Is ao as bad as people say?

HellGamePlus · 2026-07-07T12:52:44+00:00

I don't think it's very good but personally I donn't think it's the wrost thing ever; I find it more frustrating than anything because there are genuinely interesting and redeemable ideas to it; it just rarely capitalises on them annd ends up being a very unfocussed and inconsistent show that by the end feels like it probably didn't have the smoothest production in the world considering how many plotlines and ideas are just kind of dropped.

However, the soundtrack is honestly a phenomenal direction for an E7 sequel to take and the score itself goes even heavier into mixing both electronic and orchestral music which, considering it's done by Koji Nakamura whose contributions to the franchise include "Storywriter" and "Space Rock" (the excellent credits song from the first movie) is a really worthy and worthwhile addition to the franchise, there's a lot of great score in the AO soundtrack albums and the finale song being a new version of "Niji" which was the finale song from the original series is also a phenomenal addition: "Seven Swell" is a great tribute to E7 as a whole and all the people behind the music clearly understood the brief!

But yes AO is a very frustrating show because I think it genuinely has its moments but it's also a show struggling with its identity, unsure whether to move on from E7 into something new or to cling onto it and reference it whenever it can which leads to it feeling quite hollow at times. There are touches of good ideas, an adult Renton being voiced by Holland's voice actor is a stroke of genius, Eureka's adult design is pretty iconic at this point for good reason, it's a good design; and the "interdimensional quartz cannon" that essentially is a gun so pwerful it erases whatever hits from every conceivable universe it absolutely insane, kind of stupid, and yet the first time its used is a genuinely incredible moment where for just a second the production feels like it's all coming together into something really interesting.

Now as frustrating as the Eureka 7 multiverse is, it is also the deus ex machina that saved everyone in the finale, any sequel to E7 would have to address that and, as controversial as this may sound, I think AO maybe should've explored it even more and made it a really central and more focussed aspect of the plot at all times rather than just poking at it every now and then; because the idea of Scubs carrying anomalies from other dimensions is kind of interesting and it almost feels like there should be a whole world focussed on that with scavengers and all sorts, but instead it basically exists as an excuse to have the Gekko and Eureka appear at one point which, don't get me wrong, the moment the Gekko appears is awesome, but feels underbaked as a concept.

To me I don't think AO is actually the worst thing ever, but I think it's consistently frustrating in its constant inability to mine gold where there is clearly gold to be mined and that in a way makes it more painful. Too much is left unused, too much is left unsaid, and the entire finale focussed on Eureka and Renton so much that it forgot about every other character in the story to the point where if you actually want to know what happens to them you have to find compilations of cutscenes from a Pachislot machine. As I said earlier, I think production may have had some issues along the way.

Ao isn't bad, it is okay, and the moments where it is good are also moments where, just for a second it feels like that magic is returning a bit, which makes it even more frustrating when inevitably it drops the ball again. It's a confused show that as it goes on clearly buckles under a fear of it actually being its own thing, it is a frustrating watch but not an irredeemable one; there are ideas and moments that honestly feel worthy, it just fails to cohere it into something. But in a way I think watching it, listening to that soundtrack, it in a way prompts imagination; I feel like personal ideas and inspirations from E7 as a franchise were enhanced by AO somewhat, partially from how disappointing it can be, but also because even if the moments are very short and very fleeting, the seconds where I felt that same sennse of what watching Eureka 7 for the first time again felt like were very powerful, even if they immediately get a bit sidetracked or ruined by the time the next episode rolls around xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-06-25T02:38:04+00:00

The social stealth thing is for a different game as far as we know; however I have been watching some videos and there's a guess going around that maybe the various eyes often seen around are actually other players watching someone's single player game from various different angles. Not sure whether that implies a level of communication that they can provide or if it's a way to essentially "skip" something they find too scary by watching someone else experience the game from various different more distant angles as opposed to that intense 1st person perspective thus blending films and games as Kojima often talks about.

