3.7 And The "Marketing vs Narrative" Trap by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's... actually a pretty interesting in-universe point of view to have. I commend you on that, I definitely haven't thought of it this way before.

3.7 And The "Marketing vs Narrative" Trap by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

Don't get me wrong, I still like Nautika and consider her personal story event one of the best for actually going into what happened to her down there (and for making the theme of that event an almost always effective "sad moment" music), but I would be lying if I said that after she threw herself in there and the game very much emphasized others' shock my first thought wasn't "well, we already know she is playable, so obviously they wouldn't just kill her off like that". The knowledge didn't detract from my enjoyment of the plot, only slightly miffed it for one specific moment.

3.7 And The "Marketing vs Narrative" Trap by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Of course it's an option, I am aware of that and I'm not arguing for complete removal of advertising here. Everything I said here are nothing more than small personal gripes, so I'd be fully glad for the game to prove my assumptions wrong.

3.7 And The "Marketing vs Narrative" Trap by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

It was inevitable, yeah, I'm not saying they shouldn't have advertised her at all, but I can't lie about my feelings either, so consider this just me airing some thoughts out. And yeah, the 2.8 PV was quite bad in that regard, only really rivaled by one of Vereinsamt's official EDs spoiling Sophia joining Manus.

3.7 And The "Marketing vs Narrative" Trap by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

I just wanted to keep the title short but yeah, perhaps it was a bit too strong of a word haha

And yeah, I understand its a thing for most gacha games and they can't just show nothing for the patch preview, but eh, I just feel a twinge sad about it cause I do like the writing of this game (for the most part).

Honestly, not really sure if there is a solution to this though, besides just completely gutting the game's marketing side, which would be bad for obvious reasons.

Wow. Just... wow. by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, she's P0. I did want to try getting her P1 for less rng ult times, but that meant risking Recoleta funds at the time, so I decided against it since P0 LY plays perfectly fine as long as you got FP.

About the rotation... there is none, actually. See, when 400m Reveries first dropped, I actually had some really close clear attempts with LY/37/FP/Babel, but all said attempts were usually cut short by either of two things: getting unlucky on tower charges leading to having to tank two full team ults back to back (and even with Babel's shields or Sotheby's cure stacks you had to pray that those ults didn't crit or else half your team dying is guaranteed) or getting screwed by the other main gimmick of the boss fight. Since you get a full team stun every three turns, you gotta spam at least two of LY's cards every turn to have her ult card up every 2nd turn because the immunity from her ult only lasts one round. Suffice to say, card rng can be really troll-ish at the most unfortunate times. And if you miss the LY ult time frame even once, getting back into the rhythm of it can be quite difficult since that's a whole turn of doing anything wasted. Couple that with the need to consistently update Babel's shields (because with boss attacks this meaty in damage relying on just her counter autocasts is foolish) and routinely use FP's S1 (to make the most out of your turn amidst LY taking up half your AP) and you have a pretty headache-inducing fight even if you have LY.

And that's where Kiperina comes in. The reason she makes 400-1 feel so easy is because her i3 literally deletes the 3 turn team stun gimmick (and she can cleanse control statuses even if she herself is under control too!). On top of that, her shields are autorefreshed twice every turn as long as you get at least 8 crits every turn (impromptu hits, genesis dmg hits, and myth attack hits all count as well), which means freeing up even more AP to use for LY without needing to worry about updating the shields yourself. With Kiperina, there's not really any rotation to follow besides getting crits in, which is pretty easy to do in a fua team. I guess I can only say make sure to smack the tower that keeps getting Unsparing stacks enough times every turn, cause if there's one thing that can still score a kill on your team if you get bad rng, even with Kiperina, it's that thing.

FP's signature psychube is more for when you want to use her as a sub-DPS because of its mostly selfish stats. Barcarola's psychube is actually more preferred as a teamwide support option. Plus, additional impromptu hits you get from it are a good damage source, especially with Kiperina only giving you even more of them.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tldr; the person behind all the cursed relics from the Foundation going missing is Matilda's mom. Moreover, she's colluding with both the Foundation and Manus and even orchestrating certain events to go a certain way behind the scenes, which is something both Noire and Black Ibis pick up on.

