VN Ren'Py Superhuman [v0.995 Beta] [WeirdWorld]

[D2M3]

I gotta say.... I'm digging the Alex Mercer of this all.
The problem I had playing through this for the first time is... the anime approach to it all.
At the cost of making this a little more linear a story, I think some more characters could and honestly should've been killed off.

Yes, many dead ends from what I saw, but stakes still doesnt feel "there", since the "big bad" of it all never showed up once, (this is very anime, so it aint Ella), and the trope of "backup team with wide ranging powers but weaker" trope being there, yet no one really dying is kinda breaking the tension a bit.
It's a bit sad that super training ( at every chance you get) didnt seem to make a whole lot difference.

Other than that, cool story. Art is AI generated at many places, if I'm not mistaken?
I can see the stable diffusion-like backgrounds at places.

Edit: I named my guy Prototype, since ffs, that's like almost a one to one copy.

 

[holzheimer1993]

I named him Biological, it was a class in armorgames' Sonny. It made sense, his prowess is both physical and he generates venoms and poisons. Just like the class did.

 

[DrakoGhoul]

I gotta say.... I'm digging the Alex Mercer of this all.
The problem I had playing through this for the first time is... the anime approach to it all.
At the cost of making this a little more linear a story, I think some more characters could and honestly should've been killed off.

Yes, many dead ends from what I saw, but stakes still doesnt feel "there", since the "big bad" of it all never showed up once, (this is very anime, so it aint Ella), and the trope of "backup team with wide ranging powers but weaker" trope being there, yet no one really dying is kinda breaking the tension a bit.
It's a bit sad that super training ( at every chance you get) didnt seem to make a whole lot difference.

Other than that, cool story. Art is AI generated at many places, if I'm not mistaken?
I can see the stable diffusion-like backgrounds at places.

Edit: I named my guy Prototype, since ffs, that's like almost a one to one copy.

We've already seen the big bad(s). The Numbered Monsters are the threat of the game. We've also seen the most powerful creature in the Glowing Eye monster from the Dead End with Ella, the MC's dream after Evolution lvl 2, and this update with Valravn's flashback. That's most likely the strongest being in the game.

You might've missed the 1st, 3rd and 4th Numbered appearing more if you don't play into corruption. You'll definitely see the 2nd after Michael beats the lightning monster.

 

[Meh21]

Anyone willing to make some notations of all the monster speech when you have high corruption?
My main save isn't 0 corruption, but it's less than 20 even by the end.

 

[Neverwonder]

I Just named mine Black Sebas simply because it sound cool

 

[Demandred20]

I named my hero Darklight in my first run and the name stuck so now he is "Darklight" in my head.

 

[DrakoGhoul]

Anyone willing to make some notations of all the monster speech when you have high corruption?
My main save isn't 0 corruption, but it's less than 20 even by the end.

No problem. I got you below. I might post all the numbered monsters again too since I haven't added the 2nd to the post.

"Weakness. Disgusting. Kill the weakness inside you. We are mean't for- Eat. Consume. Consume everything. You need to consume everything. Every option, every opportunity, consume. Because if you don't... More. We need more. Every opportunity. Every single one. Always devour. Always. Our end requires it. Absolute power. It's within our grasp. But we cannot abide weakness. And above all- Above all. Above everything. We need to devour. Fate- Fate has provided all. All the nourishment we require... It has laid out for us. All we need to do is take-"

And that's it. That's all what the Monster said throughout the dream sequence this update. I might have missed one of the dialogues but this should be all of it.

Also here's my corruption playthrough stats for those curious:

Power - 83 Skill - 18 Corruption - 24

 

[RedPotatoe]

Mine´s Black Knight.

Yeah the fight against Valram was an experience

 

[Meh21]

No problem. I got you below. I might post all the numbered monsters again too since I haven't added the 2nd to the post.

Thank you for your service.

I found a save file I had that actually had more corruption than my main one simply by choosing the correct routes, without the need to kill innocent people too(as far as I remember), so might make it my main. I am guessing the gibberish before the second evo is just impossible to understand.

 

[DrakoGhoul]

Thank you for your service.

I found a save file I had that actually had more corruption than my main one simply by choosing the correct routes, without the need to kill innocent people too(as far as I remember), so might make it my main. I am guessing the gibberish before the second evo is just impossible to understand.

You have to kill Danica to get that one during evolution. As for the other times before that, you can't because it's not possible.

 

[D2M3]

We've already seen the big bad(s). The Numbered Monsters are the threat of the game. We've also seen the most powerful creature in the Glowing Eye monster from the Dead End with Ella, the MC's dream after Evolution lvl 2, and this update with Valravn's flashback. That's most likely the strongest being in the game.

