Like what even the fuck. How much do Makoto and Ayane remember? Obviously Makoto missed Ami killing Nodoka, but Ayane doesn't seem to remember Maya's notes in the basement? And that's without even getting into the "prime" timeline rooftop scene with Kaori and Naoto before the fracture.
Remember Sensei even forgot his memories for a while until something triggered them during the first reset we see. Just because Ayane's forgotten them right now doesn't mean she's wasted her time during Halloween. If anything it's Sel tipping his hand saying the other characters need some development / this cliffhanger needs to stew a bit longer.
Also remember sadsack sensei doesn't exist anymore, sensei is no longer sad. We're back to our regular depressed Sensei who isn't going to become some Prime Maya level source of plot progression until he has enough control of the simulation to actually do something. Right now plot is happening to him, he hasn't seized control yet cause no one knows how to conciously do it yet
So, with my limit english skill, u can no longer use dark mode and guide at the same time? Of i need to change which one in that file to that work, i try 2 times, paste right in, and change darkmode.rpg into progress_screen.rpy, seem first one dont work and second broke the progress one xd, i used Android btw, this game tooooo light for me, kinda hard to read
how are you guys able to see your playtime/time on save?
I hope that Sel makes whatever the consequence will be for cheating / triggering DRM interesting and interactive. Assuming his vigilance towards manipulation / distribution of the game files comes from artistic vision, an anti-cheating/DRM measure that further reinforces / touches on that artistic vision would be more preferable to one that ends the experience, presumably. The narrative is hard to progress through, both thematically and mechanically, but never is it impossible. As it tells us we can (and should) stop at any time, it also becomes more linear and simpler to progress, while also becoming more difficult to digest due to increased complexity and flirtation with taboo --themes get heavier, progression gets lighter. I think that an entirely harmful consequence for cheating doesn't fit, if anything cheating leading to a variation that provides additional context and which more completely resolves the scenarios would work.
This all assumes that the main motivation for Sel's earlier actions against cheating/DRM was from clashing with artistic vision and not due to concerns about money. I am hopeful that I will be able to read this story in full some day, and would be rather disappointed/disillusioned if my machine has been marked in a way that prevents me from doing so because I installed a guide mod when it was recommended to do so. Would be silly for players to be punished for initially treating this game like the ergoe it disguises itself as and not the top shelf denpa that it is, though I do think there is room for the game to provide a different experience for those who continue to treat it as an ergoe in spite of it's best efforts to dissuade them from doing so.
Found a 'bug' while trying to sort out this grind run. The game's event tracker for "The Room With Clocks" is set between the day 21 night -> day 22 morning. Fucked up how I was wanting to start the run cause I'd get the Maya event where she asks about my spooky life and I somehow only know of one of the events even though I haven't seen either, in fact at that point I could have gone to Mayas room and gone to The Room With Clocks.
That's a narrow interpretation of what we said. Apart from DeSkel, which must have cheered for Darth Vader when A New Hope premiered, most of us had deep problems with Nodoka. Half of these was because she felt like a self-insert that had just too much knowledge and did things without consequence, and the other because of the extreme things she did. The last few updates explained and justified all of these bit by bit. Her sacrifice was just the culmination of it all.
Now, I still don't like Nodoka. But that's an emotional reaction to her hurting many of the characters I like. Looking at her from an objective pov, I can understand and even admire (some of) what she's done. She's been the most productive not-member of RAS, and she did all that without being chosen in any way (other than maybe Himawari's help).
It might be a "narrow" interpertation, but it's also a direct quote. I don't remember who said it and I don't think it matters, was just stating my surprise at a take like that considering I've now finished the game.
I don't know about self insert or whatever but I do know she completely disregards everyone else's feelings for selfish gain and as a result, I don't like her at all. Still think what happened to her was undeserved obviously.
"Her sacrifice was just the culmination of it all. "
This the point of my off-hand comment, it's NOT a sacrifice, she just gets murdered.
Unless I have altered events for not screwing Ami which changes things, there was no sacrifice in mind, no self-reflection of her actions and as much as you can say "Well she knows about the resets and so is a dick because of that", this entirely goes against Akira's character arc and how he is trying to be less harmful, selfish, and indulgent. Nodoka does not make a leap of faith to better the lives of others at her own expense, she just gets sucked up into a reset error due to her investigations and gets shanked while taking solace in Akira and attempting to spill some beans. She's trying to figure things out, maybe it's just my interperation but I don't get the idea she's trying to "save" anyone from harm, especially not if she sees them as shadows as you said. She's a know it all that's grasping at straws to understand the one thing she can't, she isnt going to put herself in harms way for people she doesn't even think she can harm because of the resets. Instead, I think it's more likely she's acting out of desperation to understand her mother and what she was going through.
I don't think it matters how much she's learnt or what she told Akira about the rooftop, she clearly didn't know what was about to happen to her and that's my point. You can put it down to semantics but she obviously had no idea what was coming to her, wasn't for the sake others, and so isn't a grandiose send off.
