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pizzazz-party · 3 years ago

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Ring Analysis Part 1: Synchronizing— How It Works and What It Tells Us About Ring

...As well as the world he lives in. Our buddy Ring may explain very little about himself, but he doesn’t need to if you’re paying—obsessive—attention to detail.

(Gameplay spoilers up to World 20 under the cut.)

For a mechanic that’s important enough to merit a cutscene, and then goes on to envelop every part of the game, “synchronizing” gets a handful of lines before it’s never explicitly brought up again.

So let’s go over this scene.

“Synchronizing” is, at first glance, a simple exchange of traits. That’s not entirely wrong. Trainee does physically take on characteristics specific to Ring, like the flaming hair, and Ring does gain access to her heartbeat reading, sort of like a living stethoscope.

But what syncing actually is, is a symbiotic relationship. It’s both participants “recalibrating” themselves to the other as best as each of them are able. For a flesh-and-blood partner that’s not built for syncing, this means physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring. (More on that later.) For Ring, a magical being designed with the extra sensory input in mind, it invisibly grants him access to the other’s most invaluable resource: their exercise energy.

Like synchronizing, “exercise energy” is another lovely concept that was mentioned once and then never again. So much so that I’ve been accidentally calling it “fitness energy” for weeks and am still trying to correct my reflexes.

But exercise energy is everything. If all it takes is a simple read of a heartbeat to jumpstart a sync bond, exercise energy is the glue that cements it together. Because Ring and Trainee don’t stop being synced whenever they’re not physically touching. They separate all the time. They can put a little distance between themselves and still be at the height of synchronization, even. But let’s take a step back for a moment, and talk about that “physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring” aspect.

Say that Trainee is doing a leg move at peak performance. Her hair is flaring up. Her legs are glowing that same yellowish hue—because they’re full of exercise energy. That’s what that is. That’s what it must be. It’s what Ring himself is partially made of, seeing as the same stuff flows through his veinlike tubes. Seriously. Look at this. It’s the same goddamn color.

I can’t understate how incredibly important exercise energy is. To synchronizing, to Ring, and to literally everything else. Exercise energy is a type of life energy. In the world of Ring Fit, it’s in everything, everywhere—in varying levels of purity and concentration. When Trainee is performing a fit skill, she almost seems to absorb a mystical...something... from the open air around her, as she charges up a skill. Thin lines of light streak towards her as she lights up, not away. See for yourself.

Trainee isn’t a normal inhabitant of “Planet Fitness.” She doesn’t know how to manipulate exercise energy very well on her own. It looks like being synced with Ring has made her somewhat biologically closer to being made of exercise energy herself, and with that? The slight ability to absorb it from the air around her. It’s a really small thing, likely just a tiny boost of power she’s drawing in from her surroundings (and returning right back after a move is complete). But it’s there. It’s visibly happening. With one exception, this doesn’t occur outside of a fit battle. And that makes sense. A fit skill taking more energy than an air blast is very reasonable. Those crates littering the place are a lot less hardy than...whatever you would classify Monsters as.

I mentioned an exception. Here it is:

Victory posing is such an odd little tradition, isn’t it? It’s unskippable; Ring always insists on it. And at first glance, his instructions are weird. “Pull in energy from the ground” sounds a bit like nonsense...except in this shot, Trainee is actually standing on a glowing platform full of Exercise Energy. (Yes, that’s what that is.) The moment she’s done charging her squat power, thin lines of light streak upwards— some into Trainee. And when she raises her arms, she expels all that excess energy into the open air. You can watch the process here.

And that’s where most of the EXP from victory posing comes from—from the well of exercise energy humming beneath her feet.

Exercise energy is life energy in constant motion. It’s created (for a lack of a better word) constantly as the body moves and burns calories. It’s also expelled constantly, and this is most visible when Trainee works out. It is not, under any circumstances, meant to be trapped in the body forever. But the act of having possessed any of it at all gives Trainee EXP, a byproduct, which can be kept forever.

———

Ring says in the initial cutscene, “The more you exercise, the more synchronized we’ll be!” The more Trainee exercises, the more exercise energy her body holds at time. The more exercise energy she holds, the more alike she and Ring are in that very moment. The more alike they are—the more in sync they are.

———

The two way connection created by synchronizing is closer to a metaphysical fusion of both participants than a simple trade off. Ring’s powers are (almost but not quite) Trainee’s powers. Trainee’s body is (almost but not quite) Ring’s body. It’s both easy and hard to see where one’s work stops and the other’s begins. So let’s lay down some quick facts.

One! In terms of powers—everything Ring and Trainee can do together, Ring can do alone. It’ll be weaker. But he can do it. He’s got his own supply of exercise energy and he’s a master at manipulating it. Ring is not helpless; you are.

Two! The glowing limbs you fight with in a fit battle belong to Ring—not Trainee. Here are even some screen caps of Ring vaguely referring to them both. (It’s even in all-important blue text.)

Three! Ring is always actively contributing to your fit battles. He is never just counting reps or giving tips. As Trainee charges up a fit skill, Ring is constantly channeling the resulting energy into powering up his battle constructs. He is actively aiming said constructs for you, always.

In the case of specific fit skills, where Ring’s battle constructs immediately appear as buff as can be—it’s because Trainee is helping. A lot of what these instances have in common is the fact that the fit skills in question are less... involved?

Imagine being Trainee, and trying to keep a good aim on the enemy as you do the Mountain Climber move. (Or even squats. I do too many of those and I start disconnecting from reality.) The Ring Raise move, on the other hand, is gentler and gives Trainee a clear, unobstructed view of the enemy throughout the whole exercise. It gives her the wiggle room to try her hand at manipulating her own exercise energy directly.

With Ring and Trainee working together, the charge-up effect is therefore instantaneous.

Four! Canonically, despite the two of them being synced, Ring can shut off Trainee’s access to his powers at any time. That’s because, for them to work in the first place, Ring must be consciously activating them. In some animations at the start of a course, Trainee stretches by pulling on him at both ends. This should summon a suction vortex. But it doesn’t. Because Ring knows Trainee is just doing a pre-run stretch.

It explains why you can’t summon a Mega Ab Guard whenever you feel like it; only when Ring suggests it. Or why you can’t just suck up tokens in mini games like Dreadmill (Ring is too honest to help you cheat). Yes, it’s a game mechanic thing. But it’s a mechanic that Ring canonically controls. Trainee absolutely cannot use any of his abilities without his explicit consent. And that’s probably why she hasn’t accidentally killed somebody in combat yet—Ring is super careful. (He’s a professional, you know.)

———

Now that we have a better understanding of what exercise energy is and a better grasp on how Ring works—let’s circle back one more time to that “physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring” aspect. Because there’s one last insane thing we skipped over.

Trainee is initially the baseline in our understanding of what exercise energy looks like in a human being. Her yellow-orange flames are our constant companion—and therefore we get misled, because Trainee is an outlier. She is synced to Ring, and Ring is extraordinary. So she’s not a good example of the average person.

But in this case, despite being a literal master, Guru Andma is.

Guru Andma, “the balance master,” is the only other human character we see using attacks consisting of all three muscle groups. Her fight is a wealth of knowledge in of itself. When she flexes her arms, they fill with RED energy. When she flexes her abdomen, it fills with YELLOW energy. When she flexes her leg, it fills with BLUE energy. This is the standard for human beings. This is normal.

What this implies then, is that synchronizing with Ring has overwritten Trainee’s original energy signature. Ring’s energy is decidedly NOT human. It’s not even fit-skill yellow; it looks close, but it’s really something else entirely. Ring of course can convert Trainee’s energy into traditional reds, yellows, and blues for a fight. (Or at least, he can fake it if he doesn’t have his Color Coding ability. He once mimicked the flames of Dark Influence early on in the game; some superficial color editing is not above him.)

But yeah. Trainee’s energy is now definitely abnormal.

And yet the process didn’t seem to put her in any physical pain? I really doubt Ring would have sprung that on her if it did. (I mean, he still should have asked for permission first.) I’d wager the effects of syncing, as deep as are, aren’t permanent once the bond is dissolved. What Ring is doing—“synchronizing”—is somehow, simultaneously, extremely mystical and yet completely natural.

———

Last segment, before I let you go.

For a long time, I wondered: what are the prerequisites, that denote syncing potential? Not impressive muscles, I’m sure; it’s heavily implied Dragaux once synced with Ring, and he was infamously skinny. Could the general attitude of a person play a role, if Ring’s energy is pure positive exercise energy? Or could it be genetic? Maybe even entirely random?

I wasn’t sure until I fought the four masters, and especially after fighting Guru Andma.

I’ll bet you anything that there’s something inherently flexible about Trainee, for a human. Something more malleable, and therefore more amenable to undergoing the dramatic changes of a sync bond. And I’ll bet you further that it has something to do with the fact that Trainee had zero previous experience wielding exercise energy at the start of the game.

Because Ring tells Trainee she has potential right after identifying that she’s new.

(The less developed a person is initially, the easier it could be to sync with Ring. Whereas a person with more intensive training would be incompatible.)

And if you’re still convinced that Ring was just impressed with her muscles—please remember that Ring is not human, and does not experience life through the same lens. It’s implied he can “see” energy with more than just his eyes. It’s how you can drop him in a new temple in an unfamiliar land and he’ll still be able to tell Trainee when she’s close to the finish line. (He forgot what static stretching was that one time. He does not have these floor plans memorized.) To him, those glowing wells at the end are like straight up beacons.

He was absolutely examining her energy.

———

To Ring, syncing probably isn’t worth writing an entire essay about. It’s natural to him, instinctive. It’s Ring making a promise to watch over someone, and to have their back as they will have his. And I think that’s beautiful. Frustrating to my curiosity, but beautiful.

———

TLDR; Synchronizing is a metaphysical bond sustained through Exercise Energy, a substance mentioned once in World 1 that encompasses the whole game. It exists everywhere in everything, in different variations of intensity and purity. Ring especially is partially made of exercise energy. It’s the glowing stuff in his tubes. There’s more, but that’s the gist of it. DISCLAIMER: This is for fun! I just wanted to try my hand at explaining how the magical sentient Pilates ring works. I feel pretty strongly about my conclusions, but I’ll go back and edit this if/when/where applicable. Thank you for reading.

———

EDIT (June 20, 2021): Updated header image. Also added a link to Ring mimicking DI.

EDIT (August 12, 2021): Added links to part 2 and 3.

———

RING ANALYSIS

Part 1: Synchronizing— How it Works and What It Tells Us About Ring

Part 2: Ring’s Powers—And What They All Have In Common

Part 3: Ring’s Biology and Possible Origins

#ring fit adventure #ring fit adventure spoilers #ring #ring fit trainee #pizzazz post #pizzazz meta #also some outfit spoilers I guess beyond world 20? idk. if it bugs you.#honestly still don’t regret giving myself a deadline. Bc yeesh if I didn’t get this out now I’ll never be free of it #if ring were real I probably would strangle him #this is basically me answering some questions that I’ve always had

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the-mercurial-star-o-vesper · 4 years ago

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1, 2, 3, 4, and Jaaaam~!

As time of writing, I’ve faced off and beaten 1010 on Normal. Wooo~!

