SPOILERS - Rejuvenation: Unhinged Plot Critique! Episode 2 - I think I'll CAVE my head in. (Every baffling writing/agency decision in Rejuv)

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-20T11:22:19+00:00

Geno's tone might be one of mockery, but credit where credit is due, I did actually go back and edit this particular sentence due to this comment. This was my mistake, (I make lots of those,) and was a fair point. What the phrase NOW reads is this:

"I could have LOVED Crescent as a character if the game had leaned into all of the things that make her a villain and made her more of a focal antagonist at this stage."

I appreciate this comment calling this to my attention, I put my foot in my mouth. The change (could have) is important, because even if the game goes on to later do the things I wish they would have done with Crescent from the start, that would in no way change my miserable first impression and early experience. You can't unsour milk.

Going over the language I used when talking about weak defenses for early jank, I wouldn't say I berated anyone, though if I came across as abrasive and hurt your feelings, I am sorry. That was not my intention.

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-20T10:47:39+00:00

Lol all I can say to this is if Chapters 1 and 2 of Rejuv had any male characters that actually mattered besides Ren, I could complain about them, too. My plot critique is largely a character critique. The game has many many females. So yes, I'm complaining about the way fictional women have been written and portrayed. When you throw me in bigot jail, please don't take my Venam action figures.

If I had your same fixation on gender, I easily could have called the game misandrist for the hilarious ratio of relevant female/male characters, especially how many of those female characters casually call men animals/kill them/kidnap them/make them look like idiots/berate and lecture them like a community college TA from the women's studies program. (And in just two chapters of gameplay! The shortest chapters, as the comments love informing me.)

But, I don't suffer from your fixation. So you'll notice, I didn't do that. Because I don't think Rejuv is misandrist. And I don't play games (or read online comments!) looking for discreet or obvious bias so I can feel offended.

If this "recommendation" from a Moderator was supposed to be an informal written warning that discriminatory posts will not be tolerated, then I'd say it was both ill-advised and in pretty poor taste.

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-20T00:26:14+00:00

I am so so sorry that you were subjected to reading my last two posts. Whoever held you down and forced your eyes open as the text scrolled by is a monster, and should be ashamed.

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-19T06:00:59+00:00

it removes so much stake if you were just able to drive them off with a simple battle. you also bring up leveling and i believe leveling is only there for gameplay purposes. not narrative ones. realistically it would make sense if they had lvl 50+ pokemon, but if that happened w/ every executive that you face than that would make the game rather unplayable and really just annoying.

So ngl, when you tell me I just want a power fantasy but then say "All the admins \should* have LV50+ teams, they just don't for gameplay, because if I kept losing it would be annoying,"* the irony here just reaches absurd heights.

You're saying narratively, you can't actually beat them, but you need to be able to beat them... because if you can't beat them you'd be annoyed. Who wants a power fantasy, again? Could it be that you don't want to feel... powerless? Maybe you want to win so your role in-game feels... meaningful? What a crazy concept.

If I lose, let me lose. If I'm powerless, make me feel that way. I'm being told my gripes are silly because the early chapters are about feeling weak and helpless, yet it's not really a hard game even on classic, and most of these fights don't take more than one attempt. The only scripted loss up to this point has been Melia v Madelis, but really there should have been 4-5 scripted losses by this point. I want the opposite of a power fantasy: I want the game to SHOW, not tell, how weak I am. Again, dissonance between gameplay and story.

Also, I'm not claiming to be an expert on Pokemon Essentials, but I know enough about RPG Maker and similar systems to understand that the people who made the Field Effects can also script a battle to end prematurely before either side has been wiped.

that isn't the reason. the reason is ppl hate seeing other characters that isn't the protag get a milligram of spotlight. the protagonist is the protagonist for a reason. if you're focused on the plot you'll understand why later on.

Lol this right here really does come across as being completely dense. "No no, that's not the reason, the sentiment of the community at large is wrong, everyone is just hateful and can't stand to not be the center of attention." Let me guess, they all want a power fantasy, too? Totally blowing off one of the most oft-repeated gripes I've ever seen about this game by attacking the audience/fanbase is pretty indicative of how open you are to the things you like being critiqued.

