General Info:
Developer: [Circle Group] Torotoro Resistance
Collaborators: [Circle Group]s (and their Games involved in the Collab):
- Devil's Office (Shrift) [Bidirectional Collab (Three-way in Shrift, (in there, also with Super Monsters'n Girls [DHM])]
- Excessm (Parade Buster)
- Minwa (The Three Charms - Lonesome Spirit) [Bidirectional Collab]
- SQDT (Succubus Quest)
Language: English (Fan-Made)
Progress: In Work ( 2 Parts done, 1 Part left)
Version: v2.41
Type: 2D Gameplay ## Adventure, RPG ## Romance, Happiness, Humour, Drama, Serious, Abstract (Mid&End-story concepts) ## Modern & Fantasy & SF & Otherworldly (Across all the Parallel Worlds)
Engine: RPG Maker (VX Ace)
Voices: Sfx (Slight), Scene Dialogue (Slight)
Fetishes: Femdom, Vore (Oral & Unbirth & GTS (Giantess) & Absorption & Misc.), Vanilla (Slight) ## Male MC(s) (Collab: Multiple MCs) ## Human & Magical & Monster & Succubus & Demon & Angel & Artificial & Undead & Misc. Girls ## Kinky (Slight), Foreplay, Sex ## BDSM (Slight), Multiple Partners, Pegging, Yuri (Slight) ## Lips & Pussy & Breasts & Ass & Thighs & Feet & Monstrous & Artificial & Undead Fetish ## Corruption, Drain (Slight), Mind Control, Size Difference (Slight), Status Effects (Very Slight), Tentacles
Links: DLsite
This one was only expected, after starting with the original series. How would I even omit this game? Not only that, but this is the game I had worked on (for its Files) the longest so far, as it's possibly one of the biggest Adult RPGs out there. It sure runs like that! (as in, the RPG Maker VX Ace, in which it's built, can lag something fierce in certain spots, even without Speedhacking it with external tools). However, how does it fare, as a game (series)? Is worthy of succeeding the Original Series, or does it embarass it? A complex answer, here.... Let's get into it!
One thing to note, first: this is NOT a simple remake of the Original series into the RPG Maker engine, like you might initially believe. Not by a longshot. Even beside the huge, imense, gameplay differences (as in, inimaginably-big additions, fleshing out the gameplay into an actual proper RPG), the Story itself is very much different, too. It does rely on the existence of the Original Serie's story, too, in interesting ways.... Best experience it yourself.
One thing to note, first: this is NOT a simple remake of the Original series into the RPG Maker engine, like you might initially believe. Not by a longshot. Even beside the huge, imense, gameplay differences (as in, inimaginably-big additions, fleshing out the gameplay into an actual proper RPG), the Story itself is very much different, too. It does rely on the existence of the Original Serie's story, too, in interesting ways.... Best experience it yourself.
2nd thing: Much like in the Original series, this one, too, can be played solely from one ".exe" file, if you merge the content (in this case, the Files of the 1st game that have the CGs and pics, into the 2nd game, which already has the Code files for the entire series). Thus, much like in the Original series, I might refer to this game series plenty of times as just "game", as well, as I also run it from just one Executable. I won't fault you for considering it only one, impossibly huge, game, but its total size (not talking just about the Storage size, as it's still not on a AAA-level of Memory-taking) is clearly that of an Series.
And lastly, while I did half-consider simply postponing this Review up until we'd had the full series on our hands, it became soon clear to me that I would have to wait a lot more time (not just for the initial release of the Part 3, but also of its complete Translation by the Fan Translation Team, and possibly some further updates to the Part 3, much like Part 2 had). I will come back to this series to Fully Finish it when it's completely out. For now, I'm just glad to be fully-complete on the current content we have on our hands.
Review Contents (links to each part):
Review TL;DR:
All Scores:
================ Plot = 9.25
======== Story = 9.5
======== Characters = 9
================ Gameplay = 9
======== Mechanics = 10
======== Complexity = 9.5
======== Uniqueness = 7.5
======== Replayability = 9
================ Scenes = 8.7
======== Visual = 8.5
======== Audio = 9
======== Written = 10
======== Interactivity = 6
======== Replayability = 10
================ Development = ----
================ Obtaining = 8.5
======== Price = 8.5
======== Methods = 8.5
================ FINAL SCORE = 8.86
QuickView
An extremely good game, worthy of continuing the legacy of the series. There are some aspects different from the Original (if the difference in Game Engines did not clue you in already). The story did have a shift in its focus, as the individual caracterisations are less detailed, whilst the story size, stakes, and complexity have all gone up. Also, the Combat became less focused on the Erotic aspect, leaving it solely for the H-Scenes themselves. However, with its Gameplay, it finally succeeded in being a RPG on its own merit, with an extreme amount of sheer content and mechanics, easily being among the better RPGs one can play, even without considering it was made in just RPG Maker VX Ace!
Full Review
Plot = 9.25
Story = 9.5
Again, despite initial appearances, we're clearly not looking at the same story. So let's start this new one! Many things initially look the same as in the Original story: Luka is still the hero of this Adventure, he is still training in his home village called Iliasville (which essentially means Ilias Villagge , on the Ilias Continent, and he's still looking forwards to his upcoming Baptism. Even the situation that occurs on that day is, once again, related to a Slime girl! But, this time, it's simply on of the villagers being kidnapped by the Slime girl onto the Iliasville Mountains. Luka then braves forth to save him.... Wait, he now has a childhood friend, called Sonya? Was that a friendly Slime girl in the village itself? In the most Ilias-ardent Continent? Why is Alice now Sealed, and searching for a "Rabbit"? And why did Ilias herself fall from the Sky, also Sealed? How is this adventure even supposed to start?? (Quite alright, in fact)
 |
| Deja-vu? Something close at least.... |
Enough synopsis-ing for now, let's get into some Spoiler-y fun!
To try and easy my Herculean task of summing up the Story, I'll first quickly, briefly, lighting-fast-ly, go over what is the same with the Original trilogy. Also, had to re-read a lot of info just to be 100% sure (or, well, around 90%) of what I'm going to say here. The story, trust me, really gets that complex. Also, like I did in the Original series review, I'm going to start with the actual backstory, that you normally find about progressively in the game's progression. Honestly, considering how vague some informations are, you might find great use in this Summary, at least to make sense of some of the things you were having doubts on. I could also be wrong in certain parts, do let me know when that's the case (I tried my best to compile all the information in such a way that it makes the most consistent sense).
All events, in this universe, happen much like in the Original universe, up until a certain point. That point being the Slaughter of Remina from 30 years ago, which, in the Paradox world, does not actually happen, and instead, a Great Disaster happens.
The great disaster is not just a rebranding of the same event
, but altogether a different event. Up until this point, everything else, from the backstory of the 2 Goddesses, the Monster Wars, the 6 Ancestors being Sealed, and Ilias' general decisions and plans, remain the same, all of this until 30 years ago.
As for the new story....
The events of the Original world still all happened. The Original world's Timeline is also called "The True History", from which the Parallel Worlds branched out. However, the actions of "The True History" did have some unintended consequences. First, the Evaluation System, Ilias' way of bringing Luka back to life after each mistake in his Adventures
(after an optional berating and advice-giving session from her to him)
, is now part of the Story, not just a Gameplay feature. In fact, her repeated usage of this System ended up "weakening the Timeline structure". The final, proverbial, Blow to the Timeline had been her actual death, which had grave ramifications. Her very existence was destabilized even in the other dimensions, and because of that, in the Paradox universe, one of the Main branching timelines from the True History (and resembling it the most), the Slaughter of Remina could not take place.
Indeed, this does not fully make sense, as Ilias was still existing in this world, as she does take actions afterwards, and, of course, even from before, as she still ended up creating the Humans and the World itself. It's likely that those "reverberations" from the True History simply de-stabilized some aspects, such as her making the Slaughter of Remina, without disturbing her actual existence, which would have meant Humanity would also have not been born. Do let me know if this is a true Plot Hole-ish thing, or if it is something I misunderstood.
Without the Slaughter of Remina, the city could still continue to exist. It also turns out this city was not just engaging in monster-human coexistence, but also in some brave experiments on fusing holy and dark energy. Ilias had even more reason, in the True History, to actually destroy the City: Not only were they disobeying her Commandments, but also commiting experiments that were an affront to her name. In the absence of such drastic measures from Ilias, their experiments actually culminated in that same year. Generally speaking, the mix of holy and dark energy produces a huge amount of energy, but also has time-affecting capabilities. Thus, the experiment the scientists at Remina decided to do, to further test the holy and dark combination, was to use the sword of the legendary hero Heinrich as a catalyst to bring his very Spirit back.
Had they only known that his Spirit was sealed very close to them, on the same continent of Hellogondo, within the Sealed Sinner's Prison....
|
| Pov: last seconds of your pathetic life, you fucked up the experiment. |
Of course things would not go according to the plan, as you might have guessed from the "Great Disaster" happening. Keeping up with the clear reference to the Large Hadron Collider experiments, this also means it's possible we IRL might have similar failure of an experiment in the future. Looking forwards to the apocalypse, myself, if it involves at least some hot girls bringing my end.
As for the failed experiment: first, instead of Heinrich appearing from their experiment, it was his victim, Alice the 8th, also known as Black Alice, most likely because of her own blood being on the same blade. Second, not only did they bring her instead, but they brought her from right before she would've normally been defeated by Luka, at the end of the adventure, after almost managing to fully fuse Holy and Dark energy within her (it's thus also implied that in the True History, in her fight with Luka and Co., she had not fully transformed
, even after all of her Fight phases
, as she had not fused the 2 energies fully just yet).
Now, just my hypotesis, but you could argue this mistake happened, despite the Heinrich's sword being a better catalyst for his appearance than the leftover blood on it being for Black Alice, because Heinrich's Spirit was already close-by, and also Sealed within the Sealed Sinner's Prison. Also, as a further theory of mine, I think that between the Original timeline and the Paradox one there's an time offset of about 30 years, which means that the Black Alice that was summoned was simply the one that was just about to be defeated, at the same time, in the Original timeline. Of course, this makes the rest of the Original timeline difficult to happen, as Ilias had to come out of Black Alice's remains to have her own shot at fusing Holy-Dark, then be defeated by Luka. So it's still possible the Black Alice that was summoned could have been from the previously-possible future of the Paradox timeline, or that she had been summoned as part of her, while the rest of her was left in the Original timeline to continue the True History (I personally do think Torotoro is going with the latter). Either way, the 30 years offset between those 2 timelines makes sense for later, as well. Regardless.
Now freshly summoned, and thus, having barely escaped sure defeat at the hands of Luka, she finally manages to fully fuse the 2 Energies, forming Chaos energy, and attaining a completely new form and gaining extreme Powers. Thus, she was able to ascend at the level of a Goddess, becoming the 3rd Goddess, and even "peek" into some other nearby timelines, mainly the 2 other relevant parallel worlds
that I will elaborate on next.
After doing this, she proceeds to, first, completely destroy Remina through immediate Chaotization, which kills or mutates humans in gruesome ways, either by "corrupting" the world and having them fuse into actual walls, or turning the females into Apoptosis, a new type of monster that is created "by the world" as a direct response to Chaotization, and factors that could create/spread/quicken it (such as inter-dimensional interactions), reacting like an "biological immune" response to chaotization in a (fruitless) attempt to stop it. After this, as the newly-made Goddess of Chaos, she then beelines for Heaven, devastating it to the extent of making it fall onto Earth, as the Snow Continent. She also, because of this actions, ends up making tears into the world itself, hencefort called Tartarus-es (7 of them in the Paradox world), each one linking this world to another, parallel, world, with each world also having possible time offsets from the Paradox world (as an example, in the same time it is the Present in the Paradox world, in other worlds, it can be 500 years into the past, or even 1 year into the future). Current wereabouts of her are unknown. Also, the chaotization continued to further spread to the other parallel worlds, possibly "infecting" countless others. The chaotization, as it stands, progresses faster the more a world is straying further from the "True History", and is kept more in check with events following more in the lines of said Correct History. Being the closest to the Original, the Paradox world is the one most promising for resisting the best against chaotization. Also, while it would've normally suffered greatly from the Chaotization started by Black Alice in her brief actions within the world, said Chaotization was supressed, in the Snow Continent, with the help of the Ilias and Eden of the Paradox's world.
|
| Paradox World - World Map [1:1 Version] here, if you're crazy enough to load it |
As promised, onto the other 2 relevant Parallel worlds.
This 2 worlds are each one alternate end of the Great Monster Wars from the past, and what happened afterwards. In one of them, Ilias' side won decisively, gaining even more control over the World and ruling over it with her appointed Seven Archangels (and her normal troops). The other world represents the win of Alice the 1st, and the Monsters gaining control over their world instead. Now, much like all the other worlds, they also suffer from the same plight of the Chaotization. However, they have, as their main goal, taking control over the Paradox world (most likely because of its closeness to the True History, and it's resistance towards Chaos). Thus, both of this 2 Worlds end up sending intruders into the Paradox world in an attempt of gaining said control, and, naturally, antagonize one another
(being complete opposites clearly does not help here)
. The end goal of each of this 2 sides differs slightly. The Monster World wants to make use of the Evaluation System Ilias had previously to "rebirth" the humans of the Paradox world into their own world, after killing them in the Paradox world, and having them fuse with their selves from the Monster World, where applicable. The 3 Lilith Sisters, the intruders sent from the Monster World, arrived to this world in the same fashion, as the Monster World does not seem to have other ways to travel parallel worlds freely, which also means that this plan ultimately will leave the Lilith Sisters to die alone in the Paradox World. By comparison, the Angel World actually has the option to simply travel between worlds, and use this to their advantage to take selected humans and human villages from the Paradox world onto their own world, thus saving "the chosen", as they are not capable of saving absolutely everyone. They also sent their own intruders, the Three Seraphim.
|
| The Six Ancestors VS The Seven Archangels |
The Paradox world had clear changes as results of those events. First, with the collapse of Heaven into the Snow continent (which people did not know the true origin of), Ilias also dissapeared from human lives (as she was busy suppressing the Chaotization in the Snow Continent). After 30 years of no signs, most now thought of her as either dead, or simply having abandoned the world. This also led to humans and monsters naturally getting closer to each other, to the extent of a lot more Co-existence then it was, by this point in time, in the Original timeline. Not only that, but shortly afterwards, the magical energy started naturally permeating the world, allowing for even normal humans to now use Magic, starting what would be dubbed "the Magical Renaissance". Meanwhile, the Grandgold country started becoming a real superpower, with their technology and with their monster girls they used in their army. Worse, they declared war on the other 3 kingdoms of the Sentora Continent (which is also now physically fractured, split by waters and the ocean more than in the Original timeline). The Sabasa kingdom also had some issues, with the King's untimely death by falling into one of the Tartarus, and after the ascension of the princess to the throne, her suddenly changing her very nature into a more sexual, less politically-interested person.
Back to the main characters. Alice's mom, Alipheese the 15th, did not die due to any heroes, instead simply dissapearing one day as she went to investigate the Tartarus from Remina. The rest of Alice's life went much the same as in the Original timeline. On Marcellus's (Luka's father) side, with the advent of the Great Disaster, he and his party of friends went around the world to help those in need, instead of going to defeat the Monster Lord like in the Original Timeline. He did return with his party in Iliasville, got to mary Lucifina and have Luka as per normal, but then left one day only saying the he leaves "to drive the darkness covering the world out", and never returned. Lucifina dies in the meanwhile, without offering more clues on Marcellus's final quest. Luka still trained to become an adventurer (although his generally-pacifist goals are not as pronounced here
, most likely because Co-existence was almost already achieved in this world)
. Karen, another one of Marcellus's former party, married and had Sonya, who became a childhood friend of Luka, aiming to become a Priestess/White Mage, while still having more strong-willed outbursts at times. Her parents also died in her childhood, due to them being caught in a natural disaster they went at to save other victims of.
In the meanwhile, the other 2 parallel worlds also went to work. The Monster World actually "sponsored", from the shadows, the country of Grandgold to wage war on the other 3 countries. Meanwhile, some human villages started being left suddenly by people who dissapeared without a trace, only leaving behind cryptic justifications, whilst leaving their villagges wholesale, without even taking any of their things with them (but leaving things as tidy as possible behind). Those villages, as alluded before, were co-oped by the Angel World, conviced to leave all earthly attachments behind and leave for the World of the Goddess. There is also another force, a hidden, 3rd, faction, called the Apostles of Chaos, which currently reside, as claimed by one of them, in the "Space between Histories". This faction is comprised of members titled "Laws", which actually each started as a "Laws" of Existence, but, at some point, gained Sentience, and the option to make their own decisions. They assembled with the goal of reducing everything to Chaos "as it's supposed to be"
(as, in this game's lore, "Chaos=Nothingness", essentially being the Entropy of their worlds, when nothing exist or when a world is completely destroyed by the Chaotization)
.
|
| The (5) Apostles of Chaos |
Now, to kick off the start of the events of the story.
In the present day, White Rabbit, an enigmatic being that claims to be a Law of the Universe
(You guessed it, 95% chance she's actually part of the Apostles of Chaos, more on that later)
, manages to sneak into the Monster Lord castle and even Seal Alice 16th, before running off. Alice then pursues White Rabbit, on her own to try to keep her current, weakened, status hidden from her servants, including even the 4 Heavenly Knights. That's why she appears before Luka in the beginning of the story, chasing after a rabbit (then mistaking a Rabbit Slime girl for the White Rabbit). As for the mini-Ilias, she is actually a part of the Ilias of the Original timeline, after she had been defeated by Luka. However, in her current form, she cannot remember much of her past, how she appeared in this world, or even the fact that she's not even in the same world anymore (although she would start piece-ing that fact together as the story progresses, and as she sees more inconsistencies within the current world and what she remembered the world would normally have been). Luka himself prepared to start his journey on that day, even receiving a dream of Ilias, telling him about saving the World from "the darkness" (although looking more "corrupted" with static than she did in the Original), and, upon meeting each of the 2 chibi-characters, he could not really believe one was the Monster Lord, and the other, the Goddess Ilias (as they were, at that point, vastly weaker in their current forms).
Continuing, after he saves the hapless villager from the Bunny Slime girl that kidnapped him, he still goes to the Church for his Baptism "ritual", even as he knows Ilias had been missing for 30 years. Instead, an Ilias actually briefly shows up for Luka (the one of Paradox world,
the one with static on her looks
) to repeat what she said in his dream, confirming to Luka both that he needs to go on his adventure, and that he will be following directly in his father's footsteps in actually figuring out about the "darkness" that endangered the world (the "darkness" implied here is actually the "chaotization", as seen by the angel side of the Paradox world). As Luka leaves the Church, Sonya proceeds to force her way into his Party, joining him into his quest, as she had also trained, in her childhood, with uncle Lazarus (who also refused to directly teach Luka, and outwardly became quite the drunkard, but at least more endearing and caring than in the Original timeline). Returning to his Inn before embarking properly on his adventure, Luka gets greeted by the sight of chibi-Alice and chibi-Ilias quarelling with one another
(quite ineffectively and childishly, to show how weak they currently are)
. From here, Luka has to pick which of the 2 "children" to recruit in his party, this decision being the one that chooses if you go on the Ilias route or Alice route.