So, more 1010 stuffz!

Either through updates or I've merely been watching play throughs with turned down graphics; Having now played the section, the 1010 battle and cutscene sprites now have their eyes the proper matching color. However, at this point, I ain't gonna discount or discourage the "White Eyes Synch" HC.

Turns out, according to Kliff’s brief, Neon J had been a Captain of the Cruiser. Now I don’t know about the time frames of the Royal Malaysian Navy, but for US Navy, it takes a collective of 21-23 years (at an estimate) to get to rank of Captain [No idea if this means starting at the rank of Seaman Recruit or starting as an O1; either way this dude was a full eagle]. Means, Neon J was in the military for a loooong time.

So, when you destroy a member of 1010, they leave remains behind that can be transformed to face off against other members of 1010 or as something benefitial for the PCs. Fanfic Writers, do with this as you may.

So only White (Rin) and Red (Zimelu) have parry attacks. Meaning they're the guys our PCs are more likely to go after first (The designated Leader; and the persumed more combative or warlike 1010 member / Bad Boy).

Barraca Mansion also has those five colored portraits.

The section of Metro Division leading up to the Boss Fight is just covered in dance-dance games.

According to the NSR-Post, type 4 Battledroids are still in service, and do in fact have background memories to hold in combat. In a previous post, I've already speculated that 1010 may have Neon J's memories...

Consider what it took to actually get to the boss fight. That's not just one limo, that's an entire floating fuckin escort with god damn canons. And not all of them were cars, half of em were akin to the Battleship Limo. Basically, Neon J didn't just command one ship, he had an entire fuckin Fleet.

Part of Neon J’s voicelines do call 1010 “robots”.

I know the section was mean to play for laughs, as a break from the character driven plot, but really reeeeally look at this level: - When you defeat a body of 1010, you can transform the remains to go against the other members. - You are actively being photographed / recorded fighting and doing all this damage to 1010. - The fact that Neon J acknowledge Yinu and had an entire escort, means he already knew you were coming and was actively preparing to face you - Which is probably why he had his factory out. Let's face it, 1010 are Battledroids with weapons included, and most folks don't even come to their stomachs in height. Unless a fan is wearing full Halo MJOLNIR power armor and wielding a Fallout Fatman, you don't need to break out an entire robot factory if anything happens. Plus, shields. Neon J knew that BBJ were coming, and prepared accordingly, hell, 1010 was actively waiting on you (even though none of it was enough) - Consider everything. Neon J was a captain who faced what might've been some pretty historically bloody and brutal wars, and while he did break out weapons... ... None of these weapons do ANY personal or permanent harm to you / BBJ. Not even the sawblades or the missiles. ... Hell, consider the jump over. Nearly none of the other boss security levels have flash when you fall off edges, you just sorta pop back up, but 1010's? There's a red flash that pops up when you fall off, as if something was actively teleporting you back on to the car platforms. ... Think there might be a chance that, while Neon J knew you were arriving, he might have had more sympathies for BBJ than previously considered? ... Consider 1010. A Mohawk (Red) is, after all, a very Rock based Hairstyle. And Yellow? Its a pompadour, a "Rockabilly" hairstyle. How bout Blue's Lennon Specs (The Beatles were a Rock Band)... And the biggest boy bands of the 60s were Rock Band. ... Neon J goes over the top with his loyalties to NSR, like, uber over the top. And even the game acknowledges that he's paranoid. Its almost like he's playing a Role...

Time. According to descriptions found by playing Zuke, NSR (at least) takes place after the 90s. While for Neon J, he has fought since the 60s (68; It sounds like he might’ve just gotten out of basic training, the way he talks). This leaves a 30-40 year time frame to consider. Take into consideration, however, that this world has flying battleship cars, robots, a virtual idol that isn’t holographic glass, and folks have duper supernatural powers. This could be in the 2100s or more for all we know.

A Change of Pace, HEADCANON TIME!

White is the Default Droid. Not so much in 1010, but in battledroid standards. You program in what you want the bot to be or do after the fact, and the color will indicate such. All battledroids have combative abilities, but their out of combat jobs are: - Red - Maintenance. (Believe it or not, a saw is pretty useful on a ship) - Blue - Parade (?). I mean, batons? - Green - Grenadier is kinda hard to find outside of the niche combat, but consider Fallout GOAT. Probably does a lot of background jobs, like laundry. - Yellow - Missiles. Probably a Bridge stationed bot, and does a lot of calculations. Missiles are a calculated effort to aim and launch. They're not Grenades where you pull the pin, and hope that it only goes off at the designated 5 seconds (and not sooner). - White - Default, and as we've seen with Rin, probably the kind that commands or acts as VIs (Virtual Intelligence, basically a smart interface).

1010 = Superhero fighting squad Oh please, a bunch of "young men" with color coded appearances and color coded weaponry, lead by a Captain with a Factory that actively replaces their bodies? And you're telling me they're ONLY a boy band? These dudes are fighting crimes like the god damn Power Rangers with all that equipment.

Neon J supported BBJ Consider all the above suggested. The Dude knew full feckin well that NSR wasn't the greatest of the great, and half the 1010 level proved that he was pretty much prepared for your arrival, and possible his own defeat. Let's face it, the dude was a Captain for a long damn time, and like commanded a small fleet in that time (not unlike the 1010 Level). You don't do stuff like that without some major strategy and awareness, ESPECIALLY, if you've survived entire wars and terrifying / inhuman conditions. Plus consider his over exaggerated speech. With all the evidence in mind, and all the visuals, the dude was definitely playing up his NSR schtick. There was nothing stopping him from just unleashing an entire army of invulnerable and shielded 1010 bots to root you out and stomp on you mercilessly. Believe me, this dude had the resources, the weapons, and the experience, to put out two brat indie bandmates.

He threw the fuckin fight.

... Though I'm pretty sure he didn't like the Breaking Yinu's Piano Part. At least for everyone else it was either a justified humiliation or just... unplugging stuff, not outright destroying priceless heirlooms. Notice how that's the only thing he mentions, and he's the only Megastar to take into account another Megastar (and that's excluding Tatiana).

1010 Memories The dance, the shared voice, the synchronization; oh yeah, 1010 probably had a share of Neon J's memories (though likely not all of them).

This goes hand in hand with the popular Fanon that 1010 were based on former Squadmates of Neon J's.

ITS CYAN Sorry, but we've seen the direct difference in Sayu's fight with the Glowsticks and we see Purl-Hew's bright cyan blue next to an actual neon Blue. Purl-Hew is Bright Cyan Blue, he's not Regular Blue. ... So you see, I like color theory and have a set and unbreakable idea of color patterns.

Rin's weapons I believe Rin's capabilities is Synchronization with his bandmates, and the capacity to use Shields. Remember that there is no Rin phase for the Factory, and the shields fall out of the fight immediately after Rin is perma-defeated. Plus, the quasi-Purple-Magenta color matches Rin's poster seen in both the fight and on Barraca Mansion.

#no straight roads #1010 (nsr)#neon j

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mentalhealthandgames · 4 years ago

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‘OMORI’ analysis:

OMORI’ is an Indie psychological horror RPG that was released December 2020, 6 years after its Kickstarter became fully funded in 2014. It was developed by OMOCAT, LLC and published by OMOCAT, LLC and Playism. It is a long game, the average play time of the main story is calculated to be 21 hours and 9 minutes by ‘HowLongToBeat’ (HowLongToBeat, 2021), a website which polls players with different play styles to calculate the average lengths of games. It personally took me 49 hours to complete. This is to say that, as a long and complex story based game, Omori’s plot will be difficult to summarise in a neat and short format but I will try.

The game has two main routes and multiple endings. I played the normal route and got the good ending so that will be the story I summarise, which also seems to be the one most players also got during their first playthrough.

The game starts with a short cutscene and then text appears on screen stating: “welcome to White Space. You have been living here for as long as you can remember.” The game then properly starts, revealing the main character in a large white space with a room in the centre. The room contains a laptop, a sketchbook and tissues. Around the room are a cat, a black lightbulb and a white door. If the player goes to the door it says: “a white door casts a faint shadow. What would you like to do?” The only choice is to do nothing. The sketchbook is filled with sinister drawings in red, white and black. The cat says “meow (waiting for something to happen?)”. The laptop allows you to either stare at the screen, look at the journal or log off. The journal (titled ‘Omori’s journal’) is filled with entries for days that are all listed as: “day ???” rather than with a date and each entry either consists of: “today, I spent time in White Space. Everything was okay” or “today I visited my friends. Everything was okay.” The tissue box is stated as “for wiping your sorrows away”. There is a sound and shake and then a text box appears telling the player “something fell nearby”. The player can then find a “shiny knife” by wandering around white space. After discovering the knife, if the player approaches the door they are now given the option to open it.

Once the door is opened it takes the player to Neighbor’s Room, a bright colourful room in sharp contrast to White Space. Neighbor’s Room is a part of a large area called Headspace which is only accessible through the white door in White Space. Most of the game takes place in Headspace, although not all of it, so assume the areas I discuss are in Headspace unless I tell you they are otherwise (White Space is not a part of Headspace). In Neighbor’s Room three of Omori’s friends are playing cards. They are Aubrey, Kel and Kel’s brother Hero. They are happy to see Omori, and after some bickering between Kel and Aubrey, decide to visit their friends Mari and Basil who have invited them for a picnic at the Playground. Saying yes to the invitation causes the friends to join the party and follow Omori. They leave Neighbor’s Room through a tree stump. There are four areas branching from the tree stump. One is blocked off by spiderwebs which Omori refuses to pass because he is scared of spiders, one is blocked of by the sea which Omori refuses to go into because he is scared of drowning and one is blocked off by a ladder which Omori refuses to climb because he is scared of heights. The only other option is to go to the Playground where they meet Basil and Mari who are waiting on a picnic blanket with Mari’s basket and some food. Mari’s picnic blanket, her basket and the food pop up throughout the game with the basket as a save point, the food as a way to replenish health or juice (which is basically mana, it powers skills and can be drained during fights) and the picnic blanket often allowing Omori and friends to have a picnic and take a break from whichever adventure they are on. During their friendly reunion and discussion, Basil shows them his photo album which is filled with pictures documenting their friendship. They then decide to visit Basil’s house except for Mari who opts to stay behind.

Before going to Basil’s house Omori and friends play hide and seek with other characters in the Playground where Omori finds everyone except Basil. Basil has been kidnapped by a character named Boss who is a childish character upset at being banned from the playground by the others who had deemed him too violent. After a fun short battle with Boss they then make their way to Basil’s house. I mentioned the fight with Boss as although it has no relevance to the plot it seemed to set the tone of exploring ‘Headspace’ for me. Colourful fun battles with Omori’s friends against characters who ultimately weren’t bad people. It felt hopeful and exciting even though I knew it couldn’t be the full story because Omori is a psychological horror game. Although I knew something would probably go wrong at some point, it still lulled me into a false sense of security. When Omori and his friends arrive at Basil’s house, Kel and Aubrey have another fight before they go inside which leads to them knocking over Basil and the photos falling out of his photo album. They go inside for Omori to put the photos back in place. After that seems done a photo falls out of the album and Basil picks it up. Basil seems not to recognise the photo, looking scared. A twisting shadow appears beneath him and then he says “n-no.. that can’t be… Mari” his eyes turning red. Then there is a flash of a greyscale photo and Omori is back in White Space, except this time the white door is missing. There is some new dialogue with Mewo the cat and a new drawing in the journal of a strange shape with one eye. However, without the door, the player is stuck, until they open the pocket menu. The pocket menu is where the player can access the party’s inventory, their skills and charms and the options menu. Previously there was a space only listed as ??? but at that moment it is replaced by red text saying “Stab”. Clicking on Stab it gives you the option to stab a member of the party, which, in White Space only consists of Omori himself. The player has no other way of progressing the game and has to click that option, which makes Omori to stab himself. This sudden dark turn shocked me. Although I had expected the game to turn dark eventually I didn’t think it would happen so early on and it felt wrong to have him stab himself.

