So is it really not possible at all to go for a corruption run and not turn her into a mean cunt? When I first played a long time ago only the first level of "being a bitch" were available.
Corruption only lead her to bully her friend like a bitch, so no, there are no other way. Unless you stop corruption at some point, however certain "real worlds" events will not happen and even some friend's corruption events.
I could be wrong, but I think psycho bitch Aura only happens/gets unlocked after hitting a certain level of Vice, and you're generally hitting that level by doing things in Roya that range from morally dubious to outright fucked. It shouldn't exactly be surprising that your actions have consequences...
Probably because you haven't done the magic academy stuff.
This is not correct. Sure, Vice make you more "morally wrong", but it's still a corruption trait, and some events with friends can only happen if you have said corruption trait (like corrupting your companion in Roya you need Vice), so no, it's not "a choise you can make" as other said it's completely linear the corruption, and the event play in only a specific way (aside some minor words variations in certain scenes but mostly because some "modification" in Aura mental world). Saying that it's a choice when in reality you mean stop her corruption and go for the good ending. To reach the "corrupted ending" you MUST go down that path.
I get that it's "mind control" but it's entirely one dimensional and even if there's a personality change, for someone as smart and principled as she is, how does she not wrestle more with the complete 180 of her values? Why is she only able to affirm and embrace negative changes but not positive ones that resonate with who she really is?
Ye exactly, and as smart as the story make us believe she is, she never realize she is slowly get brainwashed until "too late". At that point I was like "lol what?". After all that time or you keep her oblivious, or she should be smart enough to figure it out since almost the beginning (which could have been even a good thing to watch, like her struggling in the real world to act normally, but her body acts differently and make her struggle "real", maybe even reading her internal thought that she wants to say something else but ends up acting like a bimbo or a bitch)
Yeah that's another point that I really didn't like about this game's writing is Aura's personality change and I wrote about this in my first review years ago. I feel like she should've been written as a character that you want to root for but instead she becomes this dumb, evil, petty, shallow character to the point where I ended up just hating the character and skimming the dialogue towards the end because of how insufferable she is. Like it gets to a point where I don't even care if she wins. I get that it's "mind control" but it's entirely one dimensional and even if there's a personality change, for someone as smart and principled as she is, how does she not wrestle more with the complete 180 of her values? Why is she only able to affirm and embrace negative changes but not positive ones that resonate with who she really is?
Also, doing evil or self-indulgent things corrupts her, but why doesn't doing good things or things in line with her true self have the opposite effect? It would've introduced some kind of counterbalance so in terms of gameplay your decisions feel like you're fighting for her values and identity. This just ties in with the complaint myself and others have made about how the corruption is functionally linear. It's pretty frustrating to find out how on rails the corruption aspect of it is, especially when it leads to turning the protagonist into someone you just hate.
This is another reason on why I hate how big of a missed opportunity John was. He could've offered another option for a corrupting, NTR relationship while still aiming at keeping Aura on a morally good track. It would've caused her inner turmoil and complicated her relationship with George while delivering more taboo, raunchy scenes and a developing relationship to get invested in. He has everything set up for him to be relevant, but instead spends 95% of the game sitting at a desk staring at a wall.
I completely understand you and agree with you. Also to me, the way the story was written, it feel like author lost interest and/or motivation and some point he just rushed for the end, not caring anymore for the characters he introduced so far. Maybe it's not like this, but the way how he barely developed John, Hermann, even Liliana is a good character that could futher "corrupt her", breaking her into becoming Mary, it just so much wasted potential, because the basic idea was good, but poorly developed. Also it should have give us an option to "decide" if spend time with George, and maybe with high corruption, we could make her decide to not do it and spend it doing something else, like having a proper impact in the real world.
