#stop trying to portray the LI and MC as good people with no faults

[yourqueenb]

Nah see I can already tell that this right here is exactly why Daphne acts the way she does. This man is out here already trying to get with the surrogate. And then he makes a unilateral decision about something that is literally life changing for all involved. This is actually insane 😭

[mysticfangirltrash]

Saeran’s Route Got Me All Sorts of Effed Up

One year ago, I was thrust into the world of Mystic Messenger by a dear friend (he knows who he is, the dork). I had heard a lot about it before, but never really downloaded it to get around to playing. Until one day, I did.

One year. One whole year and I was hooked into the game. Unlike most games I’ve played, Mystic Messenger had the most complex characters, going through struggles and pains so relatable that I could not help but love them.

This year, we had Saeran’s route finally in our hands. I was delayed in beginning to play it—for financial reasons at first and then I kept getting bad endings accidentally. When I finally got to playing it, I was excited. We already saved Saeyoung, aka 707, genius hacker of the RFA. Now we get to save his twin brother.

When you first start his route, Saeran doesn’t behave like in Casual and Deep route. It makes one wonder why he under the guise of “Ray”, a kind and gentle spiri, at the time. You find out why with each chatroom that opens deeper and deeper into his route.

I don’t want to ruin too much of Saeran’s route for those who haven’t played it yet, but I can say for sure that my heart never hurt more for a character before.

I feel a similarity between Saeran and I, the anxiety of never being good enough, of having so many faults, the fear of being thrown away, the desperation of not losing someone dear to us. I understand the feeling of wearing a persona that’s strong, that isn’t useless, that can’t be hurt—where he has one that he feels is every weakness he has. With each day that passes in the game, my heart hurts for Saeran. It hurts knowing that the cult is all he knows, that one of the people who was supposed to protect him only exploited and used him. Even when he can’t admit that he cares for the MC at present, deep down, he truly does.

Just from what I’ve seen so far, of all the people who needed to be saved—I really feel it was Saeran.

In his route, I also gained hatred for one character (okay, three if we’re being honest), a hatred that runs very deep. Rika is the main antagonist, the woman V loved, the woman who hurt V, and exploited Saeran. She manipulated and lied and abused to get her way. Her Believers were brainwashed and drugged into thinking that they were with Rika willingly when it was far otherwise.

Rika’s White Knights would come to her defense, saying her mental illness fueled her actions—that Saeran has likely killed people and did worse than Rika has. I hate that argument more than anything for a few reasons:

1. Saeran wouldn’t have done any of those things if Rika hadn’t drugged, exploited, and brainwashed him. His route has shown that he is the gentlest soul who wouldn’t hurt anybody, even to protect himself.

2. STOP DEMONIZING people with mental illnesses by excusing Rika committing crimes on her mental illness. She could have gotten help way before starting Mint Eye and exploiting Saeran and hurting V (not saying V is blameless in this, but he never raised a hand to Rika compared to Rika trying to blind him).

3. I’ve seen posts where Saeran at least acknowledges that what he’s done was wrong and apologizes in his route. Rika, in all the routes I’ve seen her in, has never done that. All she does is cast the blame on another scapegoat and not herself.

4. Unrelated to the twins, but Yoosung. Yoosung Yoosung Yoosung. He loved his cousin Rika and adored the bright image that she portrayed. If Rika was struggling, she HAD a member of her family that would not hesitate to help her. And Yoosung, that poor baby, got so depressed in Saeran’s route that I could almost forgive him for comparing MC to Rika all the time in his route.

5. Personal feeling: I WISH MC had options more suited to, what I call, “Shit I Would Do”: like having her square TF up and fighting me. I absolutely loathe Rika with every cell in my body. 

Aside from that, have some screenshots of my going through his route.  

[monasatlantis]

Code - Realize Guardian of Rebirth (Review for the rest of the LIs)

I finally finished Code - Realize Guardian of Rebirth and now its time for my final review. As you might remember, I already reviewed my first route, which was Victors and now I do all 4 of the other guys and probably some light review of the game as a whole.

So... lets go.

Now let me tell you first that none of the other routes were only half as easy as Victors. As an example, I got through Lupins route until the end, but only got the normal ending because I fucked it up a few times along the way. I also got killed (almost twice) in basically the first chapter of Van Helsings route. I almost felt tricked after Victors route was so damn freaking easy and the others just weren’t.

