robots are only good for cleaning. You should know that I am completely different from that simple machine. Kaede: But you guys are basically the same, more or less...so I was just wondering K1-B0: That does not matter. If I am comparable to a human, that thing is comparable to a microbe. Kaede: But compared to Roombas, you're losing in the popularity department. K1-B0: Why, that's—! Kaede: I'm kidding! Really! K1-B0: Krgh...! Human jokes are rather vexing...! Kaede: I continued to ask Keebo some questions... Well, that's all! Thanks for answering them, Keebo! K1-B0: Yes, of course...You're the first person to ask me so many questions, one after the other. Kaede: Oh! Was I being too forward? K1-B0: No, that's not what I meant. I just thought......being treated like that isn't so bad. It's actually...kind of fun.

hooboy that’s a lot. Robot is just looking for some validation and is not gonna get it in the ways he thinks he should! One week battery life is incredibly impressive but Kaede sure doesn’t think so, or care to know why that is. She is pretty nice though, overall. Oh and the fact Keebo has a built in company secrets thing is kinda funny. Maybe that’s why he’s garbage with computers, he can’t blab if he doesn’t know jack :v. Mostly we just reconfirm that Keebo is pretty bad at talking to people and probably hasn’t met all that many. He also takes the ‘liking girl’s question really badly and backpedals into being offended when really he just doesn’t have an answer at all. Since he doesn’t know what love is. He actually apologizes for freaking out here, so apparently getting touchy is just his default reaction. :p You can see when he actually has time to explain why he doesn’t like a thing he’ll actually do so, and seems more reasonable when he can. Of course he doesn’t like being compared to something that scoots along, doesn’t think and cleans. They’re both robots, but really not on the same level...and Keebo isn’t quite sure how he’s going to handle that. He says it’s rude to say they’re only good for cleaning...but you can kind of tell he mostly means in relation to himself/robots as intelligent as he is. So instead he just sounds weird and inconsistent...and robophobic himself considering he thinks he’s better than other robots :v Even if it is a joke...Kaede is probably right about the roombas being more popular than Keebs. Also who the heck made him think food looks good when he can’t eat. That’s just mean.

Kaede’s blurb about him for the FTE is pretty positive too, when you see Shuichi’s they’re quite different. (Though their rank one FTEs are INCREDIBLY SIMILAR. because this is how Keebo introduces himself to people. By assuming they want to know about him and flailing. aka terribly. this poor robot. he’s probably only met other people interested in robotics before now.) So we move to FTE 2, where Kaede shows she’s an impulsive little imp when she wants to be!

Kaede: I'm chatting with Keebo again today, but... K1-B0: ...Kaede, is something troubling you? Kaede: N-No! It's nothing.  To be honest, something's been bothering me, and I can't really focus on our conversation.There's a button on Keebo's neck... What does it do? It's calling out to me... I wanna push the button! *thud* K1-B0: Hm? What was that sound? Kaede: Whatever that sound was, it occurred at the exact right time...Because when Keebo turned around, his neck was completely defenseless...Oh, god! The button is like screaming, "Don't push me! Don't push me!" But I'm definitely gonna push the button! *click!* 

(great job you broke him kaede. they do a ... back and forth like five times, just stare at it for a bit.) No reaction...? Keebo!? I called his name and circled around him... K1-B0: ... Kaede: Whaaaaat!? Keebo was completely frozen! Like a toy out of batteries...M-Maybe that was the emergency stop button!? Wh-What should I do!? Maybe if I push it again, it'll fix him...? Hoping that was the case, I pressed the button again. *click!* K1-B0: ... Kaede: ... K1-B0:  Wha—!? Kaede, why are you in front of me? Weren't you behind me earlier? A-And why are you so close to me? Kaede: I-I'm so glad... You're back to normal... K1-B0: Huh? What do you mean? Kaede: U-Um...well, I noticed a button on your neck, so I pushed it K1-B0: What—!? You discovered this button!? Kaede: I-I'm so sorry! It was tempting me! Was that the emergency stop button? K1-B0: ...Yes. It's there just in case my AI or essential functions encounter problems. Kaede: I didn't know you had such a function... K1-B0: Kaede...you know my secret now... Kaede: I-If it's a secret, then you should've hid it better! K1-B0: But what good is an emergency button that cannot be easily found in an emergency? Kaede: But there are people who might push it for fun...like me... K1-B0: ...That's true. I will forward your feedback to the professor when we get out of here. Kaede: Yeah, good idea... K1-B0: But...Kaede, that means you will have influenced my design. Which means you will have played a role in my creation. Kaede: Huh? You're exaggerating. K1-B0: It's no exaggeration. If Professor Idabashi can be considered my "father"...Then you, Kaede, will be my "mother." So I shall call you mom. Kaede: M-M-Mom!? What!? K1-B0: ...That was a joke. Kaede: U-Um... K1-B0: It's payback for messing with my body. You deserve at least that much. Kaede: Ha...hahaha... I'm so sorry, Keebo. A robot making a joke... That's pretty cool. The title of Ultimate Robot really suits him. K1-B0: Um, Kaede... Do you think you can keep that button a secret from everyone? Kaede: Yeah, don't worry. Kokichi definitely can't find out about his button. That would be a huge problem...

Keebo spends a good chunk of his own FTE completely frozen up :v That, and Keebo has this collar covering nearly all of his neck and half of his face! How did you get to it? Or are you calling the collar his neck. He’s probably had to deal with literally getting his buttons pushed before, but Kaede does apologize so he seems more okay with it than he’d usually be. (Really as long as you say sorry he’s generally okay...he wants you to like him.) Also, having that button probably isn’t a ton of fun, even if it’s important. He was completely unaware of what happened and a bit disoriented because of it. Yet he still has time to defend the professor about the placement of the stop button. (As I seriously doubt he had any say in where it is, Kaede! Don’t go pushing random buttons on people!) The fact he gets back at her with an attempt at a joke this time is pretty cute, considering he just previously said jokes are difficult for him. He’s learning! That and the fact both of them instantly go ‘Kokichi must never know’ is just ‘yes, hilarious.’ He’s pretty lucky she keeps it secret and no one else finds out. As an aside, Kaede can ask Rantaro what she thinks of people, and Keebo is an option.

Rantaro: Nah, it's nothing. By the way, who's the most...unique person here, in your eyes? Kaede:  Keebo... Rantaro: Being a robot is interesting enough that his personality barely matters. But you know, I think Keebo is on our side... Kaede: What do you mean, on our side? Rantaro: Have you ever heard of the Three Laws of Robotics? The long and short of it is...robots can't harm people. If Keebo's creator was a good scientist, he would have programmed that into Keebo's AI. We're all human, so we can assume that he's on our side...Of course, I'm just guessing

He probably wouldn’t appreciate his personality not having to matter, but Rantaro basically seems to trust Keebo here. Because he’s a robot :v Unfortunately, he doesn’t trust him enough to let him in on the survivor perk thing...he probably would have lived if Keebo came along to his ill advised library search. It’s much harder to sneak up on two people with a shot putt ball. speaking of shot putt balls, time to get past the part where he dies. Since Keebs is hiding out his room, he gets summoned by the body discovery announcement.

He doesn’t get it, and understandably panics a little, and doesn’t really interact with anyone, they’re all doing their own expressions of dismay. Miu’s does come after his though. What finally gets him talking again? Being worried he won’t be much help.

Kirumi: Do not fret. Just imagine this as something out of a police drama or detective manga. Right, Shuichi? Shuichi: R-Right... K1-B0: I'm in trouble... I've never watched police dramas or read detective manga! Korekiyo: Well...there's no need to think so hard. We need only converse with the corpse... A corpse is not simply a dead person. That is just an assumption made by the living. Yes! By coming face to face with the corpse, you will learn a great many things! (yes that is it exactly.)

Really though, how long has Keebo been ‘alive’? He’s never so much as looked at entire genre even once? You had time for the entire history of stand up and didn’t look at detectives? Shuichi taking charge a little does get him a bit more positive though.

K1-B0: As novice investigators, logic dictates that we work together rather than give in to paranoia.

Teamwork makes the dream work :v He also goes ahead and does the protagonist thing again here.

Kaede: We’ll all escape from here! I’ll make sure of it! K1-B0: So, let's get started. 

He’s the first one to say ‘okay let’s do the thing.’ He’s also the first to react when Kaede says...

Kaede: The mastermind killed Rantaro... K1-B0: ...Mastermind? I’m sorry, what are we talking about?

Asking clarifying questions is Keebo’s part time job at this rate. Most of the other characters have no idea what Kaede is going on about here! This exchange is ten times funnier when you know Kaede is actually right, Tsumugi’s sprite is on screen when she says this and everything. Keebo also trusts Monophanie at her word when it comes to developing the camera film.

K1-B0: And she said she had to follow the rules, so I don’t think she’d destroy evidence. 

He doesn’t say how he thinks very often! Though in this case he’s probably speaking from experience...he’s a robot too, and might have rules he absolutely has to follow. (Such as not talking about how he was created.) Gonta is the other one who trusts her...but Gonta is kind of a sweetheart that trusts almost anyone so :v. Angie also sort of does? But really, the ones who trust are all in the ‘probably not taken seriously’ camp. He continues to be a team player during the investigation.

Kirumi: I do not intend to offer a suggestion that would further arouse suspicion, but... K1-B0: No, that's logical! Please speak your mind, Kirumi! Kaito: It's not something you should be proud to say... but I guess we don't have a choice. After all, if we don't find out who the culprit is, we'll all be killed. 

Keebs with the logic train again, with Kaito there going ‘I Do Not Like’, seeing as it’s kinda hard to believe in your friends while suspecting them. He almost seems to be chastising Keebo here, since he’s unapologetically for the ‘stick in groups’ plan. Of course robot lad knows someone is dead, someone here had to have done it, taking all precautions therefore is only being sensible. In the investigation proper he hangs out in the classroom they kept watch in with Korekiyo, since he actually listens when they say stay in groups.

K1-B0: Kaede, Shuichi! I would like to ask you two a question! You were on lookout inside this classroom, right? Kaede: Yeah. From here, we could keep an eye on the basement, and it was close to the library, too. Shuichi: That’s our alibi. We were both in this classroom when the murder occurred. K1-B0: I see... Then the probability that you two committed the crime is extremely low... By the way...were you two together the entire time? Shuichi: No...I did leave for a bit to see what was happening in the basement. But besides that, we were together the whole time, until the receiver went off. Kaede: Y-Yeah, that's right... K1-B0: ...I understand. Thank you very much. Kaede: Is that all you wanted to ask? K1-B0 Oh, may I ask you one more question? Specifically, about that vent... It appears to be connected to this classroom. The air duct in the basement hallway leads to it... Shuichi: Yes, I was also concerned about this vent... That’s why we kept watch in this classroom. Kaede: Because the culprit wouldn't be able to use this vent if we're in here on lookout. K1-B0: Under those circumstances, it would be difficult to sneak into the library from here. Shuichi: Kaede stacked up books in front of the library vent as well. With those in the way, it would be even harder for someone to go in and out. K1-B0: Really? I will be sure to save that important piece of information to my memory bank. I hope my line of questioning has not offended either of you. It is necessary, so that we may find the truth. Kaede: Keebo, you totally sounded like a detective or a lawyer just now! Oh! Maybe you were a detective or a lawyer in a past life!

Keebo does not appreciate your absolute nonsense Kaede. Even if you’re meaning it as a complement. He’s trying pretty hard, noticing the vent and asking for alibis and trying to puzzle out what happened. He is of course, pretty wrong about these two being unlikely culprits for being here since he hasn’t considered how the murder occurred, but he’s already admitted to not being good at this. He even apologizes for being rude, he’s so worried about making people not like him! Yet he still gets prickly about the robot thing, but really Kaede should we be talking about past lives when there’s a smashed avocado downstairs at this very moment?

Kaede: Hey Keebo, what were you doing and where during the body discovery announcement?  K1-B0: Ah... My alibi.  ... ... (we get his glitching out sprite here :v) Kaede: ...Um, are you glitching right now? K1-B0: No, I'm just searching for the right words. In all honesty I was alone in my room, so I admit my alibi is not altogether reliable... Kaede: So...you don't have an alibi? K1-B0: But Ryoma said he was alone in his room, too. Kaede: Geez, way to throw him under the bus K1-B0:  Huh!? Th-That was not my intention! Kaede: But I see... Both Keebo and Ryoma don't have an alibi... That means, it's possible one of those two is the mastermind... K1-B0: Umm... Am I under suspicion because I don't have an alibi? Kaede: No... I won't suspect you just because you don't have an alibi. And I’m not saying that because you’re a robot or anything! I’m not robophobic at all! K1-B0: Thank you very much. But...you don't need to be so PC. 

Don’t throw Ryomas under busses. Though this is more of ‘I’m stating a fact’ and not really thinking how that comes off again. Well, really you should be under suspicion Keebo, but Kaede already knows who the culprit is and is trying to make you feel better since you’re clearly anxious about it. So she leans into your weak point...and you tell her it’s fine and she doesn’t need to do that. Now is that because her outright saying she not a robophobe makes you feel silly, or are you so worried about inconveniencing your friends you’re just automatically downgrading the importance of your feelings? keebo doesn’t know what he wants. So who’s the one to ask the protagonist about the last bit of evidence they get?

K1-B0: ...Kaede! Are those the developed photos?

zero points for guessing designated audience insert. I have a question and wish to ask it is just how he rolls, especially early on when everyone needs time to talk.

K1-B0: There is one more photo of the front entrance, correct? 

as you see.  A+ for consistency.

Kaede: The camera pointed at the front entrance only snapped these four photos... K1-B0: Neither Rantaro nor anyone else who could be the culprit are in the photos... Ryoma: Did they both enter through the back door, then? 

Adding his two cents, though he’s basically stating the obvious. Hmm. Is it really his two cents when he’s just making factual comments? Ryoma’s the one who actually moves the thought to the next question that needs to be answered.

Ryoma: Could the culprit have gone into the hidden door? K1-B0: Yes, that is a possibility. Korekiyo: For now, let us see the next picture. There is one remaining, isn't there? 

Validating other people’s assumptions but not adding any of his own here.  

Shuichi: But that would mean that Rantaro noticed it... He saw...our hidden camera... K1-B0: Moving the bookcase triggers the sensor, which in turn activates the camera, right? The bookcase appears to have already been moved, so why did the sensor activate...? Tenko: Who cares!? What happened to the culprit!? How come they're not in any of the photos!? 

Tenko, Keebo cares. That’s why he asked.  He’s either not quite understanding how the sensor works...or he’s pointing out the bookcase has moved more than it should have to trigger the sensor a second time. So we know someone came out of the mastermind lair when Rantaro got distracted by the flash. We will never touch on this again! We know the door can automatically close, but it’s in the exact same position despite the camera interval timers. this is probably just oversight but it is kind of funny to think this could have been a giveaway.