More on gameplay-specifics of this decision in the Gameplay section
, but for the story, both routes are pretty similar, with certain encounters being slightly different at times, and only branching out a bit more at the end of Part 2 (but, again, not that much during the next Event, such as the Collaboration scenario or the Time Loop Event). The one you don't choose will still be seen, from time to time, along the story, trying to make her own "party" with weak monsters, and generally failing and being captured / defeated even before you find them.
The attempt is what matters.
|
|
Alice VS Ilias, who do you choose? Correct answer: Alice. For her ally options later on. (unless you do NG+) |
Thus, Luka finally starts this new quest. He starts off by slowly getting stronger, to be able to investigate the Tartaruses himself, since those were the first clues that could help him find out more about the current situation of the world. Along the way, White Rabbit will also appear regularly, to also guide Luka and Co (even more fitting to say this now, as he'll actually make a Party for himself this time around) into the right direction, for mysterious reasons. In investigating the Tartaruses, Luka will slowly find out more about the current situation, as each Tartarus links to another Parallel World, at different time offsets from the Paradox world. After all, in the first Tartarus he explores, he finds himself one year into the future, in a world already ravaged by angel attacks, and, in his home village (which is also in ruins), he finds his own grave in the huge cemetery. They do realise that it was a parallel world they were in and write off the angel attacks as such (without knowing that Ilias originally had planned for such angel attacks, even in the Original timeline). Also, in each Tartarus, there is a "Corridor of Chaos" before they actually enter the parallel worlds, ending with a Door to the other world. Luka seems to have the peculiar ability to open said door, when normally, as said by Ilias, even Gods would not be able to open it.
The party continues to investigate the 2 Tartaruses of the Ilias continent, and advance in their quest. As they reach the village of Enrika, and see the elves, fallen angels and even angels now, they learn about some of the new developments of their world. Firstly, that the angels in the village (the normal ones, not the fallen ones) gathered in this village to stay hidden, as they had been, 30 years ago, in the human world with different duties when the Great Disaster happened and destroyed Heaven (they currently don't know much about the mysterious Snow Continent). More importantly, in Alice's absence as the Monster Lord, 3 other Monster Lords appeared to vie for the title of the 17th Monster Lord. One of them is Black Alice (the one of the Paradox's world), the 2nd one is Alice's own mother, the supposedly-missing Alipheese the 15th, and the third one is a completely new individual, a girl claiming the title of "Alice the 17th", who appeared one day and proved her immense strength by going on a spree of defeating entire monster factions, the monster girl Cassandra (a strong Monster, rivalling with the Monster Lord in strength), and even obtaining a draw with Granberia, whilst being both exhausted after doing all of this within the same day and also, allegedly, not even using the full extent of her powers.
For the
involvements of said Monster Lords in this story, Black Alice continues to scheme in the shadows, making aliances with other powerful individuals, while Alice the 15th, in secret, has allied herself with the Lilith Sisters, their alliance supporting Grangold in their war against the other kingdoms. Alice (the 16th,
chibi-Alice
)'s mother is aware of the current state of Alice, and is shown to have wanted Alice out of the picture, as she would not agree with her current plans. Being alied with the Monster World faction, she also wished to end up killing everybody in this world (for their plan to take action), although this fact is not yet known to Luka's party.
Alice the 17th, also known as Neris, and another mysterious individual, Nero, are actually siblings and they do appear from time to time to help Luka's party in their quest. Another secret fact, that currently only implied, is the fact that Nero and Neris are actually the children of Luka and Alice of the Original timeline, and considering their age, coming from the future of said timeline (clearly long after the defeat of Ilias in that world).
This could further support the theory of the Original world having a time offset from the Paradox world of 30 years, both linking the Great Disaster happening around the time of Ilias's defeat in the Original world, and justifying for the current ages of Nero and Neris, also with regards with their knowledge of future information (such as knowing about Ilias's original plan for the world).
|
| Alice VIII, Alice XV and Alice XVII |
The party also finds clue about Marcellus. In the other Tartarus of the Ilias continent, in another parallel world, he had appeared, both as his self of that time (his past self, of that world), then as his future self (coming from the Paradox world). The Marcellus of the paradox world even left behind a letter for Luka, in the eventuality that he would follow in his footsteps. Later on, in San Ilia, they also find out that Marcellus left a book on the 4 Elemental Spirits in the library of the castle. Within the book, Marcellus gives one of the most important clues for the party: to have Luka contract with the 4 spirits, to "correct the history", both implying that this is what Luka of the Original timeline did, and that following said original timeline was how they could slow down the process of chaotization. Thus, Luka continues in the adventure, contracting the spirits and dealing with the situations encountered along the way, whilst stil investigating each accessible Tartarus (the biggest one, the one in the middle of the world, that appeared in Heaven's place, is currently not accessible). In one of the parallel worlds, Luka even sees a world on the bring of collapse from the chaotization, barely being able to escape from it alive. In said world, he is saved, right before escaping the world, by Marcellus, his own father, before he leaves towards another parallel world, as he, in his own worlds, entrusts Luka with protecting their own world (the paradox world), while he protects all the other worlds.
Luka also slowly uncovers the existence of the other 2 main parallel worlds that started acting in his own world, and their own goals. To that extent, the Angel world even temporarily invites him in their own world (through the Tartarus of Western Noah), to see where the missing villagers of his world went, and how they were living
(basically, the "perfect" utopia in which Ilias makes all the decisions for you, in ensuring guaranteed happiness for everyone, but without any free will; any potential dissidents are immediately removed from existence, via a sudden lighting strike)
. Each of the 2 worlds attempt, plenty of times in Luka's adventure, to convince Luka to join their side, while refeering to him with different titles: the Angels refeer to him as The Judge
(Judgement Luka of their own world)
, while the Monster side refeers to him as The Destroyer
(World Breaker Luka of their own world)
.
|
|
Luka of the other worlds: Judgement & World-Breaker.
You don't get to see them in the current story (thankfully). |
After dealing with most of the issues and situations of the first 3 kingdoms of Sentora, including the contracting of the Spirits of each area, the party is faced with the problem of the war itself baring their access to the Gold region, in which they also had a Spirit to contract and a Tartarus to investigate. As such, they ally themselves with the other 3 kingdoms to inflitrate Grangold and aid in their defeat. They are even helped by an ally of Alice XV, even though Alice XV had also aided the Grangold side too
(in retrospect, it was pretty reckless of Luka's party to keep on infiltrating Grangold, knowing that they had, in their midst, an ally of Alice XV, and that could have easily turned into a 5D chess betraying scheme to entrap Luka's party on enemy territory)
. With the timely help of Neris and Nero, the party manages to defeat the Monster World allies that were puppeting the Grangold kindom, thus setting the kingdom free, and soon having said kingdom make peace with the others. However, just as the Kingdoms were having a banquet to celebrate this peace, Alice XV appears (as a projection) to wage war on all of Humanity at once (to further her plan of killing everybody). She does not commence with her attack in the first days, and Luka's party continues in investigating the Tartarus of the Gold region. However, within the Tartarus, they are contacted
(somehow, even though said contact does not happen through Luka, and supposedly, Luka is the only one of his party capable of inter-dimensional interactions)
by their own world, telling them that, finally, the attack started, as Monster armies assaulted each of the 4 capitals at once. Luka's team is able, via usage of teleporting
(it is part of the canon, don't worry)
, to fend off all 4 attacks. Afterwards, the Kingdoms agree on taking the fight back to the Monsters, as Luka continues to beat the 4 Monster faction that have led the previous attacks under the orders of Alice XV. Upon defeating each of them, Luka manages, through his staple diplomacy
(either dealing with the Queen's own dramas, or even hastily agreeing to mary a monster princess)
, to make them allies instead.
With the crisis averted, the party can now focus on reaching the Hellgondo continent (again, much like in the Original timeline). To do so, they go and search for the 6 orbs needed in summoning Garuda to help them fly to Hellgondo (as they did in the Original timeline), as the continent cannot be normally entered via ship or normal flight. After gathering the orbs this time around (for one of the orbs, even needing to get it from another parallel world, as their own version of the orb had been destroyed), they attempt the ritual of summoning Garuda, which actually fails. White Rabbit appears to let them know that the Snow Continent is the one currently causing interference with the ritual, and that they will have to enter the Snow Continent and deal with its situation to be able to summon Garuda. She also warns them that, by seeing the situation within the Snow Continent, they will finally get to the crux of the problem over their entire world. The party enters the continent and quickly realize that this continent is, in fact, Heaven, as it fell down from its previous location. Investingating the continent, they find out where Eden is, and talk with her to find out even more details. On the day of the Great Disaster, Ilias had gone in her temple, from which the Chaotization was now growing. Eden stopped the chaotization by creating a barrier, then maintained it until the current day. To get to the heart of the situation, the party had to disengage said barrier and enter the Temple Ruins themselves. Eden ends up complying with the request, and the party enters the temple. White Rabbit escorts them through the inside of it, teasing the reveal of the entire information on the Great Disaster, whilst telling them to hurry up, as the chaotization, now without being held within the barrier, was progressing at a faster rate, endangering the entire world. The party also finds out that they will have to defeat the being at the core of the Temple, that had also helped keep the chaotization at bay, but ended up being part of the chaotization in the end. That being was Ilias, or rather as much of her as was still intact (this explaining how she appeared, previously, as partially corrupted by static).
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| Chaos-afflicted Ilias (of the Paradox World) |
Ilias (the one afflicted by Chaos) and White Rabbit proceed to explain to Luka's party the whole backstory of the Great Disaster, including chibi-Ilias's origin as a fragment from the Ilias of the Original world, after her defeat. To show the party the exact events that transpired on the day of the Great Disaster, White Rabbit transports them to a "Flashback" of the past, telling them that they cannot interact, or be influenced by, anything they were seeing. This way, they got a front-row seat for the disaster that unfolded in Remina, upon that faithful experiment. To further show the Goddess of Chaos's unimaginable power, she was actually able to perceive Luka's party observing her, even as she was supposed to be only part of the Flashback, thus breaking a Law of time. Quickly leaving the Flashback, the party does not get to hear much more from the Ilias of the Paradox world, as she gets promptly killed off by the just-arrived Lilith Sisters, thus also solving the issue of the Temple Ruins in the process. Before they get to have a proper talk about the situation, the Three Seraphim also arrive on the Scene, threatening a full-blown battle between the 2 sides (with Luka's party left in the middle). Instead of that happening, however, Sonya starts acting up weird, ending up speaking in the way Apoptosis were speaking (like robotical programs, game code, very meta, much like the Chaos-involved individuals also do at times, or within their abilities) , revealing herself as an Apoptosis of the highest order (the type that could single-handedly bring the destruction of a world). Her transformation only occured because of the multiple simultaneous interactions between inter-dimensional individuals (in this case, the parties of the 2 parallel worlds and Luka's own party). The now-transformed Chaos Sonya easily absorbs the power of the individuals of the other 2 parallel worlds that tried to touch her, growing stronger and far more dangerous, and even managing herself to summon Adramelech (anther highest-class Apoptosis) . Forced into fighting his own friend, Luka has to defeat Sonya (2 times as well) , however uselessly, as the situation of the world deteriorates extremely fast as a consequence of the 2 Apoptosis.
This end part is different depending on if you are on Alice or Ilias route. On Ilias route, Sonya regains temporary awareness, and manages to sacrifice herself to defeat Adramelech, revert the changes they caused onto the world, then create a substitute existence for her (as she was now about to dissapear), leaving everybody else unaware of what had just transpired. In this route, it's implied that, while there is a Sonya there, she is not "Truly" the proper Sonya, as she had actually already sacrificed herself. By comparison, Alice's route
feels a bit more satisfying.
In this route, Nuruko, a strange, mute, monster girl Luka's party found within a Tartarus, suddenly unleashes herself as the Spirit of Chaos, thus being able to easily deal with Adralemech, then seal Sonya back into her normal form, without her retaining any memories. The party is dumbfounded by this development, however they decide to continue their quest
(with the ticking instable bomb that Sonya essentially was)
, while also not telling Sonya of what she truly was
(a good move, as that, in of itself, could have cause another bout of Apoptosis-transformation from her)
. The party then goes to summon Garuda, and this is where the current Story is left off. Well, not before shocking news arrive at the party: Marcellus had just killed Alice XV!
To be continued.... Also, I hope you liked how, despite how I did spoil most of the information in the beginning of this Spoiler Section, I still kept Sonya's reveal pretty hidden.
The story still does not end! The Collaboration Event happens now!
As said before, this Collaboration involves the other 7 games, with characters and even some mechanics from them.
Onto the story!
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The 7 heroes of the Collaboration (including Luka). Toru (from
Succubus Prison game) not present, as he was already dead (which is normal for his game) |
One of the White Rabbits (as it's shown that, as the Law that she is, she cannot really be killed, and reasonably has multiple bodies), wondering about parallel worlds (in an attempt to guide the Monster Lord), stumbles by mistake upon the world of Succubus Quest instead. She takes her leave, and gets back to the paradox world, but before she manages to close back the gate she made, a mysterious succubus stops her and enters the paradox world through the portal. White rabbit, upon failing to convince this mysterious succubus (who is actually Est from Succubus Quest) to return, attacks her, but her physical attacks are ineffective. Est then counters with pleasure-based attacks, that, surprsingly, end up effective against White Rabbit. All of this happens because she is a Nightmare in her own world (a type of Succubs, that's how they are in their world), and Nightmares cannot be affected by anything other than pleasure, whilst their pleasure-attacks always affect others at full efficiency, regardless of their innate resistances. In this way, White Rabbit gets captured for an untold amount of time, in which Est proceeds to summon more "allies" for her to the paradox world, which are different types of antagonists from the Collaboration games. Her plan currently is to bring the "Land of the Night" from her own world to the paradox world, which would also cause the normal individuals of the paradox world to fall to a never-ending bliss-filled sleep. Est lets her "allies" roam relatively freely, and they only aid each other loosely, mostly watching their own backs in fear of being backstabbed by one-another. Cool plan so far, cannot complain. However, possibly as a direct result of summoning said "allies" from their own worlds , or possibly as some sort of attempt from the captured White Rabbit to help , actual heroes from each of those worlds are also summoned, usually along with some companions or allies of theirs. Said heroes gain a " Proof of Collaboration mark on their hands, which also becomes instrumental later.
Luka's group only finds out about this situation from the aparent White Rabbit, back (implied with another body) to tell them about the whole situation, how it started, and what they should do. In the meanwhile, in separate parts of the paradox world, the other Heroes start appearing, also without knowledge of their current situation. This often sparks confusion, as not only are they in a separate world, but the setting of the world itself is vastly different from some of their own worlds (for example, Kazuya, from SHRIFT game, coming from a Modern setting, as opposed to MGQP's Fantasy setting). Some of their worlds don't even have the same system of combat (3 of the Collab games are Battle-fuck RPGs, in which they don't physically attack enemies). All made worse by the Nightmare enemies from the other worlds, that only take pleasure damage (making the Heroes used to fighting physically, including Luka, have to adapt). However, shortly after each Hero appears, White Rabbit appears to let them know about their current situation, much like with Luka.
Long story short
, after a while of stumbling around the world, having some encounters with some of the Antagonists, and adapting to the paradox world (namely, either finding equivalents of their tools&skills in this world, or finding ways to further augument their own tools&skills using this world's resources), the Hero groups slowly end up converging together, and make an United front against Est's final plan, which was partway complete by that point.
As a relatively-smaller detail
, Luka did not initially have the Proof of Collaboration mark (as he was part of his own world already). In the meanwhile, the mark that would have been on the Hero from the Succubus Prison game (Toru) was instead on Myusca (one of the Succubi antagonists that came from that world), as she had already killed him (as part of the game
; don't worry, Toru's used to that, sort of
). At a certain point, in a moment in which the hero team manages to gain the advantage in a confrontation with the Succubi of the Succubus Prison world, they make a deal with them to let them go for the time being in exchange for Myusca giving the Mark to Luka. Thus, Luka ends up with the mark that was originally on Toru.
Yes, it does seem like a small detail, but it's relevant to remember this as both the reason why Luka is actually having the Mark, why there are only 6 other Heroes from 7 other worlds and, possibly, to justify for the next Event of the Story.
Towards the end of the Scenario, all main Antagonists are dealt with, one by one (or in their specific groups), by the Heroes party, up until the final boss and mastermind behind the event, Est. Before that final fight, they even find out that their guide so far, White Rabbit, for the duration of this Collaboration Event, was an imposter, in actuality being Daji (from SHRIFT), a shapeshifting Demon girl that can take both the form and the memories of other beings (with enough knowledge on them), making it easy for her to infiltrate the Heroes party. Luckily, just like in SHRIFT, she is also fickle enough to not truly cause a problem to the party, aside from the sole attempt on their lives near the end, which is twarted by Kazuya (the hero from SHRIFT) realizing some inconsistencies with some of the claims she made as White Rabbit. Onto the Final Boss, the party manages to defeat Est's first phase, however she is strong enough to emit waves of pleasure to incapacitate all the people around her, with the exception of the Mark-bearing Heroes. While normally, that would have been their end, as few of them were able to use pleasure-based attacks against her, it is at that point that their Marks make them capable of dealing pleasure damage even using their normal attacks. Thus, they manage to make Est orgasm (as it works in Battle-fuck games), and defeat her in this way. Est does say that she did most of this plan in her pursuit of higher pleasures, which was essentially fullfilled in this final fight
, showing how you can't truly win in a battle-fuck battle, whichever way it goes.
With this, the situation in the world calms down.... However, to the dismay of the people from the Collaboration games, none of them are taken back to their own worlds automatically. They are still stuck in this world.
Now, knowing about Sonya's true form (and assuming Alice route, in which she is still at risk of re-transformation), it is a true wonder she does not have a Transformation-spree at the proximity of a total of 8 different dimensions' individuals. Although it wouldn't be fair for the denizens of the other 7 worlds, as they don't have chaotization in their own worlds, for the most part (baring The Three Charms's Collaboration event with MGQP in their own game, and SHRIFT also having meta-game, corruption-looking-like situations going on).
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Est (Succubus Quest game).