TLDR: I don't think her actions were out of selfless-ness, but instead personal interest.
"Her sacrifice was just the culmination of it all. "
This the point of my off-hand comment, it's NOT a sacrifice, she just gets murdered.
I don't think it matters how much she's learnt or what she told Akira about the rooftop, she clearly didn't know what was about to happen to her and that's my point. You can put it down to semantics but she obviously had no idea what was coming to her, and so isn't a grandiose send off.
TLDR: I don't think her actions were out of selfless-ness, but instead personal interest.
I'd say these parts are a bit warbly. Nodoka didn't quite sacrifice herself. She was sacrificed. Don't know if it was entirely Paredolia or a third party dabbled but she was stolen from her time and dropped into a world she had to survive in long enough for Sekai to learn about her and add Nodoka to her harem while Nodoka enjoyed the color of the world again.
By the time she's coming up to Akira naked, she knows what's about to happen to her. At this point you could call it a sacrifice since she's stayed strong and didn't run away, making the best of a situation by having a useful death.
Her actions were fueled by personal interest, but she's personally interested in some selfless goals. She puts a lot of effort into protecting Futaba and Sensei, even when she's making him Slip because the ends justify the means. She was trying to solve the abstracted mother issue the entire time instead of merely trying to figure out how the world works, which is closer to what Prime and the RAS were trying to achieve.
Honestly yeah I can understand that. Re-reading a few times makes both of your points quite apparent.
I guess I'm really just waiting for more clarity before giving her such accument.
She very much did know what was going to happen, and it was a sacrifice because she chose to whisper things to Akira anyway. She didn't choose to meet him, but she chose to go through with the whispers. As Ami points out, she ruins it all by doing it. Nothing would have happened if she just had sex with him as Sekai intended.
I don't think anyone claims Nodoka does things out of selflessness, but that her actions are in order to free them all from the simulation, which is obviously for herself, for her mom, but also in everyone else's best interests.
Claiming everything she does is for selfish gain is missing the intricacies of the simulation and of a character aware of it. If you and 10 friends were stuck in hell, and only you out of them was able to try to break them out, regarding their feelings in a never ending and repeating cycle would be ignorant. Being caring or uncaring for them while within the cycles changes nothing, as memories don't carry over and everything can end at any second. First order of business would be breaking everyone out, no matter what.
Also, you say Nodoka doesn't make a leap of faith to better the lives of others, but her entire character is about making a leap of faith to break everyone out of the resets. She started that when she was a kid and her every action since then was aiming towards that objective (likely with her being aware of it or not, through reset compulsion).
And we also get the results of her arc seducing Akira and researching his trigger. Anyway, shmurfer ended up putting my points together before I could, but since I was already halfway through writing them, there you go.
Let me finish up by saying that one can definitely hate Nodoka despite all of this. I just think that her character is different from the other ones at its core, and what I meant by narrow interpretation is that hardly anyone would go from hating her to "well, she took a knife to the back, I guess I forgive her then". But that it was a slow buildup through multiple updates that answered many questions about both her motivations, and managed to paint her in, perhaps, one of the if not the most underdog position of all the characters - while still achieving much more than her counterparts.
All of that hinges on the idea that she's accepting an inevitable death, if that was the case, why didnt she go outside with sensei when he asked if she wanted to because it would have saved her in that moment, why would she ask that he forces her to stop investigating, why wouldn't she explain why the rooftop is bad, why would she not speak to Sensei more about when she knows he's part of it, I see absolutely no good reason for this move unless she needed an alternate timeline Ami to murder her, but surely that wouldn't matter either because it's not the "real" Ami.
It seems to me like it's far more likely she's bookworming her way into a thing she doesn't understand because she needs clarity rather than she's trying to save her "friends", several of which she's done things to hurt, memories which clearly continue. She's said it herself, people are stories to be learnt, to be written. They're tools for her ends, they were then, they are now.
This is why I don't see her actions as a sacrifice.
All of that hinges on the idea that she's accepting an inevitable death, if that was the case, why didnt she go outside with sensei when he asked if she wanted to because it would have saved her in that moment, why would she ask that he forces her to stop investigating, why wouldn't she explain why the rooftop is bad, why would she not speak to Sensei more about when she knows he's part of it, I see absolutely no good reason for this move unless she needed an alternate timeline Ami to murder her, but surely that wouldn't matter either because it's not the "real" Ami.
It seems to me like it's far more likely she's bookworming her way into a thing she doesn't understand because she needs clarity rather than she's trying to save her "friends", several of which she's done things to hurt, memories which clearly continue. She's said it herself, people are stories to be learnt, to be written. They're tools for her ends, they were then, they are now.
This is why I don't see her actions as a sacrifice.
