- Thread starter darkenergy100
- Start date
- Nov 25, 2020
- 1,493
- 2,941
Yeah arguments and debates are fun, sadly the developer couldn't just make a game without being biased, whether pacifist or geno supporter all sides can agree that it's a very bad look that ruins the narrative of the game, not to mention ex4 being his lovechild of spite.
- Aug 15, 2023
- 73
- 37
I really did not want to put a hand into this long ass debate you people have been having, but it keeps giving me notifications about it and I'm getting really tired of that, so I'm going to put my two cents in while I'm here. Or sixty cents, depending on how you look at it.
There's a lot of debate about the genocide route, and a lot of confusing regarding specific details within the route.
Firstly and foremost, I think the worst connotation that people are bringing into this game while playing it is that it is a hentai 'undertale', while yes, there are obvious inspirations such as the major three routes, the meta narrative meanings of saving and loading, and some other details. It is a mindset that when applied to SHRIFT is basically a forced comparison between the two. Coming into this game expecting undertale's level of narrative perfection and writing is a massive folly, as you're expecting a lot out of what is, at the end of the day, a porn game.
SHRIFT is nowhere near perfect as a story, but it is complicated, and ignoring smaller details will make the whole experience harder to understand as a whole.
One other point of confusion I noticed was regarding the Old One and the modified prologue within the Genocide route of the game. People are confused due to Kazuya's incident and the pre-SHRIFT events being notably different compared to Neutral and True Mercy, this is an intentional mystery, it was there to be clarified by EX4. Where it is explained that the Twins had used their own abilities of Intervention to create a timeline where the ritual had succeeded, and the seed of the Old One had been planted within Kazuya. At some point within the run(implied by the trial version to be the Second Iron Maiden fight), there is a shift in which the timeline that our Genocide Kazuya is in has shifted.
This retroactively means that by nature, Kazuya is not the same in both routes. It is a different character in a sense, the game is not directly blaming us as the players yet, but instead, is trying to showcase by the outright darker acts the Merciless Kazuya commits that the two Kazuyas between Neutral/Mercy and Genocide are NOT the same person. The demons throughout genocide are NOT blaming the player, they're explicably blaming the Old One, referring to it as the thing that Kazuya is being overshadowed by.
We'll get to player blame later.
For those that want to argue that setting up anything for EX1-4 to explain, I'd like to remind you that the EX Scenarios are NOT some kind of bonus DLC, but an intentionally important additional part of the narrative, they come with the game, they are meant to be a part of the game. Not an extra. This can be seen in multiple aspects, such as EX2 finally making good on Hecate's threat from the very end of Chapter 1.
These EX Scenarios are explained to be the Old One's latest attempts, trying to modify aspects of other timelines in the hope that it would make True Mercy fail, make the official timeline fail. For example, EX1 sets up the Harpy Queen in the direct hope that Mother Rabbit would effectively 'lose it', giving up on her system of beliefs and becoming a demon so cruel that Kazuya would not be able to find a way to befriend her. EX2 has the Old One directly involved through Hecate in the hopes of corrupting the TM Timeline's Hecate and getting access to the Official Timeline.
Next, let's talk about the Hyakki fight.
A lot of people want to complain about the impossible difficulty of the fight, which while I agree is true, I think its rather stupid to complain about that specifically? It really has nothing to do with the narrative we're debating, okay, Hyakki is impossible, what does this have to do with the narrative of the Genocide Route?
Anyways, once you've cheated and beaten that fight, you get the actual first instance of player blame, or player thanks, if you will, as the Old One both chastises you and praises you for choosing this route. Stating that it and you have been disconnected from Kazuya due to Hyakki's efforts.
It's not a big deal, not much to be said. However the Old One and the Intervener of course, are no longer able to access the game. Though you can bypass this by reopening the game approx- 7 times after it's broken, and the intervention device will restore itself.
One thing I do think is worth discussing about the Hyakki fight is not that it was impossible, but that it was made impossible, it was a change made later on. People like to use this as saying Alan hates people who chose genocide and is shitting on them, but thats happenstance and assumptions made purely to fulfill other peoples' narratives of the developer. I think a large part of this perspective comes from the fact that we had a large wave of new SHRIFT players due to MGQ Paradox's Collab, of which SHRIFT's Kazuya was a participant. Those players came in around the time EX4 was in development.
Alan made this change to the Hyakki fight around the time between EX3 and EX4, it was a shadow update that was not just a retroactive shitfest as some people like to think. We don't have a clear answer, but when EX4 came out, it was explained that Hyakki had changed her stance on matters and chosen to prevent the Genocide timeline from reaching a proper end and allowing the Old One dominance over it.
All routes are necessary for the narrative of SHRIFT to make sense, without Neutral Routes, the Intervener would lack the neccesarily knowledge to understand True Mercy and the risks of Samael. Without Genocide, the Intervener would never understand why the Old One needed the ritual or Kazuya as a host. The Hyakki fight change seems to be a live change Alan made in the hopes that people would notice it, as dialogue was ALSO changed around that time to show that Hyakki had been increasingly motivated for one reason or another.
Without this change, the Genocide 'deadlock', if you will, that allows the EX Scenarios to happen, wouldn't happen. It also explains why the EX Scenarios aren't available for the Genocide Player, simply put, theres no rhyme or reason for the Old One to mess with other demons when he's already gained control of this timeline, and of this Kazuya. It's a pointless endeavor. If you think that's half assed and an excuse, then at that point you have to ask if you actually care about the story, or are simply coping for the sake of coping.
Player blame exists in EX4, the game makes note of how other inteveners' actions allowed for the Old One to perform what it has, and blames them for abandoning Kazuya. Except it is not the game that makes this claim, it is Cheshire. The intervention device herself. Created by Richard from SHRIFT 2, or at the very least, placed within the game by Richard's hands. We can't make too many assumptions about Richard yet, as there are still two chapters of SHRIFT 2 left to come out that could give us greater insight into his beliefs. Though we know for a fact that he comes from a timeline where demons themselves are a lot less aggressive and cruel, or well, most of them are, for that matter, Richard himself may see the Intervener's actions from this point of view.
The mistake we're making here is assuming this player blame applies to us.
After Genocide, one of three paths is available to you as a player.
You can choose to be pardoned, and continue on with a new run.
You can choose to move forward, be disconnected, and leave the game be, assuming you're done with it.
You can choose to move forward, be disconnected, and reboot the game enough to force your way back in.
The second option is in a sense, abandonment, you've either found yourself satisfied with your experience, or have deemed it a boring or shitty one and left it to rot. In that way, the interveners, or players, who have done that, fit Cheshire and Richard's depiction of them. Albeit not for the same reasons they believe, but considering the weight our actions have on the world of SHRIFT, its not unfair for them to hate the ones who leave it in a sorry state.
The first and third however, are the people who have gotten to EX4 after a Genocide Run, by extension they are not one of the interveners who abandoned Kazuya, but rather came back to finish what they started and in a sense, repaired it.
This game never intended for the players to experience just True Mercy, a complete experience of SHRIFT would involve seeing all of it's endings. Neutral endings give context to True Mercy, True Mercy ties a bow on the original narrative, and Genocide brings up more questions for answers to be given through the EX Scenarios. One cannot look at any as the ending of SHRIFT, because by considering any of them the final end to the story, you're not only disregarding the whole package, but going out of your way to limit your experience with the game.
EX4 is not a 'lovechild of spite', it's purpose has been misunderstood as well as Genocide's and that is likely due to Alan's own writing, he's not perfect, he's made mistakes, and the ambiguity and vagueness he's left in some narrative decisions are what has led to somebody debates about the failures of his work's story. I do blame him in part for the fact that these debates happen, as had he been clearer, I'm sure a lot of people would have a lot less to complain about.
Now that I've said all that, the last thing left to actually discuss would of course be, why go True Mercy? In what world can Genocide not be the right path?
I could've discussed this first, but in the worry that people would start ignoring my words and say I'm 'yapping' once I start advocating for True Mercy, I decided to explain everything else before this.
Demons are murderers.
Let's get that out of the way, you are entirely right, any of you who believe that demons as a race including all their many species are killing people is entirely correct. Well done on figuring that out.
So why then, am I saying that sparing them is justified? Well, I'm not, not exactly. SHRIFT does not ever once try to say that the demons are good girls that should be spared, far from it, its a horrid leap in logic to assume that because SHRIFT allows you to befriend a few choice individuals amongst their species that it is saying they're all nice and good people.
I have placed a review on this thread that goes over every single demon in Neutral/Mercy and explaining why they can be spared, or have reasoning you can figure out for them to be spare able, from Kazuya's perspective. While I think my thoughts there are a little dated, they still mostly hold true.
Species demons, such as Barghest, Lampas, Echo, Camazotz, are not cases in which the species is suddenly justifiable. It is simply that individuals amongst that species have risen above the standard of their nature. They were given many chances yes, courtesy of Kazuya, but it doesn't change the fact that they demonstrated the capacity for that change. Lampas gave up on her light, she rejected the entire purpose of her species, even outright calling it out as a twisted game Hecate has designed and cursing out her former ruler for it. Barghest while simple-minded, was willing to trust Kazuya after he demonstrated kindness, once she had been shown that act, she not once after showed him hostility, appearing in My Room without another appearance of that specific barghest after that. Echo was at a loss after seeing the true love the Original had experienced, and was at even more of a loss after seeing Kazuya reject the possibility of quelling her as a threat with the powder, allowing Kazuya to complete dissaude her with words alone in the battle that follows and making her completely give up on the idea of forcibly claiming him. Camazotz, confused by the actions of a kind human that didn't resist any of her advances in My Room, and terrified of the idea that Kazuya might hate her for the actions of her brethren, desperately sought comfort within the recesses of his mind, and was welcomed in a symbiotic relationship that allowed her to rest at ease for the first time since coming to the human world.
Yet, in EX2, multiple barghest and Lampas show that they don't care about Kazuya's ideals, and Kazuya, while not trying to kill them, also doesn't assume he can make them turn over a new leaf. In the Echo Dream Battle, the echoes there explain that just because there are kind echoes that seek love in their species, there are certainly ones like them that seek souls and souls alone. And of course, the Camazotz Kazuya bonds with is the singular exception amongst its own species.
