I'm not disagreeing with you? I'm just stating that yeah Luka DOESN'T have any agency and he never did. That's the whole point of the game.
- Thread starter Muff Diver
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Yoloswagking
Well-Known Member
- Sep 29, 2017
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Mhhh,I need to disagree with you on this one because even if you think that both monsters and angels route are forced on him they still begin with his choice to go on their side.
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One of the best RPG games. I finished the game in one gulp, without even having time to look at the h-pictures.
congratulations how long did it take you to beat and what level was your Luka
- Jun 24, 2018
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Nah, Yoloswagking is right. Luka doesn't have any agency when it comes to getting raggle-banged by the gals, he is pretty submissive there. That's just how the setting works, they're predators and prey doesn't usually choose to be eaten. However, narratively speaking, he has as much agency as any other stereotypical hero in any other story, which is a lot.
Don't forget that he chooses to become a hero, he puts in all the effort to train as one (in Paradox putting up the signs to attract adventurers and give them discount in exchange for knowledge/skill training), and it's his choice in the original game to not harm monsters and to accept them to begin with.
The premise of Paradox kinda makes things a bit wonky, but Luka makes plenty of personal and nonpersonal choices on his own that have a huge influence on what happens, and the story itself suggests he always had a lot of influence to begin with.
A character lacking agency is literally swept along by the river and never tries to fight it other than to keep from drowning. The inciting incident traps them instead of flops motivation on the table.
Even from the beginning of the game, there was nothing stopping Luka from just staying in his village. He always had agency. It'd be different if Alice/Ilias had threatened to kill the villagers or him if he didn't obey them, or if something was chasing him, etc.
That would leave him with a lot less agency since he would have few logical choices.
can you post a screenshot of his stats and equipment to see how high my stats need to be and what gear I need
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AnonJohn
Newbie
- Dec 1, 2017
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God damn, I remember that Cirno doujin. That has to be like, what, over 10 years now?
how do i raise the favorability/likeability of doll monsters like
since they don't accept any kind of food or drink
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have them in your party and they gain favor over time per combat if i remember correctly
Luka has so much agency that at any point, he can choose to get eaten/raped/bad ended in a myriad of ways and none of the characters he allied up until that point would bother to save him. The fact that the canon shows that he carries on and sees everything to the end purely based on his own conviction is enough proof to show that he has his own will that quite literally changes the world in a way that a stereotypical monomyth protagonist would.
Desregaurd
Newbie
- Jan 10, 2021
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I'm seeing far too much cross-over of gameplay agency and character agency, I'll try to focus solely on character agency.
I can't speak on behalf of others, but when I refer to Luka lacking agency, I'm citing that the choices he can make in the game do not align with the person the game itself or even the OG has set him up to be. You've cited yourself that he has always been striving to be a hero, someone that takes action and that he does have influence on the story with his choices. A point I agree with to an extent. My point is that his choices ring hollow, this is a case where all roads lead to Rome and nothing his can do in the game will ever change that the Great Non-Decision wrecks him as a character and robs him of his agency in such a way that I can't reconcile who he is in Part 3 with anything that we've seen of him in Parts 1 and 2.
He absolutely is swept up in the river, and the game 100% traps him with that absolutely awful set of non-choices. The point you had about his agency? My point is that his lack of it up to that point for who he is as a person now sets him up as someone who wouldn't ever make either choice in the Great Decision. Luka has had all the agency in the world to spare and recruit some of the worst pieces of garbage in the game so far, but none of the agency to seriously hold them accountable for their actions and that paints him a certain way. The Great Decision invariably turns him into the worst piece of garbage for actively participating in plans with practically no pushback.
He is offered willing slavery by both parties and the notion to do anything other than eventually following through with both is never even considered, while a character with actual agency would have the capacity to do more than what he did. It's not that difficult to think of the multitude of ways the story in Part 1 and 2 could have impacted how he behaved in that part. For such a critical component of the story the investment from the people writing it should have absolutely been there, but nothing truly comes of it. No capacity to just say 'Give me a better plan or we all die I guess' or him citing how chaos isn't actually being addressed by either party, him marking arguments based on certain choices in his journey, critical characters he's talked to that have impacted how he perceives one side vs. the other, his choice of story companions actually pitching in on the two plans, etc.
My point is there were a lot of options here the writer could have put some effort in to display how his agency before could show us he has agency there, but the lack of it on both ends just crashes his character into itself and leaves me with a jumbled wreck of who Luka as a person is in Paradox. It's a game full of contradictory and nonsense plot points, but I consider this aspect of it to be the most damaging one for Luka.
- Jun 24, 2018
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Okay, if you're focusing on the first part of your statement about Luka not being who you think he was established as, then I misunderstood. That means you're not talking about agency, though. In literature, character agency is the ability for a character to make meaningful choices. This is always a good thing because it makes it seem as if the character (generally) earned what happens to them, good or bad. Characters without agency are usually a sign of bad writing, unless that's the point (or joke).
Having read what you've said though, it really just sounds like you simply don't like Luka's portrayal in Paradox and believe it betrays who he was established to be in the first game, which is something completely different.
The literal choices presented to you have nothing to do with agency, as games very often railroad you for the sake of gameplay. But you know this--you know that when the game does the spoosh and transitions into combat with music and turn-based elements, it's all representative and not literally part of the story, right?
Those in-game choices are like that.
When people talk about agency, they mean stuff like how Luka could have just stayed in town. Obviously that's not what happens, just like it doesn't happen in books, because the book/story/game/whatever has to take place. But you can sit down and logically say X character didn't have to make X choice but did.