After Omori has stabbed himself there is another short cutscene and then the player is shown a boy sleeping in his room and asked to choose his name. His default name is Sunny, so that is how I will refer to him. He looks almost exactly like Omori except he is in colour. He is the real version of Omori who lives in the real world and it turns out that Headspace and White Space are all in his head, a world he escapes to avoid a traumatic event in his past. Although they are the same person I will continue to refer to them as Omori and Sunny to separate when Sunny is in Headspace (or White Space) as Omori and when he is in the real world as Sunny. It turns out that in the real world Sunny is home alone as his mother is in the city, preparing their new home for them to move into in three days. It is also revealed that Omori’s friends in Headspace all exist in the real world as well. In the real world you can explore the top level of the house where Sunny’s bedroom is located, but if the player tries to go downstairs to the rest of the house Sunny will shake his head and not allow it. The only choice is to go back to bed where Sunny goes to sleep but then wakes up again hungry. A red light shines through the window making the area more sinister. This time trying to go down the stairs is allowed but the stairs seem to be infinitely long and some hands climb up the sides while others surround him and one photorealistic one chases him. When it catches up, the player is taken to a fight with a monstrous creature referred to as Something. The fight seems hopeless, Sunny’s attacks doing nothing to Something until a mysterious voice speaks to Sunny saying: “take a deep breath… don’t be afraid. It’s not as scary as you think.” The textbox then states: “you steady yourself… and remember how to Calm Down. Calm Down is then available as a skill (fights are won by using attacks and skills). Using the Calm Down skill shows an animation of Sunny breathing in and out and ends the fight, depositing Sunny at the bottom of the stairs. The player can then explore the rest of the house, two areas Sunny still refusing to go to, a room and an area outside, presumably the garden. The player can then take Sunny to the kitchen to pick up the Steak Knife and heat up and eat a steak. Then Sunny seems sick, the rooms wobbling as he walks around. After he goes to the upstairs bathroom and throws up, the rooms stop wobbling. Then there is a knock at the door and when Sunny approaches the door it shows Mari on the other side, still in the bright purple colours of Headspace. She tells Sunny she forgot her keys and asks him to open the door. If the player chooses to open the door there is a quick jumpscare of a ghost. If the player visits the bathroom to look in the mirror they will see the ghost behind Sunny. There is nothing else to do but to make Sunny go to bed and go to sleep. This time when he wakes up there is another cutscene saying “welcome to White Space. You have been living here for as long as you can remember” and Sunny is once again Omori, back in White Space. This time the white door is back but will not open and the Stab option is once again not available. Going to the laptop will open the Hangman menu which shows a list of computer keyboard keys along with vague descriptions of where to find them (they are all somewhere in Headspace). Out of all 26 keys there are 12 keys that are necessary to collected to unlock later parts of the game. It is impossible to collect all 26 in the normal route of the game. To be able to open the door the player has to find the map to Headspace in White Space, then it will allow the door to open when interacted with, once again taking Omori to Neighbor’s Room. Aubrey, Kel and Hero are relieved to see Omori and reveal that Basil is missing. Around this time Mari is also revealed to be Omori’s (and therefore also Sunny’s) sister. The main objective is to find Basil and this drives most of the story that takes part in Headspace. This involves a lot of exploring different areas of Headspace including an area accessed via the ladder that Sunny had previously been too afraid to use. Omori is encouraged by his friends to go up the ladder as they believe it may lead to Basil and this is clearly linked to Sunny defeating the Something on the stairs in the real world. This area is called Otherworld. After going on quests in the hopes that they will lead to Basil and fighting in a battle against the first proper boss, Space Boyfriend, some bloody footsteps will lead to a shadowy figure of Basil. Following shadow Basil takes Omori to a dark sinister space with some hints about Sunny’s dark past and his reason for creating and escaping to Headspace. He is chased by the version of Something the player will see the most, a version already depicted in Omori’s sketchbook in White Space, a strange shape with one eye. When caught by Something Omori wakes up once again in White Space where he once again has to stab himself to wake up in the Real World. This is the End of the Prologue and the start of the first chapter: Three Days Left. Each chapter counts down the days until Sunny is supposed to move out.

Every time Omori turns up at White Space and the white door is not present, the player has to make him stab himself in order to wake up as Sunny in the real world. That is the only way to access the real world. During each real world segments there is a battle with a different creature called Something related to each of Sunny’s fears. First heights, then spiders and finally drowning. Defeating these creatures in the real world always gives Sunny a new skill (these are: Calm Down, then Focus, then Persist) and allows Omori to later overcome, after his friends offer him support, the related fear in Headspace, allowing him to explore new areas that were previously blocked off (Otherworld, then Pyrefly Forest and finally Last Resort and Underwater Highway are only accessible by Omori and Mari swimming across the beach). I found this very interesting as it showed that Omori’s fears were limiting him and that he was able to overcome them, both for his friend (Basil) and with the support of his other friends (Aubrey, Kel and Hero). It implies that you should reach for help or support if you can and it reminded me a lot of my own anxiety which has limited me a lot in my past by making me scared to go to social events for example. Friendship is an important theme throughout Omori (in fact it is an important theme in all three games I chose to assess).

The first chapter opens in the real world with someone claiming to be Kel knocks on the door and the player has to choose whether to open it or not. This choice determines which route of the game the player goes down. The normal route starts when the player chooses to open the door. It is revealed to actually be Kel and not a jumpscare like Mari was and he wants to spend time with Sunny before he moves out. When Sunny explores the town with Kel he finds out that Aubrey has changed a lot, having dyed her hair pink and become the leader of what appears to be a group of bullies who often bully Basil, who is even more timid and scared than the version of him the player saw in Headspace (before he disappeared of course). Sunny and Kel rescue Basil by fighting against Aubrey who Sunny wins against by slashing her with his Steak Knife. Kel is shocked that Omori used a knife against Aubrey and takes it from him. This part made me realise how real the real world is meant to be and how Sunny had become incredibly detached from it by spending all his time in Headspace as Omori and becoming used to having to fight creatures and bosses with his Shiny Knife. Kel and Sunny then decide to retrieve Basil’s photo album which he says Aubrey stole from him. They find her in a church where she reveals to the player that Mari died four years prior, which is presumably the traumatic event that caused Sunny to retreat into Headspace, and is the reason the friend group drifted apart. Kel and Sunny then fight Aubrey again, drawing attention to Aubrey from the other churchgoers who criticise her, causing her to flee. Kel and Sunny then spot her throwing the photo album into the trash and take it to bring back to Basil. This photo album contains different pictures to the one in Headspace but is still filled with pictures showing their friendship, although all pictures containing Mari are missing, presumably taken by Aubrey. When they take the photo album back to Basil, who lives with his caretaker Polly they are invited to have dinner with them. Over dinner Kel mentions that Sunny is moving away and Basil runs to the bathroom. Following him to the bathroom shows him also seeing Something, which he says is behind Sunny. He clearly is also traumatised, his trauma most likely linked to Sunny’s trauma. Basil seems genuinely scared to be left alone but the only option for Sunny is to leave him alone. Then when Sunny goes home he faces the spider Something and goes to bed waking up in White Space.

I will not go into detail into the areas of Headspace that the party explore while looking for Basil as that would take a long time and doesn’t need to be discussed to explain the plot. The reason I went into so much detail for the Prologue is that it sets up the game. Most of the story in Headspace involves the friends looking for Basil, discovering new areas, skills, items and Bosses and always ending in Omori seeing bloody footprints leading to shadow Basil which usually leads to White Space, Omori stabbing himself and waking in the real world.

In the second chapter, Sunny starts off in the real world again. To briefly summarise, he and Kel find Basil being bullied by Aubrey and her current friends ending up with Aubrey accidentally pushing Basil into the water. Sunny has to face his fear of drowning to save Basil and faces up against another Something. Sunny and Basil are then saved by Hero who has returned from college for a short visit. They go to Kel and Hero’s house and look through the photo album and then Kel and Hero ask their parents if they can go to Sunny’s house for a sleepover. In the house Hero goes to the piano room – the room Sunny previously refused to enter. Sunny and Kel then join him there where the player finds out Mari used to play piano, and that her death was a suicide. The player knows from the photo album by now that Sunny also used to play the violin and that he and Mari were meant to play a concert together before she died. Kel, Hero and Sunny then set up a fort in Sunny’s room.

Then Omori wakes up completely alone in Neighbor’s Room in Headspace. Leaving Neighbor’s Room all the paths are blocked off by fog except for the one to the Playground. The Playground is entirely empty but if the player interacts with the mirror they can play hide and seek alone. This is a clear tonal shift as usually Headspace is very cheerful and full of life but with only Omori it becomes eerie. Then the path to the beach is accessible. At the end of the dock stands Mari. She encourages Omori to swim cross the ocean and get past his fear of drowning by promising to stay with him and saying, “steady your heartbeat… don’t be afraid. It’s not as scary as you think.” Crossing the ocean with Mari takes them across to some wooden dock paths. When they reach the end of the long wooden paths there are some curtains floating atop them. Mari turns to face Omori and says: “… Omori… it seems you have forgotten something important. Are you okay with that? I’m not too sure… you’ve seen this curtain once before. The last time we went to the lake. This is my stop though. I know I shouldn’t have come… It just gets a little lonely without everyone. It’s not my place to say anymore, but… I hope you’re still there… Sunny… I really miss you” Mari then says “goodbye, little brother.” Then Sunny enters a new area of Headspace which leads to a hotel called the Last Resort where he has to collect Kel, Aubrey and Hero who were all trapped in contracts to a boss named Mr Jawsum who they have to battle against. This is more like the previous areas of Headspace with lots of puns and colourful new characters. Then the friends travel down the Underwater Highway eventually following a recurring side character Sweetheart to an area of Headspace called The Abyss, during which they start to forget what Basil looks like. In The Abyss there are a lot of hints towards Sunny’s past and trauma. Eventually the friends end up meeting a whale called Humphrey who invites them to enter into his stomach. He is both a new area to explore and, after this exploration, a boss who threatens to actually eat them. Then, once Humphrey is defeated the friends go to find the last of the 12 keys which spells out “Welcome to Black Space” and then shows them Basils house. On the way to Basil’s house the trees and plants look dead. Entering the house there is a pit and entering the pit leads to a dark place which eventually leads to a black door which Omori opens. This introduces the player to Black Space, essentially the inverse of White Space which is surrounded by black doors.