Kazuya doesn't go out of his way to think, oh "they're good demons that don't want to hurt people", no, Kazuya is trying to survive, and as he's told by the familiar and Lampas after their first encounter, its possible that his escape might be made easier by sparing the demons he fights rather than killing them.
Kazuya has been in stasis for five years, and the only people he has to interact with directly are demons that sought out his soul, his kindness to them can be seen as the result of a psychological desire for friendship and intimacy, not even of a sexual kind. The poor guy could use friends, so when he sees the opportunity to shift minds or to speak them to on some deeper level, he tries to, he's not going out of his way to say demons are good people in the slightest. His Devil's Office is not going against the war effort, its trying to do specific missions for the sake of seeking out MOW, and applying his pacifistic views where possible, but also knowing when to apply lethal force(Kazuya kills the Harpy Queen in EX1, knowing there was no chance for reconsideration).
Arachne
All of the opportunities that the My Room gang had and eventually used for change where only possible because of Kazuya's kindness, and many people argue that this is naive kindness. That is entirely correct, Kazuya is kind to the point of naivete. This is a man that's entire life and world has been turned upside down after being asleep for five years, his girlfriend is likely out to kill him, and these demons are the only kind of conversation he can really have, he's not just a horny bastard, he's a lonely man who's been lonely for a long time already. Whether it was not having parents at a young age, or his best friend being the only voice of a reason in a terrifying place, Kazuya is desperate. His naivete is his folly, because the game has never once tried to dictate that Kazuya was in the right for this disposition. The angelic magic within him yes, would have caused problems for the world due to him murdering demons, but in every single Neutral Ending Variant, Samael is not released, and either Kazuya lives on or the threat he poses is removed depending on which Neutral End you see.
Yes, the bonds he formed allowed him to reach his happiest ending, but that does NOT mean that forming these bonds was the correct thing to do.
Arachne exists as the counter to Kazuya's beliefs, and their battle perfectly reflects that. Arachne acts as the natural order symbolically, and the horrors Kazuya experiences within her cave are meant to be the final nail in the coffin, the reality check telling him to wake the fuck up and accept that all demons are murderous, and that just because he's bonded with a few doesn't mean they're on some uphill battle to coexistence. Demons eat humans, humans kill demons to survive. That's the natural order that SHRIFT has been trying to impose on Kazuya on his entire journey until now, and Kazuya has refused to accept it every single step of the way.
When Kazuya defeats Arachne, and chooses not to fire, his words tell all his thoughts. He knows that if he kills Arachne, he'd be proving her right, but in saying that, he knows he has, he knows humans and demons will never find some true coexistence, and he knows that the food chain Arachne has dictated is what the world has come to. That these two races will likely be fighting to the death forever, which is why he doesn't say that Arachne can change, nor does he try to say that he thinks demons are good people. His own words are that He doesn't want to kill any demons, he's understood that he's in the wrong, he knows by now that he's incorrect in believing that there could ever be a route for some 'true peace'. Despite that, Kazuya doesn't want to accept that, deep down he knows Arachne is right, but he wants to refuse it with his whole being, because once he gives in to what Arachne has declared, it will be unavoidable truth, and so he retains his naivete, tries to keep believing in his own ideals. Knowing full well those ideals are wrong.
Kazuya gives them three or four chances, he spares them despite their murderous intent, he's too good a guy in a cruel world. He knows this, and SHRIFT finally makes us see where Arachne's words have taken him through the EX Scenarios and the Epilogue.
The Final State of Kazuya
I think that the most beautiful thing about Arachne's narrative purpose is the actual effect its had on Kazuya by the end of the game. With accessing the EX Scenarios requiring everybody in My Room, Alan was able to go all out in demonstrating how Kazuya's opinion on matters had changed due to Arachne. There is still a kindness in him, in the epilogue he explains that he operates as a Demon Hunter, both helping humans and demons and trying to make ends meet for the two races where he can, he's a private investigator that tries to make peace where he can. In EX2 he expresses the desire to help Mormo out knowing full well the risks, and even afterwards is willing to forgive Mormo after seeing what Hecate had put her up to.
Yet in EX1, we also see that Kazuya isn't just a pacifist either, he understands the risks, and I'd like to believe that is all due to Arachne. The Harpy Queen fight demonstrates a ruthlessness Kazuya has never showcased through the entire True Mercy run, knowing full well that her mere existence was a risk to everybody existing in that EX Timeline, he did not hesitate and did not even give the Intervener a choice to make, taking them out with another shot within moments of their last words' being spoken.
Our Final Kazuya understands not every conflict can be resolved peacefully, and he is more than prepared to use violence if it really is the last method. In a way, the events of SHRIFT have broken him, in a way he'll never fully recover, but despite that, he's maintaing as many shreds of his original lonely beliefs as he can, even if he's the only one who will.
SHRIFT is not a perfect game, and I think honestly Alan should've taken a little less from Undertale's book, a lot of the misunderstandings in his attempted story and a lot of the genuien flaws with it coming from misdesigning the trio of routes as he did. Still, I think its unfair that so much outright hate is given to this single developer who gave so much to his project in the hopes that people would enjoy it.
At the end of the day, whether you agree or disagree with me. There are tons of H-Games with far less disputed perfect narratives, the original MGQ and Black Souls are popular for similar reasons. There are a lot of us who love SHRIFT for what it is, and I would hope that nobody in this debate, in other future debates, or just in this thread, or anywhere else for that matter, shits on one another for their taste and their opinions on this narrative.
I personally will never forget the chills Last Confession gave me in this game's True Mercy ending, and I feel bad if some people can't say they had the same feeling. I've given my thoughts on the matter, if you disagree, feel free to tell me, just don't be antagonistic about it. And please, enough with the hate for the creator, its just a shitty practice, Alan is clearly aware of his mistakes, and SHRIFT 2 is taking different decisions and directions in all manners of way, that last thing he needs is more people telling him what he fucked up. It'll just bring down the motivation of the poor guy. Everybody's gotten their jabs in already, we need to let sleeping dogs lie eventually.
No but seriously, this debate has been going on for a while, I'm constantly checking if people need help with their copies of the game so this is not helping matters :sob:.
Alright, bye now.
There's a lot of debate about the genocide route, and a lot of confusing regarding specific details within the route.
Firstly and foremost, I think the worst connotation that people are bringing into this game while playing it is that it is a hentai 'undertale', while yes, there are obvious inspirations such as the major three routes, the meta narrative meanings of saving and loading, and some other details. It is a mindset that when applied to SHRIFT is basically a forced comparison between the two. Coming into this game expecting undertale's level of narrative perfection and writing is a massive folly, as you're expecting a lot out of what is, at the end of the day, a porn game.
SHRIFT is nowhere near perfect as a story, but it is complicated, and ignoring smaller details will make the whole experience harder to understand as a whole.
One other point of confusion I noticed was regarding the Old One and the modified prologue within the Genocide route of the game. People are confused due to Kazuya's incident and the pre-SHRIFT events being notably different compared to Neutral and True Mercy, this is an intentional mystery, it was there to be clarified by EX4. Where it is explained that the Twins had used their own abilities of Intervention to create a timeline where the ritual had succeeded, and the seed of the Old One had been planted within Kazuya. At some point within the run(implied by the trial version to be the Second Iron Maiden fight), there is a shift in which the timeline that our Genocide Kazuya is in has shifted.
This retroactively means that by nature, Kazuya is not the same in both routes. It is a different character in a sense, the game is not directly blaming us as the players yet, but instead, is trying to showcase by the outright darker acts the Merciless Kazuya commits that the two Kazuyas between Neutral/Mercy and Genocide are NOT the same person. The demons throughout genocide are NOT blaming the player, they're explicably blaming the Old One, referring to it as the thing that Kazuya is being overshadowed by.
We'll get to player blame later.
For those that want to argue that setting up anything for EX1-4 to explain, I'd like to remind you that the EX Scenarios are NOT some kind of bonus DLC, but an intentionally important additional part of the narrative, they come with the game, they are meant to be a part of the game. Not an extra. This can be seen in multiple aspects, such as EX2 finally making good on Hecate's threat from the very end of Chapter 1.
These EX Scenarios are explained to be the Old One's latest attempts, trying to modify aspects of other timelines in the hope that it would make True Mercy fail, make the official timeline fail. For example, EX1 sets up the Harpy Queen in the direct hope that Mother Rabbit would effectively 'lose it', giving up on her system of beliefs and becoming a demon so cruel that Kazuya would not be able to find a way to befriend her. EX2 has the Old One directly involved through Hecate in the hopes of corrupting the TM Timeline's Hecate and getting access to the Official Timeline.
Next, let's talk about the Hyakki fight.
A lot of people want to complain about the impossible difficulty of the fight, which while I agree is true, I think its rather stupid to complain about that specifically? It really has nothing to do with the narrative we're debating, okay, Hyakki is impossible, what does this have to do with the narrative of the Genocide Route?
Anyways, once you've cheated and beaten that fight, you get the actual first instance of player blame, or player thanks, if you will, as the Old One both chastises you and praises you for choosing this route. Stating that it and you have been disconnected from Kazuya due to Hyakki's efforts.
It's not a big deal, not much to be said. However the Old One and the Intervener of course, are no longer able to access the game. Though you can bypass this by reopening the game approx- 7 times after it's broken, and the intervention device will restore itself.
One thing I do think is worth discussing about the Hyakki fight is not that it was impossible, but that it was made impossible, it was a change made later on. People like to use this as saying Alan hates people who chose genocide and is shitting on them, but thats happenstance and assumptions made purely to fulfill other peoples' narratives of the developer. I think a large part of this perspective comes from the fact that we had a large wave of new SHRIFT players due to MGQ Paradox's Collab, of which SHRIFT's Kazuya was a participant. Those players came in around the time EX4 was in development.
Alan made this change to the Hyakki fight around the time between EX3 and EX4, it was a shadow update that was not just a retroactive shitfest as some people like to think. We don't have a clear answer, but when EX4 came out, it was explained that Hyakki had changed her stance on matters and chosen to prevent the Genocide timeline from reaching a proper end and allowing the Old One dominance over it.