And all of this because her world does not have good-enough sex toys.... |
For the time being, all the denizens from the other worlds are stranded within the paradox world, or at least until the real White Rabbit decides to help (if still able). This is also an awfully-convenient way of keeping allies from this games as playable in MGQP. Because of this, Luka's team also has to finish the damage-control, by finding the current whereabouts of the bad guys, then negociating with them to not cause further problems in the paradox world, which, in all cases, ends up with recruiting them in Luka's ever-growing party, to keep them under careful watch. Of course, where any of them to get uppity, they could simply be sent in the nearest Tartarus to see for themselves just how nice the view is, and just how well they can get along with the Chaotization. After properly recruiting Daji too, she also relates some of her experience in faking White Rabbit, namely exploring White Rabbit's mind. Yes, she can explore the mind of herself, transformed as another individual, let's not dwell on it. She does remark that White Rabbit's mind is fairly unique (considering White Rabbit is supposed to be a Concept, a Law, not simply a being). She also stumbles upon Apiro Lagos within White Rabbit's mind, a being looking similar to White Rabbit herself. She is actually part of the 3rd Dimensional faction I mentioned before , the Apostles of chaos. Apiro Lagos says that she does not "yet exist", although she has been given temporary existence upon Daji's observation of her (yes, the Chaos guys are weird like that) . She also tells Daji to forward the message of "Search for the third way", where Father of Chaos would be, although upon Daji's lack of knowledge upon who would be this individual, Apiro Lagos then says to deliver the message to the Destroyer or the Judge. She then reveals herself as being part of the Apostles of Chaos, as they wait "in the gaps between history" for the coming of an unspecified something or someone. For a bit of a theory-storming, although it should be quite obvious at this point, it's very likely Apiro Lagos was refering to Luka as being the one who can hold those 2 titles, and thus implying he could even hold, in some form, the title of "Father of Chaos". This could be the version for the Chaos faction Luka could become (although the Chaos faction already have a similar individual, called Idea Lukas), possibly after Luka would end up being affected by Chaotization in some form (as Apiro Lagos could, just as well, be the future of White Rabbit under the influence of Chaos). The Apostles are supposed to be beings that have yet to have existence, which could either be further reference to the notion that Chaos=Nothing, or more literally them being existences in the future, possible future, chaotizised, versions of other individuals. That being said, much like the other 2 main Dimensional factions, they too want to co-opt Luka to their side, although in this case, it would simply make the realization of the "Father of Chaos". We'll see in Part 3.
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| Apostles of Chaos. Rad design. |
Finally, for the actual last, separate, Event, there is the Time Loop event. In this one, Luka's party is preparing for the
Otokomatsu Festival
, which also involves currently a musical band competition (as opposed to their usual men trials, as the world had already gone through too much turmoil to really need actual physical trials at this point). Luka's chosen main partner (Alice or Ilias, depending on the route) makes a band with her chosen bandmates (again, depends on which of them) and prepares for the Festival. The Time Loop event itself starts on the very day of the Festival, in which Luka wakes up at 1 PM
(fellow night-burner guy, I see)
in the Pocket Castle
(yea, I did not talk about it that much, but it's their mobile on-the-go Base)
, which is also under renovation. He answers a Pizza delivery, however without knowing who, from the Castle, ordered it. He then proceeds with the day (you can choose, per each hour interval, out of a number of interactions you can do to spend each hour), up until 5 PM, at which point the companions next to him go crazy out of the sudden and eat him. He then wakes up, again, at 1 PM of the same day, thus restarting the Loop, which always ends at 5 PM with the nearby monster companion of his ending up taking his life.
After a few Loops, with the help of Promestein
(again, did not talk about her much, but this Promestein is actually from the Angel World, and they had found her within the first Tartarus way back into the story)
, Luka slowly pieces together the reason for the loop. It's, in fact, because of Toru from Succubus Prison game.
We're not over with the other games yet.
Toru, in his game,
to sum up really fast,
was caught in a house by the 3 Succubi (Myusca, Nemea and Vinum), and he was, essentially, their plaything. However, he does attempt to escape, resulting easily in his death. However, he also has a Time Loop situation, which allows him to repeat his attempts multiple times, slowly uncovering the reasons behind his Time Loops (an artifact from that house), and also how to properly Escape. Or, at least, that's what normally happens at the end of his game. Sadly, in order for Toru to escape, he actually has to also call a Pizza delivery on their house to gain the ocassion to escape, which inadvertedly ends up sacrificing the pizza delivery guy to the 3 Succubi. In the context of the events of MGQP, however, Toru ends up feeling guilt over said sacrifice, and keeps on attempting to find other ways to escape, which leads him to another death at the hands of Myusca, before the events of the Collaboration Event. However, not only does his actual body actually reach Paradox world
(indeed, I lied, with this, 7 heroes were brought in this world; one of them being already stiff)
, but his deep regrets at sacrificing the Pizza-delivery guy, and at his own death, end up making a connection with Luka, and now also locking Luka in a similar Time Loop. To solve it, Promestein actually improvizes a plan to send Luka to Toru's world, and also back in time, at the moment of Toru's plan to escape the house, to help Toru in actually escaping the house without making the sacrifice. After Luka finds out the proper way to do it (is, in great parts, similar to how Toru normally did it in the Succubus Prison game), he escapes the house with Toru, while also not sacrificing the pizza delivery guy. On the downside, Toru, by this point entranced by the pleasures offered by the Succubi, willingly returns to the house, leaving Luka dumbfounded. However, even with this, the actual cycle had been broken, at least for Luka, as he returns to his world and is able to finally pass 5 PM
without causing sudden-onset-murderous-intent upon any of the bystanders around him. We'll simply forget about Toru, he made his own bed by that point. Let's hope he now goes for a Highscore, a Challenge run, or some sort of obscure Achievement, if he's still going with that Time Loop. What a hero....
Well, the actual, final, Event would be the Festival itself, however nothing really happens in it, it's mostly filler, just have fun with it, no problems. Also, we can safely ignore Labyrinth of Chaos when it comes to Plot, as it's Gameplay-only. To mention at least a few more aspects, from the very first encounter with White Rabbit, when she drops a key to Hades, Luka is then able to take that key and enter Hades, through a door on the 1st floor of the Ilias Temple, back in Iliasville. The door and key are only seen by Luka, and when Luka enters Hades, the others simply see him be absent-minded for the relative duration. In Hades, apart from some Gameplay features, such as Fight-replay, Difficulty change and other such functions, there's another mysterious being, called Reaper. She is the one providing a lot of those gameplay functions. Also, she is the one suggesting Luka train his skills within the Labyrinth of Chaos, which, apparently, is a place where a lot of beings and objects from separate worlds intersect (to justify for it being so insane and end-game content) . You can meet there some battles with your current allies, even some fights that aren't normally avaliable in the game, some of them also being superbosses (such as Judgement Luka, World Breaker Luka, or Idea Lukas). This about covers it.
undefined
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The 2 possible Girl bands.
Sonya also makes a band of her own, but really, who cares about her now. |
Well, the actual, final, Event would be the Festival itself, however nothing really happens in it, it's mostly filler, just have fun with it, no problems. Also, we can safely ignore Labyrinth of Chaos when it comes to Plot, as it's Gameplay-only. To mention at least a few more aspects, from the very first encounter with White Rabbit, when she drops a key to Hades, Luka is then able to take that key and enter Hades, through a door on the 1st floor of the Ilias Temple, back in Iliasville. The door and key are only seen by Luka, and when Luka enters Hades, the others simply see him be absent-minded for the relative duration. In Hades, apart from some Gameplay features, such as Fight-replay, Difficulty change and other such functions, there's another mysterious being, called Reaper. She is the one providing a lot of those gameplay functions. Also, she is the one suggesting Luka train his skills within the Labyrinth of Chaos, which, apparently, is a place where a lot of beings and objects from separate worlds intersect (to justify for it being so insane and end-game content) . You can meet there some battles with your current allies, even some fights that aren't normally avaliable in the game, some of them also being superbosses (such as Judgement Luka, World Breaker Luka, or Idea Lukas). This about covers it.
Took a while, that Spoiler segment. Clearly the longest so far, even considering that plenty of elements were already established in the Original series!
The story, this time around, is even bigger, both in scope and complexity. There are many intertwined plot threads, a lot of details to keep track of, in fact, lots of details to get mixed up or miss out on, and, of course, even more foreshadowing for plenty of future plot developments. While still starting off from the Original series' story, it still manages to keep the story quite fresh, within similar, yet very different, settings. The sheer breadth of story content might make you consider noting things down, and that's even without the Side-quests and other Lore-expanding content.
Of course, there are still issues with this approach to evolving the Story. Firstly, within the huge complexity of the plot, and considering still a (very generous) reasonable size of a game series, some other elements do not get as much focus as before. Specifically, the characters themselves, as they simply are too many to get as much of a spotlight as in the Original series. More on this in the upcoming Section.
The other problem, that starts becoming more obvious later down the line, is the consistency of the plot itself. The game did go extremely Meta in lots of ways, both in addressing even more Primary Concepts of the makings of their world, and in even incorporating more of the Gameplay elements as actual plot elements. It is generally good to see a story threading the border of Breaking the 4th Wall, but still only staying within the "Meta" area of playing with generally-ignored mechanics by having them become part of the actual story. Even the original series did this, in a lesser degree. However, this also invites some complexity issues. The more one implicates abstract, complex, concepts, that are also, within the bounds of their Universe/Multiverse (considering this game series now involves multiple Universes), breaching, if not immediately implying, omnipotence of a certain type, the harder it is to maintain plot consistency within said plot. MGQP not only brings an extreme amount of dynamic plot elements, but also has a high degree of complexity within said dynamicism. Hell, at this point, they genuinely have dedicated Flowcharts for Affinities within the leading members of some of the different Factions. Members that, as of yet, have barely been shown within the story! It is great to know that events happen, within the same in the plot, at higher "levels", while the main Hero party slowly grows from their smaller "levels" of story involvement, showing that the world is active and living, even outside the immediate proximity of the MC. It is inevitable, however, that plot holes will start opening up progressively more often with such Complexities. I do say, Torotoro have done a remarkable job in keeping up with the amount of plot elements they have introduced in the story, whilst generally reducing the amount of possible inconsistencies. I do have the opinion, though, that they could have just as well, for the sheer amount of Plot involved, have either increased the size of the game series (to be able to slowly, and properly, address most story elements), or altogether split some of this Story within multiple game series, if need be.
On the subject of plot consistency, there is also the simple arguments of the "other ways" the story could have gone, at least with the information currently provided. Granted, in most stories, inevitably, we allocate a certain degree of "Plot-convenience Allowance", in which some actions, events, or simply mechanics of the story, happen in certain ways that are harder to normally result from the already-provided Story elements. An easy example of this are Soft Magic systems, which allow for enough flexibility to introduce, at times, plot elements to continue moving forward the story in certain directions. Ideas like "X element is actually interfering with Y ritual, and therefore, we now need to deal with element X to be able to move on with the Y ritual". Of course, ideally, all of such instances would have been categorized beforehand within a detailed Magic System, however, in practice, not all the details of a certain System employed can easily, or accurately, be conveyed to the audience, even if the author actually has proper explanations within their own System for each instance of such "Plot Convenience". Events that happen "By coincidence" are also included here, although, in this case, it's even more of a glaring example of Convenience on the story's part, and, therefore, should be used sparringly. A method to attempt to alleviate the amount of "Convenience" required by the plot is to use Foreshadowing; that is, to allude to those "Convenient moments" from before, thus providing more of a reasonability for their existance, and also, in a sense, prove that they were not simply improvized whenever needed, on the spot. The Original MGQ has had such Plot-conveniences, much like any story, whether be it Luka meeting his future travel partner by chance, or even simply his unique backstory. To make it feel more "fair", the story builds a proper Story around such events, integrating them fairly seamlessly within the entire plot, and thus easily providing both Foreshadowing whenever needed, and Backstory for such elements, anchoring them further within the story. All things considered, the Original MGQ did not press hard on the "Plot-convenience Allowance", at least not much more than most Shonen adventures. In fact, it did even less than most such adventures, having more justifications and more inter-connections between the plot elements involved.
However, with the advent of the story of MGQP, so much more elements have been brought about, some with so much more impact, that, inevitably, it stressed harder on the "Plot-convenience Allowance" one might reasonably give it. I hope it does not really feel spoiler-y to say there are, within this elements, involvement of Powers on Conceptual levels, making even Time-Manipulation merely one of the many such Powers, instead of the immensely OverPowered Notion that it truly is. Of course, the consequence then is that such impossibly-strong Concepts are not just hard to defeat (but doable, as the Concepts can be employed on both sides of a conflict), but also easy to find alternative, even better, "solutions" for some of the plot problems. To a certain extent, it can become a game of "Why did she not use her X Power, from before, to solve problem Y in this Z way, way easier / way more convenient / way more reasonable for her thinking, at that point?". Of course, considering there is an Entire Part left to be released, the Story can gain even more depth, details, plot elements, and crucially, justifications and limitations to certain such OP plot-elements. There are ways to introduce such limitations later down the road without feeling like a Retcon/Cop-out, if, for example, it's shown as a before-unkown detail, that the Hero's party (and therefore, our main perspective within the story) was not able to understand, or even perceive, when it was initially shown or implied. For example, a character could be suffering from certain afflictions, limiting their near-omnipotence powers, however this affliction to only be properly explored at a later date, only being alluded at in the meanwhile. Therefore, before Part 3 is released, I cannot rightfully pass judgement on how much Plot Convenience has been used within this new series, and if it crossed a certain threshold for reasonability. I still think that, compared to the Original series, there have been more Convenient moments employed, considering the Notions the story is playing with currently. We'll see how right we are in general in the future.
I still have to pass a mark on the story. It is just a bit lower than the previous serie's mark on this Section, as that Story had been just the right amount within most categories for its scope. This story, while increasing the scope by, frankly, an insane amount, has also introduced the possibility for Inconsitencies and Conveniences to take place (at times, inevitably so).
Characters = 9
To further continue on the idea that I started in the previous section, while there is still enough dimension to the characters currently present in the story, each character is less described, and less detailed, than it would be in the Original series. This is also another inevitable consequence of increasing the size of the story itself, as the perspective, in trying to perceive the entirety of the story, does "zoom out" from individuals themselves. Some of the newly-presented characters in this Paradox series get a bit more focus, but even them, being so many in numbers, don't get each that much time to be developed. The difference between the series it's made more obvious with the characters that are present in both of them. Even the main characters of the story get affected by this, including the MC, Luka, himself.
In holding more with the idea of this game series being more of a standard RPG, Luka has also lost a lot of his Original dimension as a character. Besides some Comedic moments, or Side-stories, he does not get as much of his own agency in this story, or even much interaction from him directly with the events transpiring around him (save for some plot-relevant moments, and even then, in limited quantity). One can rightly argue that a Luka that grew in the Paradox world would clearly be different from the Luka of the Original series, as he, comparatively, lived in a world closer to his own ideals (Co-existence not being as far from realisation this time around), thus requiring less of him to strengthen within his own ideals. Essentially, the idea that Heroes are not born in a Peaceful world. The different situation around Ilias in the Paradox world, clearly, would also play a factor in shaping Luka down a different path. Still, there are ways to show a different Luka, without making him this Passive. Different traits and ideals are always better than none (or few) at all.
To describe this in more detail, I still need to go into Spoiler territory, so here we go:
Along the story, Luka does not act that much on his own. In fact, the idea of him travelling in a party seems to have been a factor in decreasing his own agency in the story, as his companions (particularly the main ones, Alice/Ilias, Sonya, and the plot-relevant ones at that moment) are the one to be more proactive in most situations, either describing the plot, the current situation, their quest, or simply being the ones to directly interact with the other characters. Of course, there is still plenty of interactions from Luka himself, at least considering the sheer size of the entire story. However, one would have expected yet more from him. I can actually give examples, too:
- Him gradually realizing that Ilias/Alice is the real deal. It is implied that he becomes more aware that they are not simply lying about their previous status, at least through the fact that the information they provide later is taken more seriously than before. However, we don't get to see him directly expressing much of this gradual change, when it would be quite normal for him to start being at least very surprized, if not completely mortified (for his casual interactions with what once was either the Monster Lord, or the very Goddess of Light). His remarks during their optional H-Scenes, that can be accessed later on, really don't help matters (as you'd expect generally more, and as part of the Main Story).
- Him gradually realizing that Ilias/Alice is the real deal. It is implied that he becomes more aware that they are not simply lying about their previous status, at least through the fact that the information they provide later is taken more seriously than before. However, we don't get to see him directly expressing much of this gradual change, when it would be quite normal for him to start being at least very surprized, if not completely mortified (for his casual interactions with what once was either the Monster Lord, or the very Goddess of Light). His remarks during their optional H-Scenes, that can be accessed later on, really don't help matters (as you'd expect generally more, and as part of the Main Story).
- Luka's realization of his true bloodline as a Half-angel. He should've had at least a bit of a moment to take in the implications of that, especially the secondary implications (that Lucifina, his mother, was an Angel before, and why she ended up in the Human realm).
- Near the end of Part 2, when finding out the backstory behind the Great Disaster, and the general informations about Ilias. Considering his previous past beliefs in her as a peerless Goddess, he should have actually been shocked, at the very least. It had been suggested previously, through the adventure, of some of Ilias's past wrongdoings (or possible wrongdoings she would have done, were the story to progress like in the Original timeline), but that end part was the most glaring moment he should have had a double-take of the situation. Hell, he actually Fought Ilias in the Original timeline (something he ends up finding out), and he's still not having any outwardly reaction to those news. Particularly weird, especially if on Ilias route, when he has the chibi-Ilias right next to him! One can argue, in the defense of his lack of reactions, both that this plot did not have him directly pitted against Ilias (unlike in the Original timeline, in which he got to hate Ilias properly as he had to fight against her and her forces for the last third of the Series), and that there were now other, more pressing, matters to take his attention away, such as the impending threat from the Factions of the other 2 Worlds. Still, it's ludicrous he ended up having next to no reaction to all this shocking news to him.
- Really, all the plot-twists Luka went through in the Original world, which they also find about in this story (way earlier, too). At this point, it's also surprizing that even other members of his Party had not much more reactions of their own to said plot-twists.
- Really, all the plot-twists Luka went through in the Original world, which they also find about in this story (way earlier, too). At this point, it's also surprizing that even other members of his Party had not much more reactions of their own to said plot-twists.
Out of all the characters, the ones getting the most amount of attention, by this point, would be Luka's immediate co-protagonists, aka Ilias/Alice and Sonya. Ilias/Alice for being the one to interact the most out of the Hero party with the plot (even considering Luka in this), and Sonya for actually having important plot-relevance, as revealed at the end of Part 2. Also, there is an argument to be made about just how much backstory some of the other key-characters (such as the members of the Factions of the 2 Parallel Worlds vying for the Paradox world).