That is agency.
And Luka has tons of it from the very start.
Now, whether or not Luka's story in Paradox embodies the Luka we've come to know in the original is a whole other thing entirely and mostly personal opinion. I can kinda see where you're coming from there, but we also have to remember that A)this is an indie game, B) this is an indie PORN game, and C) it's very unlikely the dev wanted to be a professional author or had any intention to, and very likely wrote a good story "by accident." Not to diminish his achievements, but it's definitely a 'broad strokes good' kind of story.
A sequel probably would have always been a gamble. So I'm not surprised the writing varies, especially with the story getting so ridiculous lol. Thus I'm willing to cut the guy some slack. He's made some classic mistakes but clearly he put more effort into Paradox being an RPG with bangable monster girls than a novel and even MGQ had a pretty simple story overall.
If I advanced too far in the game to acquire the items to obtain the Hero of Justice and Magical Girl jobs, is there another way to obtain them, or would I have to restart the game?
Starting over at the big decision doesn't help.
Justice Kaiser won't let me start the quest, and the Magical Girl isn't even in her house.
I really dislike how you can lock yourself out of some quests and crafting options by advancing the story.
Is there a list of missable stuff?
Starting over at the big decision doesn't help.
Justice Kaiser won't let me start the quest, and the Magical Girl isn't even in her house.
I really dislike how you can lock yourself out of some quests and crafting options by advancing the story.
Is there a list of missable stuff?
Desregaurd
Newbie
- Jan 10, 2021
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I don't know who the fuck he even is in Paradox. That the character so unwilling to kill in plot decisions can decide to go along with a plan that sees everyone he knows in the world killed with practically no pushback just doesn't compute at all.
I don't see agency and in-game choice as necessarily separate. That you do and that the game at times does and doesn't with his character can get confusing when trying to set up his character motivations.
I think that's a big weakness to the story, the in-game choice should have been interwoven with his agency as a character. How you played Luka up to the Great Decision should have informed him what he would have chosen, and therefore reflected the choices you would have had. That the Great Decision offers such meteorically bad options renders that possibility moot, but it could have been a display of agency for him and the player that ultimately didn't happen. Say for instance every choice you, the player, and therefore Luka, makes in the story revolves around supporting the monster side of things, then the Great Decision could have displayed that in some way by showing Luka going along with the Monster World's plan, vice-versa for Angel World, and if he couldn't settle on being one way or the other in his choices up to that point, then the player themselves make the gameplay choice for him, reflecting his agency as someone who isn't wholly convinced one way or the other.
That is the bare-bones of how it could have interwoven the two, nothing too out there or hard to conceptualize or innovative.
I just don't see how A, B or C should factor into this at all. Indie games have the same capacity as any other game to have a great story. A porn indie game is theoretically no different. And the dev doesn't have to be a professional to write something good. Let me expand on point C from you.
The way I see it, it's not just a matter of skill but of effort and investment. Do you believe that the dev made at least one good, solid plot point in this game or the last? If you do, then they can make good plot points, so it's not a stretch to believe that they can repeat that feat. If they can make one, then they can do so again, and again, and again, so while it would invariably take more investment and time, the potential is there for them to be able to arrive at a story that is eventually made up of all good plot points. Then you'd just have a good story because a story is a sequence of plot points linked to each other, and if the plot points are all good then the story is good.
I'm not coming at this from a perspective of expecting writing that isn't up to the dev's skill level, because the dev has shown they have the capacity to write good stuff. I'm disappointed at them for not living up to the potential they've shown they have, and ultimately leaving us with something inferior to what they could have given us.
Tachanka0203
Member
- Oct 24, 2022
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Alright how the f am i supossed to beat half of these enemies in part 3 when you side with alice. you legit get 1 shot almost every time with holy magic. and im stuck at Gabriela one shoting my entire team no matter what buffs i try on my team or debuffs i try on her
Ximzo
Newbie
- Oct 11, 2020
- 99
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Does someone knows how to upgrade the four sacred beast weapons / armor ?
I've talked to every blacksmith i had but nobody is showing me the "1 st upgrade", they only show the ultimate version upgrade :
- Four guardians east dominion Seyryuu helmet
- Armor of the four sacred beast Suzaku
- Shield of the four sacred beast : Genbu of the north
- Four saints of the west white tiger's fang
I can't find their "lower version" craft on any blacksmith, do i have to find all the blacksmith (i have 69 / 80 blacksmith) or defeat the chaos goddess first ?
I've talked to every blacksmith i had but nobody is showing me the "1 st upgrade", they only show the ultimate version upgrade :
- Four guardians east dominion Seyryuu helmet
- Armor of the four sacred beast Suzaku
- Shield of the four sacred beast : Genbu of the north
- Four saints of the west white tiger's fang
I can't find their "lower version" craft on any blacksmith, do i have to find all the blacksmith (i have 69 / 80 blacksmith) or defeat the chaos goddess first ?
The way that people still consider Luka a "hero of humanity" after Paradox is asinine. The way I interpret his choices in Paradox is that he's clearly a character that feels more affinity for the stronger beings (and considering his stock, it makes sense).
I don't know if it's route specific or not, but during Ilias' route, the blacksmith in Yamatai MW has some recipes for them.
Ximzo
Newbie
- Oct 11, 2020
- 99
- 61
- 183
I think that you've already tried but have you a medic doctor in your team ? (Amabie is awesome for example)