All routes are necessary for the narrative of SHRIFT to make sense, without Neutral Routes, the Intervener would lack the neccesarily knowledge to understand True Mercy and the risks of Samael. Without Genocide, the Intervener would never understand why the Old One needed the ritual or Kazuya as a host. The Hyakki fight change seems to be a live change Alan made in the hopes that people would notice it, as dialogue was ALSO changed around that time to show that Hyakki had been increasingly motivated for one reason or another.
Without this change, the Genocide 'deadlock', if you will, that allows the EX Scenarios to happen, wouldn't happen. It also explains why the EX Scenarios aren't available for the Genocide Player, simply put, theres no rhyme or reason for the Old One to mess with other demons when he's already gained control of this timeline, and of this Kazuya. It's a pointless endeavor. If you think that's half assed and an excuse, then at that point you have to ask if you actually care about the story, or are simply coping for the sake of coping.
Player blame exists in EX4, the game makes note of how other inteveners' actions allowed for the Old One to perform what it has, and blames them for abandoning Kazuya. Except it is not the game that makes this claim, it is Cheshire. The intervention device herself. Created by Richard from SHRIFT 2, or at the very least, placed within the game by Richard's hands. We can't make too many assumptions about Richard yet, as there are still two chapters of SHRIFT 2 left to come out that could give us greater insight into his beliefs. Though we know for a fact that he comes from a timeline where demons themselves are a lot less aggressive and cruel, or well, most of them are, for that matter, Richard himself may see the Intervener's actions from this point of view.
The mistake we're making here is assuming this player blame applies to us.
After Genocide, one of three paths is available to you as a player.
You can choose to be pardoned, and continue on with a new run.
You can choose to move forward, be disconnected, and leave the game be, assuming you're done with it.
You can choose to move forward, be disconnected, and reboot the game enough to force your way back in.
The second option is in a sense, abandonment, you've either found yourself satisfied with your experience, or have deemed it a boring or shitty one and left it to rot. In that way, the interveners, or players, who have done that, fit Cheshire and Richard's depiction of them. Albeit not for the same reasons they believe, but considering the weight our actions have on the world of SHRIFT, its not unfair for them to hate the ones who leave it in a sorry state.
The first and third however, are the people who have gotten to EX4 after a Genocide Run, by extension they are not one of the interveners who abandoned Kazuya, but rather came back to finish what they started and in a sense, repaired it.
This game never intended for the players to experience just True Mercy, a complete experience of SHRIFT would involve seeing all of it's endings. Neutral endings give context to True Mercy, True Mercy ties a bow on the original narrative, and Genocide brings up more questions for answers to be given through the EX Scenarios. One cannot look at any as the ending of SHRIFT, because by considering any of them the final end to the story, you're not only disregarding the whole package, but going out of your way to limit your experience with the game.
EX4 is not a 'lovechild of spite', it's purpose has been misunderstood as well as Genocide's and that is likely due to Alan's own writing, he's not perfect, he's made mistakes, and the ambiguity and vagueness he's left in some narrative decisions are what has led to somebody debates about the failures of his work's story. I do blame him in part for the fact that these debates happen, as had he been clearer, I'm sure a lot of people would have a lot less to complain about.
Now that I've said all that, the last thing left to actually discuss would of course be, why go True Mercy? In what world can Genocide not be the right path?
I could've discussed this first, but in the worry that people would start ignoring my words and say I'm 'yapping' once I start advocating for True Mercy, I decided to explain everything else before this.
Demons are murderers.
Let's get that out of the way, you are entirely right, any of you who believe that demons as a race including all their many species are killing people is entirely correct. Well done on figuring that out.
So why then, am I saying that sparing them is justified? Well, I'm not, not exactly. SHRIFT does not ever once try to say that the demons are good girls that should be spared, far from it, its a horrid leap in logic to assume that because SHRIFT allows you to befriend a few choice individuals amongst their species that it is saying they're all nice and good people.
I have placed a review on this thread that goes over every single demon in Neutral/Mercy and explaining why they can be spared, or have reasoning you can figure out for them to be spare able, from Kazuya's perspective. While I think my thoughts there are a little dated, they still mostly hold true.
Species demons, such as Barghest, Lampas, Echo, Camazotz, are not cases in which the species is suddenly justifiable. It is simply that individuals amongst that species have risen above the standard of their nature. They were given many chances yes, courtesy of Kazuya, but it doesn't change the fact that they demonstrated the capacity for that change. Lampas gave up on her light, she rejected the entire purpose of her species, even outright calling it out as a twisted game Hecate has designed and cursing out her former ruler for it. Barghest while simple-minded, was willing to trust Kazuya after he demonstrated kindness, once she had been shown that act, she not once after showed him hostility, appearing in My Room without another appearance of that specific barghest after that. Echo was at a loss after seeing the true love the Original had experienced, and was at even more of a loss after seeing Kazuya reject the possibility of quelling her as a threat with the powder, allowing Kazuya to complete dissaude her with words alone in the battle that follows and making her completely give up on the idea of forcibly claiming him. Camazotz, confused by the actions of a kind human that didn't resist any of her advances in My Room, and terrified of the idea that Kazuya might hate her for the actions of her brethren, desperately sought comfort within the recesses of his mind, and was welcomed in a symbiotic relationship that allowed her to rest at ease for the first time since coming to the human world.
Yet, in EX2, multiple barghest and Lampas show that they don't care about Kazuya's ideals, and Kazuya, while not trying to kill them, also doesn't assume he can make them turn over a new leaf. In the Echo Dream Battle, the echoes there explain that just because there are kind echoes that seek love in their species, there are certainly ones like them that seek souls and souls alone. And of course, the Camazotz Kazuya bonds with is the singular exception amongst its own species.
Kazuya doesn't go out of his way to think, oh "they're good demons that don't want to hurt people", no, Kazuya is trying to survive, and as he's told by the familiar and Lampas after their first encounter, its possible that his escape might be made easier by sparing the demons he fights rather than killing them.
Kazuya has been in stasis for five years, and the only people he has to interact with directly are demons that sought out his soul, his kindness to them can be seen as the result of a psychological desire for friendship and intimacy, not even of a sexual kind. The poor guy could use friends, so when he sees the opportunity to shift minds or to speak them to on some deeper level, he tries to, he's not going out of his way to say demons are good people in the slightest. His Devil's Office is not going against the war effort, its trying to do specific missions for the sake of seeking out MOW, and applying his pacifistic views where possible, but also knowing when to apply lethal force(Kazuya kills the Harpy Queen in EX1, knowing there was no chance for reconsideration).
Arachne
All of the opportunities that the My Room gang had and eventually used for change where only possible because of Kazuya's kindness, and many people argue that this is naive kindness. That is entirely correct, Kazuya is kind to the point of naivete. This is a man that's entire life and world has been turned upside down after being asleep for five years, his girlfriend is likely out to kill him, and these demons are the only kind of conversation he can really have, he's not just a horny bastard, he's a lonely man who's been lonely for a long time already. Whether it was not having parents at a young age, or his best friend being the only voice of a reason in a terrifying place, Kazuya is desperate. His naivete is his folly, because the game has never once tried to dictate that Kazuya was in the right for this disposition. The angelic magic within him yes, would have caused problems for the world due to him murdering demons, but in every single Neutral Ending Variant, Samael is not released, and either Kazuya lives on or the threat he poses is removed depending on which Neutral End you see.
Yes, the bonds he formed allowed him to reach his happiest ending, but that does NOT mean that forming these bonds was the correct thing to do.
Arachne exists as the counter to Kazuya's beliefs, and their battle perfectly reflects that. Arachne acts as the natural order symbolically, and the horrors Kazuya experiences within her cave are meant to be the final nail in the coffin, the reality check telling him to wake the fuck up and accept that all demons are murderous, and that just because he's bonded with a few doesn't mean they're on some uphill battle to coexistence. Demons eat humans, humans kill demons to survive. That's the natural order that SHRIFT has been trying to impose on Kazuya on his entire journey until now, and Kazuya has refused to accept it every single step of the way.
When Kazuya defeats Arachne, and chooses not to fire, his words tell all his thoughts. He knows that if he kills Arachne, he'd be proving her right, but in saying that, he knows he has, he knows humans and demons will never find some true coexistence, and he knows that the food chain Arachne has dictated is what the world has come to. That these two races will likely be fighting to the death forever, which is why he doesn't say that Arachne can change, nor does he try to say that he thinks demons are good people. His own words are that He doesn't want to kill any demons, he's understood that he's in the wrong, he knows by now that he's incorrect in believing that there could ever be a route for some 'true peace'. Despite that, Kazuya doesn't want to accept that, deep down he knows Arachne is right, but he wants to refuse it with his whole being, because once he gives in to what Arachne has declared, it will be unavoidable truth, and so he retains his naivete, tries to keep believing in his own ideals. Knowing full well those ideals are wrong.
Kazuya gives them three or four chances, he spares them despite their murderous intent, he's too good a guy in a cruel world. He knows this, and SHRIFT finally makes us see where Arachne's words have taken him through the EX Scenarios and the Epilogue.
The Final State of Kazuya
I think that the most beautiful thing about Arachne's narrative purpose is the actual effect its had on Kazuya by the end of the game. With accessing the EX Scenarios requiring everybody in My Room, Alan was able to go all out in demonstrating how Kazuya's opinion on matters had changed due to Arachne. There is still a kindness in him, in the epilogue he explains that he operates as a Demon Hunter, both helping humans and demons and trying to make ends meet for the two races where he can, he's a private investigator that tries to make peace where he can. In EX2 he expresses the desire to help Mormo out knowing full well the risks, and even afterwards is willing to forgive Mormo after seeing what Hecate had put her up to.
Yet in EX1, we also see that Kazuya isn't just a pacifist either, he understands the risks, and I'd like to believe that is all due to Arachne. The Harpy Queen fight demonstrates a ruthlessness Kazuya has never showcased through the entire True Mercy run, knowing full well that her mere existence was a risk to everybody existing in that EX Timeline, he did not hesitate and did not even give the Intervener a choice to make, taking them out with another shot within moments of their last words' being spoken.
