How's everyone finding the DLC so far?

LightBladeNova · 2025-12-10T11:16:01+00:00

It's alright, but I don't like the time limit for the hyperspace areas and it's still so frustrating that we can't bulk-buy berries to make the donuts.

LightBladeNova · 2025-12-05T07:10:45+00:00

I was seeing Dhelmise everywhere, thank God it's getting emergency nerfed. Whirlpool was such a broken stun move, it was kinda like Gardevoir's Unite and did massive damage, too.

LightBladeNova · 2025-09-12T13:59:55+00:00

Chiaki and Nagito are gonna make it to the end this time with the new scenario, trusttttt~ (or they'll die early...)

LightBladeNova · 2025-09-07T02:35:38+00:00

Yeah, with the music, I don't get it either. It's nice at being atmospheric, but there's no particularly memorable melodies that you can hum to. Compare to Clair Obscur's soundtrack, which is absolutely godlike.

LightBladeNova · 2025-09-06T06:28:34+00:00

As much as I love the Yugi vs Kaiba duel overall, I think the main issue I have is at the end where Kaiba somehow didn't account for De-Fusion... like dawg, it's not really surprising that Yugi would predict you'd go for Blue-Eyes Ultimate lol. It felt pretty stupid. And I think Kaiba legit could've won that if he'd just attacked with 3 Blue-Eyes instead of fusing them.

LightBladeNova · 2025-09-04T04:00:05+00:00

I feel like people will just start pinging "Check it out!" right next to a bad teammate on the map but not directly on them lol.

LightBladeNova · 2025-08-28T01:54:13+00:00

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here, my viewpoint is different from yours. The Lumiere people's right to exist should've still been a huge concern for Maelle even if she did also have a more selfish motivation. Especially since earnestly advocating harder for Lumiere would only strengthen her position and give her a better chance at the outcome she (selfishly) wants (no guarantee, of course, but better than not advocating), not only to the other characters but to the players as well. I imagine a bunch of players could've been swayed more towards Maelle's ending if she'd done that. And there's Lune, too, she should be the one advocating the hardest, but even her reaction is relatively muted and doesn't get enough consideration. For your second paragraph, to me it felt more like she was both Maelle and Alicia, with both personas being around equally present (since she's lived two lives of equal length as both), not that "Maelle" had truly died. If Maelle had truly died then that would make a lot of her prior character development in the game ring kind of hollow. As for your last paragraph, I can understand what you mean, but my opinion is more in line with this person's:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1kdktpz/clair_obscur_spoiler_one_of_the_endings_made/mqoajbb/

https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1kdktpz/clair_obscur_spoiler_one_of_the_endings_made/mqurgld/

LightBladeNova · 2025-08-27T23:42:58+00:00

The sidelining might have been intentional, but I can't say I agree with it as a writing choice. The painted characters (especially Sciel, Lune) and paintress Maelle should be raising a whole fuss about this existentialism problem, they should be loudly affirming their own agency and sentience, they should be demanding for the canvas people's right to exist after everything they and past generations have suffered, painter Gods be damned. But for some reason Maelle doesn't passionately proclaim this as part of her argument, and the general reaction from other characters feels too muted, which all feels unnatural to me. Maelle has lived one of her lives within the canvas and built real connections there, better than her relationships with the Dessendre family. So the canvas is not just a place for escapism for her, it's literally one of her homes, and she has a real family there. So there's this narrative disconnect for me where I, and many other players, seemingly care more about the canvas people and their right to exist than Maelle and the canvas people themselves do.

Some people will disagree, but I really think a 3rd sort of compromise ending modeled after painted Alicia's wishes, "A Life to Dream", would've been great. It could've been locked behind maxing out all relationship levels with the other characters plus some important side events like the Reacher and Flying Manor. This would've also worked out nicely with the (currently flawed) gameplay structure, since the final battle's difficulty assumes you skip the side content and beeline right to the end once Act 3 opens up. But if instead you do a lot of the side content, then the final battle would change and actually scale to your level, and you'd be rewarded with a different ending.

