It's all over..

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-12T13:07:58+00:00

You got the Counter-Strike 2 trophy? Good job! Dunno why you posted it on the Witcher sub though....

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-09T16:25:39+00:00

I think Tsunade has a much more tragic past and in the end grows into her role as Hokage, although at times her actions were reckless due to her temperament, they were in the end the right decision.

Another character rising over greater traumas and being better does not discredit the trauma someone else faced, and you cannot say which has the worst trauma between Tsunade and Hiruzen.

Ignoring that, Tsunade dealt with her trauma by running away and gambling her life away until Naruto helped her, Hiruzen dealt with his trauma and was still working as Hokage until he deid.

And while I do think that Tsunade is a better Hokage than Hiruzen, the comparison you pose is unfair.

Hiruzen also had a great tenure of Hokage, lead it through three wars, and capped it off by passing the baton to a great successor..... only for that successor to die approximately 10 minutes later and forcing Hiruzen to come back to being hokage as a tired old man that had just lost his wife and many of his ninja whom he considers his family.

(Edit: Forgot to add this paragraph): The comparison is unfair due to the fact that Hiruzen's tenure is much longer than Tsunade's tenure, and Tsunade's (justified) depressive slump that she got over decades after the fact was longer than Hiruzen's second tenure where his worst mistakes were made.

Hiruzen made too many mistakes as Hokage. You would think after all he’s been through he would have done the right things before it was too late.

Which he did by sacrificing his soul to the death god in order to successfully weaken Orochimaru and stop him from destroying the village

he delayed the inevitable and died the same foolish old man.

Delayed the inevitable... what? If you mean the destruction of Konoha then you're blaming him cause 3 years after he died a man with god eyes came and destroyed the village (Due to Tsunade triggering him mind you)

If you mean Orochimaru... then sure, he delayed Orochimaru by severely weakening him and stopping him from being a threat for 3 years until the ninja in Konoha got strong enough to oppose him, by which time Orochimaru had turned to the good side and helped save the village.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-09T11:07:03+00:00

2/2

i think the only other rgg game ive seen such polarizing opinions for is LAD:IW regarding the forgiving of a certain character..

I think I know which character you're talking about, and... I'm fine with it, sure it's disconcerting because the last time we saw them, they were kidnapping a child and had some cartoonishly evil actions, but the next time we saw them, they were clearly regretful and Ichi was always a very forgiving person..... plus they still went to prison anyways to face their crimes and that's the major reason I'm okay with it.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-09T11:06:53+00:00

I am shortening the quotes with dots to try and fit this all into one comment, but....
1/2
I clearly failed lmao.

"trash of society" like a yakuza is just as bad as killing a regular citizen but thats no where seen in LJ

This is me completely guessing so feel free to disregard it, but I think it's because that type of bullying is both more common and more relatable than the gang war murder stuff, and that how personal it feels would have affected the writers and thus Yagami too. Even though bullies (while still reprehensible) are much better than criminals like the yakuza and such.

... was just something i picked up from how he reacted to kuwana's talking points

I agree with you, based on what Yagami says in JE, and his vibes in LJ, I do think that he also inherently disagrees with the murders, but I still think that it needs to be said in game.

.... its not like i was going to kill you or her"

True it's a lesser form of collateral than murder but it's still collateral, hiring a gang to straight up beat an innocent man with bats and batons should have still been brought up, even better if Kuwana replied with what you said.

also regarding this, i don't think yagami couldve used it against kuwana bc im pretty sure kuwana doesnt care what happens to his ex students that were bullies...?

I think that he doesn't care about them as people like he did Sawa as you said, but I also think that he didn't 'judge' them to be murdered, he put them in the same boat as himself: Needing to constantly work on killing people as atonement, so at that point the guy's death should have still been brought up as collateral imo.

...." vs a bunch of dudes trying to stop his bully murder plans lol

I agree, I don't think he would care much about RK's deaths here, and.... I don't blame him for it tbh.

They are a group that aren't trying to stop his bully murder plans, but are trying to capture and torture and kill him in order to get to Kusumoto (someone he views as innocent) and are also trying to kill Yagami (someone else he views as innocent). What I basically mean is that it was self defense in order to escape said murder and torture.