Kaede: We just need to expose the mastermind in this class trial! And then everything, including this killing game...will come to an end. K1-B0: Yes, that's right.

Gotta stick to those safe tiny bits of encouragement eh Keebs? even if he’s wrong

K1-B0: I'm sorry, I can't even posit a guess as to who the culprit might be...But I haven't given up! I assure you, we will avenge Rantaro!

‘I have nothing useful to add, so I’m going to use odd words and restate my willingness to help.’ The choice of ‘avenge’ is pretty interesting though. Keebs isn’t big on violence, and we’re not going to be avenging Rantaro with a song and dance number here, we’re gonna get someone else dead. Perhaps we’re getting a tiny peek at the ends justify the means Keebo who only really gets to come out to play in chapter six. or he’s just mimicking the other’s sentiments and not thinking too hard about what avenging would mean :v

Keade: An...elevator? K1-B0: Does he want us to board it?

protagsaskstupidquestions.txt

K1-B0: This is an authentic replica of a courtroom

No it’s not! Well maybe it is in ronpa world. oh god does he know what they look like because he was literally built for this. is this why he threatens with lawsuits.

Tenko: First, let's breathe in! And breathe out! We need to remember our "No, No, No's"! “No pushing! No running! No talking!” K1-B0: But communication is the foundation of any discussion!

The human is confusing me, and we’ve been here for like five seconds. He can’t think of a good way to start, so he’s stuck just pointing out things that might be problems, such as not talking :v

Ryoma: The mastermind, huh? Odds are, it's one of us... Kokichi: It's Kee-boy over here! Everyone else thinks so too! K1-B0: D-Does everyone really think that...!? Kaede: We'll get to the bottom of this... 

He can instantly buy into the idea that everyone suspects him. Even when it’s coming from Kokichi. Kaede sort of denies it, but this poor boy. He’s trying so hard and wants to do his best but has no trouble at all going ‘yeah everyone doubts me’. Maybe that’s a protag thing, with how Shuichi freaks out when you present the wrong evidence :v (THEY’LL THINK I’M A FRAUD)

Kaede: Because, Rantaro didn't have the card key to open the hidden door. You'd think the mastermind would have that card key on him, right? K1-B0: Perhaps the culprit took the card key after killing Rantaro? Shuichi: But none of the pictures show Rantaro holding the card key. So I don't really think he had the key at all

Time for Keebo to make little logical guesses and generally be wrong, since this is Kaede and Shuichi’s trial to run. Someone’s gotta double down on Rantaro possibly being the mastermind I suppose. 

Ryoma: To lure Rantaro to the library...and kill him K1-B0: Does that mean the culprit and the mastermind are one in the same? Korekiyo: Hmm... That does seem plausible. It’s very likely the mastermind knew about Kaede and Shuichi’s trap. Kaede: The mastermind knew about our trap this whole time?

Yes, but actually no. Ryoma, Keebo and Korekiyo are absolutely correct here, even though we won’t be getting the correct answer. It’s kind of impressive that the ‘real world’ protag and his Investigation Buddy have the actual right answer here. (Kiyo and Keebs were together after all). Ryoma’s showing up a lot near Keebo’s dialogue too :v The most unexpected trio ever.

K1-B0: So you knew nothing about the trap in the library? Miu: I'm tellin' ya, I had no idea! Not like it matters...cuz I never went to the library, okay!? Ryoma: The person who made the cameras...would've known their blind spots, too.

Keebo Ryoma tag team...to get the agree statement Kaede needs. I don’t think Keebo has really talked to Miu beyond her calling him pathetic once still.

Ryoma: Cool your jets, kid. Korekiyo: Tsumugi and Kirumi were both in the dining hall as well. K1-B0: We can dismiss those four as potential culprits if they were together the entire time. Korekiyo: No...not the entire time. At one point, Tsumugi went to the restroom. Tsumugi: Oh...so you brought that up after all...It's true. I went to the restroom closest to the dining hall.

I really didn’t notice how often these guys are paired together but now I keep seeing them. Kiyo corrects Keebo like a good Investigation Buddy and brings up a damning clue even. THAT WE WON”T USE AAAAA

Tenko: I would never punch a foe from behind! A true aikido master would never do something so dishonorable! K1-B0: Punching is permitted in aikido!? Tenko: Yes! Neo-Aikido even uses wooden swords! Maki: All you've proven is that you're an idiot.

A distraction conversation in the mass panic debate, but the fact Keebo is so baffled here is funny to me. I suppose he’d be more interested in self defense styles like aikido. Gonta also mentions  ‘ Not person... Robot? Like Keebo? ‘ when talking to Angie. Keebo Is Not A Person is a pretty common sentiment in the class :v

Tsumugi: The A/V Room's sliding door doesn't open, so you can't get into the hallway. K1-B0: If you cannot enter the hallway, how would you open the rear door to the library? Kirumi: Although you cannot fit your whole body through the sliding door, an arm would suffice. It would be possible if you used a particular item in the A/V Room.

Keebo doesn’t talk a ton in this trial because Lots Of People need screentime, but here he is to ask more questions now that we’ve moved past the correct culprit and are moving on to the ‘acceptable’ culprit. He continues to follow Kirumi’s logic path after this exchange too.

Kirumi: Yes, the act of throwing a shot put ball could lead one to use it as a weapon. K1-B0: Even if a person couldn't fit through the space, a shot put ball certainly would.

He doesn’t see the contradiction Kaede does in the whole open bookcase thing, after all. So he’s just helping in making Gonta look suspicious.

Kokichi: Yup! A walking, talking Roomba can't compare to a mighty beast like Gonta! K1-B0: That Roomba remark...is probably not about me, as l have a variety of custodial functions.

Yes, I’m sure everyone totally believes he believes that. While your rebuttal is ‘i can do lots of types of cleaning over a roomba’. This robot, I swear. I tell Kaede off for assuming robots should just need to clean but to prove myself to Kokichi I will talk about how good I am at cleaning things. (Amusing, Kaede apparently magically remembers this, she brings up Keebo’s cleaning function in one of her Salmon mode library dates :v) Also: Kokichi proving to himself that he can derail the robot REALLY EASILY if he wants to be distracting in trials. Keebo doesn’t participate again until another robot crack sets him off. 

Tsumugi: We don't even know if they're a guy or not, though, right? Himiko: Or if they're even human... K1-B0: Are you referring to me?

Himiko doesn’t like you Keebo, I’m sorry. Who else could she be referring to? The fact Tsumugi is saying this to Kaito’s ‘culprit should man up and confess’ thing though? Ha

Angie: The culprit was hiding in the library the whole time, before Kaede and Shuichi even placed the cameras. K1-B0: Where would they have hidden? Angie: Inside the hidden door! Ryoma: So you’re sayin’ the culprit was lyin’ in wait there? Korekiyo: If that's true, the suspects...are those who were alone at time of the incident.

Oh look, Keebo is talking when proof of the real culprit shows up, and asks the question that brings up that proof. Angie’s right! Kiyo is going a bit too far in suspecting Keebo and Ryoma here, but they’d be on the right track if it wasn’t for that chalk dust in the card reader :v 

Kirumi: So the real question is how the culprit entered and exited the library. K1-B0: We cannot continue until we address that problem first! Korekiyo: It’s quite the mystery. How did the killer avoid being caught by the cameras?

He’s helping a little here in making sure the discussion stays on this topic, but Investigation Buddy Kiyo is the one doing the work again. Keebs, you are really showing your inner Makoto :v

Miu: Eureka! I know how the culprit got in the library-- the front door! K1-B0: Um... Have you been paying attention? The camera would've taken their picture. Miu: Not if the culprit timed their movements around the camera intervals!

He’s so exasperated by her by saying something that goes against hard evidence/logic. He hasn’t even considered such a thing like camera intervals. He’s pretty bad about thinking of stuff that goes against ‘facts’. Sadly we won’t get more robot sass for a bit. But hey, we got some.

Miu: The three cameras that Kaediot and Poo-ichi placed go off when they pick up movement. From there, it takes 30 seconds for the film to auto-roll to the next photo. K1-B0: So, for 30 seconds, anyone could've entered the library without their photo being taken!? Kirumi: That may have been enough time to kill Rantaro and exit the library...

Thank you for summarizing for the audience Keebo, I think they figured that out. He’s perfectly happy to work with Miu even if he was just snarking at her for not paying attention. She just needed a logical reason and now he’s on board, no problems. This is probably the first non-aggressive/in agreement bit the two have, depending on how you read their other interactions.

Korekiyo: I see. Then he caused the receiver to go off in front of Kaede to trick her. Shuichi: ... K1-B0: It's certainly plausible, considering that Shuichi knew about the intervals.

Ryoma, since the receiver trick is his idea is the one who gets Keebo on the Suspecting Shuichi bandwagon. The fact Kiyo talks right before he decides it’s plausible is just amusing. He keeps following them, but doesn’t seem very sure. He doesn’t join in for the following debate.

Kaede: So that’s why there’s no way Shuichi could’ve turned off the receiver! Shuichi: ... K1-B0: If that is true, then the entire premise of the argument thus far is wrong... Kirumi: Is this true, Kaede?

He doesn’t actually ask if it’s true, just what it would mean if it was. I’m not sure if I’d rather take it as he doesn’t really buy it or not, she doesn’t seem like a great liar, but Keebo is pretty garbage at reading things. I don’t really think be buys it yet personally (he does later once hearing ‘why would I lie’), that why he doesn’t want to ask, but I can see it being the other way, in he does completely and he’s bummed that they’re back to square one.

Korekiyo: Or perhaps...you wanted to cover for Shuichi, even at the cost of your life. Shuichi: ...Huh?

Kokichi: Words from a true heartless robot! Emotions are only for meatbags! K1-B0: That is a harmful stereotype. I can produce heartfelt remarks through calculations! Tsumugi: Like "less than three"? Those kinds of calculations?

Mugi’s just here to dunk on a robot. Keebo is actually showing how different he is from everyone here. Even though he’s a big team player, he can’t fathom why someone would risk death for a lie for someone else. Kokichi is going to give Keebo a real life example someday, but it seems like Keebo is a tiiiny bit selfish here, or really just very lonely. He doesn’t have a strong enough relationship with anyone to make this idea seem possible, that and he’s not much of a liar. It’s not a shock Kokichi jumps on him here to try and figure out if this is just a shortcoming or Keebo just doesn’t feel much in general, but Keebo’s angry response probably clued him in. Even if he needs to clarify he’s doing so via calculations. Maybe you;re a bit too honest, Keeboy. (Also, given what we learn in his third FTE, a bit strange. His previous self killed himself over risking hurting the professor again...but perhaps he’s not counting that because it’s not a lie?) Either way, he’s taking Kaede’s lie as 100% truth at this point.

Miu: So we all agree that Poo-ichi did it!? Then let's just vote already! K1-B0: No, I think it’s too soon to determine the culprit. Tsumugi: Umm...I agree. I sort of can't believe that Shuichi is the culprit.

mugi i swear to god you just love flaunting don’t you. Keebo’s the first to go ‘actually let’s not die killing tthe wrong person’, so good for him. Against Miu, again. you two have a rocky start huh.

Ryoma: If Shuichi had the receiver, it could have been disguised. K1-B0: Kaede is the one who actually had the receiver!

Robot is gonna be the one taking the lie in the debate scrum and using it as a weapon. She said she didn’t lie, it is a fact now, and he’s sticking with it. He really flip flops on how much he wants to trust people. I think he wants to trust everyone generally, but then he gets in that logic zone and starts being suspicious again. Thaaat and the voice in his head often probably tells him to get off the logic track and believe. He listens to it when he ‘doesn’t know what to do’, and let’s be real Keebo is almost in a constant state of ‘what do’. The less confident he is, the more likely he’s going to be nudged into being trusting...

Kaito: Whoa! The brightness is totally different! K1-B0: Same room, circumstance, and camera. And yet, there is a disparity in brightness...

Reiterating and expanding on what Kaito said here, but he’s letting Shuichi explain it instead of trying to do so himself. It’s this sort of thing that makes me think his confidence is incredibly fragile >>

Shuichi: ...Kaede is the culprit. K1-B0: Huh!?

Keebo has identified the new protagonist and is now reacting to them first instead of False Protagonist. I suppose it makes sense he’s first to react a decent chunk of the time...he does have a computer for a brain. Quick on the update, sometimes. Not that he knows what to say beyond being baffled.

Shuichi: How Kaede killed Rantaro with the shot put ball...should become clear when you consider where she used it. K1-B0: Where she used the shot put ball?

Keebo you were in the room and pointed out the vent, come on buddy. but i was serious about how he’s figured out who he should be listening to most closely again.

Shuichi: ...She rolled it. She rolled the shot from the first floor classroom and hit Rantaro. K1-B0: I am skeptical that she could perform such a feat of accuracy...

see? Of course in his confusion the thing he personally investigated has just dropped right out of his hard drive. :v It does egg Shuichi on so he’ll continue explaining. It’s his show now. To the point Keebo stays silent until we get to Kaede’s motivations.

Shuichi: You weren’t persuaded by Monokuma...and you weren't trying to save yourself. What you were trying to do...was kill the mastermind! K1-B0: Kill...the mastermind? Shuichi:  Kaede wasn't targeting Rantaro. She was targeting the mastermind. She was trying to end this killing game... She was trying to save us all. ...Isn't that right, Kaede?

Keebo just loves to pretend to be Solid Snake. He’s been really quiet otherwise, this isn’t a good time. Kaede was one of the friendliest people to him, too.

Kaede: ... K1-B0: Kaede, what would possess you to do something like this?

Even after hearing how it played out (well, everyone thinks it played out) he still doesn’t get it. She did it to kill the mastermind, but he just can’t see why you’d ever take such a step. Maybe he wants to hear it from her, but it’s still a gut punch.

Kaede: I felt like if I didn't do this, then Rantaro's death would have been meaningless. K1-B0: We were searching for both the culprit and the mastermind during this class trial. Angie: Ah, Kaede did mention that.

What can you say to something like that? His death is ‘meaningless’ in a way, but the truth about him will come about later. (too bad keebo’s is the MOST meaningless) Keebo just chooses to stick to stating the facts, as if that’ll help it make more sense. Not that it probably does. He still has questions.

K1-B0: But, Kaede, why did you set such a convoluted trap? If your intent was to kill the mastermind, there was no reason for you to cover your tracks. Kaito: Isn't it obvious? It's because...she didn't want Shuichi to know.

Kaito is way better at figuring out people’s motivations, especially if driven by emotion. Keebo’s question is sensible...but it is probably rather obvious to everyone else there. He’s accepted she killed with a reason, though we don’t know if he thinks it was a good reason. Being tricked like this...it couldn’t have been good for anyone. He doesn’t stand up to the Exisals. He’s not going to throw his life away.