Our Final Kazuya understands not every conflict can be resolved peacefully, and he is more than prepared to use violence if it really is the last method. In a way, the events of SHRIFT have broken him, in a way he'll never fully recover, but despite that, he's maintaing as many shreds of his original lonely beliefs as he can, even if he's the only one who will.
SHRIFT is not a perfect game, and I think honestly Alan should've taken a little less from Undertale's book, a lot of the misunderstandings in his attempted story and a lot of the genuien flaws with it coming from misdesigning the trio of routes as he did. Still, I think its unfair that so much outright hate is given to this single developer who gave so much to his project in the hopes that people would enjoy it.
At the end of the day, whether you agree or disagree with me. There are tons of H-Games with far less disputed perfect narratives, the original MGQ and Black Souls are popular for similar reasons. There are a lot of us who love SHRIFT for what it is, and I would hope that nobody in this debate, in other future debates, or just in this thread, or anywhere else for that matter, shits on one another for their taste and their opinions on this narrative.
I personally will never forget the chills Last Confession gave me in this game's True Mercy ending, and I feel bad if some people can't say they had the same feeling. I've given my thoughts on the matter, if you disagree, feel free to tell me, just don't be antagonistic about it. And please, enough with the hate for the creator, its just a shitty practice, Alan is clearly aware of his mistakes, and SHRIFT 2 is taking different decisions and directions in all manners of way, that last thing he needs is more people telling him what he fucked up. It'll just bring down the motivation of the poor guy. Everybody's gotten their jabs in already, we need to let sleeping dogs lie eventually.
No but seriously, this debate has been going on for a while, I'm constantly checking if people need help with their copies of the game so this is not helping matters :sob:.
Alright, bye now
.
- May 4, 2020
- 24
- 88
Stop it, you'll make me blush.
Yeah no you're right, Chapter 2 is gone for some reason?? Ah well, I'll see what I can do below. It'll be purely from memory though, so please don't chew me out too hard should I get some detail wrong okay? Sadly don't have the time to play through again, and probably won't for some time yet.
In the end, it basically all comes down to the fact that we have three POVs to judge the girls with:
Your/the Player's POV
Kazuya's POV
And the (in-game) Humanity's POV
For each of those POVs you could slot in a different answer for every single girl, which understandably makes discussion a bit difficult when not going into it with that in mind. And since I'm going to try a redo of C.2 I might as well be a bit more ambitious than before. I'm also attaching the other chapters because why not, though I won't be updating them to C.2 standard unless the interest is there.
...On another note, I can't believe it's already been two years... crazy.
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There you go. Click on my name in the following quote.
Dear Mod/Uploader who updated the game/page one with this version of the game - you also forgot to take out the MAIL files. If nothing else, a warning not unlike the emulator one wouldn't go amiss for new players....And here is the complete Ver. 8.07 with Debug-Mode and certain other adjustments for the Genocide-Route.
ATTENTION!
First time players should refrain from using Debug as it is not only very easy to break the game (and not just with stats/items), but also to get spoiled. Be warned. Should you decide to use it after completing the game (highly recommended) then make sure to back up your save/global files.
Also, delete the 7 MAIL text documents. I forgot to do it, sorry.
Do not open them... unless you are into spoiling/bricking your game and being forced to download and play it all over again from the beginning. Again, you've been warned.
And last, but not least: Open the game viaYou must be registered to see the linksto avoid getting any errors.
---------
The Save-Files from my last post are naturally all compatible as well.
Have fun!
MEGA
Goddammit bwardyunbip!
- Nov 25, 2020
- 1,493
- 2,941
Right, I recall that now, too many details in ex4 hone
Ugh, it's just a porn game is such god awful argument every time I see it.
Correction, I don't think anyone ever expected it to be as good, but it's quite literally the easiest comparison to draw from, what other game is meta and has the concept of giving the player a moral choice between life or death? uhhh, Postal 2? By technicalities, but not alot of people actually know about postal 2, atleast in this generation. It's not forced in the first place, it's the easiest place to draw from, because while we are having this disagreement, it's clear cut in undertale that you are the monster, mean while here is completely different.
People don't like their freedoms restricted, once it is, the natural reaction is to thrash around. People have a right to be mad since technically, cheating is required, it does break the genocide narrative as it shows a clear bias from the creator, instead of him letting us draw out own conclusions.
Wow, what a convinient excuse isn't it? It being a shadow update too?
For everyone aside Hyakki, sure. I never had a problem to be raised from this, more so that they come of as hypocritical that only now murder was a problem.
Right, you need to play the whole to understand a game, sure, I'm following.
Also, the genocide deadlock isn't necesssary for the Ex, I'm not following why a deadlock of a game could be considered necessary. The old one would have interfered anyways.
No one was really arguing about the Ex scenarios themselves or their necessity, as of reading this I'm not sure why it's worthy of mention.
Hmmm, I'm not quite sure from what angle to approach this.
Yes, Cheshire is the one to say it, but the characters of a certain work are that of an authors creation.
Now of course, the best way to pick away at my argument would be to say "Does that mean creators who write a racist character are racist?" Obviously not, that's not what intend to say.
It's always difficult to gauge whether an author is intentionally preaching, or simply writing a story, and i'm most definitely leaning towards the former, cause of a few things.
1. The narrative is intentionally crafted to make you out to be the bad guy without actually considering the motives of geno players, alot of assumption are also made about the player that it really just makes you feel wronged.
2. Chesshire claims we're the agend of the Old one, come on, she should fucking know who the intervener is, and that we're bonafide untouchable, because she basically implies that we left kazuya for dead becausse we wouldn't suffer consequences, and we wouldn't.
So why then make the claim like we're some monsters who're working for the old one (which she states), when someone who perhaps commits genocide after neutral without doing mercy, wouldn't even know what the fuck the old one is. You can't work for someone you don't even know.
3. The blame from kazuya is completely taken away: You mention it yourself, Kazuya is different and yuuma even outlines that he was already quite off the rails prior to the car crash. Obviously the intervener helps kazuya achieve his goal, but it's implicit that geno kazuya should have blame as he specifically chose to burn the lampas lamps in the edgiest way possible.
4. Kazuya as a representation of us: Now I know Kazuya is a seperate character, that's what he's supposed to be, and we, in-universe known as the intervener, are not the same. However one can't help but just feel mad as people naturally idenitfy with the character they control, when I chose to kill demons, I do it under the assumption that it will save Kazuya, and then him jusst saying the edgiest of shit without proper arguments just makes you as the intervener, feel wronged because it's almost like the game is implicitly calling you ssome edgelord.
5. The player never gets a chance to defend themselves: Now I might be asking too much from and rpgm game, but I wish alot less assumptions were made about me and that I was actually allowed to respond to any criticism which imo, I could easily crush as most of it comes of as incredibly biased.
I don't want to say 100% that Alan was just out to get us(thanks for telling me his name btw), because I obviously can't make that guarantee. However he genuinely never givess us anything that doesn't support such a narrative and doesn't look bad.
He makes an intentional deadlock for the player and he makes cheshire make assumptions about the geno player.
If this was truly so wrong he could've literally just clarified, in a post or in the alleged discord server. Cause rumors going around that you're intentionally against player playing your game in the way they want to is NOT a good look, that alone already made me give up on playing any of his games, so it would definitely have an effect on his career.
However as far as i've heard, no such clarificiation has been made, so until said otherwise, I can only assusme that ex 4 is a child of spite.
Nah go off, anyone who can't handle long responses is genuinely under the age of 18.
Phew, alot of stuff the go over.
"Demons are murderers.
Let's get that out of the way, you are entirely right, any of you who believe that demons as a race including all their many species are killing people is entirely correct. Well done on figuring that out."
This point often goes through circles between the opposition trying to find ways to either lessen or get rid of this claim all together (or worst, completely ignore it),
I'm glad you're more reasonable in actually accepting this point to extent.
"SHRIFT does not ever once try to say that the demons are good girls that should be spared, far from it, its a horrid leap in logic to assume that because SHRIFT allows you to befriend a few choice individuals amongst their species that it is saying they're all nice and good people."
(I know I could quote instead but I'm tired of scrolling up for the entire response)
Media doesn't need to say stuff in order to pass on a message, show don't tell you know.
Now, let's go under the premise that the game isn't trying to pass the message of "how dare you kill them you monster, they're just misunderstood
"Throughout geno the game goes out of its way to make the demon girls the victims in this case, like when the lampas tried to argue about the lamplights. While I disagree with burning it down like Edgezuya did, they most definitely need to go. Other cases in include Iron maiden (who as I recall admonishes the choice of killing the girls and begs you to reconsider without adressing what they put us through). Echo tries to make a similar case I believe, then theres Hyakki, who is going to die on the train of calling your actions wrong without considering our opinions and feelings.
the fact while other beings that admonish us don't make a case specifically for the demons, it very well feels like they are, especially since absolutely Not. A. single. Person. Addresses that they are after us, after our and/or Kazuya's life. No one ever bothers to try and see things from the view of geno kazuya. You mention that pacificst kazuya is lonely, then geno kazuya is afraid. Understandibly so, and yet no one ever tries to understand him, and entirely assumess he's just a psycho, Hyakki (who is wholly aware of what and who the old one is and is trying to do) never tries to explain things in a better manner, and puts the narrative that you're the monster here, and it all puts a very bad taste in my mouth.
As for the point about kazuya (i'm not quote it since this post is already gonna cause clutter)
I'm not going to not criticize him for just because that's the case, I can obviously sympathize, but as a person who has incredibly circumstances surronding him, I am going to put him under a higher burden of cosequence.
The thing that annoy me the most is that Kazuya never really addresses the thing the girls do. In pacifist, the only case he does so is with arachne. Since we literally controll him, Kazuya very much sees the same messages of former soldiers we see, the fact that the game never even gives some kind of reaction from Kazuya as these are literally the only accounts of human life ever being here, they are important. It seems like he sweeps it all under the rug, like the game does so aswell.
Sadly, I can't feel anything. Far too many wrongs have been done in the worst ways possible or me to even have a remotely positive response, after getting true salvation I only felt a disgruntled contempt.