You might've missed the 1st, 3rd and 4th Numbered appearing more if you don't play into corruption. You'll definitely see the 2nd after Michael beats the lightning monster.

If that's the case, I'm even more disappointed.

The "Eldritch Horror monsters x3( or x5, x7)" is also an anime trope I detest. Problem here is the villains.

Don't get me wrong, I can go with a "let's form a rebellion to overthrow a fascist one-world government" plot. Or a "Ella fighting the HERO org and all the government with what little options she has" story thread. That'd make both her into a sympathetic villain, and government into an understandable position.

If indeed some faceless 5 is the ultimate villains..... Sorry, that's just a horrible execution of this already hard to pull trope. I saw ( I think 3) of these monsters, and yet I was still under the impression they were just instinct driven horrors from another dimension etc. That's a failure to communicate the facts from the author.

I was super into the story when Jake took his villain route. That was very well executed. As soon as that arc closed out, this story started floundering on my first playthru, and now I can see why. It's a villain definition problem.

 

[TerminusPrime]

Thank you for your service.

I found a save file I had that actually had more corruption than my main one simply by choosing the correct routes, without the need to kill innocent people too(as far as I remember), so might make it my main. I am guessing the gibberish before the second evo is just impossible to understand.

Your monster parent says a garbled version of "Spawn consume her" while you're in your second evolution

 

[RogueEagle]

If that's the case, I'm even more disappointed.

The "Eldritch Horror monsters x3( or x5, x7)" is also an anime trope I detest. Problem here is the villains.

Don't get me wrong, I can go with a "let's form a rebellion to overthrow a fascist one-world government" plot. Or a "Ella fighting the HERO org and all the government with what little options she has" story thread. That'd make both her into a sympathetic villain, and government into an understandable position.

If indeed some faceless 5 is the ultimate villains..... Sorry, that's just a horrible execution of this already hard to pull trope. I saw ( I think 3) of these monsters, and yet I was still under the impression they were just instinct driven horrors from another dimension etc. That's a failure to communicate the facts from the author.

I was super into the story when Jake took his villain route. That was very well executed. As soon as that arc closed out, this story started floundering on my first playthru, and now I can see why. It's a villain definition problem.

It seens like the problem is your understanding of the game, Jake was never a villain, he was just a dude trying to save his friend, he made some mistakes? Yes, did he kill anyone when he had the chance? nope, only in one occasion but even then he was stopped so he never really became full evil since he always had the intention of fighting Ella...
Second, there are no defined villains yet unless you consider creatures that spread through the city forest because of Ellas mistake, most of the so called "villains" are creatures acting on instinct or creatures that are after Ella herself for some reason she doesn't want to reveal yet...
Only villain i've found so far is the mistery itself, except for Klaus(whatever way you spell it) all others seen to be either following orders or have some pretty strong motive, nothing that would label them as villains...
And sincerelly, why there must be a villain as a plot center? I find games way more trope when they pull the "there is a villain to fight" instead of "there is a mistery to solve"...
I personally never saw this game as "big bad villain to slay" copy and paste that a lot of games use, but as a mistery to solve game, but everyone has their view and opnion.

 

[Meh21]

If that's the case, I'm even more disappointed.

The "Eldritch Horror monsters x3( or x5, x7)" is also an anime trope I detest. Problem here is the villains.

Don't get me wrong, I can go with a "let's form a rebellion to overthrow a fascist one-world government" plot. Or a "Ella fighting the HERO org and all the government with what little options she has" story thread. That'd make both her into a sympathetic villain, and government into an understandable position.

If indeed some faceless 5 is the ultimate villains..... Sorry, that's just a horrible execution of this already hard to pull trope. I saw ( I think 3) of these monsters, and yet I was still under the impression they were just instinct driven horrors from another dimension etc. That's a failure to communicate the facts from the author.

I was super into the story when Jake took his villain route. That was very well executed. As soon as that arc closed out, this story started floundering on my first playthru, and now I can see why. It's a villain definition problem.

There eldritch horrors are more of a mystery/horror point for now. We don't know a lot about them, but they do give some good opportunities for the plot.
The fact there are another species threatening humanity brings out the challenge of fighting said threat despite our polarized society and individualistic nature. H.E.R.O is severely limiting the freedom of superhumans by demanding them to show up to their doors. Innocent people that lived normal lives but were attacked by monsters and survived are now by law required to be affiliated with some monster fighting organization. Not only that, their arsenal of ever growing superhumans by itself already makes them the single most powerful entity by a overwhelming margin. But, the monster threat makes H.E.R.O seem like a necessary evil to humanity, they are still a threat by themselves.