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| Relationship Flowchart for the 2 Factions. Search them on Wiki for the full-size, individual, versions. |
I can see another reason for the almost-neutering of Luka's agency in this game series, apart from the overflow of charcters present in the story. This game offers more choices to be taken (that can change some aspects of the story), with the most relevant choice so far being the route you choose between Alice and Ilias at the beginning, and the future implied choice of which Faction does Luka decide to side with (that is, if such a siding is on the table in Part 3). Considering this possible variations to the story, of course Luka would have to be left closer to a Blank-slate, so that he can "fit" the possible choices that can be taken. However, even considering this, the traits that he shares between all of these choices could have been reinforced and described in more detail, thus making up for the traits that are different between each of these choices, and thus, cannot really be described as efficiently.
The best argument to make here would be the idea of the Hero's journey. The Original series had these idea done extremely well, having Luka as the rightful focus of the adventure, and the world being perceived through his perspective, subjective as it may be at times. This plot-relevant journey is not as present in the Paradox series, as Luka, this time around, is outshined oftenly by his own companions within the story. It was inevitable that the simple Hero journey structure employed in the past Series would have, at best, to be adapted to the new scope of the current story. A way it could have been done in a better way, in my opinion, would have been to have multiple "hero's journeys", or rather, multiple "focus-point"-characters within the story, one for each different story perspective to be shown (such as having Luka's father be an individual such "focus-point"-character). Thus, instead of having equal amount of depth be given to most characters (and thus, not have a lot of depth per each one of them), the story could be "carried" by specific individuals, and we would get to see the story through their individual perspectives. This would also work wonders for this Story's idea of the different Sides at play, and how each views the current Situation differently, whilst seeing their own action as just, no matter how vile they are in an objective sense.
Of course, we're still far from having to say that the Characters of this Series are badly-written. There is lots of detail put into their backstories, and they still, each of the plot-relevant ones, have a lot more depth than a lot of characters even currently-present in some notable popular (Shit)-shows. Still, compared with the story of the Original series, it's clear the focus has shifted from individual characters to the Story at large.
Gameplay = 9
Mechanics = 10
I'll have to describe here in the broadest of senses, since this RPG is extremely big in the amount of mechanics involved. If you wish for details on any subject I broach here, once again, I redirect you to the Wiki of the game as the best Resource for your wished Research.
Starting with the Elephant in the room.... In this game, you can actually have Party members. Each party member, much like Luka, will have their own Stats, Equipment, Abilities, Skills etc. They also level up (both the main Level and the Job&Race levels) just like Luka does. In fact, almost all enemies (with some minor Superboss and male enemy exceptions) are recruitable, most likely with more possible recruits to come in Part 3 as well. First, you'll have to Recruit those members to have the option of using them in your Party. The methods to recruit members can be classified into: normal encounter invitation, boss-defeat, quest-dependant and BattleFuckers:
- The normal encounter invitation applies to the normal, random, encounters. Each type of Monster girl has its own Favorability stat, starting from 20, and ranges between 0 and 100. Talk skills can increase said Favorability, which, in turn, increases the chance of them choosing to join your party at the end of the combat encounter. Later, you'll learn a skill that greatly boosts the Join chance, as well, and as you advance in the game (and meet harder enemies), they will also progressively have smaller chances to be recruited at the end of their combat. Also, even if multiple different monster girls are in the same combat encounter, at the end of the combat, only a maximum of a monster girl can be recruited at once (leaving the other types for future combat encounters). A monster girl type can only be recruited once (althought their Favorability stat will remain, as there are some Talk skills making use of it), and next to her name, an asterisk sign will mark whether she has already been recruited or not. There are a few "group-type" enemies, that are individual entities in combat, but are recruited simultaneously (they are still the "weak" type of enemies). For best chances to Recruit these type of Monster Girls, you'll need to prolong the combat encounters (usually, via Stun-type Status Effects) to have enough time to raise their Favorability, and most likely do multiple Combat Encounters in each game area, until all the monster girls of said area have been recruited.
- The normal encounter invitation applies to the normal, random, encounters. Each type of Monster girl has its own Favorability stat, starting from 20, and ranges between 0 and 100. Talk skills can increase said Favorability, which, in turn, increases the chance of them choosing to join your party at the end of the combat encounter. Later, you'll learn a skill that greatly boosts the Join chance, as well, and as you advance in the game (and meet harder enemies), they will also progressively have smaller chances to be recruited at the end of their combat. Also, even if multiple different monster girls are in the same combat encounter, at the end of the combat, only a maximum of a monster girl can be recruited at once (leaving the other types for future combat encounters). A monster girl type can only be recruited once (althought their Favorability stat will remain, as there are some Talk skills making use of it), and next to her name, an asterisk sign will mark whether she has already been recruited or not. There are a few "group-type" enemies, that are individual entities in combat, but are recruited simultaneously (they are still the "weak" type of enemies). For best chances to Recruit these type of Monster Girls, you'll need to prolong the combat encounters (usually, via Stun-type Status Effects) to have enough time to raise their Favorability, and most likely do multiple Combat Encounters in each game area, until all the monster girls of said area have been recruited.
- The Boss-defeat, of course, is relevant for bosses, meaning that they are recruitable after their defeat (disregarding their Favorability stat or other Recruitment chances). Very often however, the bosses also require their own sidequest to be done before they can actually be recruited. A few bosses (even a few Superbosses) can actually be recruited immediately after their defeat, making them good targets to beat for a quick new ally.
- Quest-dependant means that you need to proceed through certain side-quests for the monster girls to be recruited. Most bosses require a sidequest to also be done, aside from their defeat, to be recruited. Some characters are recruited through just their side-quest, without combat (such as the male characters). A few characters are actually Route-dependant, being either Alice-Route only (such as Alicetroemeria) or Ilias-Route only (such as Heinrich).
- BattleFuckers are, well, the battlefuckers from around the World. They are recruitable after beating them in a "BattleFuck" match, aside from also giving their item reward. A BattleFuck match, in this game, involves the BattleFucker girl doing a number of attacks on Luka, dealing fixed amounts of damage (cannot be defended, or resisted, against). Each battlefucker girl has its own damage values (higher values as you progress in the game), and considering that their damage values are fixed, the only stat you can change on Luka to help with this is increase his Max HP. As the battlefuck matches also double as pseudo-H-scenes, they are re-doable. Sadly, battlefuckers generally don't have any other H-scenes beside their battlefuck matches.
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| Example of a BattleFuck match (replayed from the Castle) |
Upon recruiting a girl, you get the choice of either immediately adding her to the current Party formation or to send her to the Castle. The newly-recruited girl already starts out with her own Equipment on, and her own Jobs&Races (having a couple of Mastered ones as well later on, at times, even some Advanced Jobs&Races not currently avaliable in the game). The Castle in question is the Pocket Castle, your on-the-move Base. In-story, you get it, on the Alice route, from Alice (as it was one of her possessions), or, on Ilias route, from Ilias as she managed to pickpocket Alice. The Castle is a Key Item that, when interacted with, transports Luka to the inside of the Pocket Castle. This location is where all your recruited allies go, when not in the active party formation. As you continue recruiting more and more Monster girls, the castle will slowly be populated by them. Considering the sheer size of the castle, and how many girls you'll recruit in time (in the current game, around 400 of them), you also have Maid NPCs at plenty of the entrances of the areas within the castle that give you Party-relevant options, such as easily modify your Party formation (and change with the girls from the castle), teleport to the location of any chosen girl, quickly teleport to the Front entrance of the castle and even Register Party formations, to be saved and loaded when needed. The Maid also gives access to the Item storage, where you can store items (useful for dealing with the 99 item limit, or further sort your items, especially when dealing with LoC items).
When selecting the girls from the Castle to be added to the current Party formation, you can also select them to teleport to them instead, or even have the Monster Girl list be sorted in different ways (by default, it's sorted in their ID order, but it can be sorted Alphabetically, or filtered by each (base) Race). The Monster girl might have different names from their normal-encounter names, as they actually get personal names (whereas their normal-encounter names would actually be the name of their type/species). As for the Party Formation, you can have only 4 active members, those being the ones taking turns in-battle, being able to act, and having their buffs/debuffs durations tick down. The other members of the party formation are left "in reserve", and can be switched-in during battle immediately, so long as there is at least 1 member in the active party that is still alive and not under a Perma-Stun status effect. In the beginning of the game, there is also a limit of 4 Reserve members, but this limit expands at certain points of the Main Story. Also, Luka is a mandatory Party Member, and while he can be moved around within the Party Formation (even put into the Reserve), he cannot be kicked out of the actual Party Formation.
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| Example of a page in the Edit Party menu, with an end-game-sized Reserve Party |
You can also interact with the recruited girls, as they are within the castle. Apart from adding them to the Party, you can also see their Present List (the list of what items they can give at different Affection values; this one needs a lot more Affection, some girls have their last gift even at ~10000 value), Make Requests for H-scenes (they unlock according to the Affection value of the girl; almost all are unlocked by the ~100-150 affection value) and Give Presents (give one of your consumables; one of the ways of raising their Affection). Their Affection value is separate from their Favorability value (that shows in combat encounters with them), and can be increased either by giving them Presents, by having them in the active party and fighting in combat encounters, or even in certain events, or within the Labyrinth of Chaos's Trials of Chaos. Most importantly, their Affection values are also saved on the MetaSave, allowing for easy cheesing of this values by repeatedly giving them high-value Present items, then reloading the Save (as the Meta Save will keep on saving their Affection value as it keeps on rising each time). The only girls who don't have this Affection-related options are the Battlefuck girls, and also the Male companions (who are pretty rare). Some girls can have a "Change form" option, when that girl has multiple forms (and each has its own H-Scenes that can be accessed). A few girls can also have some other useful functions, such as a cheap Inn-rest (Tiny Lamia), (upgradable via dedicated side-quest) consumable shop (Tiny Vampire), (upgradable via dedicated side-quest) Blacksmith (Tiny Dragon), or an unique Race-Change menu (Promestein). Finally, some Side-quest for some of the recruited girls can appear in the Castle's Bulletin board, from which you find out about them to pursue them.
Now we can move to each individual memeber's stats&skills&abilities&equipments! To start off with the most basic of stats, each character has HP, MP and SP bars. HP and MP are the standard of normal RPGs, while the SP bar tries to emulate part of the functions SP had in the original series. Namely, the SP bar, at the start of each Combat, starts filled halfway, Skills can use it (as they can use MP and even HP), and it refills with doing Normal attacks and Defend (all of this information is the base info, as you can increase both the initial SP that you get at the start of combat, and even gain passive SP regen, or SP-healing skills). This game also has the basic Stats, such as Atk, Def, Mag, Will, Agi, Dex, Hit Rate and Crit Rate, which do generally what you expect from their name. You can also check Advanced stats for each character, such as the passive recovery rates, the Consumption rates, and even the XP/Gold/Item Drop rates. Further, you can see the character's current resistances to the Main in-game Elements (showing how much damage they take from each), and Status Effect resistances (showing the base chance they have of successfully being afflicted with them). The Equipment slots are fairly normal (Weapon,Shield,Head,Chest,Accessory). More importantly, one of the few unique features each character has is their Trait. The Trait essentially shows some of what that specific member can always do, such as what equipment and skills they can always use (regardless of their current Job and Race). The Trait also can mention unique stat bonuses said character has, and in which condition they have them (such as dealing more damage with certain Skill types, certain attack elements, or even having increased stats with certain other members in the active party). Of course, a character also has their own base resistances to attack elements and status effects (before factoring in their current Race and Job), although those are generally ignored (again, because characters always have a Race and a Job). The other relevant unique feature of each character is their avaliable Races. Onto that subject...
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| End-game Luka (no equipment) Status Pages (you can also further browse, in the Basic Info page, among the tabs there for even more stats) |
The game has a Job&Race system. Each character can have, at one time, a Job and a Race. The level of each of them is independent, and ranges from 1 (base) to 10 (Mastered). Those 2 level up separate from the Character's main Level, using Job Exp (for both the Job and Race leveling), whereas the Main Level of the character is raised, as normal, via Exp. Each Job&Race provides its own stats and traits, such as their own multipliers for the resistances to the attack elements and status effects, or even Passive bonuses. Also, during the leveling of each Job&Race until their Mastery, the character can also unlock new Abilities and Skills, that remain even after switching the Job&Race (unlike the other features of the Job&Race chosen). Depending on the current Job&Race, the character can gain (or lose) access to some Skill types and Equipment possible to wear. All of the Jobs&Races are "tier-ed" in 3 separate Main Tiers: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. The jobs&races of the superior tiers are generally better than the jobs&races of the lower tiers, but also require other Jobs&Races to be Mastered first (usually from a lower tier) to be done beforehand, at times even needing a Job item (key item) to be found to unlock them. It's also implied by the game that there is a Hidden, superior, Tier, called the "Sealed" (Job&Races), however, in the current game, no access to any Sealed Job/Race is provided, and none of the currently-playable characters seem to have such a Job&Race. There are also a couple of Advanced Job&Races not avaliable currently to the playable characters of the current game, but will clearly become accessible in Part 3.
A clear difference between Jobs&Races (apart from their names and general meaning), is their availability: the (unlocked) Jobs are equally accessible to any character (so long as their requirements are already fullfilled by that character, such as previous-tier jobs), while Races are extremely limited, depending on the character. To ellaborate, each character has only a limited amount of Basic races they start out with (at Level 1, which means they can be chosen afterwards), which also limits afterwards the Intermediate and Advanced races avaliable to them. Normal humans, for example, only have access to the "Human" Basic race at first, having them at a sizable growth disadvantage compared to the Monster girls, which usually have at least a couple of Basic races avaliable to them. Later on, through Promestein, you unlock a new option, to Convert directly from one (already Mastered) race to another (usually, Basic ones), usually using certain items as "catalysts". This does open new options to most characters, especially for humans, which gain a decent amount of Basic race options as a result. Finally, the main way to change the Job&Race of characters is to go to the Head Priest of the Ilias Temple, although, along the adventure, in certain key points, you can also gain temporary access to Job&Race-change books (or people holding them), fulfilling the same role. It's recommended to grind as much Jobs and Races on a character as possible, usually prioritizing the ones relevant for the build you want to make for them, as you still gain the Abilities and Skills of Mastering them, which can be used afterwards, even after settling on main Job&Race options for that character.
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| List of End-game Luka's doable Jobs&Races, all Mastered. Yes, it took a while. For the other 11 main party members, too. |
Now that we also mentioned it, let's also talk about Abilities. Another new mechanic added in this RPG, the Abilities are passives of various effects (from simple Stat ups, to being able to use certain Skill types or equip certain Equipment types, to improving resistances, to even unique effects) that can be toggled on/off whenever needed. They are classed in 5 categories: Combat, Job, Magic, Defense and Special. Each category has their own AP threshold. Each Ability, when active, takes up a certain AP amount, and you can only activate Abilities up until reaching the AP threshold for each Ability category. Different Jobs&Races also have multipliers affecting the max AP of each category of Ability (generally, the higher-tier Jobs&Races providing bigger max AP across the board). Some Abilities are simply better forms of other Abilities, such as providing a bigger stat increase, whilst also having a higher AP value asigned to them Abilities are the main reason Mastering all Jobs&Races is useful, as you can get a lot of useful Abilities for the build of each character, even providing some bonuses you'd otherwise have to get from certain Equipments or from having certain Jobs&Races.
You'd think Skills would be the easiest to explain, considering they are also part of the normal RPG structure. You would still be wrong. First, skill can have various "costs" asigned the them. A very few skills have no cost (usually, those in the "Special" skill type of each character, and quite rare at that). Most usual cost is either SP (which is easier to replenish) or MP, with some being even a combination of the two. Other skills have an HP cost to them (based on a percentage of the Max HP), and some skills can have even other combinations of the 3 (HP,SP,MP), even having a cost of all 3 of them. Certain specific skills of some skill types, instead, have an Gold or item cost (such as Merchant skills using gold, or Alchemy skills using items for their costs). A general rule is that more effective, stronger, and generally more-useful skills have higher costs to them. Second, there are a lot, a goddamn fuck ton lot, of Skill types, each with a sizable amount of Skills in them. a Skill type gets its own entry in the Action menu of a character, during combat. Generally, Skill types are either classed for the Weapon they pertain to, the type of Magic they use, or Job/Race-specific skills. Each skill type has its own affinities with Equipment (making the skills more effective with certain equipment on) and certain general traits (such as having a main attack element most of the skills within said Skill type use). The "Special" skill type is the "Misc." category of the Skill type, with skill that either would not fit in other categories, or character-unique ones, showing there. Also, the "Weapon" skill type appears when a Weapon that enables the use of a specific Skill while equipped is, well, equipped. This Skill types can be re-ordered in the Skill menu of the character outside-of-combat, and even having them being disabled from being used during Combat (as another method of Skill sortage). Sadly, there is no current way to sort individual Skills within each Skill type menu in any similar fashion. There is one more extremely-relevant Skill type, "Sorcery", but I'll go over it afterwards, closer to the End-game content.
As for the Skill stats, starting with their Scaling. You generally see one, or even a few, basic stats being mentioned (such as Atk, Def, Agi.... any of them, in any combination). That is because, in this game, skills can scale of any stat (depending on the skill). There are skills scaling on each of the stats, and even mixed scalings (using multiple Stats at once). The percentage shown before the Stat used is the percentage of that stat that is factored in the skill calculations (whether for Healing or Damaging, depending if the skill is an attack or a heal), usually being over 100%, and going even as far as 4000% (or possibly even higher in the future). The stats don't have to simply be factored in directly; there can be cases in which there is an option between multiple stats (with the highest stat being chose) and even cases where a sum of stats is used. There are also "uniqe-scaling" situations, in which the Skill scales off of different metrics (such as an arbitrary number, such as using the number of steps taken in the current playthrough, or using the current character's level etc.). Finally, there are also Skills that have no scaling, such as is the case with skills that have fixed values or effects to them.
Skills can also have "Power ranks", which is a rough estimation of their general power, at least by comparison. Those ranks range from E (the weakest) to SSSS (so far, extremely rare rank). Of course, you can gather the same info simply from reading the Skill scaling and its effect, but alas. The skill's Target can vary, possibilities being: None (usually, for an unique effect), Self, 1 Ally, All Alies, 1 Enemy, X Random Enemies (can end up hitting the same enemy multiple times), All Enemies, Everyone, The World (for the impossibly-rare Timestop skills). The possible Skill effects are too many to list, but most of anything should be possible via at least a few skills. For even more detailed info on each Skill, you can press "A" while selecting said skill, this also working during combat, too.