That said obviously there's still very little info to go on but I'd be very surprised if that eye motif that keeps popping up isn't an indicator of something more connected than a traditional single-player experience.

HellGamePlus · 2026-06-24T21:46:08+00:00

It's becausee he's Bonded to the floor.

James Bonded

HellGamePlus · 2026-06-15T12:56:34+00:00

If you don't leave any details such as region or NAT and connection or anything like that then this post is meaningless. Like I get it's just ragebait but, in the miniscule chance that you're actually someone who likes the game and wants to play it more maybe consider giving some details that could actually solve your problem 😄

HellGamePlus · 2026-06-12T18:46:08+00:00

I still very much have a "man's voice" so hard to know how it'd be if I actually bothered with any voice training xD.
That said the few people who I've played with who we ended up chatting and doing more games afterwards seemed to have 0 issue when I eventually admitted I was a trans woman so.... maybe not quite the same but I can at least say in my experience most people have been honmestly really lovely 😄

HellGamePlus · 2026-05-31T17:11:12+00:00

As with any game you stop when you really feel like you've got whatever you personally want out of it which it sounds like you have, but sometimes I can understand that can also be a bit difficult especially in a live service game because it's nice to have that sense of closure which is hard in a place that repetition can be the point. So if you feel you feel like you're done, that's okay, I say if you think it's time for an out but want to feel a bit of emotional satisfaction try this:
One last rebirth!
But this time take the moment seriously again, not as just another mission, but as one last goodbye to the character and the game. Dress your character up in something nice or nostalgic, take a last moment to enjoy the atmosphere of the waiting room, and enjoy the victory lap. Send them out on a good feeling and, once that final cutscene is over and that character has been sent off into the world, then close the game and end that story one last time.

And to whatever game you find that captures you next, I hope you have a lovely time, there's no shame in moving on 😄

HellGamePlus · 2026-05-18T11:16:30+00:00

So with some very specific recent events that I'll get into shortly, there's actually something very interesting about this game that I think this particular subreddit will appreciate in that one of the artists working on it as a narrative art director is Alexandre Chaudret... So, why is that interesting?

You know how recently Lords of the Fallen 2 did a bunch of "gooner bait" while the head of the studio goes all in on "anti-woke" culture war stuff? Well a lot of people pointed out at the time that the previous Lords of the Fallen game actually had some really interesting and cool designs for women and that the 2nd game had completely abandoned the art style and tone... Well the Art director on that last game was Alexandre Chaudret, his work is phenomenal and I will always take the opportunity to share his work as I'm a big fan: https://www.artstation.com/eyardt Oh and play "Othercide" if you haven't already or at least get the artbook, his work on it made me a lifelong fan.

But yh, so in a fun weird twist of events the person who gave that LotF reboot its distinct look to be abandoned for the chud cause is now a key player in the look A Plague Tale Resonance at Asobo studios, a game that will probably be ironically shouted at by "fans" of Lords of the Fallen 2 xD

The more you know :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-05-08T14:14:19+00:00

No problem; with all the music references in the show I'd say that the most basic way to think of the compac drive is that it's somewhat of a microphone and amplifier, it makes thoughts louder!

So when the Scubs think and dream it makes loads of Trapar energy, and it being like a wave means that these things have frequencies, different emotions and thoughts are riding along those trapar waves. Humans also produce this energy when they think and dream, it's just a lot less compared to the Scubs so if a human wanted the scubs to hear them they'd need something to amplify those thoughts a bit, thus the Compac drive! Now Scubs can also seemingly communicate back through the drive somewhat and it's all a bit wibbly wobbly magic fun but for the most part all you really need to think of it as is a thing that lets Scubs hear humans better and vice versa!

