True, we haven't had a stat boost yet, but already our natural vampire nature has made one girl so infatuated with the MC that she waited for him for a week to show up at a cafe. We already used our powers, though in a rough way, with Doc and could have used them on the landlady. Even without stat boosts we are more than human already, but the point I was making was that to expect the MC to be able to do anything remotely to Emilia is ridicules.
Except that the story
also continues here as well because this isn't a hardcore ironman game. You reload, that's why I gave game examples too. That's how choice works in every game that have ever existed, you can make a wrong choice. Mario jumped in the wrong tube and died, you reload and now jump over the tube. This has been a part of gaming since video games have been a thing. I used novels as well because I was pointing out that fail states are not the end of stories, it's a normal part of stories. Boromir and Tonks would perhaps have been better then as characters who died to progress the story, but the story goes one. But that wasn't my point any way.
My point is the inconsistence and hypocrisy in tarnishing this *game* for doing what games have done since they were invented, having a failure state. It goes all the way back to Mario as I gave an example of. The fact that he is a plumber doesn't mean he always knows which pipe to use, no matter how far into the game you are... sometimes you pick the wrong pipe, and you die, reload and pick the right pipe next time so the story can go on. Toe Jam and Earl picked the wrong door and had to restart, Stanly in the Stanly Parable ignored the narrator too many times and got crushed by the crusher things, the first boss in Demon Souls and Dark Souls kills you so you can learn an important aspect of the game. Here, Emilia *can* kill you for the same reason, so you can learn a part of the game and world, you are not the powerful hero *YET* but you could be later. Eternum (to use another AVN) has a competition so you can advance the story, if you lose the quiz game the MC kills himself and then you are booted back to the start of the quiz so you can make the right answers. Many games have quick time events, if you chose not to click the buttons or click the wrong ones, you can die. You might not like that outcome, but it is a choice you are free to make, you can choose to not click the button at all. Death and failure states are a normal part of game design.
That is why there is a save and reload function in games at all... So that you can fail and then go back and move on. And in AVN using Ren'py it's even easier to correct because there is a rollback function, so you don't even have to open a new menu... it is a game design feature of the system this game uses.
I stand by this statement: Unless those complaining about the death scene in this game play every game like a hardcore iron man one death rule game then they are being hypocrites. And that's alright, I've been known to be a bit of a hypocrite as well. But I don't go in and talk trash and call it poor design and storytelling when my hypocrisy is the problem, I just move on. People are pissed not because there wasn't a choice, they are pissed because they picked the wrong the choice and got upset about it. Again, not knocking it, you are allowed to feel that way, your feelings are real and genuine I'm sure, just be honest that's the issue and don't come into the thread and tarnish the game because of it did what games since their inception have done. Offered a failure state to the player. Because again, you really expect me to believe you wouldn't have been upset if there had been no choice and you had been railroaded into telling the truth right away? Experience tells me otherwise. If there were no choice to fight back, people would be complaining that they got railroaded into confessing something to her and they would have preferred the choice to fight back and die "even if they never took it, or had to reload after." I have seen it in other game threads...
Maybe part of why I find this so odd, and confusing is because I am a writer. I've published books and taught creative writing; I'm even helping with some VN's as well as writing my own. Even my first-year creative writing students would have seen this fully telegraphed moment and gotten the point. From the conversation with Zoey, the internal thoughts of the MC, Emilia's father's words, the rumors about her from before you even met her the first time, her trying to kill Zoey that first time because Emilia was just upset about the road you were taking her home, her being more powerful than Zoey who you know is more powerful than you. Picking to fight back doesn't make it a false choice, it just makes it a wrong choice. Just like choosing the wrong tube in Mario. Except that which tube is right or wrong is actually not telegraphed, so here, it even more of a real choice between right or wrong. Hell, the entire game of Stanly Parable is about the nature of chose and your freedom to pick the wrong choices and then reloading and picking the "right" one.
It is okay to be wrong and admit it when presented a sound counter argument. I've been wrong plenty of times and admitted it and moved on. I used to give the game Light of My Life here crap because I thought the models were ugly, then I played the game, saw that all the people saying they fit the game perfectly and were right and I had been wrong, and it was amazing. I used to bash mobile gamers as not real gamers until I realized I was just being elitist, why does me playing a tower defense or resource management map game on my PC make me a gamer but my sister playing one on her phone make her a fake gamer? It doesn't, so I apologized to people I had insulted previously. I used to think D&D was for super nerds and losers, then I played it and it was fun. It's okay to be wrong, you aren't less of a person for it. This is a choice, if you say it isn't you're wrong, and that's okay, you can admit it, you won't be thought of as stupid or less of a person. But the longer people stand on this as a hill to die on the more it seems like they are just unreasonable and emotional about it because their character died when they picked what was clearly telegraphed as a wrong choice... a wrong choice, but a choice none the less. And oddly enough, if you picked it, you acutely saw more of the game then those who didn't. You saw something more of the game than those who just made the right choice right away. You actually got
more game than those who made the right choice from the start.
I've rambled on long enough, sorry if I offended anyone, that wasn't my intention. I think it's because of my history as a teacher and storyteller, because I'm a student of game design and am a writer that I'm feeling such a need to try and bring clarity to this. But people get stuck in their own ideas often times no matter what is presented to them, I've been there myself. I work really hard not to be that way anymore. So, when I present clear and irrefutable evidence that this is a choice and a feature of all games and yet people still act like it is somehow such a problem and a false choice... I just wonder if maybe I say it again, or word it a little differently they would have to get it right? I mean, the evidence is so clear and obvious... but I'll move on, I guess.
Again, sorry to anyone who might feel attacked or insulted, not my intentions, I hope we can meet somewhere else in some other context and still have productive conversations. Though experience tells me I've probably been set to ignore by some folks already for making arguments they couldn't refute.