Kaede: Even after I'm gone...my wish will still be here. So I’m counting on you all! I’m entrusting my wish to every one of you! I believe in you! I believe that you all will make it through this, somehow! You guys better live! Don't go dying on me now! End this ridiculous killing game, survive, and get the hell out of this place! And then...be friends after you escape, okay? I think you’ll all be the best of friends. K1-B0: Affirmative, Kaede...

He will agree to try and make her wish come true. (before everyone else. he’s quick on the draw for this kind of thing.) Of course...no one takes her death well.

A horrible mess Keebo, a horrible mess. Of course, he can still pull himself together if a question needs to be asked.

Monokuma: ...Hate you? Puhuhu...who can say? That's your job to figure out. If you really wanna know what's going on, you're gonna have to work for it. ...Though the corpse formerly known as Rantaro may have had a hunch. Gonta: ...Huh? K1-B0: What do you mean? What was Rantaro's hunch? Monokuma: Puhuhu... What, indeed?

Posing for the camera, that bear. Unfortunately, Keebo doesn’t really pursue what Rantaro’s hunch might have been...or if he does, Shuichi isn’t around to see him do it. Or maybe he mentions it in a one off line and I’ve forgotten. We’ll see.

Tenko: Wh-what kinda d-degenerate male... cries in p-public...? It’s so r-rude... Keebo: But, Tenko, you're crying too. Ryoma: Now's not the time to point that out, Keebo. Just let it be.

Ryoma’s a good guy, he’s figured out Keebo doesn’t really mean anything by it, and he’s genuinely confused by Tenko’s illogical statement. No mockery or anything, just tells him to let it go for now. Of course he’s trying to get more easily answered questions figured out when you’re stuck dealing with ones like ‘why did Kaede have to die’, ‘why did it have to be so cruel’ or ‘what secrets do we know nothing about’. He’d rather be distracted right now.

Kaito: Clench your teeth! K1-B0: Kaito! You are supposed to say that *before* you hit him!

An easy fact that can be applied, so he speaks up. He’ll be speaking up when Kaito does a repeat performance later, too. Kaito and Keebo get on each others case sometimes :v But now it’s Keebo’s turn to be a bit insensitive. 

Shuichi: ...I'm fine.

Gonta: Gonta not sure it waste of time. But Gonta agree, fighting not good...

That was a pretty emotional moment between people mourning a lost one with Kaito trying to get Shuichi to stand up and fight back annnnnd Keebo’s calling it a waste of time. Oooof, he is bad at people. Gonta disagrees, though to Keebo it’s logically just a waste. He can’t see what they’re gaining here, or the point of fighting between friends like this. We know in hindsight that Shuichi kind of needs this, but our robot pal doesn’t. That, and violence is never really entering his acceptable solution list. Not yet.

Shuichi: Sorry, you should go ahead without me... K1-B0: ...Why? Is there a reason you wish to stay in a place like this? Shuichi: I want to be alone for a while. Just for a little bit.

must...respond...to...protagonist...Cannot understand why you want to stay in the place Kaede just died and you got punched in. Shuichi kinda gives a non answer, but Keebo doesn’t press. Probably because he’s not going to understand the answer anyway. That’s in for chapter one!

Why did I do this? Cus I’m in the mood to replay it and I am going to babble about my favourite who deserves better. The other kids a bit too, I do like them all but mostly the robot lad.

Also congratulations if you got this far, you’re just as nuts as I am! please share your own hot takes/ things you just realized from all the quotes shoved in here. I probably should have worked on my fanfics instead of doing this :v (I have a bunch on Keebo as Verl on A03, if you are like ‘yeas i want more ravings from this mad being’) ...I’ll be back with Chapter two later...

[chartreuse-gale]

Dragon Warrior/Quest ramblings/collective review

I rant about the Dragon Quest franchise a lot.

Two of my video game pet peeves are when people laude the original Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest as ground breaking (it’s not, see Wizardy/Ultima), or the great grandfather of JRPGs (it’s not, see Hydlide/Dragon Slayer/Fantasian/) I’m generally not a fan of silent protagonists. I rarely identify enough with a character to feel like I’m “in” the game, so I prefer to be playing the role of a character with some kind of dialogue and a personality. Every dragon quest (that I’ve played) has a silent protagonist. That said, I do have some love for the series. I’ve suddenly found myself interested in giving Dragon Quest XI a spin, but instead I went back to Dragon Warrior IV. I remembered liking it as a kid and I’m happy to say I’ve been having as much fun playing it now as I remember having back then. Here are my thoughts on the dragon quest games separated into the ones I’ve finished and the ones I haven’t (mainline only).

Games I’ve Finished

Dragon Quest: This is grinding the game.

Strategy is almost nonexistent in the battle system outside of “Grind XP to LVL UP/Gold to buy better equipment”. You have 1 character and you never fight more than 1 enemy, so all fights are one-on-one. There isn’t any equipment with special traits or functions (just better Attack/Defense). You get access to a total of 6 spells in the game: Heal Heal More Heal Most Hurt Hurt More Hurt Most (these last 3 are usually a waste of MP) The plot is linear (except for potentially at the very end of the game). At least there’s a decent amount of exploration. Worse than Final fantasy I and Phantasy Star I by far, but to be fair, Enix did better with Dragon Quest II, which beat both of these competitors to the punch. Dragon Quest II: So much better than the original.

The grind is mediated by choices that matter in regards to equipment and combat. Also, you have an actual party this time (of 3), Also, Also, you can fight multiple enemies at the same time. Dragon Quest II added a much wider variety of spells (buff, debuff, and elemental damage spells); Equipment that had special functions when used as an item in combat (e.g. the Lightning Staff can cast whoosh), and a smidge more plot. Many people say more grinding is required in II than in the original, but I would argue that Dragon Quest I is nothing but grinding whereas Dragon Quest II breaks up the monotony with a dose of strategy. Comparable to Final Fantasy I. Far worse than Phantasy Star I. Dragon Quest V: Decent.

Also the first game originating on the Super Famicom (although we didn’t get an official English translation till the DS remake)

Allows for a party of 3 (4 in the DS remake). Considered groundbreaking by many for it’s monster recruitment system but it wasn’t the first game to have one by any means (Megami Tensei beat it by 5 years and Wizardry IV by 4). The game is divided into sections based on time periods as you grow from a kid to a teen to an adult, which is a cool way of pacing the games content, and gives you a little more perspective on the setting than you typically get in a Dragon Quest game. Characters are mostly boring outside of one (or two) of the love interests. Did I mention this game has love interests? I think I would have liked it better if there was only one, because it punched me in the heart for not picking the one it leads up to as the primary love interest (who also happens to be the canon one). Has really frustrating setting/plot-gender dynamics with two characters late in the game who I won’t name because spoilers.

Games I’ve Played but haven’t finished

Dragon Quest III: My least favorite game in the series (out of the ones I’ve played).

This time you have a protagonist and you can hire adventures to join you on your quest. They are all nobody characters. Their personalities are assigned at random, and (from what I can tell) only effect their growth. There’s no fucking dialogue with them (which is something I expected after DQ II). Personalities and seeds are fucking annoying, because both of them are random, have huge differences in their effects, and their effects make a huge difference in character capabilities, so it makes me want to spend hours saving/reloading until I get the effects I want. Fuck this game for introducing seeds to the series which appeared in many Dragon Quest games after this (thankfully I haven’t run into personalities again yet). Often lauded for having the “groundbreaking” option of changing character classes/jobs. Yes this came out before Final Fantasy III (Japan), but I would like to make the following points: - Final Fantasy I let you pick your character classes (which came out beforehand) - Final Fantasy III had a class change system you could actually make use of throughout the game (unlike DQ III where you need to get about halfway through the game first) - The original Wizardry came out 7 years earlier and also had a much more accessible class change system than DQ III I played very little of Dragon Quest III (I dropped it before even getting to my 2nd town). Two great thing about this games: It’s the first in the series to give you the option of playing as a woman, and I heard it’s the game that introduced the casino/mini games to the franchise. Dragon Quest IV: This game is Great! Also, Unlike the first three games in the series, Dragon Quest IV might actually be groundbreaking. You ever play Wild Arms I, II, or III? Did you enjoy playing through the prologues that introduce your early party members? Well Dragon Quest IV does a similar thing: The game is divided into chapters. Each chapter has a different protagonist. In their chapter you play them as silent protagonist, but when you encounter them later in the game they have dialogue. This does a lot to develop much of the cast, because you can see how people react to/talk with them and later on you can see how they engage with the player character (who you’re actually introduced to last). The cast is great and falls into a mix of both very old school and very uncommon tropes for a JRPG: You have an aging knight who goes on a mission to rescue children and then goes on a journey to find more about the ominous forces behind their kidnappers (Ragnar). Then there’s a princess who wants to go on an adventure against her fathers wishes so she kicks a hole in the wall of her room and jumps out of the castle (Alena); she’s joined by a young priest (Cristo) and an elderly mage (Brey) employed by her father, who give up on bringing her home and instead ask to travel with her to help her out. Next you have a merchant who wants to raise enough money to buy his own storefront (Taloon). After that you play a Fortune Teller (Nara) who travels with her dancer sister (Mara) on a quest to avenge the death of their father (an alchemist who was murdered by his apprentice).  Each chapter ends on a climax related to motivations/goals of its lead character and each chapter shows more of the world/gives out more info on what is going on behind the scenes. While you actively control the primary characters of a chapter other characters are either controlled completely by AI (in chapters I-IV), or loosely follow a tactical strategy you select (chapter V). I’ve been getting on fine with it, but this might be a deal breaker for some. The music is better than any of the Dragon Quest games I’ve finished (and what I’ve heard from any of the ones I’ve played, but not finished). A remake of this game has an interesting flaw: they cut all the party chart dialogue from the foreign language versions of the DS version; so if you don’t know Japanese, you’ll probably miss out on a lot of character interaction with that version. (I heard this had something to do with concerns that the game wouldn’t make enough sales to cover translation costs of the party chart [which was reputedly two thirds of the game’s script]). Dragon Quest VI Honestly I’ve barely played this one. You have actual characters for party members (a big plus in my book). I’ve heard there’s a job system as well. Plot/setting seem decently interesting on first glance. I might come back to this one later. Dragon Quest VIII I got about halfway through this one.

They included a character-specific skill tree system which is cool, except that there are objectively best routes to take for some (possibly all?) characters and these best routes are not even close to obvious from the outset. It introduced a pretty fun crafting system.

There’s  a decent cast of characters, but they don’t have quite enough going on for my tastes (my fave is Yangus). Plot has an interesting premise, but feels very barebones, and the environments/towns/npcs aren’t very interesting (maybe about as good as DQV, but worse than IV).

This game gets lauded for the 3D models of characters/enemies, but honestly I’ve never been a fan of the character designs of Dragon Quest (especially the monsters), so I feel pretty “meh” about it outside of being able to see your party members in combat (for I think the first time in the series), which is very nice. The music is very ambient a lot of the time. It does a good job of fitting melancholy moments, but doesn’t do such a great job of building excitement during battles and high-tension events. Dragon Quest IX This game feels a lot like Dragon Quest III.

You don’t have any actual characters, you just recruit them and use them in battle (no meaningful intraparty dialogue, character development, etc.) I think I played around 10-20 hours before dropping it.

Final Thoughts

Dragon Quest games vary from game to game in terms of gameplay mechanics, but they vary a great deal more when it comes to characters.

If you like having a lot of control over your party composition and don’t care about having characters with personality, you might like Dragon Quest III, V, or IX.

If you want a party comprised of characters who interact, have personalities, and might even develop over time, you might like Dragon Quest IV, or (sort of) VIII (I haven’t played much of VI, or any of VII or XI, but I heard they also fall into this camp). If you want to play an old school, 8-Bit JRPG that launched a spectacular franchise, might have actually been ground-breaking for its time, and is still fun to play today, check out the original Phantasy Star. . . . . . . (at least, for me it’s still fun to this day) [notes: - edited some typos, and mistakes most notably regarding the Hurt series of spells in Dragon Quest I - Revised some word choices - Added a comment about being able to see your party in combat in Dragon Quest VIII]

[queenofnohr]

The Charming Empire - Otome Review (Soshi Amazaki Route)

I was going to hold off on doing this because 1. I wanted to play more routes to have a more comprehensive look at the game and 2. I don’t really have free time yet. Promptly ignored the above logic mostly to get this out of my system.

Before we begin, a disclaimer - While I do have pretty extensive knowledge about the otome genre in both longer “proper” VNs as well as the shorter, bite sized mobile VNs, I’m able to derive enjoyment from most anything (I feel the need to point this out because I see a lot of reviews that get hung up on stuff I can easily brush off even if I do understand where they’re coming from).

This is going to be a spoiler-free review based on Soshi Amazaki’s route alone.

Firstly, I must note that this is a mobile otome game. If you’re looking for something as long and substantial as, say, Hakuouki, Alice in the Country of Hearts, Dandelion, etc. this is probably not the game for you.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll be rating it based on usual points with a more... comprehensive and personal look at the end (feel free to skip to that if you know our tastes align and/or just want to see me losing my mind).

Prologue - 1/10

Normally I wouldn’t separate prologue from story. However, as this game started as a mobile game, there is no general route in which one gains points toward a love interest as is standard in full-length otome games. However, even by mobile game standards this game’s prologue fails in that it you meet exactly 0 love interests. Indeed, the prologue is the bare-bones introduction of the setting. This flaw is further complicated by the fact that, because it started as a mobile game, routes are bought individually. This means that there is no way to gauge the love interests except by the game’s straightforward summary on the buy screen. Luckily for me, I was sold at “Kenjiro Tsuda voices a love interest who is both a big brother and a lord” so this wasn’t as knee-capping as it could’ve been, but normally you’d have to simply take a leap of faith because if a love interest doesn’t actually end up being your type, you’re out of luck since you’ve already paid for the route.

This is an aside, but translation for the prologue is... questionable. It isn’t unreadable, like some translations I’ve had the misfortune of reading, but it does create some confusion regarding the MC’s family situation which I can’t help but clear up here. MC is the daughter of the previous lord whose mother moved with her out to the countryside. Her mother is died of illness, and MC now lives with an elderly couple. It’s simply when I say it here, but in game the family situation isn’t actually explained until well into the route and the narration refers to the couple as the “old man” and “old woman,” while the MC calls them “Grandpa” and “Grandma” (ojii-san, obaa-san in Japanese, which is a literal translation of what someone would call any older folk with the degree of familiarity MC has with them) while they call her “princess” (literally, hime-sama). The closeness of referring to them as grandparents vs the distance of the narrative’s “old man/woman” + calling the MC princess in a literal sense (vs. a nickname) is jarring especially because, again, they do not clearly explain the MC’s family situation.