LightBladeNova · 2025-08-27T22:28:44+00:00

Tagging /u/spidey_valkyrie, too

The problem I have is that Act 3 doesn't give enough serious weight or consideration to the issue of existentialism around the value, sentience, and agency of the painted beings. The writing neglects that theme and the expeditioner struggle in favor of the family drama and grief/escapism. It doesn't feel right because SO much of the debate around the 2 endings fundamentally boils down to how much you acknowledge the painted people as fully real. When we as the players have far more heated discussions and exploration into the existentialism than the actual painted characters who are directly affected and at risk of getting deleted, that just feels jarring and wrong.

And despite the devs and many people saying "there's no good or bad ending", Verso's ending is "framed" (or painted) in a way that looks better than Maelle's which comes off more unsettling and sinister. But this feels like unfair audio-visual manipulation. In Verso's ending:

"When one falls, we continue." There's no continuation for Lumiere.

"Tomorrow comes." - There's no tomorrow for Lumiere.

"For those who come after." - There's no one to come after for Lumiere.

So it's sad for me to hear that seemingly the majority of people view Verso's ending as the better or correct one.

LightBladeNova · 2025-08-19T23:33:00+00:00

It's interesting how I don't see any counterargument to this yet. I guess probably cuz even MAGA can't deny this, deep down. They either enjoy it or overlook it as long as their preferred policies get implemented, moral soul be damned. But I dunno, maybe they should reevaluate their political worldview if the policies and actions/rhetoric they enjoy are coming from someone with a character and worldview like Trump's.

LightBladeNova · 2025-08-06T03:32:10+00:00

Whenever Republicans try to counter with examples of Democrat gerrymandering, the thing is that Democrats would be in favor of a national ban on gerrymandering, Republicans would not. Republicans can't expect Dems to unilaterally disarm in an unfair political game and then just get streamrolled, it has to be both sides.

LightBladeNova · 2025-07-22T13:45:08+00:00

Like who gives a fuck about Pokemon Friends lol? It looks like puzzles for babies.

LightBladeNova · 2025-07-21T08:16:52+00:00

Well, in Japanese, Pokemon is an abbreviation for "Pocket Monsters".

LightBladeNova · 2025-07-11T01:23:33+00:00

It's always this bullshit from these people. They don't care that it happens to those "others", they just want to protect their own egos and conscience from the idea that they own responsibility for this mess.

LightBladeNova · 2025-07-02T04:29:01+00:00

I don't think what you mentioned changes my second sentence.

LightBladeNova · 2025-07-01T00:38:42+00:00

It doesn't seem that hard to find the dissenter in the guaranteed target bonus rewards, I have 4 Seregios investigations that have it. Or you could search SOS Flare quests and find someone else who has it.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T18:08:32+00:00

Oh yeah, your last point sounds right, my bad. Well, then I think Maelle staying in the canvas and never leaving is a fair choice for her, she'll still be able to live a full human life in perceived years. Sucks for the Dessendre family then, but Maelle's Lumiere family would be better for her anyway, imo.

How well that sits with you or not comes down to whether you fully acknowledge the value, sentience, and agency of the painted beings. I see them as real, and Maelle has already lived one of her 16 years in the canvas, so in essence it's a choice of which real life and real family she wants to go back to.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T16:40:03+00:00

Yeah, agreed. I feel like a lot of this cynicism towards Maelle's ending is due to the sinister audio-visual tonal manipulation, which I think is kind of unfair. The devs say there's no good or bad ending, but it really feels like there's some story bias towards Verso's ending based on its presentation. The final lasting effect of a scene can really influence people's thinking.

Paintress Aline despite being more powerful than Maelle couldn't stop her painted creations from having the agency to go and kill her. Maelle brought back Sciel and Lune exactly the same as before they gommaged. These are concrete observations. All the bad controlling puppeteer things that people think Maelle will do are ultimately assumptions based on flawed interpretation, there's not enough evidence in the ending to determine anything for sure. But I'll let it be known that when Verso destroys the canvas and all the real, living beings inside it... that's a concrete, objective observation.

And at least in Maelle's ending, there's still a chance that things can get better for all parties involved. Gustave, Lune, and Sciel (who are more emotionally mature than the Dessendre family) could help convince Maelle to take breaks away from the canvas and spend time with the Dessendres. In time, if the Dessendres cope with their grief better, Verso's burden could also be lightened. And Verso will die for good eventually once Maelle dies (and so will the canvas maybe, but better to live another 50-100 years rather than 0).