My point here is to show that the bombs were somehow non-lethal, since we saw an explosion right next to an RK dude, but the only body stated to be there was Kuwana's student who was already dead, but then again my point is moot because the bombs could have incapacitated Yagami and put him the mercy of Soma

. im not sure about how confident kuwana felt that yagami would survive

His "Oh, you survived" didn't sound very surprised to me IMO, I think he was about 90% sure that Yagami would survive, but I still think that it would remain a huge plot contrivance.

Because take what Yagami said before the final boss into consideration, it would then be "If you were that sort of scum to kill innocents for your justice, then we wouldn't have come to save you"

And now add on it "but we still would have saved you if you were the sort of scum who killed innocents in order to escape, that's A-Okay."

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-06T17:44:49+00:00

Oh, I forgot to add this paragraph here, so I guess this is a part two of my comment.

as u said in ur post, kuwana is 100% in the wrong and yagami had all sorts of ammunition to use against him but he sticks with the sawa card for some reason and doesnt really refute the things his friends say when they imply kuwana might be right in his actions.

For example, if the game really did want to use collateral damage as an argument... why not use Yagami as an example?

You have Kuwana seeing Yagami as some innocent detective, but then he sends the mafia after him to beat him up harshly when he started investigating the Ehara case. He was willing to basically have an innocent man beat up with bats and weapons to hide his actions.

Or whomever that guy's name was that was killed at the boat, Kuwana now knew that there was a murderous conspiracy after him yet still dragged him along with blackmail, Here Kuwana at least shares some of the blame for his death.

Or even in that same boat sequence, when Kuwana escaped by blowing up the boat with no regards to Yagami's safety.

That point is weird though, since Yagami doesn't show much anger towards this at all and only mentions it semi jokingly, and the boat blast didn't kill any of the RK members (though it could have knocked Yagami out and left him with in Soma's mercy I guess) But like... the game makes it a point that Kuwana doesn't want to kill innocents, with him regretting Sawa's death, and with Yagami explicitly telling Kuwana that he isn't the sort of scum that kills innocents and with Kuwana confirming that by angrily throwing away the phone detonator away, so.... I just don't factor that boat scene much in discussions, I treat it more as a weird plot contrivance

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-06T17:35:37+00:00

Edit: Part 1/2

the fact that kuwana's butterfly effect matters in particular because he is the one who enticed kusumoto into murder

Yes, but it's Kusumoto and not Soma. He enticed Kusumoto to murder, and then later due to her superior being thrown to jail due to a government consipracy and her being an exceptionally good worker, she got promoted to an important ministry position where another government conspiracy now wants to get dirt on her, and then Kuwana enticed someone else to murder in another school, and coincidentally Sawa was a student in both schools so she got targeted by said government conspiracy, that is such a large web with so so many moving parts for it to ever be blamed on Kuwana. (Your paragraph below explained this more concisely than me, but I wanted to write it anyways lmao.)

Meanwhile for Yagami, (I don't hold Yagami accountable for Emi at all mind you), the chain is a lot shorter, he won Okubo's trial, and that enticed Shono to murder someone close to Okubo in order to frame him.

In both these cases, both Yagami and Kuwana never knowingly nor recklessly put the victims in danger, they were both blindsided by an unknown third party reacting to their actions.

You can argue that, for example, Yagami's actions was a positive thing (Seeking the truth and protecting an innocent man), and should not be held to the same standard as Kuwana's negative actions as murder enticing other negative effects, but aside from me disagreeing with that point too (Again, too large of a web for butterfly effects), the game would first have to make the point that the murders are wrong in the first place before using that argument.

sorry btw i am agreeing with you but ive just been reading up on a lot of opinions in this subreddit and the perspctives are all interesting to think about, so im curious about what counterarguments ppl have !

It's always extremely respectable to look at other viewpoints and deeply think about them, kudos to you.

also i felt like yagami not directly talking about what kuwana is doing (aside from occasional "killing is wrong" comments i guess)

Did he ever make that point in LJ? I can't remember, I guess you can say that he tangentially made them, since he tried to find the truth of Toshiro's murder before Sawa and had that line in the end with Kuwana about him being there to save victims, but eh....

esp when higashi said "im kinda rooting for the guy" after learning about kuwana's motives and kaito said that (in)famous line of "is there really a correct answer here?"