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| Example of a (Heroic) Skill, and its Details Page |
2 quick, but extremely relevant, mechanic to discuss is the Extra-Skill and Extra-Action that characters can gain:
- Extra-Skill is when a character, due to Equipment/Abilities/Status Effects, gains additional activation of certain Skills. Usually, this pertains to specific Skill types (eg: the Tentacle skill "Tentacle Up" (and its evolutions) adding the unique (non-stacking with itself) Status Effect that also makes all further Tentacle skills used activation an additional time (at no additional cost). Such extra-skill effects stack additively: using the previous example, "Tentacle Up" actually adds one more activation of any Tentacle skill (unlike the description of the skill would suggestm, with the "*2 Tentacle skills"), and one of its evolutions, "High Tentacle Up", adds 2 more Tentacle skill activations. While using one of these 2 multiple times does not make the Status Effect stronger (eg: Tentacle Up does not stack with itself), the 2 unique Status effects from those 2 skills stack with one another, giving, in this case, a total of 3 additional Tentacle skill activations (with the initial activation, that means each Tentacle skill done afterwards is done 4 times, again, at the cost of only 1). It's an extremely useful strategy to stack such similar Status Effects for maximum effectiveness, however try to keep in mind the duration of said status effects, to know when to re-apply them.
- Extra-action effect, by comparison, is rarer, but gives the character multiple actions per their own Turn, meaning they can select different skills, or even the same skill, within the same turn. Much like with Extra-Skill, those effects also stack additively. They are much rare, and a couple of them also add restrictions (such as being only able to use a certain Skill type during the duration of their effect). However, there are still those that have no limitations, and the effect itself is extremely strong, basically giving multiple "turns" to a single character. Usually, it's actions happen one after another, in the order they were selected, at the point of their "action" during a turn (calculated as normally between the Allies and enemies, based on their Agi etc.), with exception being in case Skills with individual Speed modifiers (making them always happen first/last) are also used in the multiple actions of the character. The disadvantage to this effect lies in the Skill costs. Generally, the skill costs are calculated with only 1 action per turn in mind, thus, the skills that you currently don't have enough of their Cost to use will not be selectable. However, said cost availability DOES NOT update within the multiple actions of the character. This means, first, that the character won't be able to use skills that they don't have the cost to use from the beginning of their turn, regardless if they use one of their initial actions to refill their resources to be able to meet said Cost. Secondly, if a charcter uses skills within their multiple actions that, in the latter actions, end up not having enough Cost to be used, they will still be selectable, however when the character's actions happen, the skills they end up not having Resources to use will simply not happen. To try to combat this "manually", first, keep in mind the total added Cost of your skills (so that you don't end up wasting the latter actions), then also try to start each turn with e high amount of Resources to have no skill limitations based on their costs (this can even be done by either using the last action of the character to "heal" their spent resources, or have another character as the "healer" of those resources).
The Extra-Skills and Extra-Actions also stack with one another in the normal fashion, essentially being able to have certain Skills active multiple times, and multiple actions to select said skills (therefore, the total amount of Skill activations will be multiplied by the amount of actions capable to be done. An extremely strong combination for making a character dish out insane amounts of damage on their own, so long as you keep track of their Costs and their curent Resources at the beginning of each new turn. Also, most such builds have a lack of flexibility, as not many of their skills will benefit from the Extra-Skill effects.
Moving on quickly (and briefly to items). The items work as normal. Consumables can be consumed, even during combat, items that are crafting components can be used in Blacksmiths to craft other items, Key items are either quest-relevant or unlock new functions (such as crafting different tiers of Metal equipment, being able to access new Jobs&Races, or using new Machina skills), and Equipment is used to equip the characters, according to their limitations. Notably, there are, in this game, also Consumables that increase certain stats by small increments, and even Consumables that give Exp or Job Exp. Much like with Skills, on the Equipment items, you can also check additional details on each by pressing A whilst selecting them.
Now, starting with the Combat-relevant mechanics.... I did mention the Status Effects before. There are currently in the game 27 main negative status effects, those not counting various Stat Down status effects, Weakness to certain Attack elements or any unique Debuff that can be applied. Among these, there are Stun-type status effects (that make the afflicted character not be able to act during their turn), usually lasting either a certain amount of turns, or until they are cured. Among these, the worst are the Perma-Stun-types, such as Petrification, which do not expire and require being cured specifically. An active party fully-afflicted by such Perma-Stun status effects counts as all dead, and leads to losing the battle (as it's considered that the Player cannot take any turn, forever). There is a Hidden Status Effect, Timestop, which affects "The World", meaning everyone. During Timestop, no character except the character that initiated the Timestop, and those Immune to it, can act. In fact, if the character using the Timestop takes its action during a turn before some enemies and allies, they do not get their turn anymore, until the Timestop wears off (at which point, a normal Turn starts over, meaning that those that would have acted after the Timestop's activation essentially lose their turns.
Being Bound (being caught in a hold) counts as an individual Status Effect, usually targeting Luka / male characters (much like a big number of Erotic attacks from the enemies). While Luka gets the option to "Struggle" during binds, other characters don't. On Luka, Struggling is not as effective as in the Original series (no guarantees to escape in subsequent struggles), and during binds, the damage done by Bind attacks on Luka increases each turn by 10% (guaranteeing an eventual death to Luka if nothing is done in the meanwhile), however, during Bind, the enemy that engaged said bind focuses attacks only on Luka (allowing for a possible Bait strategy to be employed).
The worst "Status Effects" are the Insta-kill ones, that, as the name implies, defeats the afflicted character instantly. The main 4 Insta-kill effects are: Death (the normal Insta-kill), Ascension (the Holy insta-kill), Climax (the Pleasure insta-kill) and Predation (the Vore/predator-relevant insta-kill, needing the "Digest" status effect to be applied first on the target to work). Generally, this 4 Insta-kill effects are not really effective on Bosses. There are also 4 unique attack skills in the game, capable of Insta-killing, much like "Digest", depending on another status effect being applied on the target (such as "Dead is Dead" skill, killing all enemies afflicted with "Zombie" status), and, since the insta-kill is done as part of the Skill effect, as opposed to doing it via a Status Effect, this could even kill bosses (provided they are not immune to the Status Effects required for the Skill effect to activate, which is unlikely on late-game bosses that are immune to almost all status effects).
Resistances to Status Effects can range from being over 100% (meaning an increased chance of being afflicted with that status Effect), all the way down to Immune (no chance of being afflicted, no matter the personal modifiers of the attacker that could increase the Infliction chance on that character). Even being a hidden Status Effect, characters can also have resistance to Timestop (albeit a hugely-rare occurence). Some status effects can even be Reflected back at the attacker (usually, as a by-product of Magic reflection).
Onto Attack elements.... All attacks necessarily have to have at least one associated "Element" to them. Physical is the first one, usually inherent in all Weapon-based Skills (as it's implied the physical weapon also hits, not just the Element of the skill or additional elements of the weapon). Together with Physical, there are 12 main attack types. There is also a 13th one, Untyped/Null, which is simply an attack type outside of all Resistances (and thus, guaranteed to do 100% of the intended damage). As for Resistances here, while they work similarly to Status Effect Resistances (ranging from over 100%, meaning taking more damage from that element, down to Immune), attack elements can also be dodged, depending on your Physical Evasion and Magical Evasion stats, unless the attack is an Auto-hit one, which means it ignores the Evasion and Hit Rate stats to guarantee a hit. On that matter, Holy and Dark elements are always Auto-hit. Resistances to attack elements can also have Absorb (meaning that the attack element instead heals the target) or Reflect (the damage (with its element) is reflected back at the attacker). To further complicate matters, an attack can have multiple elements, either be it via the Equipment, the Abilities, the Skills or the Status Effects of the attacker. When an attack has multiple Elements to it, the final damage done to the enemy is the highest one possible, taking into consideration the enemy's own resistances to each Attack element. Exception to this is Reflection/Absorbtion of even just 1 of the Attack elements, which makes the entire attack be Reflected/Absorbed. A partial exception to that previous exception (French much?....) are Auto-hit attacks&elements, as they cannot be Reflected back (but can still be Absorbed).
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| End-game Luka's possible Resistances (to the main Status Effects and Attack elements) |
If you finally thought that, after re-reading all of this at least 2 times to make sure you understood everything properly, you now understand how all attack elements work... You know the drill by this point. Also, WRONG! With the introduction of Chaos as a factor in the game, it's also part of the game mechanics. Indeed, there is a "Chaos" version for each of the 12 main Attack elements, although, being as end-game as only really being rarely seen in the current main Story, and a lot more in the Labyrinth of Chaos, not all of the Chaos versions have even made an appearance (currently, there is no known Chaos version for Bio and Sonic attack elements). The Chaos version of these elements can be considered as an upgrade to the base counterparts, as all Chaos Elements are inherently Auto-hit, and also ignore the Elemental resistances to the base elements (as they are completely different, if hidden, elements). Not only that, but they also cannot even be absorbed, nullified or reflected at all. As an example of such a Chaos element, all throughout the Collab event, the Nightmare element used was actually the Chaos version of the Pleasure element. All the other Chaos elements work similarly. Within LoC, you can also find the rare equipment that offer dedicated Resistances to some of the Chaos Elements, proving that, even if extremely rare, even these Elements can be resisted against. Bosses (especially SuperBosses, particularly in LoC) can also have Chaos Elemental resistances among their resistances. Player-usable Chaos Element skills are also very hard to come by, and, unlike what one would expect, they are not nearly as effective in normal usage as simply using stronger skills of normal attack elements. Untyped/Null does not get a Chaos version (in as far as we know for now), but being already outside all Elemental Resistances (as it's main trait, so unlikely to have some extremely-hidden possible Resistance to it), it hardly needs one.
There are also 3 Unique types of "Resistances", or rather, effects that can act as general Resistances. These are also capable of "defending" even against Auto-hit and Chaos Elements, albeit with limitations. First, there is the Endure passive effect (with its evolutions), which allow a character to resist a fatal hit once per battle if over a certain HP threshold from before, remaining on 1 HP afterwards. Second, there is the Auto-Revive, which is an passive effect that revives the character once defeated (if done via Status Effects, it can even be re-applied). The third method is Deflectors, the name for all effects phrased similar to "Nullify/Negate/Ignore First hit/two hits). A character can have, at one point, a maximum of 2 "Deflectors" (as show in the Status view in-combat for said character), and they, as said, each completely nullify one attack, regardless of the amount of damage done. The weakness of all these methods are Insta-kill Status Effects, that bypass Deflectors (as Deflectors only defend against damage), ignore Endure, and at times can even invalidate Auto-Revive. Thus, it's important to gain resistances to said Insta-kill Statuses. Even considering this, those 3 methods will be the bread&butter of LoC-playing, at least on the Defense side of things.
Considering all that was said previously, there is not much else left to be said about enemies. Much like your party memebers, they can have their own stats, own possible attacks to use, own resistances etc. Of course, like in most RPGs, in a combat encounter, there can be multiple enemies (from what I've seen so far, at maximum, 4 enemies), although that happens rarely with bosses. Also, in the game, you can roughly split the enemies into 3 categories: normal-encounters, Bosses and SuperBosses:
- Normal-encounters are the enemies you find as random-encounters while exploring certain areas of the game. You can, via Equipment and Abilities, reduce/increas the Random Encounter rate, and even Remove it entirely (helpful when you're done exploring and recruiting Monster girls from a certain area)
- Bosses, well, you can figure this one on your own. Stronger, better stats & resistances, and gives a lot more Job exp upon defeat, but no normal Exp. Generally, all one-time combats, or event-based unique ones, are considered "Boss" fights (even if the enemy itself does not feel much like a boss). Further, all Mimics are also treated similarly (in regards to their Job exp and Exp drops), possibly because they are in limited quantity (aside from the secret Mimic Island, where they can even spawn as Random Encounters).
- Superbosses are much like normal Bosses, only on a whole different league in terms of strength. In the Main Story, you are generally never forced to fight Superbosses, as they are left as optional side-quests, harder than the general content in their area. They are also one of the only situations within the game in which the difficulty is automatically set to Normal (relevant if you play on lower difficulties). However, defeating them (and, for most, also doing their side-quest) allows you to also recruit them, and even as allies, they are an extremely powerful asset (they are also way stronger than the possible recruitable enemies of their own areas). Sadly, not all superbosses are recruitable (particularly, those from Hades and LoC areas).
Monster girl are only encounter-able on the World Map, or in specific areas (generally, Dungeon-type areas), or as part of events, or Bosses with unique sprites on the map. No worries of being attacked within towns. Within LoC, enemies actually are not random encounters, and instead are moving entities on the map, this to show that Torotoro actually made plenty of Sprites even for normal-encounter enemies.
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| Cool, and fairly accurate, Sprites for the enemies. |
Another general relevant area of the game, aside from the Pocket Castle and the Ilias Temple, is Hades. You gain access to it pretty early in the story (the moment you get "Key to Hades"), and you find the door to it on the 2nd floor of the Ilias temple, to the Top of the Map. In Hades you get a couple of Meta-game functions. First, you get, through the Bookshelf menu, the option to Replay any normal-encounter combat already done and won (keep in mind, monster girls that only appear in combat encounters accompanied by other monster girls will also appear with them when selected), which gives no exp or money rewards, but can still be exploited for Steal/Talk interactions, and even Sorcery-learning. For replaying Boss & SuperBoss encounters, you'll instead have to interact with the Boss sprites from the Hades directly (they will temporarily dissapear after being beaten, but re-entering Hades will also respawn them). If you are also at the end of the current Main Story of the game (currently, that would be at the end of Part 2's Story), you also get the option to see "Upcoming Events" (small teasers at the story that will come in the future, with the rest of the game), and access to the Labyrinth of Chaos (LoC), which is Post-game Endless content. More onto LoC in just a bit. Finally, you can also interact with the Reaper girl, who gives you a couple of options, and is the same person you see, in this game, right after receiving the Evaluations upon losing in battles. She gives you a couple of options, such as:
- changing the Difficulty of the game
- Challenge her to a Fight. She is also a SuperBoss, however she is beatable even around the beginning of Part 2 Story. Cannot be recruited, but gives an item reward upon being defeated.
- Battle Challenge. Unlocked after having beaten her. You have to deal as much damage as you can, using only your active party (that, much like in the Colloseum, you cannot switch with Reserve members during the challenge), within only 3 turns (cannot be extended with Timestop). For the challenge, she has no Resistances, does not act, and all Status Effects are guaranteed to hit her (much like the Dummy you have in the Pocket Castle). According to the damage dealt in these 3 turns, she gives one-time rewards every further power of 10 you manage to reach in damage, starting at 100000, and giving the current last reward at 100 000 000 000 000 (currently, the next power of 10 only has a Text blurb appear). Considering the amount of damage needed for all her rewards, this Challenge is generally meant for End-game and Post-game (after beginning LoC).
- Time Reset. The option to either begin a NG+ (obviously keeping certain aspects in the next playthrough, I'll ellaborate on it real soon), or "restart" one of the Events in the game (currently, giving the options to re-do the Collaboration, the Time Loop and the Yamatai-Festival events)
- Remove Male companions (they are rare, but will still remove them permanently for that Playthrough). As a joke-type option, you can tell her remove "All Males" instead of "Some", then realize the gender of Luka, right before having to Respawn.
- Reset growth, choose a character to have all of its Levels, Race&Jobs, skills and abilities be reset to the state they were upon first recruiting/meeting them. No idea why you'd use this.
- Forget/Remember Skills (and Abilities): can be used to Forget any Skill and Ability you choose from the selected character. However, upon Re-remembering them afterwards, you can only Recover the Skills&Abilities you got from level-ing up (Jobs,Races or the normal level). For the event/quest-based Skills&Abilities, you'll have to redo said Events/Quests to get them back. This is an useful option to manage to Sort your internal character loadouts, especiall Post-game. However, I personally dislike the idea, much like Disabling temporarily skills in-battle, as I don't like to restrict my options, even when said options I don't really plan to use much of ever.
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| Going straight into the "Instant-Regret" compilation |
NG+ is, much like in all games that have it, starting a new Playthrough whilst retaining most of your current progress (levels, items etc.). You also keep most your recruited allies (even if it would be weird, story-wise), a good part of your key items (such as the ones for Makina skills, the Job items and the Ores for Crafting), and all the content saved on the Meta Saves (your Library informations, enemy Affections, Scene Recollections, Combat Replaying within Hades etc.). The things that reset are generally plot-relevant key items, characters (you'll have to re-recruit them as before, but they will retain their personal growth, including their levels, abilities, skills and equipment), avaliable teleport locations (to prevent major sequence-breaking of the game) and most side-quests progression (including the ones to upgrade your Pocket Castle's Consumable shop and Blacksmith). Also, it seems that NG+ can have some minor issues on the Bulletin Board of the Pocket Castle, recognising Side-quest that you even re-did in the current Playthrough. Considering the content that is unique to some Routes of the game, you'll need at least one NG+ (and to know specifically what alternative choices to make when prompted) to be able to get 100% of the game content (including all Boss encounters and all companion recruits). Considering just how unreasonably difficult Paradox difficulty normally is, that one is also generally meant to be played in subsequent Playthroughs of the game.
The Collaboration Event does introduce, temporarily, some changes in the mechanics of the game. First, during the event, your currently-owned items are innaccessible, including the Pocket Castle (thus, you also cannot bring out some of your other recruited companions). Don't worry, those are all returned to you upon completion of the Event, along the items you gain during said Event. Secondly, during the event, you'll switch between a couple of the Heroes, each with his own temporary party, and initial Levels (and Jobs&Races), equipment and unique skills (the Collaboration characters have quite a lot of unique skills to themselves). Each Hero party formed temporarily has their own items, but as you progress through the event, and as the characters meet one-another, you'll start gathering all the items in one party. Near the end, the party is finally re-united (like before, under Luka), and you gain access back to most your normal play's functions. Considering for how long, during the event, you'll have to play with the given loadouts, even if this is already part of a NG+, you would be wise to temporarily lower the difficulty from Paradox to one of the other ones, at least until near the end of the Event, when you get access back to most your normal Playthrough's loadout. During the Collaboration Event, you'll also find a lot of Exclusive Equipment for each of the Collaboration Characters, which are Equipment that can only be worn by those specific characters, providing extremely good bonuses for them (fitting with their own playstyles).
After finishing the Collaboration Event, you gain 3 extremely-useful advantages:
- First, you gain access to the Collaboration characters (including the Antagonists), out of which there are plenty with their own strengths, particularly Daji (Shrift) for being a character with an impressive amount of basic Races and unique skills, Est (Succubus Quest) and Fulbeua (Succubus Rhapsodia), the latter 2 being Nightmares that are extremely strong within their niche of dealing Nightmare damage, whilst resisting most of the normal Attack elements. There is even Mukuro (Shrift), if you wish to play around with the extremely-strong Timestop, and don't plan on fighting Superbosses immune to it (like some of the ones from LoC).