Story - 7/10

Soshi holds the most powerful seat in all the empire. Only trusting himself, he rejects the opinions of others as he continues his dictatorship agenda -- breeding animosity amongst the people. He’s a cold man who sees even his own sister as a political tool.

This is the official description for Soshi’s route. Unfortunately(?) for some this... doesn’t really hold true for most of the route and I find it an odd way to bill it.

The initial conflict/relationship growth in the game stems from the MC wanting to be closer to Soshi - not necessarily in a romantic sense - and his distance due to his position. If you’re expecting a more haughty/sneering/pragmatic Kenjiro Tsuda more along the lines of his role as Kazama Chikage and/or a villain archetype who treats MC as a tool (no judgment, we all got our otome types) he’s by and large not that. Things get more complicated around the 10th chapter, but that’s 2/3 of the game in.

The writing is competent. Again, if you’re looking for complex worldbuilding and something deep, you will not find it here. But, while it isn’t poetry in motion, there was at least no point where I actively cringed or asked myself why I was playing it (this is compared to my experience with Voltage Games and Playchoices).

The MC is tolerable. There’s nothing special about her, but she avoids being a literal faceless protagonist with zero presence while also not having such a strong personality as to be polarizing. She shows more competence and restraint than I expected of her (the bar was nearly floor level, but still).

The pacing is... odd. I get the distinct feeling that it’s a longer otome shoved inside a mobile otome, if that makes sense. I’ve seen other reviews call it rushed, but that isn’t necessarily the feeling I get. For a game to feel “rushed” to me, it has to show a lack of care and attention to detail; scenes are had just to have them and either don’t contribute to the overall plot/theme/feeling of the game. I feel like this game does take care, especially in it’s early bits, but some developments happen later on which don’t get the development time they necessarily need. Which leads me to-

The plot kind of goes off the rails around chapter 10 or 11. It returns to form in chapter 14ish. This... plot twist, shall we say, is predicated on hiding obfuscating knowledge from the reader that should be apparent due to being from the MC’s PoV. Whether or not this is a dealbreaker will depend largely on the person. Personally, I was loopy off resisting sleep medication while reading this part so I just sort of accepted it and the return to form/explanation in later chapters made it worth it, but your mileage will definitely vary. I have Thoughts on this, but this is all I can really say while still maintaining a spoiler free review.

Playtime if ardently listening to the voices is ~3 hours. Playtime can be cut down significantly if you’re a fast reader and don’t overly care about the voice acting.

I haven’t tried all alternate options, but there doesn’t seem like huge variations regarding the choices. The 16th chapter, however, will change based on whether you get the Normal or Happy End.

Art - 7/10

The art isn’t anything special nor is it terrible. It’s much less stiff and has more style to it that most mobile otome’s I’ve played, but is lacking when compared to, again, full length otome games.

The MC has a face, which gets points from me (I dislike faceless MCs a lot especially when included in CGs). The fact no one but love interests even get sprites is somewhat jarring.

As far as CGs go, they’re standard fare and about the number you’d expect for the length of a route. The game isn’t raunchy like... at all so don’t expect anything too scandalous.

Voice Acting - 10/10

What can I say? It’s Kenjiro Tsuda.

To elaborate, however-

Kenjiro Tsuda does an excellent job. I’m not sure if I’d call it his best work, but even if it is voiced, I think there’s some expectation for a mobile otome’s voicework to be phoned in. This is not the case and Tsuda’s acting gives a lot of life to the character and scenarios. I’ll, uh, save my gushing for my line-by-line dissertation, and leave it at that.

What was unexpected was, despite not having sprites, minor characters do get voices! They also have some rather nice performances, and there was no VA I disliked listening to or whose performance was noticeably lacking compared to the others (the actual sound quality was consistent overall as well).

Overall - 8/10

Aside from the prologue, this is a solid performance from a mobile otome game. Compared to full-length otome games it’s lacking, but it’s still one of the better mobile otomes I’ve played. For the $6 you can get individual routes for on the mobile app, it’s a fun, quick romp that was perhaps not necessarily what was advertised (regarding the actual summary), but instead met the expectations I dared to dream of. While I can’t vouch for the game in its entirety, I can, at the very least, vouch for this route.

Comprehensive Overlook + Personal Rating - 10/10

Okay, I’ve been objective as possible despite this being a very subjective topic and now it’s time for me to shill my little heart out.

Writing a standard fare review for this game was really really hard for me because against all odds, logic, and my own taste preferring shit like Hakuouki, I’m in love with this game. Obsessed with it. Half the reason why I’m doing this is because it is a totally unremarkable (though, again, fun) otome game so of course it doesn’t have, like, a community, but I need to fucking gush about it somewhere.

Why?

Because Soshi Amazaki literally hits every single husband trait I so dearly love. This route is the equivalent of if someone took my taste buds and analyzed each and every one of them, then cooked a meal precisely on my most loved things. It isn’t necessarily fine dining, but it feels like it was scientifically engineered to appeal directly to me. It’s like I was possessed and ghostwrote it. It’s like someone peered into my heart and teased out the essence of everything I’ve ever wanted, then told me to eat shit because the shell it’s rammed into is that of a bite sized otome game. I have never had such a feast before me. I’ve never been served such an exquisite palette of flavors. I have never been so thoroughly outraged that this is the form my heart takes.

And yet, I’m... pretty much satisfied, despite its flaws and shortness, with my only real outrage stemming from the fact there is literally nobody I can talk about this with (the morning after I binged the entire route I made my boyfriend play it just so I could rave like a lunatic to someone about it) as well as my shame for being so enamored with what is essentially a mediocre otome game.

I talked about how the story kind of went off the rails 2/3rds of the way through, but honestly? I didn’t care because the payoff was incredible. Was I scared the game wasn’t going to end up where I wanted it to while it was happening? Was I prepared to be immensely disappointed because I felt, briefly, like I was baited and that of course nothing would never let me have my cake and eat it too? Yep. But you know what? I don’t know or care if it’s because I set the bar so low or what, but my expectations were thoroughly blown out of the water.

I’m still committed to making even this part of the review spoiler free, so I won’t be going into depth about what I loved (I’ll save that for another post because this is long enough as it is), but I’ll add this apart from just character archetype and themes being what I loved.

That is, shockingly enough and even considering the pacing and, ahem, weirdness - this is a route where everything seems to serve a function. Again, the story isn’t necessarily deep, and while perhaps I would’ve gone about certain things a different way (and had there been space allotted for greater development), there are many, many, many things that are called back to or that seem insignificant, but serve as thematic backbone and create delicious implications.

As a big brother connoisseur, I give this route 3 Michelin Stars.

If you followed me for/like Fire Emblem’s Marx/Xander, I highly recommend this route.

[atamascolily]

Book Review: “Rider at the Gate,” by C.J. Cherryh

So I would like to give a shout-out to one of my favorite books, Rider at the Gate by C.J. Cherryh, and its sequel, Cloud’s Rider. I’ve never met anyone else who has read this series, which is a shame because it is awesome. 

Okay. So lots of books have telepathic animals that can communicate with humans, right? Friendly, happy, affectionate animals. Rider at the Gate takes the idea of telepathy and imagines an entire planetary ecosystem based around it. So different animal species use telepathy for various things, with varying degrees of sophistication: to attract mates, to make themselves look bigger than they really are, or to make you think they’re not there so you won’t eat them or so they can eat you. This is brilliant, and I’ve never seen any other books with this premise - and if there are, I need to read them ASAP. 

Needless to say, when human colonists show up on this planet full of telepathic animals projecting images into their minds so they can scare/confuse/eat them, they are toast. 

Happily for humanity, though, one of the apex predator species - nighthorses - are curious enough to investigate, and decide they like how human minds “feel” enough to bond with individual humans and keep the other telepathic animals away. So humanity can actually colonize the planet, as long as they have “riders” ringing their towns, protecting their poor defenseless livestock, and guarding their convoys between towns. Most unbonded humans are really freaked out by telepathy, and their attitudes towards riders range from grudging respect to the more fundamentalist “riders are devilspawn, stay away” (which amounts to an entire religion, actually). 

Add this to the fact that the planet is basically Alaska - short but intense growing season; long severe winters; lots of forests and mining resources - and electricity and tech are either unreliable or summon giant telepathic man-eating bears, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a setting. Basically, everything on this planet is trying to kill humanity, life is a grim frontier setting, and despite some good people trying to do the right things (particularly in book two) it’s hella dark. Frankly, I read this book as a masterpiece of world building, because most of the details are subtle and in the background rather than explained all at once in a big prologue. 

The nighthorses have their own personalities and agendas, that don’t always coincide with the human ones. You can ride them, but they get tired easily, so mostly you walk, and they don’t plan/think in the future super-well without a human mind to steady them. Also, they look kinda like horses, but they’re predators - they kill fish and small mammals easily, and they love bacon.  We all love the idea of bonding with an intelligent nonhuman animal, but we always expect it to be like the Companions in the Valdemar books (who are actually reincarnated people in horse bodies, not actual horses). This is what it actually would be like: occasionally awesome and convenient, but sometimes so damn frustrating.

Also, Cherryh writes telepathy really well. It’s confusing until you get used to it - it took me several read-throughs to really process how everything fits together, like an intricate puzzle-box. Part of the problem is that telepathy lends itself to rumor-mongering like you wouldn’t believe, and so it’s challening at first to figure out what’s actually happening versus what characters are imagining or are afraid of happening. I’ve never seen any other writer use that mix of images and words for telepathy, or set up her sentences so that she can write a descriptive sentence and the reader knows exactly what’s meant to be telepathic images and what’s not. 

Another thing I love about this book is that there are no real villains. I can’t really say much more without HUGE SPOILERS and y'all should just go and read these books for yourselves, but there’s no one in these books who I would consider to be evil in the usual literary dualistic sense. Stupid, selfish, short-sighted, confused, lying to save their skins, deluded, worried about what other people think, etc, etc, but never evil in the sense of Voldemort or Sauron. It’s a very realistic-feeling human kind of evil, the sort you can identify with on some level.

Terrible things happen, but even the primary antagonist (who is probably an undiagnosed sociopath and/or affected by their parents’ abuse, and definitely kills a lot of people in horrific ways because they’re mad about petty things) believes themselves to be a good person and that life just isn’t treating them fairly. For them, it’s an opportunity to enact their childish fantasies of power and privilege, and it’s a game without real consequences. What they really want is so relatable on some level that it’s hard (for me, anyway) to unequivocally hate them, even though the means they choose to enact those desires are awful. Ironically, this very refusal to believe that this person is problematic - because they look so harmless and they don’t match the other characters’ idea of evil - ends up causing the bulk of the problems in the two books, even after they should know better. 

It’s rare for me to find any genre fiction that is this psychologically, physically and ecologically real, or any “realistic” fiction with such an interesting premise and characters. I wish Cherryh had written more books in this universe, but I’m happy that this pair exists.

[homotome]

Hey. I made a mention of it before, but I intend to start using this as a place to leave my long-winded thoughts and reviews for Otome games (and as a place on tumblr to reblog fan art that I like). This obviously isn't my main tumblr. My main one focuses largely on another one of my big interests, Horror Art. To be even more specific, it's mostly horror art from sleazy and trashy movies/comics from Europe circa the 1980s. I doubt there will be a huge crossover from that blog to here, even though I have an absurd amount of followers there. Down the line, once I have some substantial write-ups on here, I'll refer people to this page. Til then, though, I don't think there'll be many people that will make the connection between there and here. In fact, if you follow me on here and I follow you back, it'll likely be from that blog. Since this is a side blog, it doesn't allow me to follow others using it. On that note, keep that in mind if you see me reblog but not 'like' something while using this page. The Like will register under my other blog. I think. Anyway. Moving on. So how'd I find my way into Otome hell. I'm going to guess that I got here in much the same way that other guys (who, as far as I can tell, are not the traditional audience of otome games) do, which is through games that have light dating sim elements. In my case it was specifically Fire Emblem Awakening and Persona 3. The latter of the two would be more important in my steps towards getting into otome as I would end up getting a Vita simply to play the rest of the Persona series. From there, one of many sales showed up and I actually got Norn9 as a starter. I've made a promise to go back to try and tackle that one down the line, but it actually didn't have a promising start. The prologue from the POV of some bratty kid isn't really the best way to ease someone into a romantic game. Later, however, Code:Realize went on sale as well and that's where it clicked. I played through Victor's route and fell in love. I fell so hard that I've yet to go through another route. That's high on my to do list. I've realized though that I've spent far too long not playing Visual Novels. Specifically Otome games. As a queer guy I realize that I'm not the intended audience. That being said, I hope my perspective adds some unique insight. I've also found that seeking out reviews from the point of view of those who actually enjoy visual novels can be frustrating. I'm aware that there are many people out there who are way more knowledgeable when it comes to the genre. This is not going to be a tumblr for news and, until I learn Japanese, I'm unfortunately limited to what gets localized. I also probably wont post guides or walkthroughs. That being said, I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys may have. I also may dump screencaps here too so I don't irritate my tiny window of twittermutuals. If you don't want to see them, I'll post tag them as homotomecaps and (with spoilers) homotomespoilers That's it for now. I'm nearing the end of Collar X Malice (which has been fantastic) and I'll do a few write-ups on each route once it's all clear. -H

[pettyotome]

Mystic Messenger Another Story: V Route Review

Spoilers undercut. Proceed with caution. :)

Okay! So I freaking loved just about everything in this route. It’s incredibly story packed with SO MUCH NEW CONTENT that was totally worth 300 HG. From the talented voice acting, new twists, and getting to know the characters-- Cheritz does not disappoint with this one! Don’t get me wrong, this route wasn’t perfect. There were a few things that fell below my expectations, but overall this route was wonderfully written and I’m replaying this shit after this review.

Prologue: So the introduction for this was very unique, same concept, but with a creative twist. When Unknown messages you for the first time, it actually feels like he’s breaking the fourth wall-- but technically he isn’t. I’ll get to that in a bit! He basically tells you to download the app under the pretense that you’ll be playing a dating sim-- but none of the character’s we’ve known up until this point are real. The MC in this route thinks they are AIs. Unknown’s characterization in this route is so different from the main stories because he’s actually much more tolerable. It honestly feels like they’re not the same person, I didn’t even care for Saeran up until this route so I really liked spending a lot of this route with him. 