 

[DrakoGhoul]

If that's the case, I'm even more disappointed.

The "Eldritch Horror monsters x3( or x5, x7)" is also an anime trope I detest. Problem here is the villains.

Don't get me wrong, I can go with a "let's form a rebellion to overthrow a fascist one-world government" plot. Or a "Ella fighting the HERO org and all the government with what little options she has" story thread. That'd make both her into a sympathetic villain, and government into an understandable position.

If indeed some faceless 5 is the ultimate villains..... Sorry, that's just a horrible execution of this already hard to pull trope. I saw ( I think 3) of these monsters, and yet I was still under the impression they were just instinct driven horrors from another dimension etc. That's a failure to communicate the facts from the author.

I was super into the story when Jake took his villain route. That was very well executed. As soon as that arc closed out, this story started floundering on my first playthru, and now I can see why. It's a villain definition problem.

If you don't like anything else but the Jake stuff(which is shocking because there's nothing special at all there from him), then that's fine and I'm not going to try to change your mind on it. My only goal was to clear up that we indeed saw the "big bad" already. You not liking it at all is a whole other thing and I frankly have no interest is discussing it. You not getting those scenes just mean you weren't doing the corruption route.

I will say though, I find it funny that you liked Jake's stuff when he was basically being manipulated by Ella and the 1st Numbered Monster during that whole thing. The thing you "detested".

 

[Lobo420]

I will try this retro movie and by the way, "Sorcerer" is not abandoned, is completed in february 2022.

yeah i played the Epilogue list... it just feels like there was supposed to be more and they just didn't want to deal with it.

 

[RogueEagle]

Now here is the real question, what is the main name of your character?
I gave mine the name "Dickson Ballsy", and i guess you know why...

 

[D2M3]

If you don't like anything else but the Jake stuff(which is shocking because there's nothing special at all there from him), then that's fine and I'm not going to try to change your mind on it. My only goal was to clear up that we indeed saw the "big bad" already. You not liking it at all is a whole other thing and I frankly have no interest is discussing it. You not getting those scenes just mean you weren't doing the corruption route.

I will say though, I find it funny that you liked Jake's stuff when he was basically being manipulated by Ella and the 1st Numbered Monster during that whole thing. The thing you "detested".

The reason for me why that arc was working as Jake positioned as the villain wasn't because he was "the ultimate villain".
In fact, if it turned out to be that Ella is indeed just a super maniac that wants to murder everyone in the world, that would make this whole story work. Yet hints are there that this wont be the case.

The antagonist of an arc can easily not be the superb villain of them all and make it work. Thing is... Who is the villain of any arc after him? Like.... MC fights some undead knight. Govt comes after him.
And mind you, there should be some more super corrupt options that shouldn't lead down a direct dead end, if we want to have a branch where MC IS the villain. As it stands, I don't understand who I'm supposed to root for or against.

This is one of those situations where the writer does worldbuilding to the extreme detriment of the narrative itself.

Sub-note to this point: After ditching the school setting, there should've %110 been a "Kratos / Alex Mercer" route. (I.e. KILL EVERYTHING that mildly annoys you) That was the logical break point for that. To prevent that, you start unveiling more and more godlike new characters, again, a very tiresome anime trope. Like, if you can move instanteanously to another continent and wipe an entire mountain off the map, Valran would take that middle aged wind guy 0.11 seconds to end.

So the whole point of that fight is just.... gone.

 

[RogueEagle]

The reason for me why that arc was working as Jake positioned as the villain wasn't because he was "the ultimate villain".
In fact, if it turned out to be that Ella is indeed just a super maniac that wants to murder everyone in the world, that would make this whole story work. Yet hints are there that this wont be the case.

The antagonist of an arc can easily not be the superb villain of them all and make it work. Thing is... Who is the villain of any arc after him? Like.... MC fights some undead knight. Govt comes after him.
And mind you, there should be some more super corrupt options that shouldn't lead down a direct dead end, if we want to have a branch where MC IS the villain. As it stands, I don't understand who I'm supposed to root for or against.

This is one of those situations where the writer does worldbuilding to the extreme detriment of the narrative itself.

Sub-note to this point: After ditching the school setting, there should've %110 been a "Kratos / Alex Mercer" route. (I.e. KILL EVERYTHING that mildly annoys you) That was the logical break point for that. To prevent that, you start unveiling more and more godlike new characters, again, a very tiresome anime trope. Like, if you can move instanteanously to another continent and wipe an entire mountain off the map, Valran would take that middle aged wind guy 0.11 seconds to end.

So the whole point of that fight is just.... gone.