- Second, all of the Heroes of the event (the 7 males) each gain the "Hero of the Seven Worlds" (aren't they, counting the Paradox world, 8 worlds in total?....) Special-type Ability, which, when active, adds the Pleasure Attack-element to all their Skills (this being the critical element in a LoC-clearing offensive Strategy). Luka, being one of them, also gains this Ability, and since he is a mandatory party member, this will generally be useful in any party setup.
- Third, the addition of Sorcery-using Jobs (and, with it, of the Sorcery skill type and Sorcery skills), which are generally extremely strong and versatily options.
To elaborate on the Sorceries, while you gain the general ability to use Sorcery skills (with the proper Jobs / Abilities activated), you don't learn any Sorcery skills simply from leveling-up the proper Jobs. Instead, being (loosely) inspired from The Three Charms's games' idea of Sorceries, you learn them by seeing them in use. Specifically, all the sorceries (currently, them being 108) are also used by certain enemies throughout the game. A character learns an enemy's Learnable skill (in the form of a Sorcery) by, first, being equipped with the proper Ability / proper Jobs that allow them to learn Sorceries, then by living through the enemy's usage of said Skill that can be learned, without dying or being afflicted, during that Skill or from before, with any Stun-type Status Effect (that would make them not take their own turns as normal). If all mentioned conditions are fullfilled, the skill is then "learned" and added as a Sorcery skill to the character Learning it, so long as that character does not already have it learned from before. Most importantly, characters can also learn Sorceries by seeing their own allies using the Sorceries, instead of the enemies (the condition of not being Stunned in any way during the usage of the Sorceries still applies).
Considering the difficulty of Learning some of the latter Sorceries, having to survive until said skill is used (particularly, considering both Judgement Luka and World Breaker Luka each has a Learnable skill), and knowing some skills might even need specific conditions to be fullfilled first before being used (the case for "Consumption" Sorcery skill), it's recommended, first, to have the entire active party being capable to learn Sorceries, so that you maximize the chance one of them survives during the activation of the Learnable skill. As mentioned before, Combat replaying also allows for learning Sorceries from the enemies, and to teach Sorceries between allies, one can even use the Dummy battle from the Pocket Castle to do it with no risks involved and very fast. It's best to make one character be "the teacher", having them learn all the unique Sorceries you gathered between all your comanions, then have that "Teacher" help any other character learn all the needed Sorceries. Make sure to not make the Teacher a Non-Nightmare character, as Nightmares cannot use any non-pleasure skills.
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| The (current) full list of Sorcery skills. |
To preface talking about LoC: the following holds true for the current version of the game, when talking about LoC. However, it might already seem different from some of the features LoC had back when only Part 1 of the game was out, as some mechanics were either modified, reworked, or added. It's just as likely that Part 3 will add some new mechanics, or change some of the already-existing ones. Keep this in mind, if you read this in the future (and the contant, once again, is different).
Finally, onto LoC. The Labyrinth of Chaos (LoC) is the Post-game content, also made to be "Endless" in its nature. It has quite a number of different mechanics, and really, the sheer values you'll get to see after going through it are beyond ludicruous. I shit you not, some of this values I would not even usually considering cheating with, much less normally reach. First, you get a "Lobby" of sorts, similar to Hades area, in which you can prepare to enter the LoC dungeon options proper. Here you get, apart from some fluff informations and a lot of actual useful information from the rest of the characters, an LoC Blacksmith and an LoC Merchant, both of them helping with the new types of items you'll get in LoC. As you advance within the LoC proper, both the difficulty (reflected by the stats of the enemies) and the quality of the loot found will be influenced by the current Rare Points value, which will constantly increase with each Combat encounter finished, with each floor advanced, and with special NPCs you can find (in actuality, enemy difficulty increases independently from the Rare Points, but they increase at almost the same rate, so you can consider them "linked" if you wish). Currently, the max Rare Points value is 20000, and upon reaching it, any further points that would be gained are automatically converted to Usagi Points, usable on the White Rabbit found on Boss&SuperBoss floors for certain "gatchas" for LoC items (while the Rare Points can be maxed, and the Equipment stays the same at that Max, the enemy difficulty only keeps increasing independently). In the LoC, you also don't get actual H-Scenes of any kind, but if you really started this part of the game for H-Scenes, you have really lost your way somewhere along the way. In the LoC proper, within the normally-tiered chests (keep the ability to open all of them around!), apart from normal items and even some of the unique items from the main game (such as duplicates of the Exclusive Collaboration Equipment), you will also find 3 new types of items: Secret Weapons, Secret Armors and Gems.
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| I swear to all Gods&Goddesses, this actual stats are achievable in-game. Even the Gold amount. One of the only games you can reach the max Gold without even much of a struggle. |
The Secret Weapons and Armors, when obtained, are automatically placed at the very top of your specific item lists for each. Their names are colored (unlike the normal items, which have their names in the basic white) according to their rarities, from Common (Blue), then Rare (Yellow) to Legendary (Orange). Their names all have a "+X" next to them, the X being the "level" of that equipment. You gain equipment with higher levels at higher Rare Point values, within the LoC proper. The Secret equipment each is vastly different from the normal items of the Main game, mainly being way stronger, even at lower levels, and only increasing in strength at higher levels. All of the Secret equipment have multiple "Special Effects" to them, aside from their Stats, all possible to be checked by pressing A in the item menu for more details. The stats and Special Effects, for Common and Rare secret equipment, are randomly generated (with the "strength" of their values being increased with the equipment's level), however still having certain "affinities", depending on the type of equipment (eg.: having Swords being more focused on Atk, or Sex Toys more focused on Dex etc.). Legendary equipment, however, have set stats and Special effects (however still being stronger at higher equipment levels). Among the possible Legendary equipment, there are some "[Chaos]" unique ones, which are LoC-exclusive weapons only equipable by specific characters, also generally geared towards their Post-game playstyle. Also, all the Exclusive Collaboration Equipment also have LoC-versions (with increased general stats, but still functioning along the same playstyle for each).
Because of the current cap on Rare Points value, the maximum levels the items currently can have is ~32-33. However, said level can be manually "increased" on each secret equipment at the LoC Blacksmith, via the "Enhance Secret Equipment" option. To increase the level of a certain Equipment you like, you will require to select another Secret Equipment as "catalyst" (essentially, to sacrifice it), and the Equipment used as a catalyst in this case has to be the same level, or higher, than the level of the Secret equipment you liked. In practice, this generally means using Equipments of equal level to reach the next "level" on one of them, by sacrificing the other. You would only consider sacrificing a higher level equipment to level-up a lower-level one if the lower-level one is a special Legendary that you want to keep (and even then, you're better off search for the "Natural" higher-level version of it). However, leveling-up equipment using the Blacksmith will only increase the general stats of the Equipment linearly, without affecting the Special Effects of the Equipment, whereas finding the higher-level version of the same item (especially for Legendaries, which have set Bonuses) will also have the Special Effects be increased, therefore "natural"-level equipments (those that have been found within LoC at their respective level) will always be better than "artificial"-level equipments of the same exact Legendary type and at the same level. While you can use this mechanic in a pinch at the lower equipment levels, if you're in a surplus of same-level equipment, it is best used once you reach the current natural-level limit for equipment (~30-33), at which point you know you won't find equipment of Lvl 34 onwards, so you can just as well Upgrade them Artificially (to attempt to keep up with the Infinitely-increasing difficulty). Within the list of "sacrifice-able" equipment, those with sloted Gems are excluded, so there is no real risk of "losing" gems by sacrificing equipment with them on, by mistake. Speaking of Gems....
Most Secret equipment have Gem slots, allowing for Gems to be inserted into them at the LoC Blacksmith. Gems themselves are a completely new category of items added in LoC. They can have various effects, generally those that can also be normally found as Abilities, and in various degrees of strength for each effect. The gems categories are the same as the Ability categories, with the addition of one more gem category, called "Equipment", and the same Secret equipment can only hold a maximum of one gem of each category type. While the other categories of gems can be found normally within the LoC, the Equipment category of gems can only be "Refined", at the LoC Blacksmith, by using one of the Main game's equipments (out of the ones that are possible to be Refined like this), alongside the needed amount of Heaven, Sky or Void stones that can be found within LoC as well. Refined Equipment gems inherit most of the Special Effects and stat boosting that the equipment used in the refinement had (thus, this type of Gem can easily be the strongest). The other 5 categories of gems can also be "Refined", but in their case, this is only done to obtain higher-strength gems out of lower-stregth ones of the same type (eg: by Refining 5 "HP +10%" Combat gems, you obtain 1 "HP +20%" Combat gem etc.). The maximum strength they can have (beyond which they cannot be further "Refined") is the same as with the Abilities they represent.
The Secret equipment have a maximum amount limit that can be held within the inventory at one point. The secret weapons have a limit of 1000 weapons, while the secret armors have a limit of 2000. While you can also attempt to store some in the Item Storage, frankly, I have not, as of yet, tested the Item Storage's limits, so I'm not even sure how viable this is as a method. The LoC merchant can be used not only to buy most normal Consumables, but also to sell Secret weapons or Secret armors in bulk, selling all that are not currently equipped or Favorited in the item menu (there is one use for Favorite-ing items, aside from easier access to the relevant ones). The gems, however, don't seem to have a limit, aside from the general item-stack limit per each.
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| Example of LoC-equipment, and the stats of one of them. |
As for the actual playing the LoC proper, first, you get to choose between heading into the Trials of Chaos or the actual Labyrinth of Chaos. After reaching LoC floor 601 (the final "Checkpoint" floor), the option for an even harder version of LoC, "Carnage Labyrinth of Chaos", is also unlocked. It's still recommended to start out with the Trials of Chaos, to get used to some of the features of the LoC floors, within easier-ish difficulty (by comparison). However, between all of them, there are certain notable differences between the LoC floors and the normal game, that make the LoC experience a much harder one:
- Combat encounters are done via visible enemies on tha map that move, instead of the Random Encounters. The enemy sprites each can move differently, and various speeds, although most generally attempt to head towards your general direct (simple pathmaking rules for the AI of the enemies). The enemy sprites generally represent the type of enemies you'll meet in their specific Combat Encounter, but not always accurately representing the enemy (or even the amount of them within the Combat Encounter). Your party members (that follow you behind) can actually physically block the enemies, so they can be used when trying to avoid the enemies touching you directly to initiate combat.
- Combat encounters are done via visible enemies on tha map that move, instead of the Random Encounters. The enemy sprites each can move differently, and various speeds, although most generally attempt to head towards your general direct (simple pathmaking rules for the AI of the enemies). The enemy sprites generally represent the type of enemies you'll meet in their specific Combat Encounter, but not always accurately representing the enemy (or even the amount of them within the Combat Encounter). Your party members (that follow you behind) can actually physically block the enemies, so they can be used when trying to avoid the enemies touching you directly to initiate combat.
- You cannot Save, unless you are on a Boss or Superboss floor.
- You cannot escape from any battle, either via the "Run" option or any other skill with the "Flee battle" effect. You also cannot escape from LoC outside of the Boss and Superboss floors (where White Rabbit gives you the option to Run Away from the current LoC run).
- Most importantly, the enemies, even the "Normal" encounters, are much stronger than their counterparts in the Main game. Even at base stats, they have higher ones, and they can gain unique traits (much like in the Survival option of the Colloseum), although said traits are generally Race-specific (eg.: Fairies having an even higher evasion and Mag. evasion stats, mechanical enemies gaining Physical reflect etc.). They also, as stated previously, grow in strength with each Floor progressed, easily reaching insane values, forcing you to quickly adapt, start using all the Secret equipment possible, and find a proper Strategy to employ.
- You cannot escape from any battle, either via the "Run" option or any other skill with the "Flee battle" effect. You also cannot escape from LoC outside of the Boss and Superboss floors (where White Rabbit gives you the option to Run Away from the current LoC run).
- Most importantly, the enemies, even the "Normal" encounters, are much stronger than their counterparts in the Main game. Even at base stats, they have higher ones, and they can gain unique traits (much like in the Survival option of the Colloseum), although said traits are generally Race-specific (eg.: Fairies having an even higher evasion and Mag. evasion stats, mechanical enemies gaining Physical reflect etc.). They also, as stated previously, grow in strength with each Floor progressed, easily reaching insane values, forcing you to quickly adapt, start using all the Secret equipment possible, and find a proper Strategy to employ.
For the structure of the LoC floor and their progression:
- Floors will be one of a couple of maps from the Main game, either from some of the past dungeons, or, at times, even some of the cities (however, with the maps being modified to become dungeon-type maps, in the case of the cities).
- Said floors can have a "theme" (usually around the enemy races), therefore mainly including specific races more predominantly.
- Floors will be one of a couple of maps from the Main game, either from some of the past dungeons, or, at times, even some of the cities (however, with the maps being modified to become dungeon-type maps, in the case of the cities).
- Said floors can have a "theme" (usually around the enemy races), therefore mainly including specific races more predominantly.
- You spawn randomly in one of the few possible points within each floor, and have to find the exit portals.
- Exit portals (that advance to the next floors) can spawn in a few possible points (randomized per each floor), and, at times, can be multiple exits per floor
- Exit portals (that advance to the next floors) can spawn in a few possible points (randomized per each floor), and, at times, can be multiple exits per floor
- Apart for the normal Floors (that conform to the previous features described), on specific floors, they will instead be Boss Floors or even SuperBoss Floors.
- In between Floor transitions, there is always a (rather good) chance for a "Special Floor" to happen, which is, mainly, one of a list of unique types of optional Events, that can lead to Rewards to you, at times requiring either a puzzle to be solved, a normal battle to be fought, or even a Boss/Superboss encounter to be done.
- In between Floor transitions, there is always a (rather good) chance for a "Special Floor" to happen, which is, mainly, one of a list of unique types of optional Events, that can lead to Rewards to you, at times requiring either a puzzle to be solved, a normal battle to be fought, or even a Boss/Superboss encounter to be done.
Special Floors are very useful, as, plenty of times, they are easy-to-solve Events (with static answers), or even Free Reward events (all rewarded LoC items also varying in "level" according to the current Rare Points value). A lot of those Event-based Special Floors are comedic, and reference some other games or works. Some of the possible Special Floors have "Teacher" characters, that can teach one of their unique Skills to one of your party members (I'm still trying to find Crab Girl for her Bubble Bubble Hell, for my "Gravity" Pleasure build). The floors having a boss or superboss encounter are the hardest ones, for obvious reasons. The Superbosses that can be encountered in the Special Floors can also be one of the few currently LoC-exclusive ones (all extremely strong, at that). Beating the boss or superboss within a Special Floor gives the reward of being able to learn one of the Masteries (Special-category ability) for one of the possible types of Armors for one of your Party Members (if he does not have that Ability already). All Special Floors are optional, allowing you to exit them without engaging in their Event/Combat (only 1 Free Reward Special Floor "forces" you to take the reward, as part of the "Joke" of said Floor). Now I only hope that Part 3 brings the possibility of learning Weapon Masteries in such a similar fashion, as my current Main Team all already have all the Armor Masteries (after some LoC progress that I did).
Boss and Superboss floors occur at regular rates. Within the normal LoC, Boss floors happen on every 10th floor (10, 20, 30 etc.), while the Superboss floors occur every 100th floor (100, 200, 300 etc.), replacing the Boss floors. In both cases, White Rabbit appears, offering the option to fully heal, or even to Run Away from the current LoC run (even before fighting the Boss/SuperBoss of that floor). You also get the LoC Blacksmith and LoC merchant alongside White Rabbit. After fighting the Boss on the Boss floors, you gain access to Chest with rewards (again, according to the current Rare Points value), and, later, access to White Rabbit's "Usagi points" exchange. Superboss floors have the option between fighting a normal Boss, or a Superboss instead. Fighting the Superboss will lead to more reward chests after the fight (it will also unlock the reward on the Boss side, as well, don't forget to get it too). The Superboss also drops Key to Chaos, an otherwise-rare key that can open, in one of the Special Floors, the gate to the Mitra Castle area filled with Chests. Finally, when leaving the Boss/Superboss floor, you get the option (on the Exit Portal) to also Save the game (loading that Save will immediately start the next Floor).
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| From left to right: LoC lobby, LoC Boss Floor and LoC SuperBoss Floor |
Within the normal Floors of LoC, you can also meet friendly NPCs (not only different through their Sprites, but they also usually don't move from their spot), usually offering different sorts of advantages, at times requiring a Cost or Condition for them. LoC provides "Checkpoints" at certain floors, meaning that, after you first pass those Floors, in subsequent LoC runs, you can start directly from them instead from Floor 1. The current Checkpoints are on Floors 101,201,301,401 and 601 (yes, they skip 501). Passing Floor 601 also unlocks Carnage Labyrinth of Chaos. LoC continues towards Infinity (well, up until you crash the game's memory, at least), ever-increasing the enemy difficulty, whilst having the Rare Points value cap at 20000, at which point it automatically converts to Usagi Points. As for the Usagi points exchange, from White Rabbit from within the Boss/Superboss floors, those are the possible options to spend them on:
- 10 Points = Sky Stone
- 50 Points = Heaven Stone
- 200 Points = Void Stone
* Those being the Stones mentioned previously, used in refining Equipment gems alongside Main Game equipment
200 Points = 10 Random Gems (so-called "Gem Gatcha")
200 Points = Turn one normal Collab Equipment into the LoC version of it
500 Points = 3 Random (normal) Collab Equipment (so-called "Collab Equipment Gatcha")
1000 Points = 5 Random Legendary Weapons (so-called.... Yeah, they are all "Gatcha"s)
1000 Points = 5 Random Legendary Armors/Accessories
* Like actual Gatchas, better Gems/Equipment can be rarer to get. Unlike actual Gatchas, you don't get Microtransactions in the game (Thank fuck).
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| Perhaps not the healthiest mechanic for an ex-gatcha player.... |
The Trials of Chaos are a more-condensed, limited version of the normally-infinite LoC experience (at least, the earlier floor of LoC). There are 8 different "Trials", each having a dedicated name, set enemy races within it and set possible Secret Equipment types to be found (eg.: "Eternal Forest" trial offers Lightweight armor types, contains forest and natural maps, and the enemies are generally of fitting races, such as best, fairies, plants, insects and elves). Each trial has 5 levels to it, each level being only 10 Floors, their 10th floor being the Boss fight. You initially only have access to the first level of each of the Trials, but gain access to the next levels by finishing each of the previous ones. As you increase in the Trials' levels, both the Rare Points from within the Trial, and the enemy difficulty, increase (however, even at the highest Level, you only get ~"+14-16" level secret equipment). Within Trials of Chaos, no SuperBoss floors happen, and also, the Boss floor does not have the LoC Merchant and LoC Blacksmith (being the literal final floor each time, there would be little point in them being there). Completing Trial levels also gives Exp, Job Exp, Gold and Affection (for the current characters in the party) rewards, which are also repeatable. Said rewards are bigger on the higher Levels of the trials, but are the same between the trials. Because of this rewards, Trials of Chaos are actually the best spot to grind for Exp, Job Exp, or even Affection. The Colloseum is only the best spot for Exp and Job Exp if we're to not access LoC content (as you need to stay away from it for an Achievement of completing Part 3 Main Story as well, which will be avaliable in the future).