Common Route: Day’s 1-4 are just heaven and hell all mixed together, on one hand you’re trying to make the game branch for V’s route so that you can get a happy ending, but on another hand-- Saeran, known as “Ray” takes you to this place to go play the game, and he is being such a huge sweetheart. I just wondered WHY would Cheritz make Ray act this was knowing that we’re supposed to pursue V!! It broke my heart bc I love the both of them. Through these days, you can see that V is the fastest one to accept you. Mostly because you dropped Rika’s name but still. V hopes the best from you and desperately wants you to be someone he can trust, so he starts showing up a lot more because of you, and you can also see that he sort of opens up, it’s very beautiful to see. And then there’s Ray, who gets attached to you a little too quickly here but he’s always caring about your well being. But don’t get too comfortable. Remember when I said he didn’t technically break the fourth wall earlier..? Well, as you go deeper into this route, the MC starts to feel that these characters are so real that it’s not even funny. And at the very end of the common route on day four, you start to question Ray-- your trust in him starts to waver at this point. At the very last second of his route, V shows up at Mint Eye to save you. He’s not an AI. Ray lied to you. It hurts Ray a lot to know that he’s lied to you more than it hurts the MC, depending on your choices but you’re basically torn bc V couldn’t save you from him but he swears that he’ll come back for you and LORD did this kill me.

V and Rika’s relationship: There was a big corner of the MM fandom that was reluctant to have a romantic V route because of V’s deep love for Rika-- how would Cheritz handle giving V and the MC 11 days to bond knowing that V is still recovering from an abusive relationship? Well, good news. Cheritz tackles this issue head on, no tip toeing around this situation. Days 5-10, when V comes to Mint Eye to save you, there is a scene where he is telling Rika that the two of them used to be obsessed with each other. Key word: obsessed. From the main story until now, V always thought that he loved Rika. This was one of my favorite scenes from this route because Cheritz KNEW what we wanted to be addressed while pursuing V and they delivered. And in the chats, V starts to come to the realization that he might have loved Rika at first, but then later what they had stopped being genuine and just became so unhealthy. He was blind to that at first, but then starts to see their relationship for what it really was with help from the MC. 

Romance: As to be expected, this is gonna take some time. Depending on your choices as the MC, you could either throw yourself at V, show him no respect and rush him to forget about RIka and date you-- or you could aid V through his pain and understand that he’s not a bad person for not being able to fully figure out what love is. V’s been dealing with a lot of Rika’s shit for the past six months. While he DOES actually fall in love with the MC, the two don’t even get together until day 11, which is set two years after the events of V’s route. And I loved that Cheritz handled the romance between V and the MC this way. 

Rika’s characterization and interactions with her: I’m the minority of the fandom that actually likes Rika. But I’m also the minority of that minority that wanted to beat her senseless for the shit she’s done. What I really liked about her in this route particularly was that you actually get to talk to her for yourself-- not through the RFA’s clouded image of her. I enjoyed reading the VN scenes where she talks to Jaehee and recruits other members in the RFA. Rika actually had some very cute moments and I lived for them! I empathized a lot with Rika about how she felt like she couldn’t show her dark side to her loved ones. Cheritz unraveled a much more detailed story of her and V’s relationship and answered the questions that were unanswered in the main story. BUT BOY DID THIS BITCH REALLY TRIED ME LIKE I WANTED TO DECK HER SO BAD BUT I FELT FOR HER PAIN. There were actually a lot of moments near the end where Rika chats with the RFA members and... man it breaks my heart to see her so hurt. And right after days 8/9, shit goes down at Mint Eye and for the first time we see that Rika actually actually does care for the people she’s manipulated and hurt-- Ray. In the main story, it seemed like she didn’t care for him that much outside of his loyalty to her and Mint Eye. But when there’s a bombing at Mint Eye and Ray seems to not have escaped-- she cries for him. She REALLY HOPED for him to find a place where he belonged and I’m really proud of Cheritz for showing us more of her emotions. 

V’s development: Let me just say that you gotta be HELLA PATIENT with this man. V means well, incredibly well, but he’s always carrying the burden of his emotional abuse and the RFA on his shoulders. You learn so many new things about how he met the members, his friendship with Jumin, and you get VNs from his mothers point of view! Not only did we get a completely new story, but we have so many new Jihyun details to gush over and it’s great that we got to see VNs of V as a kid, and how that affected his relationship with Rika. Basically, I felt like V’s relationship with Rika was to prepare him for real love-- love that he would have with the MC. In the beginning V is mourning, in denial, trying to hard to sacrifice himself so that nobody gets hurt. He’s stubborn and self-less to a huge fault. But in this route, you as the MC help him to learn how to love himself and care about himself more. it gets to a point where V shuts down Rika and hopes for her happiness-- but says that it’s over. That what they had was not love. V is finally standing his ground and he’s being so much more honest with himself and with Rika. He admits that he shared some faults within the relationship too, like how he suffocated her with love rather than face her mental illness realistically. And the way he wants to protect the MC from her is literally the best thing ever. V cares about you and is genuinely interested in you, telling you that you made him feel things not even Rika gave him. It’s a slow and frustrating development but the MC is patient enough to help him get there. I just love how V cherishes you so much, to the point where Rika has noticed that V has fallen in love with you. And even V knows this himself, but as I’ve said, the romance takes a lot of time but ultimately he chooses you in the end and comes out a much better person-- following his real dreams and being happy!

Other things: Yo Yoosung pissed me the fuck off a lot in this route bc it felt like he was trying to justify the shit Rika did just because of the good girl image he has of her, and although he does come to accept that she’s beyond saving and even drags her away from drugging people at the party in the end, it was so hard not to be mad at him in this route. But he’s someone I had to be patient with too. Yoosung is a good kid and I love him but he drops her name in this route more than he did his own and THAT’S saying something. I understood that he was grieving but he was dead tryna defend a criminal and that had me all the way fucked up. 

JUMINV!!!! Their friendship!!!! And the way Jumin kind of shipped you and V in the end is just the best thing ever, if anyone knows me, I’m a huge Jumin fan so seeing him accept and trust the MC and compliment her strengths had me swooning. OH AND WHEN JUMIN CHECKED RIKA IN THAT ONE CHAT ON DAY TEN, HE WAS BEING SUCH A SAVAGE I FUCKING LOVE THIS MAN. LIKE YES!!!! DEFEND YOUR BEST FRIEND!!!! 

Ray deserves to be happy. Ray deserves his own route. I wanna romance this man and help him escape from the Mint Eye ideology. WHY WOULD CHERITZ MAKE A V ROUTE AND THEN HAVE RAY BE SO SWEET TO US LIKE THIS I LOVE THE BOTH OF THEM SO MUCH BUT I HATED HAVING TO HURT RAY. 

Draw backs: I felt like Cheritz fell back on Rika’s backstory. When Rika tells you that she’s been bullied or that her parents didn’t love her-- I felt like Cheritz didn’t go into enough depth about it so it was hard to sympathize with vague ass stories. As a person whose been bullied and emotionally abused by my family, I felt like Rika didn’t explain enough of what happened to her and it really didn’t cut it for me. And I was also slightly disappointed that Cheritz built up Rika’s character so much only to give an anti-climatic ending where Rika is STILL up to her Mint Eye bullshit, trying to drug everyone at the party with an elixir, only to get dragged away by Yoosung. Which was probably the only good thing he did in this route if I’m being honest. I felt like we never got any answers as to what happened to Rika or Ray after the party and I hope those questions get answered in new V DLCs and After endings when Cheritz updates again. I’m also a little annoyed that 707 doesn’t find out that the hacker is actually his brother but maybe if Ray get’s a route, that would be addressed? I really hope so bc the route was so perfect up until then, bc it didn’t make sense that they never crossed paths in this route. But that’s pretty much all that bugged me.

In conclusion: Whooping Rika. JuminV. RFA shenanigans. RAY’S BLUE FLOWERS. And Jihyun Kim’s happiness!!!! This route was everything I expected it to be and so much more. It was so fucking emotional and had my heart hurting a lot for the past few days, but I’d do it all over again just to see Jihyun’s smile. Thank you, Cheritz. We truly don’t deserve such a good company. 

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog: Part 1 [Prologue]

So now that my several week-long adventure in trying to secure the necessary equipment to legally play this game has come to an end, I’ve finally gotten a hold of it and have begun playing it, so I’m going to start my liveblog!

For the sake of keeping my followers as spoiler-free as possible, I’m going to try and heavily tag these posts, and put about 99% of each post under a readmore. I’m also going to keep the labeling pretty vague for each post. My basic plan is to play each section of the game in one sitting [if we imagine each chapter being split into three sections of daily life, investigation, and trial] and then make one post for each of them. For now I’m going to label them with what part I played, for convenience, but I can’t help but be a little afraid about the possibility of there being some shift in structure later that might be spoiled via my labeling. We’ll see how it goes. If people want to completely avoid spoilers I guess they can just blacklist the tags and stuff, but I’m still going to try my best to avoid major spoilers, so the majority of these posts will be under read-mores.

This is going to be a pretty interesting experience for me, since even though I’m a huge fan of this series and have been following it for a few years now, I’ve only ever watched LPs of the game, so this is my first time actually playing one for myself.

Anyway I’m just gonna put my thoughts on the prologue under the cut since this is already getting long. [Fake edit: this got super long but mostly because half of it was me posting my initial reactions to characters and stuff, so with that out the way, maybe the rest of these posts will be shorter. We’ll see]

I don’t really wanna waste time talking too much about my history with this franchise and whatnot, so I’ll just get right into things and say that I have no goddamn clue what to expect from this game. I’ve almost completely managed to avoid spoilers on it, beyond what was shown in pre-release material. Well, mostly. There’s a few vague, context-less things I’m aware of, but I won’t say what those things are in case anyone is reading these posts without having played the entire game. [Though as a warning, I’m not gonna hold back on openly talking about every other part of the franchise that came before this]

I’ve heard that this game’s ending is ‘divisive and controversial’, but I have no idea how, and honestly that’s kinda been the trend with this series for better or worse, so it’s not really a surprise.

Thankfully I’ve also heard that this is maybe possibly the best game in the series so that’s cool! It’s not like I’m expecting greatness from it.

I’m really glad that I haven’t seen any LPs or anything besides the demo, because wow did things start off in a way that I wasn’t quite expecting. The whole beginning part was . . . bizarre. I got so thrown off by how everyone was wearing normal school uniforms. In general the whole way that things play out but then, like . . . loop back on themselves??? was really weird and unexpected. I feel like the game is already throwing out major hints about late-game twists, to the point where it all feels so ‘obvious’ that it’s probably some kind of misdirection. The whole shot we got of Kaede wearing some kind of science experiment helmet thing in particular felt like a ‘peeking behind the simulation’ moment, but DR2 already had a simulation twist, so the fact that they seem to be hinting at a similar thing feels like misdirection.

On the one hand I feel like I shouldn’t think too hard about it in case I guess the twist in advance, but on the other hand all of this signalling is so blatant and in your face that I feel like I may as well talk about it.

Even beyond the weird time-looping thing, there’s also a pretty heavy focus on the idea of amnesia and deja-vu [amnesia is pretty common for the series but the deja-vu element is interesting], and there’s some really interesting hints given out about the outside world, with references to stuff like the Ultimate Hunt, I think they called it, and how that apparently ties in with how everyone had forgotten their talents in the ‘first loop’, if I should call it that.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that this game is set in the Hope’s Peak Saga universe, since the first opening movie literally spells out that this game is a continuation of it, so it’s hard not to work with what the previous games set up story-wise to try and guess where the hell we’re at in this game.

I’ve always wondered how the whole concept of Ultimates would have been handled post-DR3, and how Hope’s Peak would function. It definitely seems like we’re hinting at the idea that something went pretty wrong down the line. It almost sounds like maybe the concept of being an Ultimate is, like, treated as a crime now, but it also feels like it might be another DR2-esque thing with how that game’s cast were all the Remnants of Despair who were in the simulation for rehab purposes. I don’t think it’ll be exactly the same sort of thing, though at the same time it’s also hard to believe that the whole Despair thing completely died out after DR3 so who knows.

It’s interesting to compare this with DR2, in how that game really started out as a legit rehab program of sorts that tried to hide the truth from everyone, while this game is upfront about the idea that this game’s cast are criminals who are being punished for something. So it’s kinda easy to guess that maybe they really are all criminals who’ve just been made to forget their crimes.

[Fake edit: I was just about to finish this post but I just realized that I forgot to point out how incredibly suspicious it is that the prologue is literally called ‘Ultimate Revival’, when we already had the weird time loop thing happen]

I’ll try not to think too much about the overarching plot until it becomes more relevant, but yeah to put it simply I’m already getting huge DR2 vibes from this set-up.

Anyway, enough talking about serious Speculation [tm] and Theorycrafting [tm], let’s talk about the stuff we’re all here for! AKA the characters and the flashy visuals and whatnot.

Just to get it out the way, I’m stuck with shitty dialogue audio quality because I had to import the US Vita version of the game because 1: I don’t own a Windows computer [and for some reason the Steam version is only on Windows even though the first two games are also on Mac], 2: I don’t own a PS4, and 3: I have an NZ PSN account but I literally cannot obtain an NZ Vita copy of the game because no online or retail distributors have it available, and because for some godawful reason the NZ PSN store only has the voice patches for it, and not, y’know, the game itself. So I’m stuck with the US version of the game since it was the only one available, and because the voice patch is treated as DLC, and DLC is region-locked, I can’t get the high-quality dialogue audio even if I wanted it. Which I do. It’s not THAT terrible, but it’s noticeably bad. Especially for certain characters, like Shuichi and Kaito. But I literally cannot do anything about it, so I’m stuck with it.

On the topic of voices, I still do like most of the voices, even if the audio quality isn’t great. A lot of the voices sound a lot more . . . plain, I guess, than I was expecting. I dunno how to explain it. I kinda like it. It makes them sound more like real people, though some of them sound like, well, middle-aged people trying to voice-act teenagers while barely bothering to try and sound like teenagers.

The music is still high-quality and sounds great. I still love this franchise’s music style. Most of the tracks in the prologue sound either similar to or the same as stuff from previous games, which is fine, but the Monokids track is . . . certainly something. Definitely in a similar vein as how weird Monomi’s track was in DR2, but this one’s less cute. Still good, though.

The game’s visuals are still on-point, though the image quality isn’t great at times. The colours are really vibrant, but things often seem really pixel-y when they’re even slightly far away. I think that’s just how the series looks in general though, and it’s just easier to forget since I’ve only ever watched LPs of them. I do really like the more dark and earthy sort of atmosphere and colour palete this game has compared to the other ones, though. The other games look great, but I like that they did something a bit different. I get what they meant by calling this game ‘psycho-cool’.

Getting to the characters, I like them already, though I obviously haven’t seen them in action much yet. Visually, I honestly think they’re one of my favourite casts in the entire series. It definitely feels like they had a bit more restraint in designing a lot of these characters, compared to earlier games, while still keeping the same DR character design charm. I don’t know how the hell this series’ character designer is still managing to churn out unique and interesting designs after so many franchise entries, but here we are.

Since there’s so many characters I think I’ll just address them one by one.