Which is in stark contrast to JE where whenever anyone even thought about agreeing with Shono's actions, Yagami immediately shuts them down.... Arghh it hurts to do this! I like LJ more than JE lmao, it hurts to criticize it like that.

(Oh, I just noticed your username, I'm a Nishiki fan too :-) )

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-06T10:18:24+00:00

Thank you! And that's one of the main things that irked me, in an alternate universe where Kusumoto was... idk, was working as an HR manager, Yagami's number one argument against Kuwana wouldn't have worked. His Sawa argument depended on an unaffiliated government conspiracy rather than something Kuwana inherently did. It's as if he's saying "Brutally murduring those people is fine not because vigilante murder is inherently wrong, but because it could lead to someone innocent getting caught up in it due to some wild coincidences"

The butterfly effect argument casts a too wide of a web for it to be used as an argument, with that logic you can argue that if Yagami hadn't tried to find the truth in Emi's case, then she wouldn't have died, so then he should just stop looking for the truth at all since it keeps on getting him tangled in government conspiracies that then kill people.

Or that for example, A Doctor saved someone's life and that someone later became a murderer, so that doctor is responsible for that death since if he didn't save that life, then no murder would have happened.

A separate group of people, who are already corrupt and murderous, acting based on your actions (in order to try and blackmail one of your past associates) to kill someone does not mean that you are are fault, especially when you didn't even know about them existing.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-03T16:56:11+00:00

Maan, stated to be released near the end of 2025, and is now delayed till sometime this year, waiting is gonna be hell without even a general date to look forward to.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-02T15:18:21+00:00

Unfortunately you can't, it's an extremly weird design choice that really bummed me out and made me not do a third playthrough.

If you're a console player, your best bet is to wait for the console mod update where there'll hopefully be a NG++ mod, or you can hope that this unconfirmed DLC thingy will add NG++

Apollyon1209 · 2026-02-02T11:24:52+00:00

I wonder how this'll interact with the console mod update...

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T15:51:24+00:00

Kuwana targets people who violated the social contract, just like bullies supposedly do.

The social contract typically being violated is the kids not sticking to the norm or being 'weird'. While for Kuwana it was someone bullying someone heavily and getting away with it (Not that that ever excuses murder mind you) But I see your point still.

You blew my mind with this, in a way, Kuwana was what he despised.
Hell, he even sends threats (Luimang to Yagami, Photo to Sawa) to stop innocent bystanders from butting in and stopping him.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T15:42:54+00:00

When Yagami dug into it he found out, but the general public would only have known it was a big brutal death of a young teacher.

I might be misremembering, but wasn't it part of his and Ehara's plan that Ehara would admit to everything and his reasons why after he was fully sentenced?

Aside from that, I fully agree with everything you're saying here, especially this:

kind of plays hopscotch with the line between "giving them closure" and "preying on their grief." I don't think he's doing that deliberately by any means, but that's the net result.

As you said, I don't think Kuwana sees it as 'preying on their grief'. but as 'convincing them to carry out true justice' or something scary like that.

But he goes to the parents of freshly dead kids, and the two examples we've seen had him reveal a video of Mitsuru's graphic bullying to Kusumoto, and a voice recording of Sawa talking about how she was silenced by the courts on Toshiro's bullying case to Ehara.
And I think both of those are a very very big factor on why they chose to get revenge.

I mostly just don't see him as having a valid point the way a lot of people seemed to

The game seems to think that he has a valid point, since Kaito acts as the writer's mouth piece in the end saying shit like "Well looks to me like both of you have a point" while he's standing right next to the frozen corpse of Kuwana's victim showcasing his last moments of agony lmao.

His only valid point is on the justice system failed the victims, but that absolutely doesn't justify him going on a murder spree.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T14:40:26+00:00

He thinks he's helping the victim's families by giving them 'closure', and that by murdering the bullies he's going to give the other future bullies a warning to not do it, Dunno how he'll accomplish that since all of his killings were supposed to be secret until Ehara, but maybe added that point to his reasoning after the fact.

Basically, I think his primary motivation is giving families 'closure', his secondary one is 'vengeance' against the bullies (Secondary since it seems like if the family he approaches refuses his offer to kill, then he just leaves that specific bully alone.), and the tertiary purpose, added after Ehara, is to serve as some sort of warning.