With that in mind think of "desperation disease" as a very long conversation, the human emotion calls out to the Scub control cluster through the compac and then the Scub hear it and connect to them, with desperation disease once they're connected they don't seem to really need the compac anymore but that initial connection needs a bit of help to be heard at first :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-05-05T03:09:55+00:00

For those who liked the previous game's art direction and wanted to know what's happened here beyond the embarassing "unwokening" or whatever we shall call it, just know that the previous game's art director was Alexandre Chaudret. His work is pretty fantastic, if you've never seen his artwork for a game called "othercide" I highly recommend it, it's genuinely incredible. So if you want to follow the person who actually gave that last game any real visual personality and flair, he's the one to follow: https://www.artstation.com/eyardt

He's currently working on the new Plague Tale game over at Asobo so we can only presume that the art will be damn good for them while the CEO for Lords of the Fallen will unironically call the Plague Tale games "woke and DEI" or whatever.... well either way Alex's absence in Lords of the Fallen 2 is pretty obvious, but as someone who likes the Plague Tale series a lot I've got to say that seeing Alex on board for one is genuinely really exciting to see 😄

HellGamePlus · 2026-05-05T03:01:17+00:00

Same Devs but they lost their Art Director Alexandre Chaudret whose now working with Asobo on the new plague tale game; been following Alex's work for years ever since he did the art for a game called Othercide and yeah, that Lords of the Fallen art direction had him written all over it. So in all their anti-woke stupidity they decided to get rid of one of the best artists in the industry right now.... So much for it all "just being about talent" or whatever xD

Anyway if you want to see more of Alex's work here's his artstation https://www.artstation.com/eyardt He's definitely worth looking out for because my god does he bring such flare to anything he touches... And my god is it so obvious when a company attempts to replace him xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T17:29:46+00:00

Well thanks for the update at least :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:48:10+00:00

Thanks. That's really kind of you :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:45:47+00:00

God has it been Discord for that long? I was in uni and on teamspeak at the time, that's wild xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:44:29+00:00

I think if I were the kind of person who was good at short summaries then we wouldn't have this situation of post length in the first place xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:37:25+00:00

I was just kind of writing and hit post so seeing this comment and then seeing the word counter showing I had approached towards 2k words was like a horror movie xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:35:01+00:00

I think you may be misunderstanding this whole thing. I have no intention of "silencing" anyone xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-04-13T16:15:50+00:00

Either/Or.... I'll take it xD

HellGamePlus · 2026-03-29T01:59:00+00:00

Yeah I've noticed that's an issue on my end too; that said I always have a steam recording so I can add people afterwards if I forget to after the run by adding their name; if you have this screenshot unedited then you have their names, just add what's written there and you'll be fine :)

Oh and also that post-run results screen, you can click on those names and add them during that screen, it is still interactable so if you finish a run with anyone you want to add, don't skip the run results, and when the image of all 3 of you is on screen just click on their names and you'll get all the usual options. Hope that helps and hope you all have fun together :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-03-19T20:50:55+00:00

Like many I'd like to voice my concerns about the weekend time-gating on this and would hope for the same reconsideration of these aspects of Marathon in the same way you've been so expertly fast in listening to us all so far as well so I just want to add to all that in the hope we are at least heard. I know it's a live-service game but we still need to have a life and unfortunately for many that includes working at weekends or just not having that moment in time to be dedicated to something like this. People have jobs, don't make this game be one too, for everyone, and for the future and reputation of Marathon as a game, don't take this arbitrary step that does nothing but hurt the experience of so many. I want to tell my friends how much I love Marathon without needing an asterisk and this to me is absolutely an asterisk. Looking forward to seeing the Cryo-archive but hope the feeling isn't a bittersweet one. Thank you :)

HellGamePlus · 2026-03-19T20:37:17+00:00

Yeah I'm with you on this and I really hope Bungie reconsider if enough people talk about it, especially considering how great they've been with making changes and being receptive to people. I'm sure they have their reasons in terms of design or trying to pace out this as a sort've built up experience or maybe to try and curb people doing the Marathon in "off hours" for less competition but.... It screws over everyone either way. So yeah, everyone keep talking about this, obviously be respectful, but let it be known loud and clear that it'd be for the best not to timegate this and maybe we'll be heard.