While sure, Kazuya finally gets a proper lesson that lessens his naivety, it's most definitely still there. Kindness as an instinctive reaction is a cowardly reponse Imo, no matter how lonely you may feel, thessse beings deserve at the very least IMMENSE amounts of scepticism until proven otherwise.
If Alan really learned from his mistakes, I feel like he should've addressed the controversy and explained that that wasn't hiss intention, or apologize for being biased and letting people who were likely bragging about geno out of edginess cause him to do what he did.
I sadly can't say I'll ever check out shrift 2, not only cause it's a prequel which I am rarely interested in, but too many wrongs were commited for me care.
Now, in terms of insulting each other this debate has been clearly polite, so there's no worries there.
- Aug 15, 2023
- 73
- 37
Alrighty
As for the EX Scenarios bit, I saw a lot of people in the past talking about how they wanted to access the EX Scenarios after a Genocide run, I haven't read all the aspects of the recent debate personally, as this was moreso a collection of general thoughts.
1. What assumptions exactly? I remind you that never once does the Genocide Route point out the player as the bad guy until Hyakki and the ending. Every single demon blames the Old One, those that are aware at least, the rest simply are confused, or terrified, or something of another order. Assumptions are made about the player in EX4, you're right, though I already talked about that in the original message.
2. Cheshire claims we're an agent of the old one... when? Once again, Cheshire directly refers to other inteveners as curious people without the risk of consequence, though I am mildly paraphrasing from memory, and remarks that those other players enjoy the killing. And it's not like that in and of itself is inaccurate, we do. Again this is also being told to a Kazuya and an Intervener that is currently in EX4, currently not even the one she is denoting those assumptions and claims to, we're not even under the umbrella she's referring to at that point.
3. This one is on me, I should've been more clear about the timeline modification. When I say the ritual has been completed, it means that a seed of the Old One is sowed into Kazuya. Kazuya as a person is meant to become a blank slate, to slowly disappear, and the magic he obtained was meant to serve as a catalyst to that result. Within the Genocide timeline, blame from Kazuya is taken away because Kazuya barely exists. This is made clear throughout genocide as Kazuya explains that he feels off, that something is wrong with him throughout the earlier chapters, Arachne brings it to a head by truly awakening the Old One in him during her chapter, and Kazuya himself has a separate confrontation with the Old One right after the Daji fight. Blame can't be applied to Kazuya, or even the player here, as it's made clear that he was effectively being erased from his own mind overtime. To be more specific, the Old One slowly erasing and infesting Kazuya burned the lamps, Kazuya himself might've, might've not, whos to say? And to clarify ahead of time, yes the Old One is already in Kazuya prior to the car crash, but getting the magic he had after awakening from stasis accelerated his otherwise slow descent. Being able to have demons that he could justifiably kill also helped, and then he killed a few humans along the way too as the Old One wanted complete control.
4. This is a byproduct of the undertale style of meta-games, whereas Frisk is literally a blank slate for the player to be imprinted on, so that they can completely feel the weight of their actions. SHRIFT chose to make a separation, a distinction between the player and Kazuya. Was this the right call? Who knows, but the game's narrative was built around it. It makes this game one of the few where I don't pick a name aside from the default. I have gone through it always making that distinction. The game doesn't want you to imprint yourself as being Kazuya, doesn't want you to take on his role. Though it doesn't always make that clear, and that is definitely Alan's fault for leaving the majority of intervention and the intervener's importance to the back-half of the game. Still, that's an assumption we as players make, blaming the game for not operating on that assumption feels wrong to me. It's not like SHRIFT is alone in doing this.
5. Once again, I partially agree that the lack of voice we are given directly is a shame. Mainly because I wish for the interesting interactions it could provide. However, I think a lot of the criticism you're talking about comes from EX4, and that criticism would only apply to you if you watched it as a player who wasn't actually playing EX4. The game is making the assumption that you're not what it's talking about when you see that dialogue, not the other way around.
I want to be clear here incase I made an accidental misunderstanding, Hyakki is completely unaware of the Old One. She is simply acting on the promise a Post-TM Kazuya has made with her and her own intent of not allowing that timeline to go any further, she cannot be aware of the Old One at this point, her ability to survive the attacks of a partially manifested one has a lot to do with boring power-scaling I'm not going to get into.
Iron Maiden does not admonish Kazuya's actions, but simply asks if he is willing to go through with all of it, and then fights him as her role as a demon and as a biological weapon. She even states that she is curious as to what ending she will show him after she loses the second battle.
Lampas' begging is logical for her character at this stage of the game. Certainly the lamps were the result of deaths, but the fusing of souls that they also represented both literally and metaphorically were Lampas' entire purpose as a demon, to have it be so violently rejected would be painful to even the most hardened of killers, and a Lampas such as her that isn't already a lamp has not killed a single human, if you recall.
Echo doesn't do anything too notably different unless you're playing on Hypocrite, and Hypocrite completely blows any genocide assumptions out of the water and has to be handled differently as it is literally a band of demons that already know and have loved Kazuya before.
Genocide Kazuya being afraid is a totally fair standpoint, both can be seen as logical results after his stasis and this being the scenario he ends up in. However, in both cases, can you really say it is logical to risk his life and kill every single demon in each area? At the end of the day, Kazuya's goal is to escape and survive, lingering in any area has it's risks, fighting more than he has to has it's risks. Even if it does make him stronger, theres no good reason to say he should go out of his way to waste time. No, thats a deliberate decision that has to be made by us. Undertale's genocide has the same logic, these routes couldn't happen naturally because they rely on the player to go out of their way.
Even still, I think whats more important is that lamp burning point. Yeah, it's probably not the best way to go about it, but it's not incorrect. That is how Kazuya operates throughout the genocide route. He can apply justification as he goes, so the player is meant to constantly have the view of "yeah, he's right.. but is this the right method?" and eventually his extremism moves to killing two, while hostile, human beings. As long as they're trying to kill him though, he should be able to kill them right? Regardless of species? Then of course, he kills his own girlfriend who at that point already showed no signs of hostility. And tries to kill the already dead Yuuma who was just trying to talk him down. At that point, the Old One had taken a deep enough hold to erase Kazuya, and the progression that leads to this is meant to be Kazuya slowly becoming less and less justifiable with his decisions as he goes.
Well actually to be more specific:
Barghest might've
Lampas hasn't
Lucy can't touch them and never left the demon realm, and her side story shows aversion to humans, so probably not.
Empuse was forced to in her beastial form, and in her succubus form drained essence passively in dreams without murderous intent.
Haru has, unknowingly, and is traumatized slightly at the thought during a brief window of that fact in Genocide.
Liz has killed one person, who was trying to kill them, a bloody non sex fight mind you.
Mother Rabbit has, though she's a prisoner of her own nature and anybody who calls Mother Rabbit an evil demon will have to go through me.
Mukuro hasn't.
Nina has? It's actually not very clear whether MOW Employees are actually killed during the dance battles she had back in their facilities, the side story is MTL as hell and theres no direct showcase of their death? Her first for sure death dance battle was her one with Kazuya.
Our Echo has not, none of the Echoes in the waterway have actually.
Sphinx has not.
Arachne has, but as you and I both agreed, she's the one Kazuya does not try to ignore in the slightest.
Titanoboa has, and demons too, she was very much the opps, but she has a lot of shit going on in her past to explain her murderous behavior, though not justify it.
Camazotz hasn't.
Daji is Daji, and has a lot of lore explaining how exactly she ended up killing the people she mated with, which is both funny and sad, though she's of course gotten a bit more murderous since those days(Yuuma and Kazuya).
Constantly Kazuya asks questions to the demons about their biological details, their pasts, their natures, and constantly they explain the dark truth of it all, Kazuya only shows aversion to Arachne specifically. I'd like to think that was done on purpose, that Kazuya heard all the other demons' words knowing and trusting that they either wouldn't continue hurting anybody else now that they were with him, or they physically couldn't(My Room being you know, part of the afterlife too).
But with Arachne, he stays on guard because she's simply too unpredictable, and even states she may leave the room and attack him again if he bores her.
At the end Kazuya is definitely sweeping these demons' pasts under the rugs(or if they haven't killed anybody as I listed above, their species' nature?), but he is also employing a naive trust in all of them(except Arachne).
Once again, I think its important to remember that Kazuya is holding onto his ideals, his nearly childish notions for the majority of the game, hence why he doesn't react too adversely to the notes. Once again, this shatters in Chapter 3 when he witnesses a MOW Guard(who was after him) be digested but far more importantly, when he sees an innocent man being consumed by Arachne and is forced to leave him(or watch him) die.
The rest of what I'm going to say is basically in reply to this.
You have to remember that a lot of the controversy you speak of comes mainly from our half of the planet, over there SHRIFT was received a lot more well than you'd think, and Alan was less likely to notice stuff from the western audience that exists from pirating and fan tls.
Alan really doesn't hear about our complaints regarding genocide, the convenient shadow update you refer to was nothing more than his idea at a small change to confuse older players. He really probably couldn't care less about his western audience, it barely exists, though I hear he speaks good english now so maybe thats changed. So it's very unlikely he did anything due to lashback from us.
It's a shame you didn't enjoy yourself by the end. I can't say I'm envious of you, I'm glad to be on the side that enjoyed it and appreciated it for what it is. I wish I could somehow say something irrefutable to convince you and make you think you played peak, but then these debates wouldn't exist, at the end of the day, your thoughts on a game are what they are, not everybody will share the same outlook on this game's narrative.
I still insist you check out SHRIFT 2, its both a more interesting game in combat and storytelling wise in my opinion. But perhaps wait for the full release so you can hear more people's thoughts.
Also even if we disagree on the story SHRIFT is in my opinion a pretty easy game so I still win the masochism award of the year.
Alright, back to eep I go.
Hyakki's boss fight requiring cheating is fun fact: false, you can still beat Hyakki with vanilla stats, you don't even need the locket mod thats included in the download here on F95. To actually respond though, I don't really get it? Because you needed to cheat to beat the boss, that somehow retroactively messes with the story elements of the route? I understand finding the route less enjoyable as a result, or it leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but outright saying that it makes the route's conclusions less clear or more vague doesn't make any sense to me. And I also don't see how it is bias from Alan either, Hyakki's fight was always ridiculously difficult, the modification was a small buff. I am surprised he chose to buff it instead of nerfing it, but a balance change alone, especially when it came with changed dialogue that implied further than just balance changes, is an unfair thing to derive bias from.