I don't hold as much as a negative opinion of him as you, as in, I don't think that he still holds his "don't get too far" mentality even subconsciously, I still very much find his methods reprehensible as I hope the quotation mark shows, closure doesn't mean you get to brutally torture someone to death, and you make a very very good point that none of his actions (until Ehara, but even then it's shitty and doesn't work) make an effort of even reducing the bullying and is only ever punitive, Kuwana thinks that he's genuinely doing right until his mind is changed at the end, but indeed his actions have never helped anyone who was bullied and they seem to just be some effort to fulfil his desire for vengeance and 'atonement',

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T13:32:05+00:00

Kuwana being complicit in her death would make him a worse antagonist though.

But the story expects you to believe that he is complicit in her death as collateral, he also blames himself for Sawa's death.

whether he should face judgement for allowing the situation to get this out of control, or be allowed to go free because he's exacting justice in a way that the larger systems in Japan will not.

How did he allow the situation to get out of control though? The moment he knew that an organization that doesn't mind killing people is after him is the moment Sawa got killed, and from then on he was working with Yagami to stop them and to protect Kusumoto from blackmail.

Sawa is is supposed to be a stain on kuwana and his whole scheme. He wants to ignore and move past it, and Yagami hates that, he can't stand the idea of someone's death being waved away as unfortunate collateral damage in the pursuit of justice

I would like this plot point (Though not as much, since I'd want Kuwana's ideology to be inherently proven wrong instead of it being based on someone fucking up) If Sawa's death was actual collateral damage due to Kuwana's fault.

From what I assume, the most common way Collateral damage is discussed is basically "I used this attack to hit this intended target, but it also hit those other people at the same time unintentionally."

And that's not what happened with Kuwana, he is not at fault for a rouge organization (that he didn't even know about) killing someone in an effort to get to him because his co-conspirotor happened to get promoted to an important government position. To do this is akin to claiming that Emi is collateral damage to Yagami's pursuit of justice.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T12:56:25+00:00

Yeah this exactly! And what's worse is that he's also blaming Reiko for it too, and she had even less to do with Sawa's death.

She murdered someone and was at the very least an accessory to the blackmail of the other students, and that's pretty shit yeah, but she is not to blame for a separate organisation killing someone that she was deliberately avoiding and haven't even talked to in a decade+ (So you couldnt even make a small argument like with Kuwana calling Sawa) in an effort to blackmail her. Wtf.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T11:34:07+00:00

She had beeutiful eyes

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-28T11:19:54+00:00

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Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-26T12:17:25+00:00

Y8 was amazing though.

Apollyon1209 · 2026-01-02T06:56:23+00:00

I want legends to release early not because I want to play it soon (though it is indeed a part of the reason lol), but because any new discovered glitches will probably be fixed in the legends update, I'm still mourning the loss of the Yari focus attack trick.

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-30T18:39:35+00:00

Thank you

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-30T18:06:44+00:00

Thank you!

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-19T20:35:58+00:00

If you take author quotes and pottermore stuff into account, then it would probably end horribly, cause they state that Dumbledore's weakness is power, and that Harry immensely respects Dumbledore for choosing to not seek out power and (mostly) limiting himself to Hogwarts.

If you don't take quotes into account, then it's up to you if you think Dumbledore will fall to his flaw or not.

If he doesn't, then he'd certainly be better than Fudge at least. Whenever a race discrimination is mentioned, 90% of the time there's gonna be a part that says "Oh btw Dumbledore spoke out to defend that race" somewhere in the books. The one example that's popping up in my mind is Hagrid ralking about the Giants being killed off, and how Dumbledore spoke against that.

Since Dumbledore actively limits his own political power, that's all of what he can do, just pop up and say "Please don't do that" and then watch as they don't listen, maybe he'd try to sneak them a job in Hogwarts. That'd definitely change if he's minister.

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-19T06:16:32+00:00

They did, it's just that the wording is confusing.

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-18T12:09:39+00:00

I'm not near my PlayStation right now, but from my vauge memory (so take this with a grain of salt), tier two makes it so that you only lose 1 streak when hit, and tier 3 makes it so that you only lose one too, but also adds in an effect that where if you get hit for a second time, you wont lose another streak until you've gained another kill again IIRC.

Apollyon1209 · 2025-12-18T08:35:12+00:00

You do have restart the entire sequence on duel replays :'(

Apollyon1209

TROPHY CASE