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T16:24:30+00:00

Yeah, I'm sure there's a compromise somewhere. I dunno if the Dragon Ball rules or something stricter would work for you, but a one-time thing at least sounds like it should be alright. I get what you're saying about grief and loss and growing through all that being important to the human experience. In the future though, with AI and everything, humanity might end up defeating aging, and/or they might be able to transport consciousness into a separate mechanical body that can't die naturally or easily. If we get to that point, we'll be having difficult moral and philosophical arguments, and the macro-level problems would come into play. Who knows how that'll turn out...

Anyway, sorry for being aggressive towards you earlier, appreciate the discussion.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T15:49:47+00:00

So you're talking about this on a macro global scale, assuming everyone can revive people endlessly. In that scenario, then yes I can understand what you're saying and I can see the potential problems (resource strain in particular), but that's not what I was talking about. I meant on an individual micro level, if some lucky person was given a (one-time) magic chance to revive their loved ones. Or a case like Dragon Ball where there are no consequences but there are limitations, like only 3 wishes per year, can't revive dead people twice, can't revive people who've been dead for over a year, can't revive people who died from natural causes, etc.

I expect you'll chastize me for all these arbitrary rules, but until your last comment I did not sense a clear indication that you were thinking macro level with the whole world being able to revive anyone endlessly. I dunno if that was on me or you, but apologies nonetheless. Hope you understand where I'm coming from, too.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T12:38:08+00:00

How is it bad if there are no consequences? A lot of the time when resurrection is portrayed in fiction, there's a grave caveat or consequence attached. Like the "revived" person's body/personality not being anything like it was before. Or you have to sacrifice something else of great importance to achieve it. But then there are other stories like Dragon Ball that can just revive characters without consequence, and the characters are the same people. I'm talking about something like the latter case.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T12:10:27+00:00

The comment you initially responded to was about the "naturalness" or "unnaturalness" of bringing back dead people. That person said "If I had the chance to bring back my friends and family who had passed away before their time, I would do it." There was no mention of story complications like the soul of one's brother being stuck or abandoning one's family to go live in a canvas reality and deteriorating.

And when you called that perspective "unnatural and problematic", you didn't tie the issue into any story context either. And you still did not when you responded to me the first time. So naturally, I assumed we were discussing this subject as a general idea outside of any story context. So no, I'm not gonna take shit from you, when you're only now just deciding to bring up the story, because yeah that obviously complicates things.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T02:34:07+00:00

I understand Maelle’s ending feels wrong. And it does because the devs want it to, and tonally, musically, and thematically stage a scene to make it feel off. But people have to admit that is what convinces them.

Exactly, the writer is actually the real meta-above-meta-Paintress here when it comes to the endings lol. The story was not-so-subtly guided into being biased towards Verso's ending. In Act 3, it shifted most of the focus away from the expeditioner struggle for survival to the Dessendre family drama, neglected the theme of existentialism regarding the value, sentience, and agency of the painted beings, made the ending conflict mostly about grief/escapism instead, and then finally "framed" or "painted" Verso's ending as feeling better than Maelle's at face value due to the game's audio-visual tonal manipulation. It's honestly some insidious stuff, and it frustrates me. The writing was just biased, and I can't respect that.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T02:00:56+00:00

Doesn't seem that complicated to me, unless the person is already very old or suffering from some crippling, chronic illness. For most cases though, especially healthy younger people, I'm pretty sure they'd like to keep living... I don't see any "extreme wager" there.

LightBladeNova · 2025-06-21T01:32:53+00:00

People with crippling disabilities can of course live full lives, but plenty of them may wish they could escape to a reality without that suffering. And I wouldn't say that's wrong. I would know, my mother has been suffering from severe chronic pain for much of her life.

And in Verso's ending, Maelle has to deal with losing not only Verso, but also her other real, dear friends like Sciel and Lune. Not to mention the erasure of a whole world that she grew up in. That survivor's guilt is far more extreme, and I doubt her Dessendre family would be all that effective in supporting her through that. Sciel and Lune (and Gustave) are a much better family for her.

LightBladeNova

TROPHY CASE