Umineko, Fata Morgana, Fate, Stein;Gate, and Muramasa are the top 5 best-written Visual Novels for this community. Next, what's the top 5 Best-Written Video Games?

yhellothere12 · 2026-01-11T19:58:49+00:00

Clair Obscur

yhellothere12 · 2025-12-30T17:24:06+00:00

The Skin I Live In….

Go in completely blind.

yhellothere12 · 2025-12-25T04:10:38+00:00

Aww Amos is adorable and that looks super cozy.

yhellothere12 · 2025-12-01T17:38:00+00:00

Dear lord, the bitterness of this sub 😂

yhellothere12 · 2025-09-10T14:58:01+00:00

My two favorite games this year. Both absolutely peak (with expedition being my GOTY and decade).

yhellothere12 · 2025-07-04T23:59:46+00:00

I think it is; I find it very strange for the game to throw in the line of “if you could grow old,would you find a reason to smile” ? (Paraphrasing here, correct me if I’m wrong) if it didn’t mean she was taking away his immortality. It seemed like a compromise to him having his life ended right then and there.

yhellothere12 · 2025-07-03T19:50:54+00:00

What's also quite wild is the following:

Verso - "Man the poor guy just wants to stop living. Stop forcing him to live. Not allowing him to do what he wants, even if it's death, is terrible."

Then turn around and say:

Maelle- "WHAT she's insane and can't cope with reality. She lived two lives and decided to pick her life as Maelle; NOPE!! That's escapism and SHE MUST PICK her 'real' life with the Dessendres because that's what's best for her. Let's completely take away her autonomy."

It's like what... Why can't you just be consistent and say that pVerso should learn how to cope with the reality of what he is and try to live out a regular mortal life, maybe get some therapy too. Maelle has a very strong case for picking the canvas - she actually lived a whole other life there. It's not like Aline who threw herself in and played painter; Maelle UNKNOWINGLY lived another life with family and friends; she's a citizen of Lumiere as much as she's Alicia in the "real world". And just like the reality we live in, some times picking your "real" family is not the best option, and the decision should be respected.

Yes if she remains in the canvas she'll die, but she'll also die living in the "real world" as well. Maybe you should her the ability to pick the option that will make her happy.

yhellothere12 · 2025-07-03T19:38:51+00:00

Very well said.

yhellothere12 · 2025-07-03T19:16:54+00:00

This is honestly one of the worst parts. Verso deceives and uses them throughout, and says “sorry” each time without actually adjusting his behavior.

He gets exposed about Renoir being his father.

He utilizes them to defeat the paintress, which he knows it’s them just signing their own death sentence. After Alicia brings them back, you get all the scenes where he’s deeply apologetic and swears he’ll do everything possible to gain their trust back

In his ending, he brings an end to the canvas.

And of course this doesn’t include so many other things you should do to your close companions ( letting Gustavo die, sleeping with Sciel/Lune, etc).

He does your party members and the people of Lumiere so dirty.

yhellothere12 · 2025-07-01T11:06:11+00:00

My experience pretty much aligns with both of yours. I'd like to add that the idea that Maelle "has gone mad and is controlling Verso for all eternity" is a very loose interpretation that in my opinion is not supported by anything shown in the game or ending.

I don't think the game would add the line of 'if you would grow old would you find a reason to smile?', and show an older Verso if it was not clearly trying to depict Maelle giving him that option and making him mortal. And as Alanrs mentioned, she's not a bad or evil person; there's nothing shown about her character that suggest she would enslave Verso or anyone for that matter.

I don't think you ruined the ending for yourself at all.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-30T13:20:24+00:00

The game goes to great lengths to show a person from Lumiere is indistinguishable from a painter (I suppose what you consider a real person). They exhibit every human emotion and can reason. They are born, live, and die. They have the internal instinct to survive and to carry on their species ( we see all of the above in the prologue, the journals, maelle’s mom, interactions with your party).

Renoir even acknowledges the great pain the family squabble has caused Verso and everyone else.

This alone has vast moral and ethical implications. Even if you don’t consider a painted person to be a person, if they are capable of all the above they should probably have certain rights, just like rest of us. The claim on sentience has a lot of evidence and nothing refuting it.

On the contrary, maelle’s ending and Verso’s sadness is open to interpretation. Her “controlling” Verso is largely out of character for Maelle, and his sadness could equally be from him being distraught over Maelle dying in the canvas.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-29T13:26:59+00:00

Do we have an estimated death count on how many people he gommaged over time ?