First, a game does not need to work as an anime and have a defined villain through and through, it can have a hidden villain to create a mistery of sorts that lead players to wonder or in the case of this one, an anti-hero that leads the MC to some hidden agenda and wants said MC through some tough love to discover for himself what kind of hero he wants to be, meanwhile accomplishing her plans on the background, that is called later on a Denouement, that is when the nods of the plot finally becomes clear...

Second, the plot doesn't need an even more corrupt govt option because there is only one govt, it would need to be a 3th party or a outside influence, but H.E.R.O. already plays the part in the outside influence by being the "for humanity protection" front scheme, the govt itself even tries to recruit the MC, you don't need to understand who to root for or against, you need to understand with wich the MC has the most power later on wich i will explain in my subsequent points...

Third, if this is too much world building for you, i really don't wish to know wich 20 minutes completion time games you play on your spare time, because i have seen some detrimental world building and this is not it my friend...

Final point, there 220% didn't need to have a "Kratos / Alex Mercer" route because at that point H.E.R.O. wanted to boost the image of the now revealed identity of the MC to with that push foward their reveal as well and with an iconic hero to boot, and him facing Valran instead of the wind guy was a tactical move for that, to make the MC a true hero because lets face it, having an old man blasting Valran and half the city with it with people not even being able to keep up with what happened is not very hero like, with the MC as face of HERO he can literally overthow the people in power there later and be the head seeing that his kind occupies more than 90% of its man power and seeing as even the old man is unhappybeing there the way it is at the moment...

It seens its not the game that is giving you reasons to dislike it, you are the one creating reasons and expectations of what you would have liked to be in it that are really not.

 

[D2M3]

First, a game does not need to work as an anime and have a defined villain through and through, it can have a hidden villain to create a mistery of sorts that lead players to wonder or in the case of this one, an anti-hero that leads the MC to some hidden agenda and wants said MC through some tough love to discover for himself what kind of hero he wants to be, meanwhile accomplishing her plans on the background, that is called later on a Denouement, that is when the nods of the plot finally becomes clear...

Second, the plot doesn't need an even more corrupt govt option because there is only one govt, it would need to be a 3th party or a outside influence, but H.E.R.O. already plays the part in the outside influence by being the "for humanity protection" front scheme, the govt itself even tries to recruit the MC, you don't need to understand who to root for or against, you need to understand with wich the MC has the most power later on wich i will explain in my subsequent points...

Third, if this is too much world building for you, i really don't wish to know wich 20 minutes completion time games you play on your spare time, because i have seen some detrimental world building and this is not it my friend...

Final point, there 220% didn't need to have a "Kratos / Alex Mercer" route because at that point H.E.R.O. wanted to boost the image of the now revealed identity of the MC to with that push foward their reveal as well and with an iconic hero to boot, and him facing Valran instead of the wind guy was a tactical move for that, to make the MC a true hero because lets face it, having an old man blasting Valran and half the city with it with people not even being able to keep up with what happened is not very hero like, with the MC as face of HERO he can literally overthow the people in power there later and be the head seeing that his kind occupies more than 90% of its man power and seeing as even the old man is unhappybeing there the way it is at the moment...

It seens its not the game that is giving you reasons to dislike it, you are the one creating reasons and expectations of what you would have liked to be in it that are really not.

I find it interesting that instead of engaging the intellectual points I laid out, you laid out an attack against me?
"Third, if this is too much world building for you, i really don't wish to know wich 20 minutes completion time games you play on your spare time, because i have seen some detrimental world building and this is not it my friend..."
On average, my gameplay time tends to be in heavily invested RPGs, almost all with heavy worldbuilding elements. I enjoy long narratives, have years of reading experience in both western comics ( entire arcs spanning multiple years at a time) and manga ( again, multiple year long arcs).

I am extremely particular to what you might call "world logic." When a setting lays out certain rules, but then starts breaking them down the line for little to no reason, it's called jumping a shark. The appearance of the wind guy was as big a one as you can get. It literally shifted the entire story sideways. Because now, the world logic is inconsistent.

HERO wants a symbol? They have 5 ready made from the sounds of it. Instead of MC, the wind dude wipes the floor with valran, instant public approval. You want to get modern world savvy? You play on the social media trope, how quickly it takes for a new fad to take hold. You plaster memes of this wind dude all over the socials, Homelander style.

As it is, what you have is the most convoluted public relations storyline ever. And it doesn't make sense. And that's happening because you just broke your own world logic. This is what I meant extreme detriment to the narrative. This is the exact problem the show "Heroes" ran into in its second season, derailing an incredible show into unwatchable garbage.

Funny enough, it was almost the exact same way its own logic derailed itself with this story.