Kaede: First of all, it still makes me happy that we got a female protagonist for this game. It’s a nice detail. Secondly, I’m just gonna lay it out and say that I’m expecting some major plot twist relating to her identity. It’s not a difficult thing to assume after how DR2 [and DR0 I guess] had big plot twists relating to their protagonist’s identities, in different ways, but still, the writing’s kinda on the wall for this one. I don’t know if Kaede will end up having anything uniquely shocking about her compared to the rest of the cast, but still. The way the beginning scene played out, with the focus on her not knowing who she was, immediately made me suspect that she might not actually be ‘Kaede’, somehow. We’ll see. I honestly would not be surprised if she’s a ‘decoy protagonist’ and someone else is the real protagonist. Especially considering the fact that the first characters shown off were Maki, Kaito, and K1-B0, nearly a year before we saw Kaede, which makes me suspicious on many levels. Anyway, I really like her design. It’s been a favourite of mine since we first saw her. The yellow/white/pink-purple colour palette is really nice. And on a related note, the goddamn magical girl transformation she had when she got put into her main uniform was amazing and glorious and exactly the sort of bizarre thing I wanted to see out of this game. There’s not much to say about her personality thus far, but I like her. And I also like that she’s a pianist. It’s refreshing to get a DR protagonist who’s talent is something other than ‘hope’ or ‘literally nothing’. I guess you could count Ryouko and Chisa as DR protagonists with actual talents, though. But you get what I mean.

Shuichi: It really surprised me that he was immediately presented as being the secondary protagonist. Or, at least, the ‘helper’ character. I like how, in contrast to people like Kirigiri and Komaeda, he isn’t really doing this out of his own volition, and was literally just stuck in the same room as Kaede. Which is still kinda suspicious in and of itself, really. He’s really great, though. I was so worried that he’d be a complete copy of Kirigiri, but he’s really not, thus far. He’s honestly really adorable, with how humble and easily-flustered he is. I also really like his design, and how simple it is. I wonder how his role in the game will be, going forward. He’s definitely the helper/assistant/etc right now, but who knows if that’ll change. I hope he has a different role overall compared to Kirigiri, at least, to shake things up a bit. Oh, and before I forget, I’m already guessing in advance that he might actually be a girl, although that’s almost entirely based on him being voiced by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese [and on that note, boy am I annoyed that on top of not being able to get the high-quality dialogue audio, I also can’t get the JP voice pack for the same reason :/]. He definitely sounds much more like a boy in English, so I’m inclined to think that maybe they weren’t trying to hint at anything by giving him a really feminine voice in Japanese.

Rantarou: I already adore this dude and I plan to immediately do all of his free-time events. OK fine I’ll do other people’s ones as well, but he’s the one I’m most interested in talking to. Partly because I’m really inclined to think that he might die relatively early on so I want to get to know him immediately. He at least comes across like the sort of character who might get killed off early as a big plot twist, to contrast with how mysterious and plot-important he seems right now. I don’t really know what to expect from his role in the story, but it’s hard not to get Komaeda vibes off of him, especially in the parts where he gets vaguely sinister. Thankfully his personality is already pretty notably different. He definitely seems like the character who’s probably most ‘plot-important’ other than Kaede and maybe K1-B0. It makes me wonder what his deal is, especially since he doesn’t remember his talent. I hope the inevitable reveal isn’t lame or anything. I also can’t help but wonder if maybe he’ll become some sort of love interest for Kaede, but I guess Shuichi would probably fit the mark better at this point. Who knows. I imagine that Kaede will have a love interest of some kind, since the other DR protagonists did. Anyway, I like his design as well. His outfit honestly seems like the sort of thing I could imagine a normal person wearing without it being weird at all. It’s neat. His hair looks mostly cool, like 90% of it does, but I can’t get over how weird those two upward-poking wavy bits at the top look. They’re so weird. Also, I’m still slightly thrown off by how deep and mellow his voice is, but it more or less fits his personality. I guess that in general his personality is a bit different than what I expected. I expected something a bit more fun and light-hearted.

K1-B0: OK first of all I might eventually just start calling him Keebo because it feels more natural than typing a name that has numbers and stuff in it. I still love his name, though. It never stops being the silliest thing ever to me, that his name is literally just a robot-y version of the Japanese word for hope. It’s great. I’m still kinda surprised that he didn’t end up being the game’s protagonist, given that he was front and center on the game’s first poster. He’s even the only character shown on the limited edition box design for the game. So who knows what’s up with him. Either way it’s hard not to see him as being potentially plot-important, with how immediately different he is to everyone else. We’ll see. His design is still kinda amazing and I love it. There’s a lot of places where V3′s character designs show restraint and realism, but hahaha not with this dude. In terms of his personality, I’m still really surprised that he’s mostly kinda nervous and defensive and high-strung, while also being pretty desperate to appear normal while being really unaware of normal things. Which is a fine way to write a robot character, and I prefer his ‘over-emotional’ portrayal over the more typical ‘emotionless robot’ characters we usually get. My main concern is that the game seems to be framing him as some sort of joke about “““SJWs”““, and it’s just bizarre and out of place. I also don’t know how the heck we’re even meant to view it thus far, since his whole ‘I’ll take you to court for your robophobic comments!’ attitude seems like it’s meant to be a joke, but at the same time his whole intro scene involves Kokichi literally questioning and denying his identity because he’s a robot, and being really inappropriate and invasive in general, so it’s kinda hard to view his defensiveness towards ‘robophobia’ as some sort of a joke we’re meant to laugh at. I guess we’ll see how it gets handled in the long run. Also let me just say that I’m REALLY happy they didn’t attempt to put some sort of obnoxious voice filter on him to make him seem more like a robot.

Maki: As I said above, I’m still suspicious about her prominent placing on that first poster we got. It’s even the reversible cover of the game, which is why I got reminded of it. I’m really curious to see what her deal is. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about her yet, since she’s mostly quiet and cold to people, which isn’t really a personality type I like seeing. I could see her potentially being a prominent part of trials, though, since she seems like she’d probably be calm and logical and whatnot. Also just to be blunt I kinda want her to be Kaede’s love interest, or at least one of them. I’ve kinda low-key shipped them since I first saw them. But do I really trust Kodaka to give me a healthy and mutually-alive same-sex ship after how DR3 ended? Not really, lol. I really like her design, though, even if her personality is a bit meh thus far. The red and black looks really nice, and it contrasts well with the brighter colours of Kaede’s design. Although there’s something weird about how her mouth is drawn. It looks a little wonky.

Kaito: I’m even more confused about what the hell this dude was doing on that promo poster, especially after seeing him in person. He basically seems like the Soda of this game, but thankfully way less weird and creepy. He seems like a really great dude all around, even if he’d be a bit too, uh, intense for me to enjoy being around in real life. I’m also still kinda amazed that he’s an astronaut, of all damn things. I remember that one coming out of nowhere. His whole conversation about how he illegally cheated to become an astronaut and when he got caught they just decided to keep him on board anyway was amazing. It’s a pretty hilarious way to address and basically gloss over the question of how a high-schooler could possibly be an astronaut. Also, his design is kinda hilarious. The simple white/purple theme works really well, but jesus christ his goddamn hair is amazing. I love it. It’s so silly. It’s like someone took a normal hairstyle and then messed with it in Photoshop. I wonder what it’d look like if they ever try and make figures of him. But I unironically love that the inner part of his jacket has a space design on it. That’s a nice detail, even if it’s hard to see normally. I can also tell that some of his expressions are going to be hilarious.

Kokichi: I can already tell that this dude’s gonna be a major player in this game, especially in trials. To the point where I’d be amazed if he doesn’t survive for at least four chapters or so. I feel like he’s going to be such a central part of the trial experience that cutting him out would leave a bit of a void. He’s obviously going to be sorta Komaeda-y in how he messes with people but he never actually kills anyone or anything. I’m just guessing, though. I’m also basing this on the demo I watched someone play, where that’s exactly how it went. [Though on the topic of trials, it’s still interesting to me that Rantarou and K1-B0 were specifically excluded from the demo trial]. I don’t know if I’m a huge fan of his overall personality, though. He just seems a bit annoying for the most part, even if he’ll probably be pretty compelling overall, partly in a ‘love to hate them’ sort of way. And obviously I disliked how incredibly shitty he was toward K1-B0. That was unpleasant. His design’s cool, though. I like how he seems to be wearing some sort of a loose straitjacket. His huge checker-print scarf is also pretty neat. Not sure how I feel about his hair-style. It’s a bit odd. I’m also curious to learn more about his talent, since it’s hard to imagine him genuinely being what he says he is. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he’s actually lying about his talent.

Gonta: I love him so much but he’s so obviously going to die because the baras always die. That’s not a spoiler though. I don’t actually know if he’ll die or not. I’m just assuming that he will because every character of his vague ‘type’ have died previously. He’s great, though. I love how much of a gentle giant he is. He just wants to be a gentleman and everyone’s just immediately intimidated by him instead. But then again he does get genuinely scary whenever someone insinuates that they dislike bugs. So that’s a thing. The fact that his whole talent is about how much he likes bugs is strangely endearing to me. It feels like such a gentle, delicate, and studious sort of field that it clashes with his design in a fun way. Also he has Harry Potter-y glasses and that’s adorable.

Miu: She’s kinda already turning into a problematic fave of mine. I totally get why she’d be too much for most people, and I’d hate her in real life, but as a character she’s really fun to watch, and adds a lot to the group dynamic. I’m not really expecting much from her in the long run though, since she’s obviously meant to be this game’s fanservice-y and kinda dumb character. I can’t help but wonder if she has some sort of connection to K1-B0 though, or if they might develop one, since her talent as an inventor who knows her way with machines seems sorta fishy in a game with a literal robot character in it. Her design’s also pretty nice, though the weird BDSM-y equipment she has is kinda hilarious and bizarre to look at. I love her aviator goggles, though.

Kirumi: I already like her a lot, though it’s sorta hard to pin down why. I think it’s mostly to do with me really liking her whole aesthetic. The spiderweb/broken glass pattern on her dress in particular is really cool. The only weird part is that it’s kinda weird how her eyelashes are drawn visibly through her hair. It just looks strange. There’s not much to say about her personality, though her whole ‘I’ll do what people tell me to do’ attitude is very worrying given, you know, the situation they’re all in. I don’t exactly expect her to survive. Also I’m still a bit confused what the difference in talent is between her being a maid and Chisa from DR3 being a housekeeper.

Tsumugi: She’s unexpectedly funny but I feel like she won’t last long, so that kinda sucks. Her overall design is still by far the plainest in the game, but I like how it’s an intentional choice that’s contrasted by her personality. I appreciate that she’s not, like, super wacky or anything, but she’s still pretty hilarious. Especially her realistically surprised reactions to stuff other characters say. It’s also a really neat detail how when she gets excited about something and clearly starts forgetting things like social boundaries, her sprite gets bigger and bigger like she’s entering your personal space. It’s also an interesting concept to have a cosplayer character who’s just wearing a really plain and boring school uniform, and cares mostly about the actual production of the costumes. I can’t help but wonder if her talent will end up leading to her being able to disguise herself as someone else. That’d be a really interesting thing to use in a murder case. Also I seriously hope there’s a scene in the game where she’s just cosplaying as Junko for no real reason, and you’re tricked into thinking for a moment that Junko’s genuinely back in this game. That’d be amazing.

Korekiyo: I have no idea what to make of this dude thus far. He didn’t really get many lines outside of his intro scene. He definitely seems like the most ‘creepy’ character. I kinda like him, though. The way that he talks about the beauty of humanity makes me really curious to see how he reacts to the killings as they happen. It’d be a bit amusing if he lives for the entire game and just keeps being really fucking weird about the whole thing while everyone just averts their eyes. His entire design is incredibly weird to me, and it’s kinda hard to tell what they’re going for beyond ‘this dude’s incredibly super chuuni’. It doesn’t seem to fit his actual personality much. You’d think he’d be way more, well, chuuni, I guess. It also kinda surprised me when I looked at his profile and saw that, at least relative to average Japanese heights, he’s actually really tall. It’s kinda difficult to tell people’s relative heights in VN-esque games like this. Also, I actually think it’s really cool that he’s an anthropologist. It’s cool to see an actual academic field like this in the franchise. There’s not too many characters with talents like that. I hope he gives out lots of random trivia about anthropology-related things.

Himiko: She’s not exactly my sort of character, but I like her. I mostly like the little ways in which she’s handled differently than how you’d expect her to be. Like how the only fanciful part of her design is her witch hat, which isn’t very fancy itself, and how she’s really chill and mellow but also a little childish. Even when she’s trying to be bombastic, it’s pretty chill. Also her whole ‘magic is real’ thing reminds me so much of Beatrice from Umineko, and that just makes me immediately like her, even if they’re [presumably] very different characters.

Angie: I keep mentally grouping her and Himiko into the ‘short, cute girl’ category for some reason, even though they’re very different. She’s definitely very . . . unique, that’s for sure. I’m still thrown off by her accent. I get what they’re going for, but for some reason it just sounds sorta French to me, so it feels like they told her VA ‘put on a foreign accent’ without telling her WHICH accent to put on. I don’t know if her accent is necessarily inaccurate for the part of the world she’s from, but ‘French’ is my first thought upon hearing it, so it feels odd. I like it, though. It’s a unique voice. Her design as a whole is definitely really cool. I love how bright and cheerful it is, colour-wise. I like her bright and bubbly personality a lot, though she can be a little creepy at times, like in the whole ‘blood sacrifice for Atua’ scene.

Ryoma: Thus far he’s immediately my favourite ‘cartoon-y and unrealistic-looking’ character, compared to ones like Hifumi and Teruteru. For one thing, he’s not a perverted creep, so that immediately puts him about fifty levels above those two. I also genuinely adore the way that he acts and talks like he came out of some kinda detective noir film, and has a Dark Backstory [tm] involving him murdering mafia members with a goddamn steel tennis ball. It’s so melodramatic and angsty but so incredibly hilarious because he’s like a three-foot tall teenage tennis player dramatically talking about how he used his tennis-playing talent to kill, and that he’s now just an empty shell of who he once was. I love him already. If he gets killed off, that’d be a real shame. But his character type also never survives, sadly. I don’t have much else to say about his design itself, but I think he has a chain around his ankle like a stereotypical ball and chain put on prisoners and that’s just the icing on the cake of how amazingly emo his design is.

Tenko: Not gonna lie, I almost forgot she existed and had to look at the cover of the game to figure out who I was missing. She’s probably my least favourite character thus far simply due to me liking everyone else more, and also due to me just not being a huge fan of her design. It’s mostly just the way that her uniform looks like it’s five sizes too small, but her giant green hair ribbons are also a bit weird, and so is the weird DNA helix-y way her hair is braided. It’s a bit of a bizarre design all around. But I absolutely adore her facial expressions so much. They’re fantastic. I love how unrepentantly weird and gross some of them are. That fucking smile-smirk-grimace-thing she does when she first talks about ‘degenerate males’ is one of the funniest things in this game thus far. Although on that note, her whole man-hating thing is already a little grating. It’s not terrible, but still. Although it looks like the game might do some funny things with it, like how in the demo she couldn’t say which guy walked into the cafeteria because she just hates men so goddamn much that she basically blocked him out of her vision and then couldn’t remember who it was later. That sorta thing is amusing.