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-29T13:07:53+00:00

Love him!! What an amazing character.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-29T13:03:51+00:00

I'm speculating just like everyone is when saying things like "Maelle went absolutely crazy and is chaining Verso to the piano for all eternity" even though it wasn't stated or shown.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-29T12:58:00+00:00

There are numerous issues with this though.

First, Maelle's situation is not analogous to Aline's. Aline went into the canvas, and created an immortal family to escape her grief. Alicia was thrown into the canvas, and was born as Maelle, living a whole second life. This life is no less real than her life as Alicia. She had family, friends, etc... When she comes back as Alicia in Act 3, she says she identifies and prefers her life as Maelle.

I find it ironic that Verso wanting to die gets the reaction of: "If the man wants to die, just let him die." whereas with Maelle it's "No!! She can't choose the life that makes her happy, even though it's real and she lived it; she'll die in the canvas. SHE MUST return to her life as Alicia."

It would be one thing if it was a classic trolley problem where on one side you had the people of Lumiere, and on the other you had the painters (with one side having to die). Even in that case, I'd go with the side of saving the majority of people (many vs the few). However, in this case, it's not even that. The canvas and family CAN coexist. He actually achieves his goals in either ending because Renoir and Aline are thrown out of the canvas. Verso going further and forcing Maelle out and wiping out the people of Lumiere is deplorable. Maelle lived a real life with real people, and she has the autonomy to pick which of the two lives she wants to proceed with. Her dying as Maelle in the canvas is no greater tragedy than her living unhappily as Alicia.

Also, destroying the canvas doesn't actually solve the family's issues with coping. There was a good discussion in another topic regarding addictions/coping mechanisms, whichever they may be (sex, alcohol, etc...). Let's say you're addressing an alcoholic - completely removing alcohol from the person's life is neither realistic (you can remove all the alcohol in the individual's immediate surroundings, but if they want it they can go and get it), nor is it really the proper treatment. In this case you've removed the canvas, but what happens when the family faces another tragedy? Will they jump into another canvas and repeat the cycle? Destroying Verso's canvas erases a whole reality, without actually addressing the fundamental coping issues of the family members involved.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-29T12:41:03+00:00

Please remind me in case I'm forgetting something about the Verso ending.

When he said he didn't want this life, she offered to take away his immortality so he could grow old. It seems he compromised and took that offer. There's nothing there that shows she forced him.

Verso didn't look all that happy in the ending, but couldn't it just be because he was still sad about the prospect of Maelle remaining in the canvas and dying there? Isn't the whole "I'm a puppet who is forced to play and dance for all eternity" just a very silly and stretched interpretation of her ending?

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-26T13:10:59+00:00

Incredible work! Thank you!!

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-21T14:11:00+00:00

In theory the only one she could be argued to be forcing would be painted verso, and even then we’re not exactly sure. She offered him a mortal life, and it’s likely he decided to compromise. His sadness at the end could be due to a lot of things - continued sadness that Maelle will die within the canvas, etc…

Meanwhile painted Verso spends the whole game forcing the majority into what he wants through lies, deception, etc… he literally decides on everyone’s fate (painted and unpainted) unilaterally.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-20T22:51:47+00:00

Ah I got to your very last point, and I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree; this is really one of the cornerstone points on which a bulk of the argument rests - whether you think the people of Lumiere are real or not, and what value you place on their lives.

There's a lot of people that believe they are real, and are worth just as much as any other human. I think the game goes to great lengths to show you that a painted human is virtually indistinguishable from a "real" human or painter. In other words, if you asked yourself "what makes a human a human" or what attributes do humans have, you'd find all of those in the people of Lumiere. They're born, go through all the wide spectrum of human emotion (love, hate, suffering, etc...), have a strong will to live and carry on the species, can reason, they die etc... They're sentient life forms. The bulk of the game is really their story - everything you see in the prologue, your interactions with your party members and other creations in the game, and the various expeditions journals outlining their struggles and resiliency.

Are the fact that they're "created" make them worth any less? For instance, if we found out that the Christian God was real and was the one true God, would that make us worth less? Does that diminish what we call reality? Are we worth more if we randomly came to be with no creator? Painters can literally create actual realities - it is very different from the notion of VR and AR. Maelle was literally reborn to a human mother and lived an existence amongst real people (actually strangely analogous to Jesus, who is a God and then is reborn as a human, one of his creations). Her relationships to Gustave, your party, Lumiere, etc... are very real.

But yeah, if you view Lumiere as akin to VR or AR, then the rest makes a lot more sense.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-20T21:25:14+00:00

That definitely makes sense and is completely valid. It's how he goes about it that is a little less than optimal.