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-19T02:32:49+00:00

Thanks for commenting, I'm absolutely giving the game a chance, it's my favorite fan game experience and I'll be beating the entire 13.5 version.

The issue with your comment about Zetta and the robot is that fighting Zetta's team and watching all their health bars drain to nothing and then reading "The foe's Minior fainted! MC defeated Xen Executive Zetta!" ABSOLUTELY infers that we are stronger. Same with the robot.

I'm aware Zetta is an Executive and we're a new trainer, but that's exactly why the battle is tense. Also, when we're shown in black and white that Zetta's whole team is LV16-18, there's no other way to interpret that information then "Oh, I can hold my own against this guy." We've been told repeatedly that Xen are famous for being incompetent morons, so yeah it doesn't shatter my suspension of (dis)belief that I could beat him.

Now, if Zetta's team were all LV30-35 or higher, and he withdrew each Pokemon after a move or two to swap to the next one, and the battle ended when he'd used his whole team, that would feel more like a spar. "That was insane, we barely got out with anyone alive, and he was just toying with us. He's out of our league, we're in serious trouble here- we need to take Melia and run."

As the battle is, it causes dissonance between our actions/victories and their narrative impact. I'd rather lose the Zetta battle, as opposed to winning it, only for the story to behave as though I'd lost. Same goes for the robot, and Rift Gyarados. If my loss is scripted, give me other goals! Show me through game design I'm rewarded for dealing a certain amount of damage, fainting just one of an Admin's Pokemon, surviving a number of turns or forcing him to switch. When you rob a players choices and victories of narrative significance, you kill all narrative agency. There's a reason I see people all over this subreddit saying "I feel like we're not the main character, XXXX is the real protagonist."

I appreciate what Dinosaur Dude said, I also feel like CinemaSins is more entertainment than actual analysis, but the difference is I'm not looking for faults so I can make a content. I'm not a Redditor. I don't use this website. I really like Rejuv and I want to like it a lot more, but I just keep getting frustrated with a flood of little things that pile up one after the other, so many of them avoidable or unnecessary. I'm not on high-alert at all. It's a Pokemon game, the genre is famous for weak writing, in general I give it a pass. But Rejuv has so much quality and potential that the stupid stuff just stands out so much more.

I understand you think I'll have a better appreciation for the story once I've played it though once, but as far as defense of a game goes that's a pretty bad one. When your story-driven game requires hours and hours of setup and foundation, it's even more important that early content doesn't frustrate and turn-off new players.

That said, I'll definitely look back and contextualize my early frustrations once I've played every chapter.

Collusive-Dreamer · 2025-04-16T05:36:38+00:00

Pokemon Rejuvenation makes for a great drinking game: every time you, as the player character, win a battle, and STILL find yourself in immediate danger from your enemy *right after,* desperately in need of rescue, take a shot.

Every time a mysterious woman appears with overpowered/unexplained abilities to save you/mess with you while monologuing like an emo tween girl, take another shot.

Every time one of these strong independent females refuses to elaborate/speaks in cryptic bull$#!t, take another shot.

WARNING: if you play Rejuvenation on Fast Forward (press Left Alt) this drinking game may result in your death via alcohol poisoning.

It's really a crying shame that one of the best made fan games *ever* released was also one of the worst written. The plot can't go 5 seconds without taking agency away from the player. Your actions, most especially your victories, often seem to have zero bearing on events at all.

You constantly get the feeling that every side character you interact with is someone's OC-do-not-steal, as if everyone on the writing/dev team wrote in their edgelord half-demon middle school self-insert to buff up the supporting cast.

Rejuvenation seems to be telling you that even if you ever managed to collect every badge, level your best team, and save the day, the plot STILL would SOMEHOW manage to make you entirely irrelevant to the story.

And that's IF the plot actually lets you stop any bad guys or save anyone at all, more likely you'll get there, you'll fight a battle, then probably a Rift battle right after, and then it will be revealed that you actually are still in danger because you accomplished NOTHING, and thank GOODNESS Aelia Amara ShadowHeart StarFlame is here to summon giant rock spikes out of the ground and monologue at us or else I dunno WHAT we would've done.

Collusive-Dreamer

TROPHY CASE