If White Space is where Sunny locks himself away to forget all of his trauma, Black Space seems to be where he hides all of his repressed memories, fears and mental health problems. There is a key in the centre of the room. The key will open whichever of the doors the player chooses to enter first. Each room behind a black door is disturbing and broken looking, with bloody footprints leading to a key and then a red hand appearing and taking Omori back to Black Space. One Black Space room is a small room with a Butler who has the face of a cat while the cat Mewo (who the player knows by now was Mari’s cat) is strapped down to a table with knives next to her. Once Omori has entered the room, the door he used to enter disappears. When Omori interacts with the Butler he says “Mewo has been very, very bad” and then gives Omori a key. As there is no door to use the key on it seems the only choice is to approach Mewo. When Omori interacts with Mewo the text box asks: “do you want to cut open Mewo?” with the options yes and no. As there seemed to be no other option I reluctantly clicked yes, not wanting to see Mewo cut open even though I had become a bit used to the violence of the game after seeing Basil die in several of the other Black Space rooms. However, when the I clicked yes it lead to more text. “Mewo stares at you. She tilts her head out of curiosity.” And then the game asks again: “Do you want to cut open Mewo?” I clicked yes again. More text. “Mewo stares at you. Her eyes widen. She wants to go now.” And then, “do you want to cut open Mewo?” I clicked yes again, feeling more and more uncomfortable. “Mewo stares at you. She struggles to break free.” Again the choice, “do you want to cut open Mewo?” And once again I clicked yes. “Mewo stares at you. Her eyes are filled with desperation.” I was asked again, “Do you want to cut open Mewo?” I clicked yes. “Mewo stares at you. She tries to scream, but there is no sound.” And again, “do you want to cut open Mewo?” I clicked yes again hoping it would eventually give me a different option but knowing it probably wouldn’t. “Mewo stares at you. She does not know what is happening.” Again the question, “do you want to cut open Mewo?” And finally she was dead, her red blood bright in the dark room and the text box “you cut open Mewo.” I thought finally, the red hand would appear and take Omori back to Black Space, but it didn’t. I waited a couple more seconds and then walked Omori around the small room. Nothing happened. I went to the Butler to see if he would help me leave after having committed such a terrible act but all he said was, “waiting for something to happen?” and I realised with growing dread that there had been no reason for cutting open Mewo. It had done nothing to help Omori leave the room. I opened the pocket menu and saw that the Stab option was back. I selected it and Omori stabbed himself and returned to Black Space. That was the moment for me where the game felt like an actual psychological horror. It had set out rules for Black Space. Open the door to a room, find the key for the next room and then the red hand would take Omori back to Black Space. I didn’t like the rules and the rooms unsettled me with how they took elements of the game I had grown accustomed to or invested in and then twisted them (like Watermelons hiding items, or Basil needing to be rescued) but I knew I had to follow them to progress. Except in that case, the rules weren’t the same and trying to follow them killed Mewo making me feel like a horrible person. When I watched a video titled “OMORI and Dissociative Amnesia”, part of a series of videos titled “Psych of Play” on YouTube by ‘Daryl Talks Games’ I saw the other side of that scenario. Daryl mentions how he “checked everything I could think to check to find a way not to kill this cat. Until I stumbled upon my menu and realised the Stab option was there and in that moment I was relieved. Finally something other than playing what feels like an actual nightmare I thought. And after I stabbed Omori and respawned in Black Space it sort of hit me like a truck that this game had just made killing myself seem like the best option. It seriously made me think that suicide was the easiest thing to do… given my circumstances. It took that unnatural feeling I had experienced so early in the game, and made me welcome it. Which I think paints a shockingly real picture of how suicide may seem to someone who is dealing with these astonishingly dark and sinister levels of anxiety” (Daryl Talks Games, 2021, 27:19). He had a moment where he felt that the game really revealed what it was like to be in Sunny’s shoes and made him emphasise with what Sunny’s suicidal thoughts probably felt like. And Sunny does seem to be suicidal as a result of his trauma and guilt. The bad ending leads to him killing himself by jumping off a building. This implies that part of the purpose of the game may be to show people who do not have mental health conditions what it is like to experience them. I think this would make sense since, as the disclaimer included in the game warns, ‘OMORI’ should not be played by people who are too close to the themes depicted and will find the game triggering. Much of the online community around Omori however talk about how it resonated with them or was important to them because of its mental health themes. The game has seemed to help a lot of people feel less alone with its exploration of mental health, although much of the community also emphasise that you have to be in a good state of mind when playing the game and recommend not playing it on bad days. I myself made sure I only played it on days I felt comfortable playing it and would alternate between playing the game for hours and then taking days off to decompress.

After finally escaping Black Space by killing Basil one more time (a lot of the Black Space rooms involve killing Basil by accident, but this last time seems to be on purpose) Sunny wakes up hearing music. Following the music takes the player to the piano room where Mari is sat playing the theme tune of the game. Mari talks about playing the piano and how she felt maybe she pushed Sunny to hard. She says: “We never did get to play at that last recital. Did you want to play it with me now?” Before Sunny can respond Hero bursts into the room. He tells Sunny to go back to sleep.

In the last part of the game the truth is revealed. Before their recital Sunny had thrown his violin down the stairs where it broke and had an argument with Mari, presumably over the pressure he felt to play the violin perfectly. He pushed her and she fell down the stairs and died. Basil found him and the two of them disguise her death as a suicide.

After this is revealed the player has the option to visit Basil who is convinced Sunny is possessed by Something and will start a fight between Sunny and Basil. Both Sunny and Basil will faint at the end of the fight. Sunny then finds his broken violin and is taken through memories that were shown in Basil’s photo album. After each new memory the violin will start to fix itself until it is complete. Then Sunny will appear at the recital where he is encouraged by his friends. He will put up his sheet music, start to play and then break down sobbing. Then Omori appears and the final battle is between Omori and Sunny. During this battle Omori speaks to Sunny telling him all the reasons he is a bad person and should be guilty. The phrases he used struck home and I become incredibly invested in the battle and trying to win as what he said sounded a lot like what the voices in my episodes of psychosis had told me. However Omori will ‘not succumb’ and eventually Sunny will be defeated and a game over page appears. It gave me the opportunity to continue so I took it. This time Sunny has the option to play. Choosing it will make Sunny take out his violin and he and Mari play their duet they practiced for their recital. This cutscene made me incredible emotional as it showed how much Sunny and Mari loved each other. The whole fight really showcases how Sunny felt, as Omori the representation of all his guilt and repressed memories, that his friends would be better off without him, but playing the violin gave him hope again and defeats Omori. They then hug in White Space and a white door appears. Going through it causes Sunny to wake up in the hospital with a bandage over one eye, injured in his fight against Basil. Leaving the hospital room will show shadow Basil and following him takes Sunny to Basil’s hospital room where Kel, Aubrey and Hero sit around Basil. Entering the room starts the Good Ending cutscene where Sunny decides to tell them about killing Mari, but the game cuts off before the player can see his friends reactions.

I know I have gone into a lot of depth explaining the plot and it might not have all been entirely necessary, the mental health aspects are central to the plot and discussing them felt like it would make no sense unless I described the plot first.

The game has a disclaimer both at the beginning of the game as well as on the game’s Steam page warning players that the game “contains depictions of depression, anxiety and suicide” which I think is very important and needed in the case of this game. The game is a (psychological) horror game, and horror games are quite well known in mental health gaming communities as misrepresenting mental health, mostly as portraying people with mental health conditions as violent and out of control, and mental health institutions as creepy and places to be feared and avoided. However, although the game uses Sunny’s mental health as a basis for the horror aspects it is not done in a way that belittles his struggles but rather just emphasises how difficult it is for him to cope with them. Although the cause of Sunny and Basil’s trauma is revealed to be a situation that players will most likely be unable to relate to, the way their depression and Sunny’s anxiety are portrayed still resonate with a lot of players as is evidenced in many Steam reviews. Omori and Basil are both quite sympathetic characters. They both seem to have depression but it is expressed in different ways – Omori completely withdrew into an imaginary world to avoid his trauma whereas Basil tried to put on a cheery façade but was actually deeply affected.

OMOCAT, the creator of Omori seems to be quite private and has not revealed much about the process or inspiration behind Omori and has not done any interviews, unlike the creators of the other games I have discussed, so it is difficult to tell whether she did any research on mental health when making the game or whether she experiences mental health conditions herself that may have assisted in making an accurate representation of mental health. However she did state in a blog post from the time of the Kickstarter that: “OMORI started out as a very personal project. He was a character that I created to help me cope with my problems during a confusing part of my life” (OMOCAT, 2014).

One of its main themes, one which features strongly in all three games, is the importance of friendship. I think this is an important message to have, for friends to support each other. Early on in the game if you buy good advice from the wise rock in the Vast Forest it tells Omori: “pain doesn’t last forever.” This is a major theme of the game and I think it is an important one. Although the Good Ending is ambiguous as the player will not know how Sunny’s friends will react, it gives hope that Sunny is no longer trapped by his trauma and he can finally try to move forward from it, and by telling them it seems he is also freeing Basil from his guilt as well. Overall I think it was a game that told a story that, although the ending reveal made Sunny’s actual situation less relatable and the game leaned to stereotypes at times, his experience of mental health still felt very real and resonated with a lot of players.

References:

OMOCAT (2014) OMORI Kickstarter Update. Available at:

https://www.omocat-blog.com/post/85490697570/from-illustration-to-video-game-omori-kickstarter (accessed at: 23 February 2021)

https://youtu.be/rUDGlEWa4sE (accessed at: 11 April 2021)

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callibones · 7 months ago

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these two games tackle the same plot i described above in very different ways. with wario land 4 the plot is kind of an afterthought but the FEEL of the game communicates it and the ending hits way harder. bowser's inside story, meanwhile, is much more direct in the text about what bowser's going through because he has, y'know, characters to interact with!

bowser's inside story sees bowser constantly suffer through failure after failure. the first time you get to play as him it's after princess peach hurls him ACROSS THE COUNTRY with magic wish power. he immediately gets tricked by fawful because he's Desperate To Beat Mario. and gets Played and then beaten up Again and gets his fire taken away and generally has a very bad time of it. he encounters bewildering shit Constantly and it annoys him greatly because he just wants his damn kingdom back and the villain he's up against is this obnoxious little freak (affectionate. from me not bowser he HATES him) who loves being bizarre and annoying. he encounters broque monsieur who's a whole can of worms and french. he encounters a wiggler that just straight up makes him play a stupid game and then attacks him anyway when he wins. this is all before he DIES for the first time.

over the course of the game you watch him learn to process his frustration with things, get over his petulant reactions to things not going his way, and genuinely improve on the impatience that made him eat a sketchy mushroom from a random guy at the very start. bowser has a real arc of learning to understand the world. the same bowser that starts angrily punching a wall and shouting I DON'T GET IT!! when he encounters stuff outside of his worldview eventually learns to be patient and sit still when he gets sealed in a damn SAFE. i have claustrophobia. i would die.