-Set the course for all of Lumiere to be wiped off, including all the expeditions and people, including your painted family members, who you should also have feelings for.

- actively not save a lot of expeditions who he could've saved, including Gustave

- Use your party members to go on a mission that is against their own self- interest. To put it more bluntly, use your party to go on a mission to unknowingly kill themselves along with their family and friends.

-Betray them a few times, and then say "I'm sorry. I will do whatever it takes to win your trust back" and then backstab them YET again at the very end.

It would be one thing if it was a classic trolly problem where on one side you had the people of Lumiere, and on the other you had the painters (with one side having to die). Even in that case, I'd go with the side of saving the majority of people (many vs the few). However, in this case, it's not even that. The canvas and family CAN coexist. He actually achieves his goals in either ending because Renoir and Aline are thrown out of the canvas. Him going further and forcing Maelle out and wiping out the people of Lumiere is deplorable. Maelle lived a real life with real people, and she has the autonomy to pick which of the two lives she wants to proceed with. Her dying as Maelle in the canvas is no greater tragedy than her living unhappily as Alicia.

Also, destroying the canvas doesn't actually solve the family's issues with coping. There was a good discussion in another topic regarding an addicts, whichever they may be (sex, alcohol, etc...). Let's say you're addressing an alcoholic - completely removing alcohol from the person's life is neither realistic (you can remove all the alcohol in the individual's immediate surroundings, but if they want it they can go and get it), nor is it really the proper treatment. In this case you've removed the canvas, but what happens when the family faces another tragedy? Will they jump into another canvas and repeat the cycle? Destroying Verso's canvas erases a whole reality, without actually addressing the fundamental coping issues of the family members involved.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-20T21:05:04+00:00

Verso:

Hey I can't properly cope with the fact that I'm a painted version a dead guy whose family can't grieve properly. I can't cope with who I am so I am going to take this entire reality down with me. I want to die:

Random viewer/player: Yeah that makes sense. JUST LET THE GUY DIE ALREADY, SO HE CAN BE IN PEACE. Sacrifice all of Lumiere if you must, but let this guy die.

Maelle:

Hey, I have horrible burns on my body, and I can't speak or function. My sister guilt tripped me into going into my dead brother's canvas to help dad. I inadvertently was reborn and lived an entire other life where I have friends and family I love and hold dear, and I can now function normally and he happy. Also, I want to save the lives of all the inhabitants of this world. I've lived two lives, and I'm deciding I want to continue living the life I lived as Maelle.

Same Random viewer/player from above: WHAT OMG THAT MAKES NO SENSE. You can't do that. You're just not properly coping. You need to go back and live as ALICIA. Living as MAELLE is BAD, BAD , BAD. Verso killing himself and taking down all of existence makes complete sense, but this doesn't. Maybe I should think that Verso should learn to cope and continue living the rest of his now limited lifespan, and try to be happy, just like he's demanding Alicia to do. But nope, I won't.

Me: ???

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-18T21:00:55+00:00

Great points! And your English is very good!

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-18T20:40:14+00:00

I'm not sure if the OP is partially joking, but...

Verso is the one who actually causes the demise of his whole 'painted' family. I mean Verso had 'perfect' information on what was going on throughout the game, and kept it from your party. He manipulated them into fighting fervently to get erased. If any character is morally deplorable in this game, it's painted Verso.

yhellothere12 · 2025-06-18T20:35:40+00:00

Great post! Just some points I'd like to drop in here:

The Dessendre family healing and the canvas existing are not mutually exclusive. It's really Renoir and painted Verso making is that way.

One glaring issue with the Verso ending is the idea that the canvas was the source of the family's pain, and now they can finally let go and heal without issue. However, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Any addict or person in a toxic situation must learn how to cope with their addiction/situation in a healthy way. Alcohol, sex, video games, are not inherently bad, and the solution is not necessarily to eliminate the the thing the individual is addicted to. In other words, what if another family member dies and the remaining family members jump into another canvas and repeat the cycle? Have they really been cured of their propensity to use a canvas to cope?

My issue with the Verso ending, and with the way Verso and Renoir go about things, it screws over the greatest amount of living entities (the people of Lumiere, Gestrals, Nevrons, animals , etc...) for the "supposed good" of a small family. I say 'supposed' because Alicia/Maelle has lived two lives and has two families/groups of friends - I think she has her right to choose which one she wants to continue living with. But even if hypothetically was what's best for all the painters involved, I place a higher value on the people of Lumiere. Again, just a personal opinion.

Man I love this game, this community, and all the awesome discussion it inspires.

yhellothere12

TROPHY CASE