I totally agree with you the genocide deadlock itself isn't necessary, the way I see it, it was likely Alan's attempt at an almost ARG like modification that only people who were really paying attention to meta aspects of the game would notice. The issue is that a lot of new players came around at that time, again, due to the MGQ Collab. Still, this is his first project on such an ambitious scale, and he definitely could've done better with this, no disputes there.
As for the EX Scenarios bit, I saw a lot of people in the past talking about how they wanted to access the EX Scenarios after a Genocide run, I haven't read all the aspects of the recent debate personally, as this was moreso a collection of general thoughts.
Leaning towards the former is perfectly fine, but one needs to make the separation between the author and the character because at the end of the day, we're trying to objectively analyze the story. A lot of contention comes from Attack on Titan as Isayama has publicly stated he shares some of his characters' more extremist views, but we are still able to separate the author from his work. The same mindset should be applicable here.
Hmmm, I'm not quite sure from what angle to approach this.
Yes, Cheshire is the one to say it, but the characters of a certain work are that of an authors creation.
Now of course, the best way to pick away at my argument would be to say "Does that mean creators who write a racist character are racist?" Obviously not, that's not what intend to say.
It's always difficult to gauge whether an author is intentionally preaching, or simply writing a story, and i'm most definitely leaning towards the former, cause of a few things.
1. The narrative is intentionally crafted to make you out to be the bad guy without actually considering the motives of geno players, alot of assumption are also made about the player that it really just makes you feel wronged.
2. Chesshire claims we're the agend of the Old one, come on, she should fucking know who the intervener is, and that we're bonafide untouchable, because she basically implies that we left kazuya for dead becausse we wouldn't suffer consequences, and we wouldn't.
So why then make the claim like we're some monsters who're working for the old one (which she states), when someone who perhaps commits genocide after neutral without doing mercy, wouldn't even know what the fuck the old one is. You can't work for someone you don't even know.
3. The blame from kazuya is completely taken away: You mention it yourself, Kazuya is different and yuuma even outlines that he was already quite off the rails prior to the car crash. Obviously the intervener helps kazuya achieve his goal, but it's implicit that geno kazuya should have blame as he specifically chose to burn the lampas lamps in the edgiest way possible.
4. Kazuya as a representation of us: Now I know Kazuya is a seperate character, that's what he's supposed to be, and we, in-universe known as the intervener, are not the same. However one can't help but just feel mad as people naturally idenitfy with the character they control, when I chose to kill demons, I do it under the assumption that it will save Kazuya, and then him jusst saying the edgiest of shit without proper arguments just makes you as the intervener, feel wronged because it's almost like the game is implicitly calling you ssome edgelord.
5. The player never gets a chance to defend themselves: Now I might be asking too much from and rpgm game, but I wish alot less assumptions were made about me and that I was actually allowed to respond to any criticism which imo, I could easily crush as most of it comes of as incredibly biased.
1. What assumptions exactly? I remind you that never once does the Genocide Route point out the player as the bad guy until Hyakki and the ending. Every single demon blames the Old One, those that are aware at least, the rest simply are confused, or terrified, or something of another order. Assumptions are made about the player in EX4, you're right, though I already talked about that in the original message.
2. Cheshire claims we're an agent of the old one... when? Once again, Cheshire directly refers to other inteveners as curious people without the risk of consequence, though I am mildly paraphrasing from memory, and remarks that those other players enjoy the killing. And it's not like that in and of itself is inaccurate, we do. Again this is also being told to a Kazuya and an Intervener that is currently in EX4, currently not even the one she is denoting those assumptions and claims to, we're not even under the umbrella she's referring to at that point.
3. This one is on me, I should've been more clear about the timeline modification. When I say the ritual has been completed, it means that a seed of the Old One is sowed into Kazuya. Kazuya as a person is meant to become a blank slate, to slowly disappear, and the magic he obtained was meant to serve as a catalyst to that result. Within the Genocide timeline, blame from Kazuya is taken away because Kazuya barely exists. This is made clear throughout genocide as Kazuya explains that he feels off, that something is wrong with him throughout the earlier chapters, Arachne brings it to a head by truly awakening the Old One in him during her chapter, and Kazuya himself has a separate confrontation with the Old One right after the Daji fight. Blame can't be applied to Kazuya, or even the player here, as it's made clear that he was effectively being erased from his own mind overtime. To be more specific, the Old One slowly erasing and infesting Kazuya burned the lamps, Kazuya himself might've, might've not, whos to say? And to clarify ahead of time, yes the Old One is already in Kazuya prior to the car crash, but getting the magic he had after awakening from stasis accelerated his otherwise slow descent. Being able to have demons that he could justifiably kill also helped, and then he killed a few humans along the way too as the Old One wanted complete control.
4. This is a byproduct of the undertale style of meta-games, whereas Frisk is literally a blank slate for the player to be imprinted on, so that they can completely feel the weight of their actions. SHRIFT chose to make a separation, a distinction between the player and Kazuya. Was this the right call? Who knows, but the game's narrative was built around it. It makes this game one of the few where I don't pick a name aside from the default. I have gone through it always making that distinction. The game doesn't want you to imprint yourself as being Kazuya, doesn't want you to take on his role. Though it doesn't always make that clear, and that is definitely Alan's fault for leaving the majority of intervention and the intervener's importance to the back-half of the game. Still, that's an assumption we as players make, blaming the game for not operating on that assumption feels wrong to me. It's not like SHRIFT is alone in doing this.
5. Once again, I partially agree that the lack of voice we are given directly is a shame. Mainly because I wish for the interesting interactions it could provide. However, I think a lot of the criticism you're talking about comes from EX4, and that criticism would only apply to you if you watched it as a player who wasn't actually playing EX4. The game is making the assumption that you're not what it's talking about when you see that dialogue, not the other way around.
I think it's rather unfair that you ignored where I went into depth on how the game deliberately explains and demonstrates time and time again that there are norms and exceptions to the different species of demon. Genocide is easily the shakiest of the routes in this game, no doubt about it. And I'm not incredibly well versed in all it's intricacies. That being said, you're making a few assumptions that are wrong.
Media doesn't need to say stuff in order to pass on a message, show don't tell you know.
Now, let's go under the premise that the game isn't trying to pass the message of "how dare you kill them you monster, they're just misunderstood
I want to be clear here incase I made an accidental misunderstanding, Hyakki is completely unaware of the Old One. She is simply acting on the promise a Post-TM Kazuya has made with her and her own intent of not allowing that timeline to go any further, she cannot be aware of the Old One at this point, her ability to survive the attacks of a partially manifested one has a lot to do with boring power-scaling I'm not going to get into.
Iron Maiden does not admonish Kazuya's actions, but simply asks if he is willing to go through with all of it, and then fights him as her role as a demon and as a biological weapon. She even states that she is curious as to what ending she will show him after she loses the second battle.
Lampas' begging is logical for her character at this stage of the game. Certainly the lamps were the result of deaths, but the fusing of souls that they also represented both literally and metaphorically were Lampas' entire purpose as a demon, to have it be so violently rejected would be painful to even the most hardened of killers, and a Lampas such as her that isn't already a lamp has not killed a single human, if you recall.
Echo doesn't do anything too notably different unless you're playing on Hypocrite, and Hypocrite completely blows any genocide assumptions out of the water and has to be handled differently as it is literally a band of demons that already know and have loved Kazuya before.
Genocide Kazuya being afraid is a totally fair standpoint, both can be seen as logical results after his stasis and this being the scenario he ends up in. However, in both cases, can you really say it is logical to risk his life and kill every single demon in each area? At the end of the day, Kazuya's goal is to escape and survive, lingering in any area has it's risks, fighting more than he has to has it's risks. Even if it does make him stronger, theres no good reason to say he should go out of his way to waste time. No, thats a deliberate decision that has to be made by us. Undertale's genocide has the same logic, these routes couldn't happen naturally because they rely on the player to go out of their way.
Even still, I think whats more important is that lamp burning point. Yeah, it's probably not the best way to go about it, but it's not incorrect. That is how Kazuya operates throughout the genocide route. He can apply justification as he goes, so the player is meant to constantly have the view of "yeah, he's right.. but is this the right method?" and eventually his extremism moves to killing two, while hostile, human beings. As long as they're trying to kill him though, he should be able to kill them right? Regardless of species? Then of course, he kills his own girlfriend who at that point already showed no signs of hostility. And tries to kill the already dead Yuuma who was just trying to talk him down. At that point, the Old One had taken a deep enough hold to erase Kazuya, and the progression that leads to this is meant to be Kazuya slowly becoming less and less justifiable with his decisions as he goes.
The game doesn't sweep any of it under the rug, Kazuya does. While the My Room gang might stop killing other humans, thats not to say they haven't in the past.
Well actually to be more specific:
Barghest might've
Lampas hasn't
Lucy can't touch them and never left the demon realm, and her side story shows aversion to humans, so probably not.
Empuse was forced to in her beastial form, and in her succubus form drained essence passively in dreams without murderous intent.
Haru has, unknowingly, and is traumatized slightly at the thought during a brief window of that fact in Genocide.
Liz has killed one person, who was trying to kill them, a bloody non sex fight mind you.
Mother Rabbit has, though she's a prisoner of her own nature and anybody who calls Mother Rabbit an evil demon will have to go through me.
Mukuro hasn't.
Nina has? It's actually not very clear whether MOW Employees are actually killed during the dance battles she had back in their facilities, the side story is MTL as hell and theres no direct showcase of their death? Her first for sure death dance battle was her one with Kazuya.
Our Echo has not, none of the Echoes in the waterway have actually.
Sphinx has not.
Arachne has, but as you and I both agreed, she's the one Kazuya does not try to ignore in the slightest.
Titanoboa has, and demons too, she was very much the opps, but she has a lot of shit going on in her past to explain her murderous behavior, though not justify it.
Camazotz hasn't.