and as a reward the game lets him be AWESOME! jack black is the perfect casting for him because he REVELS in being awesome. my favorite example of him adapting to the situation is every time he changes from Giant Bowser back to normal size bowser. he goes from falling flat on his face the first time, to hitting the ground and THEN falling over the second time, to nearly balancing the third time before tripping, to falling from a TREMENDOUS HEIGHT and landing ON HIS FEET the last time. the game isn't just interested in humiliating him over and over again! it does that, but it also gives him some genuinely super cool moments. when he beats up the final boss the last gameplay sequence is you getting to repeatedly punch him to death and then laugh at the fact that you're just Awesomer Than Him. he beats a cosmic horror elder god type thing to death with his fists. it's not played for a joke it's played for the SUPER cool moment it is.

and then mario & co kick his ass again because he's bowser. he learned to be patient, sure, but he's still bowser and he still wants the same things he always has.

but in the ending, when princess peach sends him a cake, he pretends not to care, waits for everyone to leave so he can be alone... and then opens it, and really, truly appreciates it. he Felt Something.

as for wario land 4, wario doesn't nearly have as much Character Development. but the credits song hits just as hard for me as the whole rpg scale tale of bowser's changing relationship with the world.

after wario explores all sorts of absolutely bizarre worlds, has to escape from the Terror that is each one tearing itself apart, encounters some grotesque bosses, and gets hammered, set on fire, bitten, zombified, frozen, and otherwise repeatedly maimed and tortured to solve puzzles, he finally loots the golden pyramid, and all the treasure chests he collected cause princess shokora to transform into her True Form. when this happens, he has sprites only used for this cutscene of falling to the ground and sitting there Processing. he looks utterly stunned for a little bit before he gets up and drives off. and then the credits theme happens.

oh the dream / that i had last night / melted into my pillow / i made peace with the time i had forgotten / all i'd gathered turned into sa-a-a-and...

which just like. man. that's how we end the story of wario seeing all these wild worlds. it sticks with him. he's not going to remember everything he's seen, cause he was in it for the money, but it sticks with him!! the game ends on a silly note of him rushing off to get some $10 all-you-can-eat steaks but between the credits song and that look on his face, the game says with so much less the same thing: he saw things he's never going to be able to share with anyone, because he doesn't have the words for it. and he's at peace with that. he's going to eat his $10 steaks. bowser's going to eat his cake. both of them are going to keep being Mario Villains. unapologetically evil. strong. confident as hell.

but when bowser checks to make sure he's alone, and when wario's driving back through the desert by himself...

well, they're alone with their thoughts. no one's around to judge them for seeing some fucked up shit and some beautiful shit, processing it, making peace with it, and then moving on carrying handfuls of sand.

i like stories where someone good becomes corrupted by evil or someone evil slowly becomes some definition of good or whatever as much as the next stories girlie but i dont think id be who i am without playing through the fundamentally life-changing experience of a story about a mario villain who's unapologetically evil getting to be the protagonist of his own game, going through some wildly fucked up cosmic horror kirby type shit, experiencing some transcendent beauty and understanding the world a little better, and then coming out the other side genuinely unable to even conceptualize the building blocks necessary to process and communicate about what he's just experienced so he just goes back to living his hedonistic unapologetically evil lifestyle even though he cant help but feel the slightest bit different because unknowingly hes been utterly changed by the situation at his core. TWICE.

wario land 4 and bowser's inside story are holding hands and kissing. i love you tales of Big Strong Villains having genuine emotional experiences and understanding their relationship to the world better WITHOUT letting go of their unapologetic and sometimes wholly unearned confidence in themselves. how do i say that bowser and wario are role models to me as a trans girl without sounding unhinged

#callie.txt.exe #bowsers inside story #wario land 4 #my silly thoughts on video games that mean a lot to me #SoundCloud

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moved-attre · 4 years ago

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Here is my review of Cyberpunk 2077! It is a bullet point list of what I liked, and did not like about the game. I mean no offense in my writing, and am, of course, willing to be educated if I am wrong about anything! But please do not send me anonymous hate. I know many fans and haters of this game can be very, uh... So take it all with a grain of salt, and form your own opinions.

This is very long and likely boring so if you manage to make it to the end, I will be very impressed! Also, I may ramble or repeat myself, sorry. There’s more bad points than good, since the game is very glitchy and I couldn’t not mention the glitches I have experienced.

Obviously, this contains major spoilers! 👁👄👁

I’ll start off by saying, this is a game where you will likely not get what you expected. If you expected Cyberpunk 2077 to be a game filled with features that were never before seen, to revolutionise the gaming industry as we know it and become the most iconic video game ever made... You will not get that. If you expected it to be the worst, most irredeemable video game ever created that you’ll hate... You will not get that, either. If you expected a game that is a fairly standard RPG with some impressive graphics when played on a high spec PC, albeit with some bad glitches and a wonky story with lots of potential, then you’ve got it!

Pros:

The majority of the voice acting, such as in V, Johnny and Viktor, was very good and emotional. Viktor in particular made me tear up! And the way V manages to sound almost like Johnny with the subtle accent change was amazing!

The character’s such as Takemura, Jackie, the LIs, Johnny, Viktor, Misty (I could go on) and even many random NPCs were interesting! I wanted to know them and loved their relevant missions. The best ones were unromanceable, of course, but that’s what imagination is for.

THE ALDECALDOS! I love them! A found family, and I wish there was more to do with them other than Panam’s missions and a few side missions. I love found family, and I’m disappointed V couldn’t form their own, so I’ll take what I can get and love the Aldecaldos, even if V can’t join them until the very end. Panam had the best missions of all the LI’s, even if the last one felt very abrupt. (At least, on her friendship route.)

Night City felt alive. There was always plenty going on, it felt like a real city, and it could be beautiful.

Jackie and Corpo V’s friendship was lovely. I loved their “To this!” inside joke, and I loved how Jackie roasted V but would jump to their defence in a second. It didn’t feel forced at all.

There’s lots of environmental storytelling. The atmosphere of a city choking to death under it’s own pollution/corruption was very apparent in the areas not lived in by the rich. Lots of homeless characters, violence, drugs, absolute poverty, trash (The dump! I felt sick just looking at it, and I couldn’t even smell it! Poor V, though.) and general apathy from a lot of the residents really sold the concept.

Johnny and V’s dynamic was the best part of the story! I hated him at first, but slowly came to enjoy his commentary and advice. His interactions with V were very funny at times, and thoughtful at other times. He was an interesting perspective for the player to consider, while still being an asshole you could dislike for much of the story. He has some really emotional scenes and I played a V that viewed him as a friend, so it was really nice hearing him call V the closest person he’d ever had. They became so devoted to each other! CDPR did good with this element, but I can’t help wishing for more. The dynamic had so much more to give, and a romance/happy ending could have worked.

And to add on, the mission where Johnny takes over V’s body to go on a bender was great! I loved all the moments to play as Johnny in V’s body. All the symbolism between them was so good. Every mission matters, and you can replay to look closer at details! He also comments on other side missions with no personal relevance to him, which was neat.

All the enemies had unique names. A minor detail, but it made me feel some guilt over killing them. 🤣 I think all character’s had unique names, which is such a nice detail.

The soundtrack was incredible, I loved every original piece and radio song. I have several saved on Spotify, which is big praise coming from me! I very rarely listen to video game soundtracks.

V can adopt a cat! 🐈‍⬛ It was adorable, and Johnny’s interaction with it made me tear up!

The size of the map was good, not too big or too small. I got about 100 hours of play in by exploring, which is pretty good to me! I got lost a few times, but always found something interesting to do in the meanwhile. I loved the Badlands especially.

Some of the side missions, particularly the more mysterious ones involving investigating deaths and the cyberpsychos, were very enjoyable! I’m a big slut for mystery, and there were some interesting cases to figure out. I wish we could’ve done missions like that with River, though, especially once he becomes a PI.

I was complaining about the lack of aliens in CP2077, but I suppose we did get a couple space themed missions which was pretty fun. I still want to go experience going into orbit, though. 👽 Or the moon!

Separating voice and body in the CC was a good idea, even if it was handled a little strangely. I’ll talk about this more in the ‘Cons’ section below!

Act 2 was my favorite part of the game, but it blended weirdly with Act 3 and that put me off. I am nostalgic for Act 1, but not eager to replay it because it felt so slow... I’m not sure on this point! I liked Act 2 because the story picked up and I was excited for more, but the more I got wasn’t as I expected. So, yes, Act 2 was good.

The scenery is very beautiful, and sometimes the outside lighting is absolutely perfect. The Arasaka parade mission was lovely to look at. I always stop the car and watch the sunrise/sunset, and I like going out to the Badlands to look at the stars!

An addition to that, is the lighting in some main quest missions. Very noir! It made for some beautiful screenshots. (Of which I sadly can’t share because my game doesn’t record well on medium settings. 😳)

The motorcycles are fun to drive! Mainly because I can zoom in between cars and Jackie’s motorcycle has a lot of sentimental value, as well as other vehicles like Johnny’s Porsche and Jake’s car. You can open the trunk to dump bodies in, which was a cool detail., and each one drives differently!

There could be amazing attention to detail, such as making Jackie look like his mother. I expected his mother to be a randomly generated NPC, but she was completely unique. It’s the minor things like that which stood out to me the most.

The scanner was a fun tool and very useful! I liked being able to find alternative ways to do a mission, it felt more realistic than the standard “massacre everybody, pick up an item and get out” fetch quests normally seen in RPGs. I could sneak in a tunnel or a side door! Perhaps irritating and unnecessary to some, but I liked it. I love utilising every possible option.

The interface color changes if you have Johnny controlling V’s body. Another small but good detail! The game is good with the minor details.

The sex scenes were not... awful. I expected much, much worse! I expected fully animated first person porn. Instead, I thought they were fairly realistic and intended to be romantic. Still very awkward, though, and unnecessary.

When they didn’t glitch, the animations were very good. Not as impressive as I hoped, probably because of glitches, but in line with other AAA games like Horizon Zero Dawn, I suppose? I noticed Judy’s animations in particular as being good, and Johnny had lots of unique ones too!

The clothing options are very fun, I like the holographic items and “Bitch” clothes, hehe. Also including Hijabs! 🧕 Great idea, and more games should do that.

The diversity of the NPCs was welcome. I enjoyed seeing Native American, Asian, Black and Latinx NPCs who weren’t there just to suffer! They would occupy important roles in the story, such as Fixers or friends/romance options for V, so they were pretty much unavoidable! It felt very natural, and they helped Night City feel more realistic.

Adding to that, the different cultures included were interesting too! I liked the Haitian characters in Pacifica.

The photo mode is pretty good. Not as good as I expected, the camera angle presets were useful but the filters weren’t very good. I liked that the photo mode could be used in cutscenes, though! It was standard, and I hope more bits will be added in for it.

A lot of the glitches are hilarious, but I recognise not all will share that opinion so I’m just adding this down here. The T-Posing NPCs are a highlight for me. Call that the Skyrim effect.

Cons:

No NB gender options/No pronoun options. Would they/them have been so difficult to implement?

No body or height sliders. There’s so many fat character’s in the game! Why can I not make my V fat? Or muscular?

Gender restrictive hairstyles and clothes. Come on, guys, it’s 2020/2077! Aren’t we beyond gender restrictive appearance options?