The Carnage Labyrinth is the harder version of the Labyrinth of Chaos, tracking its own progress separately, and even having some unique achievements for itself. As for the aspects that differ from the normal LoC:
- The enemy difficulty scaling is even faster.
- The enemy difficulty scaling is even faster.
- The Rare Points rate of increase is also higher. You also start the Carnage Labyrinth already at the 16 020 Rare Points.
- Boss floors now happen on every 5th floor, starting with floor 4 (4, 9, 14 etc.), and SuperBoss floors happen every 5th floor, starting with floor 5 (5, 10, 15 etc.). Essentially, each 5 floors are 3 Normal Floors, 1 Boss Floors and 1 SuperBoss floor, in that order. SuperBoss floors have better reward chests, however you are now forced to fight the SuperBoss to proceed (while you cannot choose the Boss route, it, just like before, is also unlocked after beating the SuperBoss, making the Boss reward chest also accessible. Don't forget it!)
- There is also a Carnage Bonus Points value, which multiplies both Usagi Point drops and the amount of Legendary Secret Equipment you get from Platinum Chests. This value is maxed at 10, which you get to by Floor 30 (as you gain 1 on every floor ending in "5", and 2 on every floor ending in "0"). This is the main reason Carnage Labyrinth is the best way to grind Late-LoC high-quality equipment in huge amounts, and a lot of Usagi Points to also spend on the Gatchas.
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| This loot does not get itself. |
Now that I finished even with the Post-game gameplay elements.... We can talk, just a little bit, on the GUI of the game. The menus and menu options are fairly normal for an RPG Maker VX Ace game, with the added mechanics explained previously. To the normal RPG in-game menu, the option to check a character's Abilities is added, along with the "Formation" option, to sort the positions of the Party Members. Also, the Status menu has a lot more details per each character. Finally, there is also the "Library" option, which is this game's in-game unlocked Database, from where you can check all of the information you already unlocked within the game, such as Enemy profiles, Character profiles, Equipment profiles, Adventure Logs, basically, all the relevant informations.
In-battle, to get to the menu for selecting the Actions of the Party members, you select the "Fight" option from the first menu, otherwise you have a couple other options. You can Run from the battle, Give Up (leading to all allies "leaving" you, and your character not taking any action as the enemy keeps on attacking them), checking the current Status effects, the current Log of the battle, checking the Library (same as checking it through the out-of-combat Menu), re-organize your Party (unless otherwise restricted, being able to bring out your Reserve members too), change the options in the Config and even choose Auto. Auto mode has 4 modes: Random, to Conserve MP, Repeat (it simply does what your characters did in their last turn, baring the use of Extra-Action, in which case only the last action done with each character will be considered) and Normal Attacks only. The Auto also only proceeds through a Turn (giving back control to you afterwards), however it does use up all Extra-Actions of each character that has them.
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| Examples of Menus from the Library option. I'll get closer to the 100% completion of everything when we get Part 3... |
And.... we are..... finally........ goddamn done! I did not even cover the mechanics that in-depth, what the hell! Either way.... On remarks about the mechanics, it's quite clear, if only from the sheer size of my attempts to simply sum them up as quickly as possible, that it's an extremely detailed game, with an immense amount of elements to it. Most ambitious RPG Maker VX Ace, if not simply out of all RPG Maker games. Compared to the Original series, it is simply lightyears away towards better. It even has content for Post-game playing, and those themselves have a lot of unique intricacies to them. I do like myself some rewarding-feeling, infinite-going, Grinds, so it might just be my favorite JRPG game (of simple graphics, and within the constraints of the engine; there are other JRPGs that can be bigger in Gameplay, but rarely in the sheer amount of mechanics, aside from some hidden-gems out there). I would even recommend this game just on the idea of its gameplay. And, honestly, I do consider that the Gameplay has managed to overtake even the quality of the story (by a tad bit), although this is also considering the story not having as much individual depth, focusing more on size instead.
One thing to keep in mind: the game is heavily limited by the current engine. As in, it lags, an extreme amount at times (considering it being an RPG Maker VX Ace). VX Ace itself was an engine prone to more lag, but having such an immense game made within it did not help matters. It is still quite playable, although trying to speed it up with a Speedhack, such as from Cheat engine, does not give as much results as in other games. I'm genuinely worried how it will fare when Part 3 comes out, and if ToroToro have an idea on how to mitigate the sheer lag occuring. Currently, I'll give the benefit of the doubt, and not lower the score in the Gameplay category for the Lag (as it's still manageable, and it does not impact the very-brief moments in which active time is relevant, such as on the maps in LoC). However, when I'll eventually Review Part 3 (separately, in a new Post most likely, when it will also be properly Translated, after first being released), if the lag becomes even worse, I will factor it in on the future Score for the game.
Complexity = 9.5
As seen in the previous section, the game has an extreme amount of complexity in the employed mechanics. It also does sport a great variety of difficulty options, making it easy for anyone to play the game in their prefeered way. Still, I would not recommend people that get used to the Easy or Very Easy difficulties to attempt much of the Post-game LoC content, as that can easily become much more harder very quick. One possible complaint about the Difficulty options of the game would be the fact that Paradox, and, to an extent, a bit of Hell difficulty, difficulties are not really meant to be played in a first playthrough, and having them readily avaliable can make people mistakingly try them as their first diffculty, only to fail spectacularly at progressing even through the beginning of the game (trust me: been there, done that). Also, those difficulties also not being really doable during set game events, such as the Collaboration Event, for the duration of which you lose all the advantages that you grinded throughout the rest of the game. A solution could be to have those difficulties be disabled on the first playthrough (and unlocked only within the NG+ onwards), and for the difficulty to be auto-set during Events, much like it is during Colloseum and Superboss combats.
Uniqueness = 7.5
It is an RPG, made within an RPG Maker, and while it does have an exhaustive amount of mechanics added to it, it still generally maintains itself within the RPG genre. It does stray away from most RPG Maker games by having an insane amount of complexity to itself. Also, it is unique in having a huge list of both Attack Elements and Status Effects used within the game, to the point of even having a whole different list of currently "hidden", superior, Attack Elements. Do let me know if you know of any other games (adult or otherwise) to come close to having this amount of Attack Elements, and, as an idea, of so many general common Status Effects (there sure are others, but possibly rare; I'll be honest, I would be glad to hear of more such games).
Replayability = 9
Not only do you have the NG+ mechanics, possibility to replay all previously-beaten combats, and a lot of content (Side-Quests, achievements etc.) to explore, but there is even Post-game content, in the form of LoC, and quite developed post-game at that. Depending on how open to the idea of Infinitely-continuing Post-game grind content you are, this game could be played for an extremely long time (especially compared to any other RPG Maker game). There are even some Mods on the Wiki of the game, although the game itself did not implement modding itself (being made in an RPG Maker engine helps matters in this case). Not as many Mods (currently) as for the Original series, but it's still worthwhile noting. You could even consider the fact that Part 3 will also come out, in the future, as a reson to replay the game (although, considering you'll have to separately buy that part, too, it is not as relevant an argument here).
Scenes = 8.7
Visual = 8.5
I could simply link to the Review on the Original series for this part, as it applies here just as well. But I will be fair, and at least mention the points here, too. The visuals vary by quite a lot, in the artstyle employed, almost guaranteed to have at least a few artstyle for anyone. That is because, in ToroToro games, a lot of different artists work together on making the CGs for the game. However, unlike in some other games ( *smoker's cough* Demon Angel Sakura *ill cough*), the general quality of all artstyles employed remains quite high. The general disadvantage being that, per each scene, there aren't many CG variations (relying heavily on the writting for said scene to both offer variety, fluidity, and prolong the scene itself). There is also not much interaction to be had during the Scene themselves, aside from the rare Flavor choices you can make, as they progress pretty similar to Scenes from an VN.
As for new elements added in this game.... First, there are possibly even more Artists employed in the current game, this also counting some of the artists from the Collaboration games that also contributed to the CGs. Again, a list of them you can read right on the specific [Wiki page]. Secondly, unlike the Original series, almost all the Erotic content is relegated to the Loss Scenes or the Request-able Scenes (from the Castle). There are some Erotic attacks within the Combat itself, however they are not as relevant, or visually-depicted (no Erotic Cut-in CGs, however there are still some cool Cut-In-s regardless), as in the past game. That, coupled with the fact that combat became much more developed, and generally serious, in this game, makes Combat not really be sought-after for its potential H-scene content (aside from the Loss Scenes, but they are also accessible afterwards, from the "Scene Recollection" option of the Title Menu of the game). There are also, as of now, not much of any Story-mandatory H-scenes, like there were in the Original series (depending on the player, this can be an advantage or disadvantage). This game does add the Battlefuckers, which have their "H-scene" be mostly formed of a string of Erotic attacks per each, however that is the only H-scene each of them gets.
The game does have a higher variety of H-scenes than the previous series (this is also due to the increased number of Monster Girls, and generally the number of artists that contributed to this game). A lot of the CGs that were used in the Original series are re-used here (for the relevant characters). Some CGs (of the same character) can also be re-used between their H-scenes (while the writing will still be different). The last disadvatage to mention is that, while there are a lot more general Monster Girls, a big chunk of the common-encounter ones don't really have that much content (generally being restricted only to a Loss Scene and a Request-able "Reverse Rape" scene). The important girls get a lot more Scenes by comparison (although, again, that does not also mean a huge number of CGs, as they can be re-used, but still a bigger number by comparison).
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| A page from Scene Recollection. Not only 4 more pages than from the Original, but also 6 more entries on every page (256 entries in the previous game VS 424entries of this game). And some of the entries of this game have even more options! |
Audio = 9
Much of the same as with the previous game, aside from having a few new tracks (which are also just as awesome as before). The game, impressively, rarely uses from the stock BGM that RPG Maker provides. Obviously a good thing. Again, the only real disadvantage is the one, single, only track they use for all the Loss Scenes, which, after hearing at least 300 times, if not more, across both game series, almost makes me turn the BGM off for just those sections.
Written = 10
As solid as in the previous game, and also still generally from the 1st person (Luka's perspective), with the general advantage of having a lot more H-scenes in general (and, of course, the written aspect is not really copied between the H-scenes, so it's even better than on the CG side with the re-usage). I also feel like some new, niche, fetishes might be in some of the H-Scenes of this game. At least, in my random looking through some of them, I found some with quite a different general feel. They are rare, but not necessarily bad, just unique.
Interactibility = 6
As just mentioned, not as much interactions to bee seen as before, having all the H-scenes happen within the Scenes themselves instead of any relevant Erotic attack (having at least a dedicated CG etc.).
Replayability = 10
Considering the options to request H-scenes from the Castle, the option for Combat Replaying for the Loss Scenes through Hades, and also the Scene Recollection option that generally covers all needs, you should have little to no issues browsing through the H-Scenes and always find a new one to try out. Not, with this big number of possible H-scenes, it's notable to talk about the issue of "overcrowding", in which there are so many Scenes to choose from, it can be overwhelming to choose a specific one. Also, among the many, it can also be hard to find the specific ones you'll like the most. I'd recommend starting with the characters that you know you like, then possibly search for the Races you're more prone to like, or eventually search on the Wiki for the Artists you liked the most, and which Scenes they worked on, for the CGs.
Development = ----
I'm making the (arguably Subjective) decision to not remark on this aspect, as much as I generally don't for games made from Circle Groups that generally release the game wholesale. Indeed, not only has Torotoro provided multiple updates after making the main Part 2 (including the new Events), but they also are currently working on Part 3. However, they also took quite a long time in making Part 3 itself (still working on it as of now), although they also had to contend with the Covid times (and I did hear about some possible issues with some of the important artists going MIA in the meanwhile, which can also make things harder). In the end, they have undertook a huge project, and they do still provide some updates and information to the community. I'll refrain from scoring on this Category for now, with the possibility to grade on it on the future Review of Part 3, if relevant there instead.
Obtaining = 8.5
Price = 8.5
Currently, both of them have the same price each, that being, on DLsite, 3080 JPY or ~ $23.28. Again, on the higher side of prices, but, much like the original series, it is worth giving a shot. This time, even the gameplay is on a high-enough level to warrant it.
Methods = 8.5
Again, it is through DLsite. And much like the original series, for the full experience, you will have to combine the game files (generally, those being the Graphics files from the past game into the most recent game, which generally has the Script files to run everything, but needs the Graphics files from the bought previous Parts).
FINAL SCORE = 8.86
This one is even more worth it than the Original, across all the Categories. While the story did switch from individual depth to size as a focus, and while there is less In-battle H-scenes interactions, the Gameplay rose up spectacularly into being more than decent as a true RPG, in fact even being amont the best ones.
Words to the Translators
You guys have done God's work (am I blasphemous in saying this? hope not) so far, all of you! The amount of content you had to translate so far within this series, and the fact that you kept up with the demand and made it work, is wonderful, praiseworthy even! You even translated the "Monmusu Delicious" series!
Keep up the insane work (especially since we really need you when Part 3 comes out)! You deserve all of the support and respect we can muster for you. I mean it.
Fluff (Intermission)
What pussies Fap these days? It's all about the Gamer Grind, dude! (also, I have too many Favs, not that much relevant Dislikes; I'd rather focus on something more productive)
So, with that, let's start with some general Gameplay Tips from me! Categorized by the relative game part you'll be in. Also, they are in the order you'd need to consider them.
Early-game
- You have the option to start with a MetaSave that has the Character's Affections maxed, and with the Library's info on Monsters already filled. It depends on if you view this as fair or cheating, your choice regardless.
- Also, if you plan on 100% completion, I'd recommend starting with Ilias (to end up on the 2nd NG being with Alice instead), although it's your pick in the end.
- First, quickly fill all your current Party slots with allies, recruit everything you can (early-on, simply having the womanpower can help).
- In fact, generally prioritize recruiting as many allies as possible, if only for their Affection rewards.
- As you explore, note down the Locked Chest locations. You'll return later, when you'll be able to unlock them.
- To have recruiting be done easier, try to have allies that can inflict a lot of separate Stun-type status effects (to have alternatives, depending on the resistances of the enemy). I recommend recruiting the Mandragora girl for this, she has a lot of Status Effects she can use (although you'll have to either bear with her being a Gadabout, or immediately switch her Job)
- Also, from the moment you unlock the Informant Job, have Luka master it, then start on the Smooth Talker advanced job. You'll need that for his Talk options, to be able to easily increase Monster Girl Recruitment Favorability (and also be able to "Invite" them with the Skill, to have a huge increae in the recruitment chance)
- Have some characters master Gadabout job (as painful as it may be). One reason for having Gadabout job Mastered is it's Sing skill "Lucky Song", which increases the Exp (&Job Exp) Drops of that combat drastically (it was meant to only be a x2, but somewhere in the code of the game, they used the effect of another skill by mistake, making it be an effective ~x6 instead; Insane!)
- Second reason for Multiple characters having Gadabout Mastered is the Special Ability to reduce Combat Encounters in multiples of 2. Those reduction to the Combat Encounter rate stack, so having 2-3 characters that make the Encounters be at x1/4 of normal can make it be at x1/64, making Combat really not happen unless you keep walking within the Map/Dungeons for extended amount of Steps. (In the Sentora Continent, you'll find a Demon Bracelet Accessory that will completely nullify random Combat Encounters when equipped; there are similar Abilities for more Advanced Jobs).
- Go through the Ilias Continent as normal, until you reach the Cave of Treasures dungeon
- Here, also grind to recruit the Spider Girl, since she's the first example of a Time Mage you'll naturally see. Time Magic has a lot of essential skills for later, but you'll want to start Mastering it for the Teleports (the one for Out-Of-Dungeon, and the one for Between-Towns), to not have to waste items for Fast Travel). Also, there is the "Fossil" skill, applying "Petrification" Status Effect, which is a Perma-Stun if you manage to apply it, leaving the enemy at the mercy of your recruitment (most bosses no-sell this, with certain exceptions....)
- Spider Girl is also quite a decent fighter overall (if you use her Traits to her advantage and apply Slow/Stop on some bosses), so you'll want to keep her in the party for a long time (she can also replace Mandragora girl, since she fullfills the Status Effect spot)
- Now, it should be obvious, but you'll want all the Superbosses you can get, as they are the earliest form of an OP character you'll get. Still within the Cave of Treasures, you have the first SuperBoss, Nanabi. She is recruitable upon simply defeating her, so try your best to defeat her as early as possible. Keep in mind, difficulty is automatically raised to Normal during a SuperBoss fight. (I managed to beat her with Level ~10-12 party, and without much grind done). As a party member, she is already Level 35, and also has a few Jobs and Races, making her extremely viable (in fact, broken) for about halfway into Sentora continent (she will one-shot enemies up until then). She also has (through Ninja job) the Ability to unlock some of the Locked Chests.
- Proceed through the game until you have access to Sentora continent (already entering Part 2), and Yamatai village specifically (do as normal until then, you choose how to grind/recruit/fuck/fap)
Mid-game
- Within Yamatai, there is Yamata-no-Orochi, the 2nd SuperBoss that can be recruited from just beating her (the other Superbosses require side-quests be done). She is on a whole new Level of a Superboss, however, if the simple fight is hard for you, she has a blatant flaw: she is not fully immune to Petrification (and the Arachnee Girl, as part of her Trait, also has higher infliction chance of Status Effects through Time Magic skills). If you manage to Petrify her, it's a cakewalk from there. She is the SuperBoss you'll main for the most of the rest of the game, if not the entirety of the rest of the game, as she's Lvl ~50 when you get her, and she has extremely Physical damage capabilities, also possible to be built with Def in mind (which makes her more resiliant, and also deal more damage). In fact, considering Best characters for End-game and Post-game, she is the first Permanent Member (that will be useful even to the end).
- Proceed through the game as normal, until you "temporarily" get Alma Elma in the party. She is also strong for the game section you get her, but she is going to leave the moment you continue the Main Story (reach the Fortress). Instead, go and defeat Leviathan Superboss with her (at the Admiral HQ). For Leviathan recruitment, you'll need to wait until later, when you also get Selena (part of the Story), which will also allow you to recruit Leviathan. Frankly, she's not necessarily going to be part of the Final game setup, but still useful until later. Don't forget to take off all equipment from Alma Elma (you'll be able to recruit her permanently later, but why have her keep your items until then?)