Monokids: I almost forgot to comment on these guys, but I may as well, since they’re a noteworthy new aspect of the game. They’re definitely very fitting for the franchise, but it’s almost overwhelming having so many variations of Monokuma running around. It was also really weird how it felt like half of the script in the prologue was just them talking, and the actual main characters just responding to them sometimes. I hope they don’t hog the screen-time that much for the rest of the game. I’m pretty interested to see what the hell their deal is, though, since presumably someone is controlling them, but they seem to be operating independently from Monokuma. I guess they might just be actual autonomous robots though. But still.

I don’t think there’s really any point to me saying anything about Monokuma, since he’s not exactly a new character. But I can’t help but wonder who’s controlling him this time, if he’s not also an autonomous robot. Presumably it’d be an all-new character this time around, unless they somehow bring back an old character. But if it’s a new mastermind, will it be one of the main characters of this game? If so, how? If it’s not, then who would it be? I doubt that the mastermind would end up being a completely, entirely new character. I guess we’ll see.

Anyway that got really really long but oh well. I have a lot to say about this game already, lol. I’m really excited to finally be sitting down to play one of these games on my own terms, rather than just seeing someone else play it on Youtube. Even if it’s been a bit of a nightmare trying to get the necessary equipment to legally play it.

I’m very curious to see where my opinion falls in the long run, since this seems to be a very ‘love it or hate it’ kinda game. I don’t really have super high expectations though, at least after I disliked DR2′s ending, and I thought UDG was kinda weird, and I thought DR3 was a bit of a trainwreck. I love this franchise a lot, but it can also be kinda terrible at times, so I’m keeping my hopes in check for this one.

[danganmbti]

Ah, I see you what you mean. I'm absolutely welcome to change and I'm interested in your reasoning. What types do you think they are?

As far as defending myself.. hm. I'd kinda need specific examples. The main reason why I pin Komaeda as an extrovert is because he gets very, very energized by external factors (interactions, ideas in the outside world, debating-- he can go on like a freight train) while Hinata gets pretty drained in the same scenario (even before then, he was the last one to join the beach party).. and he needs a lot of recovery time before interacting with people again. 

More of my thoughts under the cut. Mostly rambling though.

(Readers: No spoilers per se, but it helps if you've read his Freetimes.. and finished the game I suppose)

- - -

However, Komaeda is an interesting case, since there's so many factors affecting him and his personality.. so he is hard to type. The fact that he said he might have a "quiet life" without his luck makes does make me think introvert.. I wonder how different his type would be. (ft5)

 ......

 (x)

Although, in the current story I do think he tries to force some introverted traits-- because he has a hard time interacting with others. This scene ... is a good example of him showing this. And this does appear to happen at first: in the classroom scene in the Prologue, he only says two lines. Now, this might just be speculation, but also "keeping his mouth shut" might even imply he might usually try to talk to people..

On a different note though, it's important to remember extroverts can be awkward and introverts can be outgoing; it has more to do with energy flow and preference. But

Generally I think he really does want to interact with others (regardless if he's lonely or not), and he's often really happy to. Seriously. (ch3+ Spoilers)

while he might not have been hanging out with the students, it's assumed that he's already made introductions and showed interest in them.

Plus, this statement by the all-knowing, added: "true personality"

which honestly makes think like .. this. 

so I think it's natural for him to approach people and give of a friendly demeanor, as assumed by Hinata in Chapter 1. Note that this gets lost due to events in Trial 1 though.. and his sanity, even. I'm not saying he's friendly all the time, or even nice to everyone, but he has a talent for it-- especially after reading his First Freetime. and I don't see any reason to push that over to luck.

Err but back to your statement? I don't think "difficulty conveying feelings into words" is limited to introverts... that might just have to do with his condition (x) (x) (FT5 SPOILERS in links!) as well.

..Still, extroverts can absolutely have this problem (it may not be as common but), especially ENFPs -- where in this type their feelings are specifically introverted. An often problem with this type is that people have a hard time believing what their saying about their feelings (anger, sadness) because their extroversion shows more than anything (in his case, his general attitude and his way of talking), and it commonly gets passed off... It also worth noting that the ENFP is often titled "the most introverted-extrovert" (x), and it's a common mistype.

I am an ENFP myself, though, so I admit I could be projecting haha. But these are my current thoughts. 

.

The [actual-primary-reason] I think Komaeda might be an extrovert is I think he has (Ne) dominant extroverted intuition, defined as:

"Sees possibilities in the external world. Trusts flashes from the unconscious, which can then be shared with others." (mbti page)

(POV Manga, FT5 Spoilers)

 ..which I think is shown time and time again, especially throughout Dangan Island Mode, where he's a little more mentally stable. I think it's safe to say he's being honest here; he constantly tries to share his thoughts, and Hinata gets the gist of him.

The way he questions situations in the main story, theorizes on motives, and his general observations all contribute to Ne I believe.

However, they don't dive too deep, and often are just "flashes". He can quickly come up with a new theory or change his mind. His whole "Was that your 'Hope' ?" thing to Peko and Kuzuryuu at the end of Trial 2 is a good example of that.

He likes to share his thoughts, and he's pretty open and doing most of the talking in his Freetimes. Hinata even said at the end of in his Fourth Freetime, the conversation was onesided, haha.

This dominant function would make him either an ENFP or ENTP.

Quick Side Note: (that is, if you believe he's being honest when he's expressing himself. Personally, overall, I consider him pretty honest as his own voice actor has came out and said so , and the fact he got the lying disease.. etc etc. I don't see why he would lie then.. in the prologue example there, anyway.)

On that same mbti page, though, I did noticed.. the definition of (Ni) introverted intuition does sound appealing. If that is his dominant function, that would make him either an INFJ or an INTJ:

"Looks at consistency of ideas and thoughts with an internal framework. Trusts flashes from the unconscious, which may be hard for others to understand."

.. however, like you said, I do think it's more his feelings that are hard for others to understand. Komaeda has been constantly sharing his ideas, messages (which can be logical, like exploring the islands -- even Nanami agreed to this) .. but what no one understands the true meaning, or his feelings behind them.

perhaps this is just introverted feeling (Fi) manifesting, and that is what others are having a hard time understanding...

But back to intuition.

A good example of this would be Kirigiri, who has dominant introverted intuition (Ni), as an INTJ. You can just look at her and you can tell... a lot is going on inside. A deep framework on what's really going on in this Mutual Killing. She's on a mission. She may not verbalize it, and have trouble convincing others (like Togami).. but often, we feel like we can trust her. There's something great-- logical and caring we know-- warming up inside.

But with Komaeda, it's like the boiling pot is overflowing and the lid is falling off-- there's too much leaking out. You can look at him and it's all you see-- and it gets to the point where people in game (and I imagine many players too) have to tell him to shut-up. It gets to the point where people don't even care about his insights or messages, because they're so disturbed with the feelings that may be floating around it-- not that the messages themselves are that hard for him to convey.. he's visibly trying real hard it.. again, it's the feelings behind them.

But at the same time the messages he's giving often aren't that great either so it doesn't help.

Because of his way of expressing himself, I think he has dominant extroverted intuition (Ne) rather than introverted intuition (Ni).

.

.

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edit: Warning of ramblings below..? I tried to address somethings I've seen out there.

So I think he's a Ne Dom with Fi. I understand the INFP interpretation since that does have Ne too, but overall I think his ideas might be louder than the feelings behind them. Yes, there's absolutely feelings there and they are deep, it's just that I think he's talking too much for him to be an Fi Dom...

...with them, it's kinda like the Ni Dom thing, where there's a mutual understanding that there's some deep (introverted) feelings going on-- but many don't even reach this point with Komaeda. You really have to get past his messages.. or what I see as his extroversion, I suppose.

.

He does have an attached worldview (which INFJs and even INFPs are renowned for), but it seems like he bending it too much to be concrete-- hence his way of 'siding with the culprits', and briefly changing his mind all the time. So that's why I don't think he's a Ni Dom too, or even a J. Sure, it's the side of 'hope'.. but again, I don't think it's that concrete. It seems like it's any hope he sees. (and there's personal reasons why he can't see beyond that)

On his worldview... (which is why I think some people type him as a J) .. we can't really confirm since we really don't know how he reacts to people outside shsl. But in my interpretation, it seems he still views himself somewhat lower than Hinata (Ch3+ Spoilers) .... so it may not appear as rigid as people paint it to be, Komaeda has even said himself that 'worthless people' can still help. Komaeda has a habit of appearing overly-blunt anyway, probably due to his conditions (FT5 spoilers). But his official profile even says he tends to say harsh things but means well, which was talked about around this picture, here (endgame spoilers in link!) . I admit I might be thinking too optimistically but even then, bluntly, Ps can still judge and not be nice to people (if you want to take that opposing view).

(This is just my opinion here), but I don't think his whole "worthless and worthy" people is that huge when it comes to his personality because: 

1) In his POV Manga it was his backstory they touched on at the start (not even mentioning the 'worldview').

2) In his Fifth Freetime and Drama CD he doesn't mock Hinata on his impression on him (in fact, he seems kind of comforted by the idea).

3) In the First Trial he said such mutual killing with "regular-worthless people" would be a "disaster" ....(so I guess you can take that as he doesn't see huge greatness in a bunch of "regular-worthless people" dying).

4) He seems rather indifferent when a certain person talks about "the world returning to the talentless".. he was like "oh well, it can't be helped" basically-- not spiteful or even agreeing that it's really bad or anything..

5) In Dangan Island Mode his time spent (or the ending for that matter) isn't about him learning about worthiness or whatever.. it's about real hope or even just enjoying the human experience.

..So, hope and despair, absolutely that's a big part of his personality. And he sees hope in talented people, and maybe not so much in talentless people. The two are connected in that way. But it's more than just talentless-worthless and talent-worthy I think. Moving on..

On the way he appears divides people.. it seems really more based on personal experience, as its states at the start of his monologue: "by observing the world around us" and "messages of hope". The lines such as "A small dog can never become a larger one" ...kind of serve as a mirror to: he could never change his luck that was given to him at birth. He could never really escape it, he could not change it, or become 'a person of worth' because of it. It is his reality. It is inevitable. So there's some logic to it. Even if that's not how the world works... that's how it works for him.  But for general things I think he's pretty flexible.

.

As I stated earlier, I think he might be E as he just gets so naturally energized when he's expressing his ideas, thoughts, and actions.

..yeah, it doesn't look natural to us haha. but for him it is, he's clearly real passionate about it. (a link to audio of his monologue here just listening to his tone... oh yeah, and it gets to the point of violence where people have to stop him from expressing his views.)

***However, this interpretation is also if you don't consider all of this an act.. personally I think it's genuine. Doubting him for planning is the trap Hinata falls into, and he doesn't really do anything in both Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 (he had plenty of time to stirs things up in this update, but he doesn't really; heck even Monobear has to give him the disease motive).

The event in CH2 was mainly Kuzuryuu's doing (endgame spoilers in link! event explained at this sprite, here near the bottom) , not at fault of Komaeda's.. manipulation. I think Koizumi would have been killed either way, it's just in this case it was whether she knew why. And, in the end playing the game did kinda give her an explanation. (Some people consider that as some of his planning-Ni-characteristic so I thought I'd throw that out there.)

and I do say, Hinata willing played the game himself and willing lied to three people on the way there.. *grumble*Hinata. lol (although I guess that could be Komaeda luck too, but.. I still think that the conversation was extroverted on his part)

don't know where I went with the bullets but.. feel free to ask.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense now and if I didn't directly answer you.. I kinda rambled. I do want to make a post in the future further explaining why I personally think Komaeda is the type I think he is with full structure, but again, feel free to question me on anything I said as I know I can get messy. I did recently collect some descriptions that I thought fit Komaeda pretty well in this post here.. so that might clear somethings up.

Now with Hinata.. I do admit that was more intuition of mine, haha. I don't have much to say at the moment, other than how I think he gets drained easily... this ... really kinda makes me think that. Took quite awhile to try open up.,

..  He is pretty assertive tho.

but, to be more clear, I think he has dominant introverted sensing, so that's why I think he is an introvert too.

[lexxikitty-blog1]

Kiss the Girl by Melissa Brayden Series: Soho Loft: #1 Read: February 2016 Rating: 4.75 Stars

There are something like a million and one (or 14 to 78) brilliant reviews on GoodReads.  I'm not going to be adding much new to the discussion at this point.

This book is the first book I've read by this author.  I was 'pushed' into reading this book because of a group I am in that is currently running a 'pick it' group challenge.

I had been putting off this book because everyone and their pet donkey just absolutely loves this book.  And I didn't want to go in, after everyone else, pick at it and go . . . you know what?  I don't really like this here.  Yes, I felt self conscious.

The book involves Brooklyn Campbell, Hunter something or other, Samantha, and Mallory who jointly run an advertising agency in New York City.  They meet in college and they are roughly around the age of 28 (though I believe the prologue indicated some were older than Brooklyn).  Brooklyn is the main point of view for this set of friends.  Brooklyn was put up for adoption when she was a baby and went in and out of various foster homes until, at some point, she ended her 'tour' in a group home and aged out of the system at 18.

The second group of people this book involves is Jessica Lennox and . . . um, she's friends with her assistant Brent.  And is friendly her teenage neighbor Ashton.  Lennox is a hard charging head of an advertising agency that she started long ago.  It is also located in New York City.  Lennox is described as being a bitchy, ball busting, 'get my way or I'll cut you' type of person.  Oh, and she might be married to a billionaire who helps her find business.  Most of this is based on rumors and nothing but rumors.  Lennox, though, likes how the rumors help her in business, so does nothing to 'set people right' and 'fix' her image.  I'm using Lennox on purpose, instead of Jessica (or Jess).  Because I'm mostly referring to her business persona. Jessica/Jess, though, is nothing like what others see her as being.  Oh, and Jessica is really really old...er than Brooklyn.  10 years older.  38. Or, in other words, younger than me.

Before I move on - I rather like both Jessica and Brooklyn.

Okay then.  Brooklyn is having a rotten day - pulled over and ticketed for speeding, her car is towed, her heel on her favorite shoes break, and, to top it off, her birth mother has offered contact information through an organization that does stuff like that (Brooklyn had signed up with them when she was 18, i.e., 10 years ago).  Gazing around in despair, she contemplates what to do with herself.  Spots a neat looking place across the street from a print shop (there's a reason why she is there; oh - and the print shop line was super long - to add to her woes).