Daji is Daji, and has a lot of lore explaining how exactly she ended up killing the people she mated with, which is both funny and sad, though she's of course gotten a bit more murderous since those days(Yuuma and Kazuya).
Constantly Kazuya asks questions to the demons about their biological details, their pasts, their natures, and constantly they explain the dark truth of it all, Kazuya only shows aversion to Arachne specifically. I'd like to think that was done on purpose, that Kazuya heard all the other demons' words knowing and trusting that they either wouldn't continue hurting anybody else now that they were with him, or they physically couldn't(My Room being you know, part of the afterlife too).
But with Arachne, he stays on guard because she's simply too unpredictable, and even states she may leave the room and attack him again if he bores her.
At the end Kazuya is definitely sweeping these demons' pasts under the rugs(or if they haven't killed anybody as I listed above, their species' nature?), but he is also employing a naive trust in all of them(except Arachne).
Once again, I think its important to remember that Kazuya is holding onto his ideals, his nearly childish notions for the majority of the game, hence why he doesn't react too adversely to the notes. Once again, this shatters in Chapter 3 when he witnesses a MOW Guard(who was after him) be digested but far more importantly, when he sees an innocent man being consumed by Arachne and is forced to leave him(or watch him) die.
The rest of what I'm going to say is basically in reply to this.
Kazuya's naivety lessens is perfect for his character. You call his kindness a cowardly response, and thats correct. It's meant to be, Kazuya has been a coward the entire game, refusing to accept the cruelty of the world he's living in, and when Arachne shoves it in his face, he realizes it, but still refuses to accept it, he is purposefully naive, because he still so desperately wants to cling onto his notions, his ideals. It's his answer to the problem. It's the wrong answer, and the game tells us that time and time again, but it's the one Kazuya wants to believe in. He's wrong, but thats a part of his character too.
You have to remember that a lot of the controversy you speak of comes mainly from our half of the planet, over there SHRIFT was received a lot more well than you'd think, and Alan was less likely to notice stuff from the western audience that exists from pirating and fan tls.
Alan really doesn't hear about our complaints regarding genocide, the convenient shadow update you refer to was nothing more than his idea at a small change to confuse older players. He really probably couldn't care less about his western audience, it barely exists, though I hear he speaks good english now so maybe thats changed. So it's very unlikely he did anything due to lashback from us.
It's a shame you didn't enjoy yourself by the end. I can't say I'm envious of you, I'm glad to be on the side that enjoyed it and appreciated it for what it is. I wish I could somehow say something irrefutable to convince you and make you think you played peak, but then these debates wouldn't exist, at the end of the day, your thoughts on a game are what they are, not everybody will share the same outlook on this game's narrative.
I still insist you check out SHRIFT 2, its both a more interesting game in combat and storytelling wise in my opinion. But perhaps wait for the full release so you can hear more people's thoughts.
Also even if we disagree on the story SHRIFT is in my opinion a pretty easy game so I still win the masochism award of the year.
Alright, back to eep I go.
- Dec 9, 2021
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Gotta stop you there, shrift 2 is worse in literally everyway so far compared to shrift 1. It's basically a different genre. The game requires no strategy, demons are so underpowered they barely even deal damage on the hardest difficulty, the game hasn't been meta in the slightest and has nothing interesting about saving or interventions yet, the game is unbelievably grindy to an almost disgusting extent, praying is a mechanic that takes inherently less skill and thought than guns, etc. I love shrift 2 but it's nowhere near as good as shrift 1.
You make some good points. I still disagree by and large, but seeing as the responses in this thread are getting exponentially longer I don't think I have the strength of will to respond to all arguments, so I'll just agree to disagree. There are a few points I'd like to comment on, though.It is wholly relevant, and I am equally viewing it from Kazuya's point of view. Pacafist Kazuya definitely enters into naive kindess. While I am a beliver that anyone can change, it doesn't take anyone intelligent to see how idealistic such a view point is. We don't have the time or resources to give everyone 3 or 4 chances, and that's what Kazuya gives to arachne in the game. Even in the marriage sequence SHE STILL KILLS HIM. The only thing keeping her paccified is the fact she's in my room and kazuya has "control" (very weak) over her.
Beings like arachne, of which there are going to be many (and I mean MANY) cannot be cured with kindess, they're too far gone to care about such things, you can only fix them with consequences first, negotiations second. Howver Kazuya's approach is far too kind, to him any kind of punishment to any of the rightfully deserving of punishment girls is cruel, and I obviously don't trust him with that kind of decision.
Do you recall how you can't even do a merciless route without doing a neutral one first? Yeah so I had to get neutral c first before doing that (which strangely also isn't a choice you need to do for mercy route)
As for the timeline stuff, I should be, The details of the game are already fading from my brain since I kinda want them too, if I need to recall things I can read up on my borderline not a review rant.
It's just not an outcome I can accept. As i mentioned previously, Kazuya's method isn't going to work, in the longer term there's going to be alot of casualities which are never going to be solved. I am still thinking from Kazuya's view since he's the only one who can make this choice. Both genocide and pacifist are 2 extremes which can both be criticized (excessive cruelty and excessive kindess) and I'm willing to take the former option (as Kazuya's player) to solve a problem rather than negotiate with it and hardly solve the problem which was the first agressor.
True pacifist hardly implies anything as you can only assume, as we hardly see him doing any notable work for the world to solve the demon problem, and yes, he should do so instead of living in his house full of biological experiments. He'ss the only one who can do so, since he made the choice to spare invaders, he now bares the responsibility of taking care of the problem with so called negotiations.
As for why I don't believe he is succeding. We see in events like Ex2 that one kind of demon can't convince the entirety of its kind to spare kazuya, the lampas straight up gave a rats ass kazuya was a child, he was simple prey in their eyes and they were just chasing their biological instinct to fuse into a light with someone.
There's going to be dozens of demons like this, because the demons didn't come to negotiate with humans like I said, they never tried to, they came to prey on them, while capable of being talked to, kazuya talking to a single barghest, lampass or siren isn't getting the rest of their kind on board.
I get what it's narrative is trying to say, thankfull though I care alot less since this is a femdom game which I only played because of the promises I was given (it was like undertale, it's super meta and so on). So the connection I can form is worth little to me since I am mostly activiely disgusted by most of the girl's actions, and a few which I find digusting looking in apperance.
I stated previously that if it weren't for threats like samael and The old one, genocide would work, the only thing that'd change was kazuya being reasonably weaker. However it's strange how coincidentally 2 god like entities are after Kazuya and can only take control if he.... kills people? hmmm, it's almost like the game had no actual moral argument since its activiely in a biased manner forgives Demon girls and calls you a hypocrite for wanting to save humanity but allegedly letting the old one destroy an entire timeline.
If we're being more reasonable, Samael can stay, but remove this whole killing thing makes it stronger thing and reina will actually be usseful and take care of the problem she created,.
As for the fact he defeated said god with the power of..... 12? as i recall demons, I mean it's incredibly strange, it's obviouss power of friendship vibes but I can't accept that the "love" of a few demons gives Kazuya enough power to beat Samael, it's not logical, the writing made it be so anyways.
Also, Kazuya is the only one who has My Room, and the only one who can have it. Mira only gives him such a thing as assisstance on his journey (as they are aware of The old one and abbadon, but cannot directly interfere themselve, so Kazuya making relationships, and going the pacifist route is ideal for the, so they gave him a way to be rewarded for such actions.)
So no real advancement can come of it besides maybe demon girls becoming scientists and learning how to harness magic in a few industries.
If I had to take some miniscule advancement we can't replicate over the threat of demons disappearing, I'd still take the latter.
Yeah sorry mate, I can't like it, which ultimately gives me the ability to make an ultimately 'evil' decision. I mentioned previously that taking any intelligent life could be argued as an ultimate moral evil no matter what, which I don't find a problem with, if the game was better written and if the dev wasn't wholly biased I would be more willing to consider other outcomes.
I actually didn't know that! I never actually played merciless myself (though I did watch a full playthrough of it). I agree it's kinda silly that the game forces you to do a neutral run first.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but
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Feel kinda bad for this guy who just came in here with this really specific technical problem while we're all busy writing theses on the games' lore
The game's battle states can be a bit glitchy but I don't think I ever encountered smth like this in a way that could be progress-blocking. Is it happening for all fights or just these specific ones? It might not happen consistently, which means you can just reload and hope it doesn't happen. If it's happening consistently then i have no clue, maybe re-install the game but keep the save files? (both the actual save file and the rvdata file)
- Apr 25, 2022
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Bro chill I mean if it was in real life.
I understand that many love (Monster/Demon) Girl Porn I respect it.
I just mean if I was in the shrift universe I would never forgive them.
For example MGQ that's much safer than the Shrift Universe
I know I finished the story already kill the Monster lord yatatata Bad Stuff happens
but still the Monster Girls from MGQ universe are more merciful they only...drain you dry u can at least survive as a sex slave but better than dying
And I agree the CG´s Porn are perfect from Shrift
Sorry for my bad English I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings
it is only my opinion that i wanted to share
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- Aug 15, 2023
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I think you haven't been engaging with the intricacies of the combat as much as you should be. Though I agree the game is significantly easier, as somebody whos done so many damn masochistic challenges on the first game, part of me just prefers the refreshing change of pace.
Well it's quite hard to engage when I don't need to. I saved up for the day I needed to upgrade my abilities, then realized just praying constantly is the easiest way. Bosses are telegraphed and there are no big stance changes like the first game. And if I want to experiment and have fun, I better be ready to sink 100 hours of grinding. But no, my biggest problem with this game is the milking stance change. In shrift 1 you have not lost until you've came inside a demon. In shrift 2, the moment a demon gets you into a milking stance, you 'become food' and are unable to act. This is just a worse mechanic overall. Why can't I fuck Shadow lady without losing all willpower to move immediately? This translates into the game having almost no stances to get out of, and making most stances you get into instant losses but boringly telegraphed. I loved using defensive stance in the first game and living through a demon's kill move only to struggle out. The fact this isn't possible in the shrift 2 already makes it have worse gameplay overall.