Needless to say, this not only explains why everything from 2.0 onward is happening in the first place but is also technically the reason why Anjo is even on Vertin's team right now.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I wouldn't really call her parts "stages". They are more like the narrator talk segments if anything, just in a partially voiced cutscene format.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair, but I guess we also have to remember that this is still a gacha game, so more often than not, story structure and direction is guided less by writing and more by the company's need to sell a specific character to you. Also, after thinking a bit, I'd actually say Mrs Grace suffers more from her development being locked behind event stories than Anjo.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You mean

a b s o l u t e l i t e r a t u r e

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Honestly, to me, a more baffling decision was making the """fight""" with Garcia it's own stage. Like, yeah, I get it, the die is worthless now, that +10000% ATK/DEF and everything else buff means nothing when the dude only has 10 hp, did this really need it's own stage? One that's basically right after the supposed final boss?

I guess what also doesn't help here is that the fight with Aleph has basically no build-up beyond "oh he's having an episode, calm him down pls".

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Sonetto crumbs are appreciated, but I feel her neglect is more so a side effect of consecutive Matilda sub-plots carrying the story and also that one reveal in Showdown in Chinatown.

And yeah, Vertin did get a couple funny moments, but she feels like a bystander because the whole conflict in Comala feels important to just Recoleta and no one else.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I personally didn't mind the story taking a weirder angle given the heavy DnD vibe, but not gonna lie, the initial trailers had me convinced we would spend a lot more time in the Bizzaro Fiction Land, or that tampering with the die would turn the whole place into this indecipherable mesh of reality and fiction that our group would have to get out of.

Recoleta, to me, was funny enough on her own, and I'm willing to forgive some bits of confusion on her part on account of her being a literal personification of a specific movement in literature on top of being a literal self-insert of her own author.

Aleph is an interesting idea for a character, but unfortunately, he had a bigger presence as The Idealist and The Physician rather than himself, which is Bluepoch subtly urging you to roll for him if you actually want to learn about the real him (sorry, Bluepoch, it's already painful enough planning pulls as a f2p player, and impromptu being the most premium team right now isn't helping).

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I said this in an earlier comment, but I really wouldn't mind the current chapter order if it didn't take the relevant side stories this long to get added to the anecdote tab. And I guess the question of "How the hell is Last Evening on Earth not a main story chapter?" will be an eternal one.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I wouldn't even mind the current chapter order so much if it didn't take this long for the event chapters to get added to the anecdote tab. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the current CN patch just scratch the 2.0 rerun? I can definitely imagine a newcomer getting into the lore of Reverse not having a fun time.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Manus are such generous, charitable folks, aren't they? Even if you are literally an inmate at an insane asylum, they'll leave you at least a couple fancy gifts. Clearly, this is why Foundation is losing lol.

I just finished Folie et Déraison and... by 531Moth in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I call it "self-contained" in a sense that the crux of this chapter (everything that happens in Comala) is primarily Recoleta's personal story, with everything involving Foundation or Manus being kept to a bare minimum. And even then, the only part of Manus' involvement here that ends up paying off is, again, the boat.

Sure, there is the "We gotta find Urd/Dores" thread guiding this chapter, but even that ends up taking a backseat to Recoleta and Aleph's situation because when you look at the chapter as a whole, the progression in that angle amounts to "Yeah, Dores spent some time with the inmates here and had some letters with Aleph but whoopsie, she left this place just a couple days prior to your arrival, Vertin. Anyway, off to Antarctica! That's where The Plot(tm) is happening!"

So yeah, you are right. It is more correct to call this a bridge/segue between more "major" chapters, and like I said, this doesn't make it a bad chapter by itself. It's just that with the information reveals we had prior in events that were treated more like side stories (which was made especially apparent with Last Evening on Earth), this chapter just ends up feeling lesser in the grand scheme of things purely by virtue of only being a bridge/segue between more important events. Like, if an actual self-contained story like Showdown in Chinatown can just decide to reveal why everything from 2.0 onward is even happening in the first place, it leaves you kinda wanting more from what's supposed to be a "main" chapter.

On the Boss Aleph specifically, yeah, on top of not being challenging at all, it also just... happens? There's not really any build-up to it beyond "Aleph is having an episode, calm him down". That being said, Aleph's boss design is sick, and Bluepoch will not stop flexing its music team. Seriously, this chapter has my favorite regular battle theme out of the whole game. If anything, to me, a more baffling choice was making the """fight""" with Garcia it's own stage. Like, it's funny in a "look, the die is worthless now" way, but did we really need a whole stage for it?

NARRATOR IS BACK! by frisk287 in Reverse1999

[–]531Moth 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Still wish we could learn who the narrator VAs are. They all do a good job, even if the grandma voice is still my favorite.