Anyone else find it laughable that the DIKs would be awake and assembled on the balcony for the walk of shame tradition the morning after this huge party? They'd more likely be exhausted and wasted.
Plus, what also seems odd to me is that anyone walking across the main hall from downstairs where MC's room is located is NOT NECESSARILY COMING FROM MC'S ROOM! They could have been asleep in the theater, etc. so I do not understand why it should add drama when it can so easily be attributed to something other than sleeping with MC.
Having played all routes but the Sage's I have to say this was a great episode. I loved the scene waking up with Nicole. Beautiful. Some of the minigames were pretty hard to do, especially on a very old computer. But I'm looking forward to where this will go in the future. Funny I was right assuming Arieth would be the pregnant girl. I guess some DIKs and jocks will be wondering if they are the father. I'm somewhat surprised DPC sort of opened a path for the red headed friend of Jill's by having her boyfriend getting caught cheating on her with the blondie. I thought the fanfare for her was mostly memes and not really on the cards, but maybe DPC reads what players write or simply has the same ideas. So maybe the Jill path will have some interesting twists after all.
Having played all routes but the Sage's I have to say this was a great episode. I loved the scene waking up with Nicole. Beautiful. Some of the minigames were pretty hard to do, especially on a very old computer. But I'm looking forward to where this will go in the future. Funny I was right assuming Arieth would be the pregnant girl. I guess some DIKs and jocks will be wondering if they are the father. I'm somewhat surprised DPC sort of opened a path for the red headed friend of Jill's by having her boyfriend getting caught cheating on her with the blondie. I thought the fanfare for her was mostly memes and not really on the cards, but maybe DPC reads what players write or simply has the same ideas. So maybe the Jill path will have some interesting twists after all.
i posted this waaay earlier in the thread, but it was probably too early and was washed away by endless crashing and looping complaints:
if MC "dates" someone
my quick comment on the Riona getting her own path: i see a lot of people excited that she may soon be "date-able", and i wonder how many have stopped to think about what that actually means (if anything)
we effectively started "dating" Jill when you choose her over Sage and go to the picnic. but since then what have we actually done with Jill that encapsulates why people would want to "date" any of these characters? we dont actually go out on dates with her, spend quality time with her, get to know her and her family, etc. this game isnt a dating simulator. we dont spend EXTRA time with her, we spend the allotted time (which DPC gives every girl each update) with her because "dating" her railroads your future path choices and so the choice (or non-choice) becomes binary anyways and essentially out of your control.
so while i appreciate the IDEA of making Riona able to be pursued and potentially allowing her more character growth, the EXECUTION by DPC of what "dating" is in this game isnt going to satisfy people who actually want to DATE these characters. dating in this game is really just a kind of label and so far hasnt amounted to anything i would consider significant (unless you count the sex scenes, but that seems like a cop out)
just my initial thoughts on the Riona situation and on the "dating" in general
I saw it, but it's somewhat different beast at this point of the game. For characters who aren't in relationship with MC you don't lose just some vague "dating" content. You lose access to pretty much all of it other than casual interactions, including what up to this point was provided as simple hook ups.
As much as I enjoy this game being locked out of content definitely annoys me. I don't really care about harem stuff specifically, I just like to be able to see all of the content in one playthrough and I'm pretty sure I've just been locked out of Isabella's stuff which sucks since she was one of my favourite characters. Even worse since I think the decision that lead to that was hours ago so going back and playing up to where I am again would take ages, even with skip.
Feels like the more episodes in you get the more stuff you get locked out of which isn't really my style.
Well, I've played through a substantial portion of Episode 9, and I'm sorry to say I didn't like it much.
If I'm being subjective, it was more or less everything I feared: one excuse after another to stall the relationships with the chosen LI, with a *massively* overblown party to distract us from everything else. If I'm trying to be objective things are better: there's still a lot of sharp dialog, goofy fun and (of course) sex to enjoy. But even then, I think the structure of this episode is very badly conceived. The Halloween party goes on way too long, the vaunted branching actually feels less distinct that the old paths did, and there's a real disconnect between DPC's obsession with consequences and the frankly moronic shit he makes the characters do to keep things on his preferred rails.
IMHO as Christmas gifts go, Episode 9 was the relative who spends an obscene amount of money on trendy, high-priced junk to make up for the fact they didn't pay enough attention during the year to know what you actually want. On the one hand, it's comforting to know that they really do care, but on the other hand it's hard not to be a little disturbed at how much they wasted on stuff you're never going to use.
Episode 9 didn't give me the stronger romantic connections I was looking for in the wake of the crossroads, and it certainly didn't do much to advance the plot. It did deliver a lot of sex scenes, but you sure have to slog through a lot to get them. The high water mark is probably some nice work with the side girls on the Others branch (particularly for Quinn, Riona and Zoey), but that just deepens my suspicions that Season 3 will be all about stalling the LI branches while the new girls play catch up. I'm not waiting 2-3 years for that.
We'll dive into the nitty gritty of the Episode then call it a wrap, which will obviously involve spoilers. But first, a quick note to a certain member of the audience:
So that's my take on Episode 9. IMHO it was not the episode we needed at this point. But it's pretty clear it wasn't a mistake, so we might as well accept it or move on.
tl;dr An overgrown free-roam that slows down the LIs, speeds up the side-girls, delivers plenty of spectacle and ends on yet another cliffhanger, all without actually advancing the story.
I'm in the same boat as you in the sense that I think I'll only be playing my main Bella save from now on. Although I didn't particularly enjoy it, I do appreciate the effort DPC made with the haunted mansion and planning mini-game, but the freeroams completely broke me, I was never a hater before but by the middle of this episode I felt like I was doing a chore...
After replaying Bella's scenes a couple of times now, I do like what DPC did with her, despite her being my favourite LI, I also realized that MC didn't look like he'd fit in with her at all even without taking the age gap into account, but man did DPC make it work in this episode in my opinion. MC now understands her better and her sense of humour, their back and forth felt really natural and I found it it funny, their relationship was done well and EP9 Isabella is completely different from EP1 Isabella, seeing her actually smile, laugh and be happy was wonderful to watch and I look forward to see how it evolves.
With this said, I also acknowledge the lack of progress in the story and my main fear became true, even with Jill confronting her, DPC still refuses to bring James into the conversation, it seems a bit absurd to me at this point... But I do understand why Jill is so angry and is avoiding her, Bella really broke her trust, even if MC only goes on one date with her, it was still Bella who incentivized it (in a CHICK route) to the point where she called Jill to the library to try and hook her up with him. The moment Bella involved herself with MC the secret wasn't only hers to keep and should've told Jill as soon as she realized she couldn't fight against her feelings.
Then there's the issue with Bella's route itself for me which is the drama that keeps piling on without none of the other issues she has, being dealt with, there's James, the teacher thing, the Jill thing and now there's also Nick finding out about them, it almost feels like the relationship is reaching a point of no return and Bella's life will be completely ruined... I'm curious to see how DPC will handle it.
But yeah, for the first time since I started playing this game I'm not actually excited for the next episode, I'll certainly play it, but I can't feel hyped after EP9's Bella ending was literally a repeat of EP8 and after DPC pulled that stunt with that bullshit intro which might not even come into play until the end of the season or even on season 4 only.
I saw it, but it's somewhat different beast at this point of the game. For characters who aren't in relationship with MC you don't lose just some vague "dating" content. You lose access to pretty much all of it other than casual interactions, including what up to this point was provided as simple hook ups.