I don't follow why you'd say that wasn't the real Ami, and even less why that wouldn't matter. We all saw alt Maya Prime, I'd be baffled if someone thought they shouldn't consider her revelations to matter to our Maya Prime.
At least half of your points concern how Selebus writes his story, so there isn't much that can be said about that. The very same has been said multiple times of Maya, Ayane and Akira "why they haven't taken this very reasonable course of action?", well, because Selebus didn't want them to.
In regard to Nodoka's sacrifice, Pareidolia put her there to move Akira (one of his gifts to do it). She knew that she was going to die by Ami, and one would assume that is what moves Akira. When coming back, Akira notes that Nodoka should not be recruited into RAS, remembering what she asked of him - thus being effective in at least being memorable for him (if that "moved" him, we'll have to wait and see as "moving" him seems to have a different meaning anyway).
Well, I don't really have anything else to say about Nodoka. You seem to assume that her ultimate goal is seeking clarity by using people as tools, as if she would be doing it as a pet project that doesn't equate salvation for everyone if she succeeds. We'll just have to disagree I guess, as I simply can't see her as anything else than a poor girl in a very unfortunate situation trying her best. Being able to see Nodoka as a character on an ego trip or a cliched sociopath toying with others just for the hell of it was at one point possible, but it isn't for me anymore. I find her rather complex now.
Yeah we'll just have to wait and see where things go in the future.
I was under the impression that the Ami they had there was just a random alt timeline Ami, am I wrong about that?
And for what it's worth, I hope you're right as it'd be a much more interesting character than her just doing whatever she wants to.
Yeah we'll just have to wait and see where things go in the future.
I was under the impression that the Ami they had there was just a random alt timeline Ami, am I wrong about that?
I wouldn't call her completely random. (I believe) she isn't our Ami. If there's a Maya Prime, that could be an example of a Ami Prime. Gone through endless resets trying to get the world she wants, assumedly with some control over the resets themselves.
I'm not even sure if rapist Ami is our Ami or just another appearance of this Ami prime, though my reasons are purely logistical rather than me analyzing how she talks. Back when Sensei was on autopilot due to Maya Prime's 'death', on a save file where you aren't fucking Ami, there's a scene where she's trying to make you cum into a jar. This is played for humor I think, but this is also a really low tier goal for someone who has control over resets isn't it? Unless she got contacted by Ghost Sekai or whoever she's working for, and has started getting the keys to the kingdom. But that's something we have no direct evidence for.
Speaking of things we have no evidence for, I've been thinking about it for a while. We may have witnessed the creation of am i okay
" I'm not even sure if rapist Ami is our Ami "
Honestly same, Ami's place in the resets confuses me a lot here.
I've never been good at conceptualizing alt universe stuff but Ami clearly is aware of it, something that dawned on me when she didnt repeat herself when maya prompted it AGES ago, but instead just called Maya an idiot. There's also that one reset where someone is hiding on the stair area on the roof. I think it was Ami / Sekai but I'm sure someone else can confirm that one.
Yeah we'll just have to wait and see where things go in the future.
I was under the impression that the Ami they had there was just a random alt timeline Ami, am I wrong about that?
the notion of it being an alt timeline is being used to make it simpler to understand. But as of this moment, we don't know enough. That could be the past, or even the future (although it's more likely to be the past).
If we're to assume Ami was the "original Maya"/original main girl (which I believe to be the case), then it would follow that that timeline could be a past cycle before Maya was a thing. It is a bit weird that that Ami kind of recognizes Nodoka though, or maybe she was just talking about what Nodoka said just prior, idk.
Anyway, regardless, that "alt" Ami, or past Ami, delivers very important info in conjunction with the Ami that tortures New Maya, that makes us understand a lot about our Ami's arc and her relationship with "Mega Ami", and possibly Narrator Ami. To which extent is still unknown, but definitely evidence of a lot of previous theories.
the notion of it being an alt timeline is being used to make it simpler to understand. But as of this moment, we don't know enough. That could be the past, or even the future (although it's more likely to be the past).
If we're to assume Ami was the "original Maya"/original main girl (which I believe to be the case), then it would follow that that timeline could be a past cycle before Maya was a thing. It is a bit weird that that Ami kind of recognizes Nodoka though, or maybe she was just talking about what Nodoka said just prior, idk.
Anyway, regardless, that "alt" Ami, or past Ami, delivers very important info in conjunction with the Ami that tortures New Maya, that makes us understand a lot about our Ami's arc and her relationship with "Mega Ami", and possibly Narrator Ami. To which extent is still unknown, but definitely evidence of a lot of previous theories.
"the notion of it being an alt timeline is being used to make it simpler to understand. But as of this moment, we don't know enough. That could be the past, or even the future (although it's more likely to be the past)." Agreed, im 100% simplifying it to try understanding it better.
"It is a bit weird that that Ami kind of recognizes Nodoka though"
Wait this is a really good point, Nodoka won't have joined the class by this point will she?