- Sep 21, 2017
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It happens only for those two fights,all the other ones work fine. I couldn't get any answers on whether or not anyone had the issue and I tried reinstalling multiple times,none of it worked,so I said fuck it and used debug mode to get passed those fights,then did the rest of those two chapters normally. I just beat EX4 today,so I suppose it's fine now,but I don't know why those happened in the first place.Feel kinda bad for this guy who just came in here with this really specific technical problem while we're all busy writing theses on the games' lore
The game's battle states can be a bit glitchy but I don't think I ever encountered smth like this in a way that could be progress-blocking. Is it happening for all fights or just these specific ones? It might not happen consistently, which means you can just reload and hope it doesn't happen. If it's happening consistently then i have no clue, maybe re-install the game but keep the save files? (both the actual save file and the rvdata file)
- Nov 25, 2020
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I mean I can't say I've played the game prior to the deadlock patch but I found Hyakki almost ridicilous with cheating, I specifically maxed out my stats and called it a day. Even with that however (along with battle spirit) she was scarily close from ending me.
Plus there's the fact her hp is bonkers huge, like this was with the best weapon you can have (i forgot what that was prior to her fight) along with 9999 atk stat, and it still took me a good 3 minutes maybe to beat her? Normally when you cheat in a game fights become a breaze, but that wasn't exactly the case here. I can't say I agree that it's beatable without them, i recall a singular mention saying it's possible with impossibly good rng and a long time but no ones bothered to either try or upload their success so my disbelief will not be suspended.
As for why I find that it ruins the narrative. You're not fighting Hyakki anymore, you're not fighting the game itself, you're not fighting a world and its inhabitants who believe you to be a monster, the game itself treats you like one and wants to stop you via a complete softlock from completing geno legitimately.
To give an analogy on my feelings. Imagine the final showdown between a hero and a villain arrives, just as it reaches its culmination with the hero about to strike down the villain. The villain is saved by a random deus ex machina because the author changed their mind, and it just leaves you feeling... despondent and confused. Meta games are supposed to be the games with highest immersion, yet now as you paste your save file into a save editor, you think to yourself "what the hell is even the point of this?".
The only way to fix this is Hyakki admitting that she's cheating, that by normal game rules she's doing something that isn't allowed and that she's basically unbeatable in that manner. So naturally this givess you the idea to do the same, however if the game adds its own in universse way of 'cheating' this fight, the immersion would reach a higher level (sorta like that one time in ex 2 or 3 we got to see what the actual intervener console looked like).
This would even enhance the narrative, as Hyakki, the last stand between us and the ending, breaks the rules of the game itself just to stop us, but as much as she can cheat, we can cheat even more, ending in our victory.
Oh I think I did say that at one point, only for one reason, It's just an interesting thought. I'm not all too interested in ex 1-3 since they're kinda lackluster compared to ex4, which would be the main meal. It's kinda like fan fiction which you can acknlowegde makes no sense, but think it'd be fun to see. I think we at one point fight some weird shadow monsters which were stated to either be geno kazuya's or genocide players, whichever it is that's the only connection anything genocide related has a direct connection and intereference in ex4, but think about it for a moment. A bonafide geno intervener and Kazuya, full armed with the old ones power as an agent to stop true mercy kazuya, it could potentially work to be an alternate end to ex4, but I'll admit that potentiality is very weak, it's just a thought after after all.
That our motivations are entirely homocidal, psychopathic, and bloodthirsy, while the demons themselves never pin this on the player itself, I said that a game doesn't need to say things to imply thing, and I strongly feel that their words directed at geno kazuya and the looming thread of the old one is also connected to us too.
I mean, I could be wrong. I've forgotten alot of ex4 details and not like this can't be it either, but I'm too tired to check or care at this point as we've made out points for the most part, we could only go in circles, since agreement clearly isn't going to be reached.
You can check, there's a playthrough from that one dude anyways. However I feel very strongly about cheshire making some claim that geno interveners are close to/working with the old one or working together in some way.
See, the funny thing about it is that we aren't actually actively risking our life doing so, we're just taking the natural risk of encounters. Drawing from undertale (again), the amount of monsters in each area was FAR higher than one would actually encounter in order to pass from one area to the next. Meanwhile Shrifts 10 total demon encounters can very easily be gotten just by progressing, the only exception maybe being Echo and camtaotz since they're different encounter types. I understand your point here, but shrift accidentally fails at establishing it.
That might be the case to an extent, however she acts like she knows more than she lets on, and since the hyakki you meet in geno is also one who experiences a true mercy run should maybe to some extent of knowing the failed ritual performed on Kazuya. While this is an assumption, she seems to do alot of investigative work during periods she isn't on screen, so it's not impossible for her to find out that something went wrong in this timeline down to its core, not just Kazuya's own choice.
As for the other demon points, recalling Iron Maiden more closely I definitely can't recall specific admonishment, so I'll concede on that.
I mean a Lampas doesn't exactly have to fuse with a person to kill them, of course it is their very life's purpose to do so, but that one note in the room where there's a blood trail gives me the feel that Lampas could be cruel if they want to.
Fair points on him not even knowing who we are, I mostly base that around the alleged mention of an offical discord server, though I never really saw anything more than that, so I assumed the possibility that he is connected with his general community rather than not.
As for playing shrift 2, yeah still very unlikely even when it releases, my dislike of this game isn't really decreasing and I feel the allegations made by a friend of mine that I'm a masochist for ever bothering to finish this game despite not liking it would come true if I played it.
Yeah, Sorry that I have to get into powerscaling though, Samael is stated to be a world ending thread before he even appeared out of the girls daiji is the strongest and you can hardly say she match him even after she gets intervention powers.
So you know, I find the entire victory very far fetched, which is why I can't really accpept it.
- Nov 26, 2022
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BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Foolish humans, I was in truth a demon girl all along. Feasting on the ugly emotions you've let out during these intense debates have allowed me to reach a level of power above even whoever is the strongest demon. Now I will super rape the planet, or at least try to, only to be stopped by Kazuya during the EX5 scenario that will definitely come out one day. Pinky Promise.
Joke aside, I did enjoy reading all this. It taught me a bit more about the lore that I didn't know and I definitely am not capable of predicting the reaction my silly (half off half not) meme message would have brought out.
Now to talk about killing/sparing the demons in SHRIFT2...just kidding. That's a very short list.
Spare most, except the super evil slime witch that's blatantly committed a massacre inside a hospital and makes the mc of that game her semen-mana tank to take over the demon world in her ending. (Then again, in that game, the endings are mostly bad endings since the MC would have to be dumb enough to lose his soul towards a speficic demon.)
Oh, and also the
since they're just like a black coffin demon except they don't even have a personality and are made to forever contain the mc in a rape hell prison of pleasure, youch.
It's kinda funny that each SHRIFT game has a KILL THAT BITCH IN PARTICULAR demon. Tho, if all demons were kinder in the past, that'd be weirder. Anyhoo it was a pleasure seeing the downpour of notifs when I checked up here again.
Foolish humans, I was in truth a demon girl all along. Feasting on the ugly emotions you've let out during these intense debates have allowed me to reach a level of power above even whoever is the strongest demon. Now I will super rape the planet, or at least try to, only to be stopped by Kazuya during the EX5 scenario that will definitely come out one day. Pinky Promise.
Joke aside, I did enjoy reading all this. It taught me a bit more about the lore that I didn't know and I definitely am not capable of predicting the reaction my silly (half off half not) meme message would have brought out.
Now to talk about killing/sparing the demons in SHRIFT2...just kidding. That's a very short list.
Spare most, except the super evil slime witch that's blatantly committed a massacre inside a hospital and makes the mc of that game her semen-mana tank to take over the demon world in her ending. (Then again, in that game, the endings are mostly bad endings since the MC would have to be dumb enough to lose his soul towards a speficic demon.)
Oh, and also the
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It's kinda funny that each SHRIFT game has a KILL THAT BITCH IN PARTICULAR demon. Tho, if all demons were kinder in the past, that'd be weirder. Anyhoo it was a pleasure seeing the downpour of notifs when I checked up here again.
- Aug 15, 2023
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I think we've already come to most of our agreements and conclusions, so I'll just reply to a few general things.
To my knowledge no, the discord server doesn't exist and is a hoax.
The Blood Trails are referred to be by the note itself to be the result of Hecate and Empuse, which makes sense as to our knowledge Lampas don't have any cutting attacks like Barghest and Empuse have.
There is a video of the Hyakki fight on yt without cheats, but that one uses a boring mana stall strat that makes the fight two hours long. I did it once on a whim but I might record it someday in the future to demonstrate what I mean. If you're curious though:
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I also totally agree with your points on Hyakki, I think the concept that both sides had to cheat to win is interesting and more meta in general, but since Hyakki doesn't outright state that she's breaking the rules to beat us, its not clearly told that you need to do the same. It's a missed opportunity in spades.
I think the reduced enemy count is in part due to how SHRIFT was balanced, as otherwise your M.Lvl could reach unhealthy points, Genocide in Undertale is mathed up to add to exactly LV 19 by the time you reach it, but SHRIFT's RPGM used a built in exp multiplier while Undertale has set EXP requirements to fit that purpose. So Alan had to be more careful, but the goal was relatively the same, even if this game was poorer at it.
As for power-scaling, Samael is stated to be a world-ending threat if Kazuya was to be sucked into her, its basically an exponentional boost. Not to mention that Kazuya and the gang's wincon was not killing Samael, but removing Reina and therefore further reducing Samael's magic and power, to the point where, without Reina or Kazuya, the Linear Cannon was finally able to do her in.
That being said, I'm glad we're being civil about this
. From what I've seen the debate here has been a lot more casual compared to ones I've seen in the past both here and in other places, I apologize for my earlier concerns.
- Aug 15, 2023
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See this is why I wish there wasn't a debate going on, I completely missed this one.
Assuming you're referring to the surprise attack the duo performs early on in the light puzzles after your first conversation with them, bring Adrenaline and use it once they bind you to clear the debuffs disabling your struggle.
- Nov 25, 2020
- 1,493
- 2,941
Phew, thank god you didn't respond in full again, we were writing short essays each response.That being said, I'm glad we're being civil about this
I had fun, my perspective got expanded a bit too, cheers mate, and happy new year.