Brooklyn enters this lovely looking place.  Walks right up to the bar and . . . realizes her purse is in her car (which just got towed away, remember).  She kind of whimpers.

Jessica has had a tough day.  She decides to do two things she rarely ever does - step out earlish from work, and go home.  No the go home isn't the second thing.  The second thing is to step into this neat little bar that is near her home.  As she sits there looking around kind of happy she decided to step in, she spots a rather attractive woman step in.  And overhears her exchange with the bartender (um, I forgot to mention that, Brooklyn's 'realization' about her purse took place out loud).   Jessica offers to pay for Brooklyn's drink.

Brooklyn is reluctant but eventually agrees.  Jessica introduces herself as Jessica . . . Jess.  But without a last name, and makes a game of not saying what her job is (well, one of them do, I forget which one started the game of Brooklyn guessing Jess' job).  Both have a fabulous time.  It ends with Jessica acquiring Brooklyn's number, and giving a brief kiss.  Which expands into a really passionate kiss.  The kind that makes your toes curl and your hair stand up straight (or whatever it is that happens).  They part.

Jessica and Brooklyn meet again, as someone who read the beginning of this review might suspect, when both turn up for an advertising job.  Jessica Lennox is quite well known to Brooklyn's ad agency, but Brooklyn doesn't normally go on calls (and therefore doesn't know what Jessica Lennox, professional ball crusher, looks like).  Plus, Jess never gave her last name.  Jessica leaves a conference room.  Brooklyn spots her. They gaze at each other.  Brooklyn is now flustered and somewhat messes up her first ever attempt to talk to clients in a client meeting.  

Jess texts Brooklyn.  They kind of flirt by text.

The 'Cinderalla kiss' is mentioned by Brooklyn to her coworkers (well, it was mentioned, I forget the sequence now).  The idea of having any kind of relationship, friend/romantic or otherwise, with someone like Jessica Lennox is roundly booed by everyone of Brooklyn's friends.  Brooklyn kind of agrees with them.

Time passes.  The Foster account is fought over by both Brooklyn and Lennox's ad agencies.

Eventually Brooklyn uses that contact number she got for her birth mother.  Eventually her relationship with Jess advances . . . somewhat.  Meanwhile Ashton, the teenage next door neighbor of Jessica's, is having a rotten time with her alcoholic mother - Jessica tries to help.

There's a really intense scene in a stuck elevator between Jessica and Brooklyn (which occurred, I believe, actually before Brooklyn attempts to contact her mother; it's not related, I'm just fixing the chronology I messed up in my review).

At some point, while reading this book, I was seriously contemplating making a brand new shelf.  I would call this shelf something like '6 star books'.  Then put this book on said shelf.  Because this was, in fact, a really really good book.  Until it wasn't.

The 'it wasn't' part occurred when a specific incident occurred.  And I could immediately foretell what would then happen next.  And everything unfolded almost exactly as I thought it would.  About 99.9% exactly like I thought it would.  To be fair, everything that happened?  Did not seem like a contrived little thing to add to the book to add tension/drama/and conflict.  It did, in fact, seem like a natural extension of the book (which is also why I knew immediately what would happen after the fact, and was 99% correct - because everything flowed naturally).  Well damn. I was going to pinpoint the 'incident' at the beginning. Ah well.  It was when Brooklyn visited Jessica.  At her office.  A bag may or may not be involved.  I'm trying to be vague for those who haven't read the book, while giving enough for those who have to know what I'm referring to.  *inserts spoiler tags* <spoiler> (for fuck sake, you have a 'break the tension' group meeting with your friends; it is mentioned that 'business stuff' need to remain secret and . . . . you immediately visit your love interest at their office?  Okay, livable but . . . for no fucking reason I can think of, you give your fucking . . . right *tags inserted*  You leave your bag outside.  With an advertising executive.  For a rival agency.  You are currently in competition with. And you know she isn't the fucking receptionist.  And . . AND . . Jessica's fucking assistant is right there as a potential other person to give the bag too (don't); if you going to do this completely weird ass fucking thing - like bring your fucking back with you into Jessica's place of work (instead of say, leaving it locked tightly and hidden in car), don't fucking leave it outside; why? Why the fuck did she do that? No, I'm serious.  Do people do that? Do they leave their fucking bags with rivals (remember, she fucking knows that's not the receptionist?  Yes?  Well fuck me.  Learn something new every day.  She's visiting a fucking head of a company; what, did she think Jessica worked in a broom closet and therefore there wouldn't be any room for her bag and coat?  No?  Maybe it's some kind of 'oops, I brought my bag with me, I trust this non-receptionist rival advertising person with my bag instead of having it near me while I'm in the room with Jessica' thought process. Why the fuck does she even fucking have her fucking bag up in the receptionist area? SHE FUCKING DRIVES EVERYWHERE.)  Okay, I've moved from 'this is a natural progression' to 'what the fuck did I just read?'</spoiler>

The book was filled with a ton of tension/drama/etc. based on intergroup dynamics involving the Campbell friend group and their reaction to Brooklyn-Jessica link up; the ad agency competition; the drama over the birth family; and, most specifically of importance for a romance - relationship tension (both because of that issue of Brooklyn's friends not liking Jessica; being rivals; Brooklyn having commitment and trust issues; having to take things slow; etc.).  So, tacking on an extra layer, even if a natural development for the book, seemed like a layer too many.

Oh, and, you know (those who have read my reviews before), how I recently made a comment on another book recently read about how it contained that cliche of 'I'm a powerful woman.  I'm giving up control and submitting to another woman.  I think I like it'?  That cliche, once again, turned up in this book.  And yes, it once again pulled me from the story. Though I just kind of laughed and dove back in. See, this was when I still thought of this as a six star book, and that specific scene neither increased nor decreased the overall score given to this book.  (Though, I also admit (did I admit anything previously, dang it, I don't want ot reread my own review), Brayden handled that scene brilliantly).

So, for these and other reasons, I cannot break open a brand new 6 star shelf and shove this book onto it.  Nor, in good conscious can I add this to my super duper and special 5.5 star shelf.  I have currently placed it on no specific star shelf.  Though I've currently rated it 4 stars.  I am contemplating which shelf to add this book to.   3.5? Probably not.  4? Maybe.  4.5? Perhaps.  And, surprising, I know, I still have a strong desire to put this on my five star shelf 

Review Written: February 3 2016

[sonodaten]

Personal Write-Up of the 5/10 for Mass Effect: Andromeda

I know I promised this a while ago, but I just finished my second playthrough last night because I wanted to make sure I covered everything.

TL;DR: Mass Effect: Andromeda, though extremely fun to play, runs into A LOT of problems when it came to writing and plot. Spoilers under the cut.

Let’s start with the good. 

- The updated combat system is phenomenal and works very well in the latest installment. It reminded me a lot of the Fate system from Kingdoms of Amalur:  Reckoning with the synthesis of pre-existing classes and the ability for you to change your profiles on the fly while in battle (and having a favorites system to allow you to switch your profile and selected abilities). For me, this really allowed flexibility and adaptation while encountering enemies over the course of a long firefight. The barrier I was using for cover gets destroyed? No problem; just switch over to the Explorer profile and use the combat barricade to make my own. A high-powered enemy just appeared? Change profiles to Tech specialist and bolster myself and my party members to eviscerate armor. I was skeptical when I first heard about the jump jets and the inclusion of hovering as a way to maneuver about the battlefield, but it really is a good way to flush out enemies who are camping behind cover and force them into your party members’ (or sometimes your party members forcing them!) line of fire.

- For the levelling system in general, I was really happy with the abilities they gave the party members, especially the ones that can be used to bolster yourself and other party members. I never felt like I was wanting for ability points to spend. If anything, for the amount of ability points we were given, I felt like there just weren’t enough abilities to use them on. Once you achieved loyalty with your party members and upgraded their skills to level 6, they levelled and just had more ability points that couldn’t be spent on anything. Maybe the devs intend to add more if there’s DLC planned for the future? That’d be nice to see.

- Of course, with Frostbite, the level designs are absolutely gorgeous, if a bit choppy with loading times (even on my PS4 Pro, some textures took a good minute or so to load up). And the devs really went out of their way to increase exploration not only horizontally, but vertically as well. I am still slightly miffed that they saved the best and hands down the most beautiful world--Meridian--till the very end where you just haphazardly tear through it in the Nomad, and even after defeating the Archon, you never actually get to explore it, just look enviously out a window at the world you only scratched the surface of (literally) but can’t touch anymore.

- The one good thing I’ll say about the writing is that it managed to maintain the kind of humor (mostly in dialogue) I’ve come to expect from the writers over at BioWare. I’ll even admit they even got me to laugh out loud a couple times.

And now the bad.

- For me, personally, it felt like Andromeda was supposed to feel completely new. That you through the PC were going to be exploring worlds that had never been touched by human hands before, see stars that we’ve never seen before, and encounter species that we could never have imagined possible before now. And for a single glorious moment in the prologue, during your ill-fated expedition to Habitat 7, we did. We explored a world that was totally and completely knew, threw everything we thought we knew was possible against a wall, our time spent exploring allowed us to have extra dialogue that expanded upon what we were seeing and it’s implications, and we stumbled upon a mystery:  the kett and the Remnant. And then it never fucking happened again. Exploration was rewarded with a few bits of new dialogue for the PC and your present party members, but could never be brought up in dialogue or decision making. Worlds we were exploring had been already been trampled by humans before; we already knew what we were expecting. Which leads me to my next point:

- The story started way too fucking late. If the writers had wanted to give their players a sense of newness, the whole thing with the Arks being late and the Nexus rebellion, and the exiles ruined that feeling. I understand where they were trying to go--first contact was ruined by these “exiles” and their bad behavior and now you have to convince the local alien populace (which is literally just the angara? I have a whole other thing about them, just wait) that #NotAllHumans on top of trying to carve out a niche in this new and unfamiliar galaxy which, by the way, was not the job you were trained extensively for like your father. But it just completely overshadowed and took away the rush of being on the bleeding edge of a new galaxy. We missed finding these planets raw and uncut, we missed out on that absolute rush and giddiness of exploring new planets for the very first time because there was no point. People had already explored them. We were just retracing somebody else’s steps, but doing it better because we had an AI in our heads that could read Remnant. You get to the Nexus for the first time and tell everybody that Habitat 7 was a bust? Well, meh, everything was already shit before, so there’s no real impact to finding out one of the golden worlds was a dud. It would have been much more effective to start as the Initiative was initially intended to start. Ark Hyperion reaches Habitat 7; it’s a bust and your dad dies and makes you Pathfinder. You return to the Nexus, full of groggy but hopeful workers who are just so excited to see one of the Arks return with news about one of their golden worlds--one of the places they could potentially be calling home in Andromeda. And you just drop the bomb on the Initiative leadership:  it was a dud and your Pathfinder is dead. And then Nexus leadership drops the next bomb:  the other Arks haven’t shown and they can’t locate them. So then there’s the question of what you do to go from there:  do you tell the people the truth, maintaining transparency but potentially inciting panic, or do you lie to them, keeping them hoping for a home that might never come? You still retain the tension of having to find a home for the people on the Nexus and the Hyperion, but you aren’t stuck having to retrace somebody else’s footsteps. Or fix something somebody else has already broken. It’s all new.

- Andromeda is awfully empty. I mean species-wise. There are hundreds of planets and a ton of systems to explore, but there’s a devastating lack of alien life. I’m a little rusty because it’s been a while since my last astronomy class, but I think the Milky Way is like 3 billion something years younger than Andromeda? Or maybe that’s just arm formation? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the Milky Way has shown to be home to at least 8 (that I think of off the top of my head) different, civilized alien species, but Andromeda only has . . . 2. And one of them is not even from the galaxy, but conquerors from another. So, one native, sentient species:  the angara. Were there other species before, but they fled the galaxy to escape the Scourge? Did the angara ever have trade or alliances with other species, but any Unless so, it was pathetic to try and pass off that a galaxy with as many systems and planets available as Andromeda is home to literally only one other intelligent species until the kett invaded. I’m sorry, but it was just lazy. If they come back and say that the other species were exalted by the kett and records of it were lost because of the Scourge, maybe I’ll forgive them. Probably not, but maybe.

- The Remnant. Or specifically, Ryder/SAM’s ability to interact with Remnant technology. First of all, the Remnant are adorable and I hate that there’s not dedicated stealth system to sneak around them because I hate having to destroy them. Throughout the plot, SAM has been accessing Remnant consoles via Ryder’s omni-tool (at least, from the game, that’s what I assume is happening). But then once you find Meridian, and the Archon severs your connection to SAM, Ryder . . . can still interact with Remnant technology? I mean, it’s cool and all and makes for an inspirational “SAM-isn’t-what-makes-me-special!” deal, but there’s literally no logical explanation for it? Unless Ryder has been learning (whether actively or subconsciously) the Remnant language while deciphering codes during the plot and not telling anybody? And then they could literally pull it out of their ass after coming back to fucking life thanks to their sibling to open a door and weaponize the Remnant ship/city? It was cool, but it was kind of a weird Deus Ex Machina.

- Also, what the fuck was that shit with the Remnant fighters having the Scourge follow them to disrupt/destroy the Archon’s fleet? Like we still don’t know what the fuck the Scourge even is? But Ryder can somehow use it in this battle suddenly with Remnant ships that I’m assuming she is controlling with their mind somehow? Like the above point, it was really, really cool, but doesn’t make a lot of sense in retrospect?

- The mandatory animations while travelling through the galaxy. I know they added a skip option to some of the animations, but there are others that are still mandatory and it takes up a lot of time while trying to explore new systems and planets with very little reward in terms of XP gained and materials gathered. And very few missions triggered by finding things floating around in space.

- The open world was too open. Yeah, I know, I never thought I’d fucking say it either, but here we are. I’m a huge fan of open world. I practically died when I heard BOTW was going open world. But for a game that pushed for exploration, it gave very little weight or reward for actually doing that exploration. In my first playthrough, I completely discovered the entire map of each planet’s explorable area. In my second playthrough, I only went to places required for quests. And I think between the two, there was maybe one or two quests that I found in my first playthrough that I didn’t in my second playthrough. And there was a decent amount of map left uncharted in the second playthrough. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times:  if you are going to make an open world that players are going to want to explore, for the love of all that is holy fill it with something worth finding. I’m not saying you have to pack it hundreds of fetch quests or detailed side quests, but open environments should also be used for more than just “hey, it’s nice to look at.”

- Similarities to previous series. So, this one is entirely personal and subjective, but I thought it was a little redundant that the Reapers kett invaded a galaxy to harvest Exalt intelligent species to add to their own fleet genetic code in order to do it again in 50,000 years to another galaxy. 

So, for those reasons my final rating for Mass Effect: Andromeda is a 5/10. While’s it’s insanely fun to play and nice to look at, it’s hard to overlook the weak plot and blatant holes in the writing.