So... lets go through the routes and start with Van Helsing:

Now in my eyes, he got the shortest end of the stuck in his route. Cardia wasn’t freed from her poison at all only in his route. Everyone else had the chance for a touch or even a kiss but him. I absolutely get that he isn’t the overly romantic type and it makes sense for his character and his story that he pushed Cardia away constantly. I get that. But I still think he would have deserved a more romantic moment with at least one “real” touch, especially for Cardias sake. I also found Van Helsings route to be the most brutal. Starting with the whole Jack the Ripper segment, were you hear the woman screaming and you just know what he is doing to her without even seeing it or getting it described it was... yeah... urg! Also I think that in all the routes, including Van Helsings route, Delly and his relationship with Van Helsing has not be explored properly. I always felt he was more a plot device then a character that got the screentime, development and all the stuff he deserved.

Okay, moving on to Impey:

Now let me tell you that he had the route I was the least interested in and I just wanted to get it over with, since his character is so far away from being my type that it was not at all in my interest to see him get together with Cardia. But at least a managed to make me laugh a few times... But Impey didn’t have it easy with me, because his route was a Nadia - the secret of Blue Water reverse - Version thingy for me somehow XD I am not joking. Nemo and his Nautilus planing to take over the world using inventions far to advanced for their time period sounded like New Atlantis to me, just with... the wrong cast XD On the other hand it seems like people from New Atlantis were trying to stop Nemo with their many but less powerful ships and Impey and Cardia were Nadia and Jean in this whole mess who funny enough, were on the side of New Atlantis this time XD No joke, it really felt like it and it was so WEIRD! That Impey was a Vampire was hidden in plain sight in Cardias route, so it didn’t surprise me at all. And they really didn’t make a big issue of it either so it wasn’t really a big plot twist to begin with. Seing how great Impey was fighting in his route I think they really did him injustice in Lupins route, because there it looked like he had to be protected all the freaking time and couldn’t really fight at all.

Now lets move on to the worst route of them all. Saint-Germain:

Now his character as itself isn’t really my type either. But I was interested in his route because he was so mysterious, and it was absolutely unclear in which direction his route would go. So I was intrigued. And then I was.. uh... disappointed is not right... but also bit wrong. Per se his story was interesting and refreshing given how different it was from the other routes but I absolutely HATE does kind of relationships if they get portrayed in the wrong way. The guy she fell in love tried to strangle her and she wasn’t even mad at him and she only started to want to run away when her survival instincts finally kicked in. This is just another version of “MC trusts her abusive boyfriend”. Look. I get it. It was supposed to be oh-so-romantic that she still trusted and loved him. But in situations like that, common-sense should come before romance. She could have been angry at him and still notice his sadness and end up with him in the end. He very first instinct should have been to run and then she could have thought that she wants to find out whats going on, because she doesn’t think Saint-Germain would do that if he wasn’t absolutely forced to. I do think tho that the magical issue with IDEA was a bit misplaced in this game were there was already so much Alchemy and Scientific stuff involved. However... it was kept in moderation so I guess it was okay. I found it funny that it was his route in which it was palpable that Lupin was in Love with Cardia as well.

And now. The one you’ve been all waiting for and working hard for... Lupin:

Even tho I really felt good in Victor route, I think with Lupin you can just feel that he is simply the one who was meant for Cardia from the beginning. Even tho the route didn’t feel as special as I was hoping for after what we had to get through to get there, it was a good route and it felt extremely right. It also managed to round up all the other routes in a nice way, while for example in Victors route, we never get to know if Saint-Germain gets a punishment for not killing Cardia, because it gets never adressed. I really also liked that all the information we got in the previous routes that we were forced to do, were at least necessary to get part of Lupins route, because otherwise it would have been nothing but tortur to get through them all XD

And finally, what I overall think about this game:

I think it was a nice Otome-Game with a variety of different characters so one that is to your taste would definitely be among them. I totally liked that with Cardias poison and all I was all sad thinking: “That means no kiss-scene” and yet we got a Kiss-Scene in ALMOST every route. It was always a nice surprise. The soundtrack and the voice-acting was very good. I liked the artwork as well. The plot was mostly interesting but had a few holes here and there. As a team I liked all the characters, just not always in their individual routes XD Cardia was okay as the MC. I’ve seen worse and I really liked that, despite technically speaking just being a lifeless doll... she actually felt like a character with character instead of being totally character and emotionless like the MC from Amnesia.

So if I had to give the games points I would give it 8 out of 10. Minus one for forcing us to doe very route to get the true, true ending and minus one for a bunch of plotholes and questionable use of certain side-characters.

Which I think is very solid for a dating simulation. So there is a “like” from me.

(PS: There were a lot of spelling mistakes, but its not the games fault so I won’t count them.)