#This is a silly post but an important one for Nadia LMAO

[burningsalamander]

    Natsu is fairly dense when it comes to romance and anything of the sort,  so he Genuinely thinks he and Lucy have been together since post Grand Magic Games.  No they never talked about it,  no Lucy doesn't realize he thinks that.        

[queenofeden]

okay so look, i wasn’t going to make a post about this because i genuinely didn’t think it was anything worth making a post about “publicly” but apparently some people disagree and i’m petty enough about this to not want there to be any confusion on where i stand.

i really enjoyed the new prologue update, and the changes made to the routes (minor ones, and i’ve only play tested nadia and julian so far to see them but they are there) to reflect them. i really enjoyed the last update they made to it as well. i always enjoyed the prologue, clearly it’s what got me into the game in the first place. i found it engaging and fun to play and i enjoyed the characters immediately off the bat. 

however that prologue was written a long time ago. 2016 if i remember correctly, and a lot about the game has changed since then. the prologue, even up to yesterday, was still full of what i would consider hanging plot threads and characterizations that simply no longer reflected or suited the game that we have today. a game which i love very much and still actively enjoy the direction of.

i really want to thank @raquellle-arcana for their post on the matter (linked here) because it was the first one i saw that reflected my same excitement amidst and field of far more negative feedback, but especially for this quote, 

“I love that they went back & changed it, like that to me, shows how much they still care, & that the creators genuinely want to improve & nurture their game”

this is what it comes down to for me. as a creative and a creator, i think it’s really important to be able to look at work u have made, work you’ve been proud of, and still acknowledge that it can be improved. this is not a published novel that lives in perpetuity, this is an interactive narrative game. as the narrative progresses and matures and expands, things that used to be priority no longer are and that is okay. looking back on where the characters and the story were based on the information given in the art book vs where they are now is fascinating to me, and i love seeing how the game has evolved and grown. i agree wholeheartedly that it does show a genuine love and care for the game on their part.

it shows that they want and continue to want the game to be relevant and enjoyable, that they want the “new” routes to have more substantial representation, that they wanted to integrate the new plot lines into the prologue in a way that made them make more sense as potential outcomes as opposed to “well they just had to make them different from the original 3″. i don’t know a single writer or artist or any creator that doesn’t look at their old works and wish that they could change things or, if they had known then what they know now, go back and adjust for it. the devs have the opportunity to do that, and i’m glad that they continue to take those opportunities to make their game, a living document if u will, the best version of itself that it can be.

(cut for length bc i continued to ramble and also potential spoilers for the new content)

i love that asra and mc’s relationship is well established now, i love that so much of the story and lore feels organically given and much more show and not tell. i love that asra’s characterization feels more consistent with how he is in his and other routes instead of the hinted but never actualized “ominous, dark, and vaguely spooky” angle (which don’t get me wrong, is a really valid and interesting version of asra that i do love to play with but tonally it just didn’t work with where he’s ended up now). 

i love that julian is no longer so bent on a revenge angle that is never concluded in his route bc it was no longer relevant. i love that his background and involvement is more well integrated. even so far as his acknowledgement of malak, not as his magical familiar obviously, but just in that he’s clearly important to julian specifically. the wanted posters were one of the things i loved best about the first prologue update, just that little bit of information felt like the sun parting the clouds so far as world building and i’m glad that kind of thing was expanded upon even further with him.

i love that nadia’s motivations are much clearer, and that her characterization is much more in line with her morals given in the text. truly, i felt that she read as so much more competent in this newest version, something i never doubted about her, but really seeing it so early made a huge difference to me. i’ve always been a nadia main and i have loved her from the moment i set eyes on her, but i i’m well aware that many people do not feel that way and never get to her route where many of the criticisms no longer hold water. i’m hoping that this is no longer the case. it makes me happy to see her relationship with lucio cleared up, that thirst to prove herself is made very apparent, but at the same time so is her genuine compassion and kindness. the explicit statement that the masquerade is no longer a celebration hinging specifically on the murder of julian makes SUCH a big difference. nadia states over and over in her route that that is not the kind of ruler she wants to be so it’s lovely to see that reflected. she is a woman searching for the truth, no matter what it is, something that the high priestess would be proud of i think. 

i could go through and itemize everything that i loved about what they’ve done, but we would be here for 12 hours and nobody wants to read a post that long, i know. to mobile users, i’m already sorry lmao.

but listen, much as i am excited about the new stuff and the updated stuff, i do understand being disappointed at things that have been taken out. i do, i really do. i also loved feeling julian up, but on the whole i also acknowledge that scene as deeply fanservice-y. that’s not a problem by any means, but it’s also something that i think shows the devs and their growth as writers to potentially be able to look back on that and say, “this was fun and we liked it but it doesn’t actually serve the story in an appropriate way anymore”. that takes a lot of maturity, and i think that maturity is reflected by the state of the prologue now. it feels much less at times like a “silly, horny otome game” and more like a proper visual novel with a lot of meat to it. and there’s still plenty of room for the fun horny stuff. it’s littered throughout the routes and not at all absent in the prologue, just, i think, integrated in a far more natural, gracious way.

i felt, on the whole, at least so far as my MC’s personal characterization, that in the old prologue i was much more wont to pick paid scenes bc i had bought them and i wanted to see them over whether they actually made sense narratively in my version of the story, or whether my apprentice would actually do them. i didn’t feel that conflict anymore, anything i wanted to do, i felt i was able to do and with a level of choice i was comfortable with. not only did the canon characters feel more “in character” now, but i would argue that MC feels more like a real character far more quickly than they used to.

i’m sorry to the people who feel disappointed by the new updates, or that in some way the game has been “ruined” for u. your opinions are yours, and your decisions with what to do next are your prerogative. media consumption and how someone interacts with it is a deeply personal thing. i only wanted to speak my mind and make this post if only because these attitudes were all i was seeing, and i was suddenly inundated by the negative reaction and it was upsetting to me. it made me angry. i’m still a little angry, and i could certainly cite and quote a bunch of the nonsense i’ve seen spouted off in just the last few hours alone but honestly, i’m too tired for it and i’m liable to get catty and petty.

what it comes down to is this, the new update made me excited about the game again, it made me want to replay everything with fresh eyes, it made me want to dig my fingers into the lore again, it made me want to talk and play and enjoy canon for what it is after being very much more consumed with aus lately. i want to openly thank NH and @thearcanagame for continuing to make a game that is fun to play, a story that is engaging and keeps me on my toes, and for sharing something that they’re clearly proud of and want to continue to be proud of. that level of responsibility and dedication to their work is inspiring to me as a creator and as a fan, and it makes me proud to be even a tangential part of the whole of it. i hope that over the months and years, the game continues to update and improve and build upon itself, even if for whatever reason i’m no longer around to see it.