No tattoo parlours, no plastic surgeons and no hairstylists for V to change their appearance. I don’t understand why a CC was included at all, since we spent the majority of the game in first person. It reminded me of Far Cry.

The main story started off strong, albeit slow, picked up in Act 2, then felt very rushed in Act 3. The point of no return was very abrupt!

The celebrity cameos felt very gimmicky. The one exception to this is Keanu Reeves, who did a very good job as Johnny. Genuinely brought tears to my eyes at times... but Grimes was just embarrassing! Why was she there! A talented VA could have done Lizzy Wizzy much better, giving her actual emotions instead of just monotone “boredom”.

I don’t know what the point of owning apartments is. You can only sleep in V’s bed, what is the point of looking in the mirror? V has no use for their terminal in their apartment, they never get any messages after the first time they meet Johnny. It was so unnecessary, especially when there’s several across the map. I can access the stash of weapons and clothes from my car! Why would I ever need to go home? Judy gives me her apartment and I’m like, girl, I’m never visiting unless you have a mission to give me.

Also, there are no penalties for not showering or sleeping. I wanted character’s to comment on that! Call me stinky or tell me I look exhausted!

V doing side missions makes no sense, and no explanation is given for why we can do them. Why would V, who is dying and has precious few days left to live, be driving for hours on end to deliver packages and shoot random criminals? When they could be figuring out how to survive the biochip! Who the hell would care about a some extra money or buying every available car for sale, when they’re dying of something that could be preventable?

Some side missions were either very poorly done or obviously majorly glitched, since it felt like they skipped important parts and I was often very confused at the end of them! For example, the Corpo V side mission was so short! I expected to be able to hunt down Abernathy and get revenge for V and Jenkins, but instead, I shoot some random assistant I don’t even remember? And that’s it? Done in 2 minutes! If that! What is the point of that? I didn’t even have fun! Also, what happened to Garry? I wanted to save him but V just never follows up on it.

And, I wish we got closure with T-Bug. The fact that V never bothers to find her body and give her a proper burial was just poor form.

The endings were not... good. There are technically 6 different endings, all wrapped up into 3 parts. In my opinion, the best ending is the one where V kills themselves and has a very “Arthur Morgan watching his last sunset” vibe. It made me cry. Another good ending is having Johnny take over V’s body forever, as you can really see how much Johnny has changed as a person thanks to V’s influence. But they still felt very... eh and the story just never got that boost it needed, ending before it could take off. In the “best” ending, the Nomand ending with Panam, V ”survives” but has only another few months to live. So they die off screen. Satisfying? Uh, no. Not at all. There’s no possible ending where V has any hope of survival, but I much preferred being there with V until the very end. I disagree with the people calling Johnny’s ending the “bad” ending, because it really isn’t! I ignore all of this of course, and my V is living happily ever after.

I kind of hate that CP2077 has this illusion of options when some are clearly intended to be chosen more than others. Judy and Panam have the best endings in term of romance. Why bother with River and Kerry? Kerry is more of a fling than an actual romance, and is met very late in the game at a point where you can ignore him completely and just end the game, and River’s romance is so glitched that many people can’t even do it fully, and in every ending he dumps you, so it feels like none of it mattered to him despite him being the most “domestic” of the possible LI’s...

Takemura’s ending! He died in my playthrough, because the game didn’t tell me I could save him. That really annoyed me. Also, I recognise that V is in no place to lecture him, and there is some wisdom to his quote: “You speak against corporations yet offer no valid alternative.” But, Goro, bro... anything is better than fascist mega corporations keeping most of the city in absolute poverty, while waging devastating wars against other mega corporations? I wish we could have opened his eyes a little. There’s a good, even ground between Takemura believing Corps to be doing the best for humanity and Johnny being willing to kill 12k people for a revolution. This game went a little “capitalism is bad, but the alternative is worse!” at times, in my opinion. I wish more could have been done against the corporations, instead they just kind of... exist... in the background. And I know, “Realism! “ because we live with massive corporations like Amazon in our lives and can do fuck all about them but we’re not V. V is an absolute unit who survives death multiple times... I wish there had been two paths, like do Johnny’s path and work against the system or do Takemura’s path and work with the system? Sort of like The Witcher 2?

You know how in Saints Row, The Boss has homies they can call on for help? I wanted V to have homies to help them out in fights. It felt pointless building trust with the Fixers only to not have them help out at all with fights against the NCPD/Militech/Arasaka in their territories.

The stealth mechanics are not good. They are funny! But not very good. Often, It’s better to just attack and save yourself the trouble of sneaking only to get caught by a guard who can see through the back of his head.

The fact that you cannot get arrested and have someone bust you out of jail. Maybe RDR2 set my expectations too high, but I thought this would have been included.

I’ve read about the cut content, and I’m really disappointed they weren’t included in the game. Wall running would have been amazing! And the police hiring mercs to hunt V down? I would have loved to see it! 😔

Driving cars is terrible. Just awful. Sometimes, you crash. Other times you’re flung up into the air and break through the sky into the void, spinning for all eternity.

River’s glitched romance deserves a special mention. The relationship just drops off suddenly and you cannot interact with him properly again. It does not affect the main story at all, so you wonder, what was the point? The text messages also glitch and V will sent messages that you can’t control, leading to disappointing dialogue, like with Joss.

The romances in general were just not all that impressive. I was expecting something great, considering there was only 4 and thought they’d really affect the main story, but I’d only recommend Panam and Judy. I would have played the game just as well without romances, and they felt very unnecessary but I wanted to do one to get the most possible story content. I think we should all leave romances in RPG’s as the exception, not the norm. Some studio’s can do them well, other’s cannot. CDPR cannot, in my opinion...

Obviously the many glitches and bugs, several of which are game breaking. I usually have to reload a save at least once an hour, because an NPC won’t talk to me or I can’t move the mouse to select different dialogue options! Or my gun won’t equip, so I die.

The AI in general is very bad. Sometimes cars will stop in the middle of junctions for no reason, causing you to crash or mount the sidewalk to get past, meaning you’ll likely run someone down and get a police warrant. NPCs just walk from one end of the road and back again, over and over on a loop. It’s very creepy!

The lighting, mostly inside buildings. Everything is pitch black! Why does V not own a flashlight? The amount of enemies I’ve barrelled into and alerted because I couldn’t see is too much.

The lack of dialogue choice, it was less interactive than what I’d been told to expect. There was only two or three options, with one only ever rarely being unique to one of V’s three possible background choices and most will yield the same results with a few exceptions, like avoiding combat.

V’s personality is already decided by the game, and is not really customisable. Do not expect full control over your V’s personality, as they are very much a canon character and exist outside of your (limited) choices. I didn’t expect Baldur's Gate 3 levels of customisation, but I did expect something more like Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel? Nice, Sarcasm and Angry? You know?

Obviously, the seizure inducing scenes were very dangerous. I get a headache whenever I have to do a braindance, and I wish it was skippable!

Accessibility as a whole is very much an afterthought in this game, I think. The subtitles are in “speaking English”, so instead of: Hey, how are you? It’s: Heyyy, how’re ya? It is often difficult to understand, and sometimes I just couldn’t work out what was being said.

It’s nitpicky but I wanted to do a pacifist route and I realised you can’t, you need to kill certain character’s...

The main “villains” such as Yorinobu and Adam Smasher were very forgettable, and V had no personal stake in taking them out. I honestly forgot all about them. Takemura was talking about revenge and I’m like, who? Who are you talking about? Why are we kidnapping Hanako Arasaka, again? Johnny, why would I bother killing Adam Smasher? If they’d personally murdered Jackie, then yeah, I’d understand! But all V needs is to remove the chip and I don’t know... I just didn’t feel anything.

So, to summarise: I think CDPR were out of their depth. The long, very long, troubled development process was an indication of this before the game was even released, and the story I’ve experienced in the game is proof enough. I don’t think they knew what they wanted from this game, and as a result, we have a game that is honestly very confusing and frustrating with a story that always got close to gripping, but never quite makes it. All in all, I found this game to be pretty average. When the bugs are ironed out, I will think better of it. But as it stands, if I had to score it, I would give it a 6.5/10 or maybe 7/10. Good concept, somewhat misguided execution. The best part of the game was the Johnny/V dynamic, but I wasn’t satisfied with how it ended. They needed more time together! Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

#cp77 spoilers #cp77 critical #cyberpunk 2077 #I’ve already been vagued about a few times for my CP2077 opinions so I expect more to happen now I’m posting this hehe

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brokenaishi-blog · 6 years ago

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timestamp (For the about and verse page)

Name: Ayano Aishi.

Age: 18

Height: 5'8

Weight: 168 pounds. (She has a dense frame. More on that below)

Gender: Trans female.

Eye color: Pink.

Personality: Thoughtful, cruel, cunning, smart, somewhat charismatic, sadistic in some instances albeit of conditioning rather than of sexual need. Incredibly sweet and loving to her loved ones. Puts on a face she think suits the situation for people she doesn’t care about or trust. (More on that below)

Looks: Pretty, cute but has a strong build.

Status: Recovering from trauma.

Overall the changes I present will be more morally gray leaning and occasionally messed up as a pathway for Ayano. This is challenging the Yandere approach and while still having Ayano as a Yandere? This is challenging the narrative and I understand completely what he’s intending for some features/backstory he’s revealed before asked about this. I did my research and re-watched a lot of videos in order to make accurate statements in response. I am not condemning the game utterly as I am fully accepting if the game turns around and does things in a different, more exceptional way, but I am fully willing to admit when it’s had some bumps as well. The game afterall: is still in development regardless of how the Dev is as a person, it is subject to change as this about is as well.

Things he’s missed the point of a Yandere:

Usually? Most popular Yanderes have a tragic event or childhood to cause such a drastic twist in mental stability and personality. EVEN SO much as addressing this as such and some popular Yanderes have gotten happy endings with everyone living or somehow reversed or it ends in tragedy in certain cases.

Yandere characters in the archetype generally as a rule DON’T WIN as their delusions and instability is toxic and usually end in their defeat or apprehension. This isn’t set in stone but overall an inevitably as that’s the main point of characters with the archetype: they’re harmful to themselves more than anyone else.

My Ayano never ‘wins’ her Senpai as he either ends up dead or she’s stopped by Megami and then rehabilitated by her in her main verse when Megami can’t sit idly by and see Ayano be far better than her mother in the need of help, Megami comes off far too morally righteous to allow that to happen. And then for her ‘bad end verses’, she’s confined to get help and her father spends the rest of his days in regret for not acting sooner. Her mother dies frequently however via execution after trial from what she’s done to Ayano, her father, along with her countless victims or is confined. Or she is simply killed by Ayano in her main verse after kidnapping a few ‘loose ends’. (More on that below)

Changes to her character’s interactions with others along with fluff info:

She will have some habits and customs from japanese culture. Her skirt will be at knee-length along with the other highschool girls for an actual dress code to a high standards school. Along with the changing of uniforms as? While I think he explained it, they still look far too middleschool for my tastes but the student council uniforms can mostly stay the same other than skirt length.

There will be no panty shots for Info-chan and instead she will be gathering information through various means and ways.