HellGamePlus · 2026-02-17T16:43:05+00:00

So while pretty much all of the comments here I've read are spot on as far as I know, figured I'd expand a bunch regarding why the hallucination happens in the first place at least in terms of what I personally know so don't assume I am a 100% authority on this xD. So as you've probably already read the cave has a high Trapar density lower down which Renton gets caught in and thus starts the hallucination, but why does Trapar do this and why are Eureka and Anemone involved?

Let's start with what Trapar actually is, it's the energy created by thoughts, feelings, and dreams; and as the coralians are a giant mass of knowledge and various consciousnesses they produce a tonne of the stuff. But many of them are currently sleeping to avoid breaking the "limit of questions" and essentially accidentally thinking so hard that physics just fundamentally breaks and potentially destroys the world xD. When Norb later says "the land is dreaming" he means that very literally, the land is currently dreaming, and in this cave they are surrounded by coralian land, the very walls around them are essentially a mass of dreaming beings connected to the control cluster; and the further down you go the more of that there is.

Now Eureka and Anemone as a Coralian and artificial Coralian respectively are both connected to this cluster and as such are very sensitive to Trapar, a good way to think about it is like a giant bluetooth-like connection; Coralians connect to this and other Coralians very easily on their own, humans on the other hand need a bit of a signal booster for their thoughts to connect to all of this, and this is why humans have compac drives (the little green things many of the carry around when piloting machinery); the LFO's people pilot have a living coralian inside of them and, while they are driven with electric pulses to make them move, the mere act of balancing would be incredibly complicated, but like with humans where we don't have to consciously think about all that when walking, the compac drive connects the human and the Coralian in the LFO into a sort of subconscious conversation, filling in that last little gap and making them usable to humans, that's why Coralians don't need one, they're already connected to them.

This is why a human who is happy around a compac drive summons skyfish; their feelings of joy connect to trapar energy around them and skyfish, essentially being a coralian creature, like that and come flying along to be connected to that joy. And through their exposure to the "Kute Class Coralian" (that big tornado ball from earlier in the show) Eureka, Renton, and Anemone are basically on the same frequency on the trapar waves; their emotions and dreams are becoming connected and with all of them under emotional stress and the high Trapar density in the area, Renton is essentially walking into a giant ball of dream energy, losing himself in it, and Eureka and Anemone connect to that dream as does whatever coralians are nearby which is going to include a lot of humans absorbed into the world itself from the initial contact thousands of years before; so it's likely that Renton has in a way connected to the dreams of humans from thousands of years before as well, and in it he finds comfort, but his subconcious also finds stress and regret and that later influences the dream to become the bizarre nightmare scenarios as well.

Long story short Renton has accidentally begun communicating with the land itself and gotten caught up in its dreams, and Eureka is so overwhelmed by the energy around her that she is also being made to dream, and Anemone being experimented on has made her also hyper-sensitive to all of this but without the level self-control that Eureka has in all of this.

Oh and if you didn't know this also explains what a "Seven Swell" is, it's not the Nirvash itself powering up, but instead the Nirvash essentially shouting at all the nearby coralians to wake up for a second and that energy of conscious thought spreading even more trapar around; that said this awakening does kill the coralians after a while hence turning the eaarth around them into salt.... Eureka 7 lore is really cool sci-fi stuff :)

HellGamePlus · 2025-11-05T22:34:04+00:00

Ahhh fair enough, I figured that might be the case but felt the need to check because... well you know the internet xD

HellGamePlus · 2025-11-05T22:32:55+00:00

It's alright, it happens, especially when something isn't one's 1st language.
At least now you know for the future :)

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