To go with the fanart and concepts that I’ve seen in canon videos and what not, I’ve decided to give Ayano the trait, Ocular albinism: meaning her eye color is pink.

Ayano unless in certain verses is less likely to murder as that makes zero sense as why she’d jump straight to that as Senpai wouldn’t love a murderer. Granted, she would use it as a last resort if there was no other option or time. However, she sees little to no reason why she shouldn’t murder or even torture actual ‘murderers’ in her eyes, or pedophiles along with others as in the worst of the worst.

In most scenarios with a physical confrontation or a forced one, Ayano will be keeping her identity a secret with a mask and beat up her target usually rather than outright killing them. Using intimidation, manipulation and cruelty in extreme circumstances to get what she wants.

Ayano is capable of becoming hyper fixated on other people once she gets over ‘Senpai’ in her recovering verse due to her disorders. Or the rp partner’s muse in question can outright be her Senpai.

Regarding my Ayano’s Ocular Albinism: aka why her eye color is pink. I never really specified her eye color exactly other than pink and how her emotions reflect it. So as you notice, you see blatant red on even my theme for her eyes and other artwork he’s made to have Ayano? And due to me liking the concept and explaining it as an extreme case of Ocular Albinism? I’ve further gone to say that while her eye color is pink? Depending on her emotions, such as getting angrier or feeling intense emotions of love? It can become darker shades of pink, even resembling a pinkish red. This actually happens in real life with our own eyes to a degree of becoming darker or lighter colors or sometimes partially different colors altogether depending on our moods, but Ayano’s being far more severe in pigment change. And because of ocular sensitivity? I’ve decided to give her protective contact lenses she wears over them as while she can go without them? It is uncomfortable on brighter days.

Changes to character’s mental state and addressing the ableist outlook placed upon her by the Dev.

Overall, while Yandere Syndrome is a fictional mental illness, Yandere Dev has confirmed she’s a ‘sociopath’ and a ‘psychopath’ whenever it’s convenient for him and the reasoning behind this is that even as a sociopath or psychopath, and there are actual ‘normal’ terms for that: as sociopath = anti social personality disorder. They’re literally JUST personality disorders that are often demonized and portrayed incorrectly and this game is no exception in that, look up the myths and do your research- these people can live happy lives if they get help either through self-help or third party to be more comfortable and happier. Regardless, morally righteous or not? The mental illness aspect of the game is poorly written and overall I don’t expect much out of his explanation why she has her ‘bizarre’ condition but also apparently actual conditions that are demonized by him. As using a fictional mental illness but also subtly demonizing existing ones and even incorporating them into your own character whilst having a fictional one? Like, make up your mind.

Literally you could have taken a ‘normal’ person and put them in the exact same scenario and they could’ve react the same way. As not to get political? But look at mass shootings and highschool murders and stabbing cases- perps more often than not are morally fucked rather than having anything MENTALLY ILL about them. So while I’m fully okay with her being mentally ill and explaining why she’s doing the things she does? You do not jump from point A to point Z. You go from A to B to C and so on. That’s poor writing otherwise for a character as I understand ‘a reflection of the player’ as a blank slate to project onto, but overall he basically admitted to giving up on the character’s personality and story, then contradicted himself in making her a backstory.

Moving onto Ayano’s backstory: ‘Doctors knew she wasn’t ‘normal’, her parents knew she wasn’t ‘normal’ and her father instead of helping her cope? Tried to make her normal and her mother did nothing to help. Her teachers did NOTHING to stop the bullying it seems when she was younger and overall forced herself to act ‘normal’ and is numb 24/7’. That is the biggest copout for a character, as she is shown to have emotions when it suits him but she’s emotionless apparently? This whole narrative creates an unintentional sympathetic outlook on Ayano.

Why?

Her parents failed her, her father kept trying for her to be normal instead of getting her actual help. Her mother PROBABLY made it worse as why does a Highschool Girl know how to torture and mentally break people and brainwash them into her mindslaves to kill themselves afterward? It was Ryoba’s doing for how I’m making it and that’s incredibly damaging mentally for a child. (More on that below) Her doctors KNEW something was wrong at an early age? And she’d never be normal and instead of getting her therapy? They did nothing. She was bullied and while she didn’t mind it? Her teachers did nothing.

Society failed to help the little girl known as Ayano Aishi.

Now moving onto my Ayano’s actual mental and personality disorders: she’s a sociopath, has extreme obsession issues and severe ingrained trauma with needs for violence or isolation for the people she ‘needs’. Has varying levels of mental stability and coherency depending on the circumstances and can become extremely unstable.

Ayano’s actual emotions and character will actually exist instead of a ‘blank slate’ which he later contradicted himself with his backstory video of Ayano Aishi and that actually GAVE a lot of unintentional depth to her as a character as- ok, well I see why she’s messed up now as being numb 24/7 even when she has shown actual emotions in genuine response in the game and in his cutscenes. So yes, my Ayano is an actual person and for her ‘recovering verse’ and even outside of it. And has BECOME numb from everything as? That whole ‘numb’ narrative could still be kept if it was explained better.

Her mother and father and how they interact with her differently.

Ryoba’s mother has been conditioning her since she was seven for murder, starting her on animals to begin with and eventually moving her onto actual people when she was around ten to torture, murder and make into mindslaves as practice as she was ‘just like her’- as literally there’s no explanation why she knows how to do this other than ‘she’s a monster’ and that’s the biggest cop-out ever and demonization of a mentally ill highschool girl. Ryoba keep in mind while thinking about this as why I have her do this: IS A CANON rapist. As? Kidnapping someone, and coercing them and conditioning them into sex is actual rape no matter how you want to explain it and if even he came to agree to it eventually. That’s? Sex under duress and that’s actual rape. I feel as though Ryoba is underutilized in Ayano’s backstory due to her history and how she is, as I do explain her ability to instantly kill people in some instances from the physical training she received throughout her life from her mother. As some weapons would require MASSIVE amounts of strength to kill someone instantly with, yet Ayano can with ease in some cases and knows where to stab and so on and so forth and how to fight. That’s why she has such a weight because her frame is so massively dense and yes, there are people like this who exist- she packs a lot of power in that body of hers.

Her father in summary? Is a traumatized victim of rape and kind of an idiot as he actually never bothered to get his daughter actual help. And I blame this on the higher stigma toward mental illnesses in Japan for flavor text albeit Yandere Dev being shortsighted in plot devices as a possibility.

My Ayano and her place in the school:

She is considered a relatively popular and well known girl in the school that’s part of the student council, known for being oddly helpful even outside of her student council duties. Though she is somewhat intimidating with her physique and intelligence to other students but is highly admired, her personality often disputed and argued about as she adapts it to the situation. Though most are unknowing to this other than Megami.

Ayano’s likes from her partner(s). She likes to be laid on while intense smooching ensues. Likes to be held or partially cradled while sitting in their lap, perhaps fully cradled if they’re strong enough for it. Likes to sit on their lap preferably while being held from behind around her waist. Likes to hug with her legs whenever she can whether being laid on for smooching or sitting in their lap in reverse so she’s facing them. It can be purely chaste most of the time in the gesture, but can lead into intimacy. Likes neck and collarbone kisses leading up to her lips. Likes being petted. Ayano favors feeling like she’s soft so that’s why she does or likes these things done to her.

Picture reference for Ayano’s body build:

Ayano’s religion.

Ayano’s religion is known as ‘Shinto’ it was the state religion of Japan until 1945 and is as ancient as the culture itself. I don’t know TOO much of the practices of Shinto as it involves rituals and offerings, along with other bits of my research obtaining a basic understanding. Which reminded me of appeasing the vengeful spirits/kami/demons in-game. Along with the fact that they come as more akin to Yokai and an Aragami (other than the Succubus which I later found out there’s a term for actually being: Akuma as a western demon) more than anything to me? All mechanically will or can be offered gifts, tasks, and sacrifices for great boons in-game. So while I’ll be using this to explain how she can communicate and ask for their services from great, and hard tasks given in exchange for massive boons: I will be using this as a baseline to explain that she is naturally connected spiritually and quite heavily, as the occult club constantly try to summon the supernatural, but fail to every single week in comparison to Ayano who can just put a knife into a skull and bam- she did it, she can talk to them (Which might be made harder later to do, but we’ll see. He hasn’t mentioned anything regarding the mechanic). Albeit I will not go too much into the Shinto religion regarding the Aragami, as I feel I wouldn’t be able to accurately represent it and I don’t wish to appropriate holy or sacred practices.

The ‘three demons’, aka the dismembered Aragami, the flame Yokai, and the western ‘demon’ that’s an Akuma and the ancient evil. All four of these will have extensive plot-lines and rp potential if someone wishes to utilize them in an rp or have Ayano delve into it. Note that her interactions with these beings overtime may be subject to change, but her religion regarding Shinto and family origins will NOT unless I am shown otherwise it’s satisfactory story-line in canon wise.

The Aragami.

The ‘demon’ or Aragami that demands dismemberment comes off to me as an Aragami, which is those who are killed without being shown gratitude for their sacrifice: will hold a great grudge after death and become powerful and evil Kami who seek revenge known as an ‘Aragami’. The great Kami is ultimately appeased and befriends Ayano, albeit its great power will not be used often as that comes off to me as blatantly disrespectful to her religion. And instead will only be utilized under dire circumstances.

The Yokai.

The Yokai, the ‘flame demon’ comes off as more a spiritual, supernatural monster rather than an Aragami with his speech. And instead will simply have been appeased through odd, quirky means as some Yokai often are. His powers while still used more often, will still be rarely used as the powers of the supernatural can be devastating.

The Akuma.

I’ve flavor texted the clear western demon as a ‘foreign exchange demon’ for humor purposes, but also more accurately being known as an ‘Akuma’ that through various means, has befriended Ayano. As there is a term for a literal western demon apparently and can function as another term for another demon? And she is a Succubus currently quite evidently so she’s an Akuma for now.

The ancient evil.

I’ve flavored texted this seemingly new feature that may be implemented as a great, evil and ancient Yokai that through various means has been soothed and appeased by Ayano and currently has never been used for a boon due to its great and terrible power.

You may be asking yourself at this point? Why would Ayano be religious? Why would she even remotely care about abusing the power of Yokai, Kami, or an Akuma for the sake of her own gain to easily obtain ‘Senpai’? Why would she care about ANY of what I’ve said above? Well, I will be explaining this now, using her family origins and adding a sense of greater depth and potentially a greater mystery into a redesign of the game.

Ayano’s family origins.

To explain Ayano’s upbringing, along with slight insight into Ryoba’s own motivations into why she conditioned her daughter in such an extreme way physically and mentally, along with teaching her holy practices: is that Ryoba’s family sect dates back to an ancient and dark time of Japan where human life was valued very little that followed the family line in traditions and practices up to Ayano’s bloodline that progressively got worse as time went on in mentality.

To explain what the Aishi family’s sect was like in the past: they were highly religious, traditional and information gatherers for their leaders, along with being torturers and breaking people mentally to subjugate and break their spirit after capturing them to obtain vital information, and that’s where the art first began and overtime became honed into why: Ayano, a Highschool Girl has the knowledge to turn people into literal mindslaves with almost zero to needed requirements stat wise. (He might change this later, but he has made ZERO mention to it as he has with other things, so for now? I doubt it)

Why have I made it this way?

Mainly to incorporate things from the game rather than being a simple club accessory into a more compelling story with a sense of mystery even though I basically laid it all out for you as to why she acts the way she does and her family- as it is just a concept but a concept that’s currently more fitting to me than the current iteration. And why she can do and engage in certain things, rather than use a ‘bizarre mental illness that also is seemingly actual ones’ as a plot device to explain certain mechanics, along with the fact of knowing how to properly utilize poison among other killing mechanics, granted you need certain stats before doing that? Ayano needs to have a reason WHY she would know to be able to jump from point A to B to C and so on with that logic.

As for story-line? While I made it that this is rooted in tradition can seem highly unlikely as actually possible: for there are traditions in this world that have been going on for generations. In fact, some of even the most popular plot-lines in popular Japanese anime have involved outdated or dogmatic practices and traditions as being something they need to overcome together as a whole.

All verses will be typed as exactly in bold to separate them from one another. Ultimately there is a canon verse to this blog, but it is up to you the player rper decide on kind of path you want Ayano on to interact with your muse.

Eyes on you.

Ayano is fixated on the muse she is rping with and sees them as her ‘Senpai’ or person she wants to be forever with by any means necessary. This can be countered with the muse knowing and helping Ayano through her condition. This tag is limited to no specific muse so long as they’re in her age range as she can even become fixated on her ‘rivals’ for how casual I’m willing to be with this. Do tell me if you want it to be AFTER she gets help, as Ayano will attempt to kidnap them prior to being abducted by Megami to get help when Megami can’t sit idly by any longer. Muse must be in 2-3 years within age range for this to apply or be considered.

Hugs on you.

A recovered Ayano can be a ‘yandere’ for her friends or made family. To give an idea of how this tag differs from the other one: she’s completely loving as she is in her romantic fixations, though her actions are completely chaste in intention.

Living again.

Ayano’s main verse is recovering from a lifetime of trauma and overall did not follow in her mother’s footsteps completely, taking a morally gray stance in eliminating her rivals, doing her best to not traumatize anyone but making them back off through intimidation and possibly violence with her identity masked or befriending them on accident in the goal for Senpai’s affection but also from her own sense of warped morals. Only resorting to murder with the worst of the worst and while she did a lot of bad? She also did a lot of good and saved people albeit in order to be with Senpai, never murdering anyone outside of what her mother conditioned her with privately and forced her into.

In this main verse: she is living with Megami after killing Ryoba to save her and a few of her other rivals that were considered ‘loose ends that knew too much by her’. Megami is the one who originally apprehended Ayano after piecing things together and unable to idly standby while Ayano was in need of help and needed to be stopped, rehabilitating her in the process with therapy and freeing her from that fixation she had on Senpai as she saw the good in Ayano from an outside perspective but also on a personal level. Note: the Megami I’m rping with can be romantically involved with Ayano if they desire, that is up to them or to assume a more familial relationship, helping her deal with the tragedy she endured and protecting her during the initial reveal and overall therapy Ayano needs.

Note: this verse can start at any point in time of the verse, even so much as the first day of back to school.

Masked.

The mask itself is hard to rip off and you’d practically have to hurt her in the process to forcibly remove it fully. But it resembles that of something faceless and can only be seen out of, but not into. Its pure white in design and the material is easily washed and disposable. She has a voice distorter while this is on that makes her sound further intimidating, though she mainly did this on purpose- as rather than sound robotic. It sounds multi-toned, calm, soothing and yet eerie.

No going back.

Ayano has resorted to murder of the innocent and also has no qualms about framing, or traumatizing anyone to get what she wants. This follows a ‘bad end’ route for the rp and will eventually result in Ayano apprehended by Megami and her forces and temporarily locked away for several years to get help with Megami’s intervention. With her mother imprisoned for extreme child abuse, murder, rape, and so on with possibly being put on death row? Ayano has to live with her actions for the rest of her life as Megami takes responsibility for her as I see her as the type of person to look at her father and just: ‘You’re bad at this, I’m taking over now’ with how morally righteous I see her as.

text

Interactions but online, as in if Ayano was using the internet on the actual website itself: tumblr. As there are a lot of canon interactions in the game on her phone? So it works as she will age in real time in this verse: she is currently only 17 right now.

tw (insert trigger here)

Exactly how it is. So tw blood, tw stalking and so on and it will be under a readmore anyway if it’s extreme violence and torture.

A Yokai’s scorn.

There are some muses that clash far too much with Ayano’s world to properly interact with her. So I’ve decided to give her a supernatural verse.

I’ve decided to make Ayano a mixture of immortal spirits for what kind of Japanese Spirit/Demon or ‘Yokai’ she’d be and I was leaning more towards spirits than anything.

Her inspiration:

Betobeto-San

Betobeto-san is a formless specter, and is only recognizable by the telltale sound it makes – the “beto beto” sound of wooden sandals clacking on the ground.

People who walk the streets alone at night sometimes encounter this harmless but nonetheless disturbing yokai. It synchronizes its pace with walkers and follows them as long as it can, getting closer and closer with each step. For the victims, this can be quite traumatic. The haunting sound of footsteps follows them wherever they go, but every time they turn around to see what is following them, they find nothing.

Teke Teke

As a young school boy was walking home at night, he spotted a beautiful young girl standing by a windowsill resting on her elbows. They smiled at each other for a moment. The boy wondered what a girl was doing in an all-boys school, but before he could wonder more about the girl she jumped out of the window and revealed her lower half was missing. Frightened, he stood in the sidewalk, but before he could run, she cut the boy in half and the boy was found dead but his lower half was missing.

What Ayano is and how she functions:

Ayano was born from human sadness, loneliness, love and yearning. That’s how she came into existence is manifesting from those innate desires, often seeking out those who wander alone with the same ones. Thus her willingness to grant boons without a question so long as it does not conflict with her own warped morals.

Basically I’ll be taking this as Ayano is a ‘born spirit’ and while immortal, can be dispelled temporarily or fought back if the person is supernatural themselves but as imagined? Can be hard to deal with as most of the time once angered, as Ayano at first is harmless and will simply follow lone travelers as a wandering spirit, having no disfigurements and appearing as a young Japanese Teenage Girl in traditional garments and only allowing glimpses to be seen before vanishing completely, though the clack of her sandals can still be heard.

Eventually, after a day of off and on stalking during the night, the spirit will converse with the traveler on really any topic at night. Maybe the weather, their lover, or even what era it is- the possibilities and accounts have been numerous. Albeit, there are occasions where the spirit will become enamored with the traveler she’s following if they’re a young teenager such as she, pursuing them more frequently and even flirting or complimenting them and capable of physical contact. However… if the spirit is rejected harshly or told to go away in any circumstance whether enamored or not other than politely and calmly asking to be left be: a farming scythe will appear in her hand as blood begins dripping from her eyes and a great wound appearing on her abdomen shows with entrails hanging partially out, the Yokai will then pursue relentlessly until her victim is mutilated and brutally murdered with a vicious smile. Then vanishing with the remains to who knows where.

Though if appeased after seven days and humored in her dealings, the spirit is capable of giving great rewards or even taking one favor and will fulfill it without question so long as it doesn’t conflict with their own warped moral code. However if simply asked to be left alone peacefully after three times each time she disappears and then reappears later, the spirit will leave and give no reward or punishment. But will give no reward if asked to leave even once if the duration is met to its end.

Often many times, the spirit will attack people who respond in fright in the heat of the moment, as it needs to be done ‘politely and calmly’ with no sense of hostility or horror. So as you can imagine? Things get quite messy at times for those not in the know of Ayano and her ways.

Weapon reference so people don’t get confused and think of the western version of a farming scythe.

The home.

Her home essentially is her own heart which consists of an endless hallway of flesh that constantly beats and convulses as if well- you guessed it: a heart. Inside, she sits on a regular mat when dormant if not seeking or being sought out with her offerings or gifts she has received over the thousands of years, the walls lining with countless masks of her victim’s faces that she carefully carves off and then places onto a wall to dry and harden and reform. The masks once taken shape, resemble the victim’s face almost exactly, albeit their eyes are merely darkened holes as if to see out and simply look like ordinary masks, having her own ‘special section’ for her victims she’s been fixated on that’s deeper inside her heart’s winding chambers. Although… visitor’s under her protection will often find themselves feel as though the masks themselves are following them with their empty eyes.

The leftover flesh is absorbed and essentially consumed as it becomes a part of Ayano’s ‘home’. This is to ease the emptiness she feels eternally in her ‘heart’ and that’s why she keeps her victims close to it, or well, more literally inside of it as a part of it. Taking the phrase ‘keep them close to your heart’ rather literally.

Habits.

She’ll often take the masks of her victims to temporarily meld onto her face to admire herself with their face and build.

She collects the faces of her victims to fill the eternal emptiness in her heart.

She is willing to trade faces with people from the victims she’s acquired of their own choosing, thus ‘visitor’s under her protection’ are a possibility when picking out and trying out masks for the ‘face trader’. The trader themselves will be able to either keep the face and build or simply the face, but never just the build. Albeit can leave some parts of the body unaltered, such as if the person in question is simply transgender and doesn’t wish for their sex to be changed as well or someone who wishes to change it entirely along with looks if they’re transsexual. The participant must be specific or Ayano will simply leave them in the new un-altered body if they wish for the build as well.

If simply asked for a boon when sought out via things to attract her, Ayano will fulfill this without question if there is no trade conducted. What this means: later on, without warning as years or simply weeks passed, Ayano will absorb them completely as if stalking them with the clacks of her sandals. However, when they turn around? Well… I’ll let that be a surprise for whoever wants their muse to find out as their face will appear in her heart’s wall.

She deems it as you always have to give her something if you want a boon, even if it’s yourself.

Will trick others into giving themselves to her when they ask for boons if she sees that it’s possible.

Is extremely affectionate to the few friends she makes. Will revisit previous companions she’s granted boons to with no strings attached to simply enjoy their company. Especially if she’s fixated on them.

A few powers to simply list them off.

Immortality, albeit not invincible but can return from being vanquished or forced away.

Reincarnating others through budding them in a large flesh cocoon that instantly hatches once dropped from her hand: this is necessary for a ‘face-trade’. And to take inspiration off certain myths and shows.

Absorption/Soul Absorption.

Dimensional travel and having a dimensional plane of her own.

Limited shape-shifting so long as she has the mask.

Limited wish granting.

Using her victim’s mask to form ethereal and formless wearers of it to deliver messages in her voice.

(Maybe more to be added later, I might be forgetting some)

How to seek her out and appease her rather than herself finding you.

Traditional offerings or sacrifices whether great ones or personal ones regarding loneliness, along with food and incense to attract her. Alternatively, you use a charm given to you by her, and while greeting offerings aren’t necessary after befriending her? They’re greatly appreciated and could actually earn you her friendship.

To trade with her.

It must be exceptional and befitting of a Yokai. Whether it’s an offered task to do for them such as to expand their influence to others with great statues, writings or knowledge, or to perform something at the request of Ayano on her terms if accepted. Or a grand sacrifice for a grand boon or a small sacrifice for a small boon.

#ooc #tbd #timestamp

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