- Sphinx is really not that much worth it, aside from being SuperBoss-level of strength. You cannot recruit her until you reach the point of needing to collect the Orbs (way later in the story). She is also, like Leviathan, fair game to leave the party later, when even stronger allies appear.
- As for other extremely useful allies, first, Mea, for being a mermaid singer (so implied Lucky Song, among others). You'll replace her later with El, another Mermaid with Singer job done. A mermaid is crucial for an Post-game Strat (for LoC), and also quite useful until then.
- 2nd, Shirohebi, for being able to learn Races that allow her to use Dances that Nullify Magic and Physical damage.
- You'll also want the Honey Pot mimic, then, very later, Experimental Organism S-2, as both of them have a number of Races that they can learn to gain Extra-skill on their Tentacle skills, and even Multi-action, making them capable of End-game and Post-game dishing big amounts of Physical/Pleasure damage (they will also remain part of the Final Party setup).
- Finally, if you're on Alice route, you'll get Alicetroemeria as a possible recruit. She is also good for having a lot of different Races avaliable to her (one of the highest numbers).
- Don't forget to grind your characters towards the wished Setups for each!
- Don't forget to grind your characters towards the wished Setups for each!
End-game
- Don't forget to do the Sidequest that recruits Alma Elma back (she is also part of the Final Setup).
- If you finished the Main Story, but still wish for an NG+ (to have as much of the content done), you can already start it at this point, throgh Hades (without going throught the other Events of the game). The other Events only have minor changes between Ilias/Alice routes, so it's not necessarily worth playing them twice. Your call here.
- I'll now assume you got back here (on the 2nd NG), prepared to start the Collaboration Event (after doing the required side-quests for it).
- If you finished the Main Story, but still wish for an NG+ (to have as much of the content done), you can already start it at this point, throgh Hades (without going throught the other Events of the game). The other Events only have minor changes between Ilias/Alice routes, so it's not necessarily worth playing them twice. Your call here.
- I'll now assume you got back here (on the 2nd NG), prepared to start the Collaboration Event (after doing the required side-quests for it).
- Don't bother with Grinding prior to Collab Event, as it puts you in given Loadouts with the new characters, and does not allow access to your Main Game setup until way later. On this note, if you are on Higher difficulties (Hell/Paradox), lower it for the duration of this Event, as you, again, won't have your Grinded setup to back you up.
- Proceed through the Event, finish it, do whatever through it.
- At the end, you already gain another key element for a Post-game Strat, the "Hero of the Seven Worlds" Special Ability on Luka, making all damage dealt by him also gain Pleasure element
- At the end, you already gain another key element for a Post-game Strat, the "Hero of the Seven Worlds" Special Ability on Luka, making all damage dealt by him also gain Pleasure element
- Afterwards, for the Post-Collab content, you get to also recruit most of the Antagonists. You will care, the most, about Est, Fulbeua and Daji specifically. Both of first 2 being Nightmares, they already are strong alies, but Est has a crazy Trait, essentially having double action and dealing a lot of Nightmare damage, and her unique equipment also makes her apply a number of Status Effects (that further empower her skills) at the start of each Combat). Fulbeua is also pretty decent herself (having strong Status Effect resistances, making her effective in learning Sorceries without being Stunned in-combat).
- Daji is strong for also having an impressive array of Races, and also some unique skills of her own (Dance that lowers MP&SP costs on All, Song that enables usage of all Skill types, Song that prevents insta-kill Status effects, Song that gives All Stats up etc.).
- Also, you get to learn Sorceries. Here is the [wiki page] for all of them, and how to learn each. You choose how many to learn, but there are 3 key ones. First 2, heal-type skills, are Fruits of the Sea and Golden Honey, the former being one of the only skills that Party-heals HP (as expected) SP and, crucially, MP, whilst the latter, aside from healing, also Cures all Status Effects (at least, all the standard ones). With Fruit of the Sea, it's also self-sustainable (as in, it heals its own MP and SP Costs).
- Also, you get to learn Sorceries. Here is the [wiki page] for all of them, and how to learn each. You choose how many to learn, but there are 3 key ones. First 2, heal-type skills, are Fruits of the Sea and Golden Honey, the former being one of the only skills that Party-heals HP (as expected) SP and, crucially, MP, whilst the latter, aside from healing, also Cures all Status Effects (at least, all the standard ones). With Fruit of the Sea, it's also self-sustainable (as in, it heals its own MP and SP Costs).
- Third, essential, Sorcery skill is Death Claw. This one needs to go on Luka (although you can have others learn it if you wish).
- In preparation for LoC Post-game content, you can now grind like a mad-men most that you can, using Colloseum if you wish to not Grind using LoC content. If you're like me, you might wish for all possible Jobs&Races on all the members of your party. If not, at least get all the elements needed in your setup (search the wiki for what Jobs&Races you need specifically).
- Don't forget to make a Save right before LoC, to have it for the Part 3 Achievement of completing the Main Game without playing through LoC.
Post-game: Things to also gain in LoC
- When you end up facing the SuperBoss "Monster Lord Cassandra", beating her allows for her recruitment. She is also part of the Final Setup (as she's also extremely strong, and has access to a lot of Races). Don't forget to gear her up and grind her Jobs&Races!
- 2 more Sorceries, one each had by the 2 SuperBosses: World Breaker Luka and Judgement Luka
- 2 more Sorceries, one each had by the 2 SuperBosses: World Breaker Luka and Judgement Luka
- 4 more unique panties to steal (you don't need them for the Panties achievement necessarily): first, from the LoC Remi and Loc Rumi (you don't get to fight them normally), then from the SuperBosses Lucifina and Micaela.
Post-game: Offensively
- Early on (when your damage numbers can still keep up), you can use Est for some Nightmare damage, and Honey Pot mimic and Experimental Organism S-2 for a lot of Physical damage.
- For actual late-on damage-dealing, you'll need the "Gravity" Death Claw Pleasure build. There are 3 current skills in the game that deal damage based on the HP of the enemy: Gravity, Mass Gravity (those 2 being Time Magic skills), and Death Claw (Sorcery Skill). Those, whilst they say they deal percentage-based damage, they actually have attack elements associated with them (Chaos ones). Normally, enemies actually have a good chance to resist them (and, with the Time Magic skills, they have an innate chance to miss). However, Luka's Ability that makes all his damage also gain Pleasure attribute does also affect the damage of this Abilities, and a (surprising) lot of LoC enemies don't have specific resistances against Pleasure.
- Furthermore, you had to keep a Mermaid girl (in this case, El) for her skills that apply "Weak to Pleasure" on the enemies. Since that is an unique Status Effect, no (known) enemy has a resistance to it, meaning that, if the attack lands, it has an extremely high chance (if not guaranteed) to applythe effect. This one makes the enemy take 150% Pleasure damage, and, indeed, this also affects Luka's attacks that gain pleasure element, including his Percentage-based attacks (meaning that, in one hit, they would deal >100% of enemy HP, which kills the enemy regardless of the actual value of the enemy's HP).
- This strat becomes the only one doable in Deep-Loc, as the enemy's HP value goes in the, I shit you the fuck not, Quadrillions (and your own Secret equipments won't be able to keep up with this increase, especially in the Carnage Labyrinth)
- Now, while the Wiki guide recomments the Gravity Pleasure build with the Time Magic skills, it was made before the advent of Sorcery skills (and Death Claw). Time Magic, in practic, at least on the current version, is not as effective, can miss, and seems to ignore the "Weak to Pleasure" debuff on the enemy (they possibly nerfed this strat). However, Death Claw still seems to work with this debuff, is a different Chaos element from the Time Magic skills (this is relevant if the enemy has Pleasure and resistances to the Chaos element of the Time Magic skills), and, most importantly, Death Claw deals damage based on the percentage of the Enemy's MAX HP (as opposed to the Time Magic's skills, dealing only a percentage of the current HP). Even unaided, Death Claw kills the enemy inevitably in a few hits, regardless of the actual HP values. It's still good to keep Time Magic skills on the reserve, whenever (extremely rarely) the enemy resists the damage types of Death Claw.
- Also, don't fear the Superbosses that Revive, simply repeat until done.
- There are Secret Equipment Legendaries that can further help your setup (such as Testament accessory on Luka, giving Haste to his Time Magic skills), or even Special Floor teachers with relevant skills (Crab Girl, teaching Bubble Bubble Hell, that applies Weak to Pleasure on All Enemies instead of just one target).
Post-game: Defensively
- Considering the way values increase on the enemies, before long, enemies will almost always take first action during turns (unless you have Hasted skills, which are rare), and will one-shot your characters with each that cannot be dodged/nullified. Considering this, as mentioned before, you'll have to rely, first, on Shirohebi's Nullifications, then on your own Deflectors, then on increasing Evasion and Mag Evasion (when relevant), then Endures and Auto-Revives.
- Summoning skill "Vicarious Clara" applies 2 Deflectors on one character, while Throwing skill "Shield Assemble" (needs 2 Shields) gives Auto-Revive to All.
- In later fights, it will essentially be a race to have Luka beat the enemy using Death Claw / Gravity, preferably after El applies "Weak to Pleasure", while trying to Ressurect and protect them as much as possible
- Again, there are Secret Equipment that can help (such as ones that auto-apply 1 Deflector at the end of the turn)
 |
| Actual legit values from my Playthrough. I did not even go that far into Carnage Labyrinth (only did the Achievements for it). |
My Gods. This one must be the one single game (series) I've spent the most amount of time making Files on. From the sheer size of the game, it's RPG mechanics, the amount of individual mechanics to stumble upon and sift through. Simply making the Full Saves, in the proper meaning of the Word (never content until I get as close to 100% as reasonably possible), took me around 2 months total (although I wasn't playing 24/7 either), creation of multiple Macros for Grinding, and further Info documenting to make 100% sure I got even the most minute of details right, in getting everything done. And, finally I did it. Hell, after spending all that time in the summer for this, it might well have been the final push that I needed to get this Blog started, to be able to share all of the Files I had been making with you guys as well. Indeed, I might just be living my dream right now. Or as close to it as possible.
Saves
Categorized within individual folders, containing both the Meta-Saves and the normal-Saves. I did explain how they work in the "ReadMeAndHowTo" file, but essentially, the ones normally numbered (eg.: "SaveXX.png/rvdata2") are the normal Saves, and the ones with "System" in them are the Meta-Saves. I did include a Save Guide as well, showing what each Save folder has Saved inside.
You might consider using normal-Saves separate from the Meta-Saves when, for example, you want to retain achievements gotten for the whole game, outside of any Runs (which is saved on the Meta-Save), but switch normal-Saves around, or start new ones. One specific achievement, supposedly appearing in Part 3, will require a Completion of the Main game (Story) without ever playing through Labyrinth of Chaos, but you most likely, by this point, have already played through it, at least out of simple curiosity. No problem, as this Achievement will only need you continue the Story from a normal-Save prior to entering LoC (which I also provided, among the Saves I made).
As for the info of what I got in the Saves: first, I had to make 2 Runs so far (for both the Ilias and Alice-unique content), starting with an Ilias run and ending with the Alice run. Also, Save made right before ending the Time Loop event (if you wish to see the unique Scenes and H-Scenes from within the Event). As for the Full Saves, at the end, I made sure to have the Main Team (which is mathematically one of the best Teams possible) fully-grinded, including ALL OF THE JOBS AND (possible) RACES FOR EACH. That's where some Macros came around. Not only that, but also HAVE ALL OF THEM LEARN ALL SORCERIES (again, Macro-aided). Indeed, nothing should reasonably stand in your way, using such a Save, and I can confidently say this about even the future Part 3 content, that's how OP you can get. This without even considering the LoC-done Save, in which I got as far as possible within both LoC (until the last relevant Checkpoint) and the Labyrinth of Carnage (until I got the Maximum naturally-obtainable level equipment, and some strong ones to aid the Strategy Setup employed by my Team), finishing up nicely all the possible relevant Achievements, learning the final Sorceries unique to the 2 Superbosses in there, and stealing some Panties (again, unique to there). Also, all allies have maxed-out Affections (I first proved that you can easily cheese Affections, as they are saved on the Meta-Save, and an be increased by Food Items bound to normal-Saves, which can be indefinitely re-loaded until each Affection is at the desired value; Then, I simply cheated all of them for Saving time), and while the Library might still show less than 100% percentage on most its pages, it's either because of Unobtainable (as of yet) achievements, or simply needing to get all Attacks for each individual enemy, which, I'm sorry, I'm just not.
Info
Quite a lot here too. Generally, the info I included are either Compilations of relevant information, or some actual Corrections to some of the info on the Wiki. Also, a Detailed World-Map, based on the Map on the Wiki, but also adding minor locations (such as the Dungeons) to it. Really, the Wiki itself is a good place to start with getting the most info, however keeping in mind that some of the info there can be outdated. For a Random example, the Gravity Pleasure normal Build is not as effective, as the Time Magic skills that would've normally synergized with "Weak to Pleasure" debuff applied on the enemy seem to not work anymore with it; For a fix to this, the Sorcery Skill "Death Claw" can be used instead (is also a skill dealing damage based on the HP on the enemy, and synergizes the same with the Gravity Pleasure build; also, as of now, still working in the game).
Mods
Exp and Money Multiplier per Difficulty
Ever felt, during playing, that it is a bit hard to play, at least on a first playthrough, on higher difficulties? Such as Paradox difficulty (which is not generally doable as a first playthrough)? It is fair to make the enemies harder as per difficulty. It is also quite nice to not have any achievements locked behind higher difficulties, for everybody to have a fair, equal, chance at all of them. However, a small advantage, such as a slight speed-up, was waranted on higher difficulties. Much like, in many other rpg games, even some adult ones, you get more Exp and Money drops on higher Difficulty, to scale according to how tough the enemies would also be. Well, here you have it for this game!
I had made a similar mod, both out of my own need and as a test run, for another RPG Maker VX Ace game, and so I decided to make one for this game too. Took a bit of looking through the code, especially for the Job Exp (obviously, this is a new system added via a custom script, not part of the base RPG Maker features), but I managed to do it. The modifier is described in the text file in the Mod's folder, too (where it's also told how to easily install the Mod). In short, I made the modifier be the same one as with the enemy Health multiplier per each Difficulty. If you wish, you can check out on the Wiki [here] about the Difficulty details of the game. It does feel a lot more fair to have increased Exp&Gold drops on higher difficulties, as it simply speeds up the grinding process (to reward fighting harder encounters), instead of giving something not achieveable on easier difficulties. If you wish to actually play on the highest difficulty possible, like the gamer you truly are (as I also like to do), try this mod out! (Also I did link to it on the Wiki, too).
I had made a similar mod, both out of my own need and as a test run, for another RPG Maker VX Ace game, and so I decided to make one for this game too. Took a bit of looking through the code, especially for the Job Exp (obviously, this is a new system added via a custom script, not part of the base RPG Maker features), but I managed to do it. The modifier is described in the text file in the Mod's folder, too (where it's also told how to easily install the Mod). In short, I made the modifier be the same one as with the enemy Health multiplier per each Difficulty. If you wish, you can check out on the Wiki [here] about the Difficulty details of the game. It does feel a lot more fair to have increased Exp&Gold drops on higher difficulties, as it simply speeds up the grinding process (to reward fighting harder encounters), instead of giving something not achieveable on easier difficulties. If you wish to actually play on the highest difficulty possible, like the gamer you truly are (as I also like to do), try this mod out! (Also I did link to it on the Wiki, too).
Macros
Program to run the Macros: [Macro Recorder]
I did mention I used them, right? Was quite necessary for the Job Exp grind (unless I wanted to develop actual Carpal Tunnel or Dementia from manually doing said grind). That and the Sorcery Learning, to be easier (while I was at the making-of-macros). I did provide a Macro Guide in the Folder, to guide you into what each Macro does, and how to use each (what to prepare in-game before firing up the Macros).
Keep in mind, to run these Macro files, you will need the Macro Recorder program (that I already linked here and in the Files). It's your choice, if you need them, you can use them. Macro Recorder itself is not a bad program, can be quite useful in general. Let me know if it's cool for me to make Macros in future games as well (there are a lot of possible functions that can be implemented like this, most of them for QoL).
Other's Files
Wiki
Link to Main Page: [Here]
Link to Mods Page: [Another "Here"]
Yep, linking again to this Wiki. Much more helpful for this game series, considering it being a fully-fledged RPG (with plenty of mechanics in need of explanations). The Wiki has an exhaustive amount of information, both on the story of the games, and the mechanics in them. The downside is, first, that some of the information can be outdated (as mentioned in the section for my Files on the game), inaccurate, or slightly incomplete at times. Still, a great help, and I did start my own investigations and information-gathering based on the info from the wiki (best example is my Detailed World-Map, that I've made starting from the World-Map from the Wiki. The other issue with the wiki is that it can be unstable at times, sometimes not loading Wiki pages, or throwing errors when searching for more general terms in the Search Bar (best to either search for known specific terms, or specific pages).
As for the Modding side, it's much more tame than on the previous series (more focused on Quality-of-Life than New Additions), what with this game series not having specific Mod Support this time around. It is easier to Mod RPG Maker games, even without express Support from within the game itself, with the ease of usage of the Editors themselves in making said mods. However, this game, as noted time and time before, is Massive for the engine it's currently running in, making working on the game from within the Editor a true patience test at times.
Translation (Others')
Dargoth+Arzor-X (and his Translation Team) Translation Patch (Also QoL Mods included)
Link to Translation Post (Arzor-X Blog, with Guide on how to Apply): [Here]
Link to their Blogs: [Dargoth's] [Arzor-X's]
This one is a bit more involved. Sadly, Rogue (the Original series' Translator) won't be making a return to reprise his Translator role, but on the bright side, others have joined the cause. During the release of Part 1 and part (pun not intended) of Part 2, Dargoth was the lead Translator, while he was also helped by a team of Translators led by Arzor-X (and I mean, a lot of translators overall). However, Dargoth did go missing, and has been missing for quite a while (while he is alive, from the confirmations of such he gave on Discord, he has yet to return in proper form to the Translation effort). In his absence, Arzor-X's team picked up the pace and finished the current Translation of the current version of the game (now pending the coming of Part 3, to also start work on it).
As for the QoL Mods refeered to, those include HP Gauges for the enemies, and even Advanced Skill Descriptions (Extremely good for when you wish to play the game on the Higher difficulties, or through Late LoC).
One more done. Took me an insane amount of time, even just this Review. Still, it is done, and I'm actually proud of it. Sorry it took so long!
Also, for the next Posts, I do plan some new stuff.... Look forwards to it!
Also, for the next Posts, I do plan some new stuff.... Look forwards to it!
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Comments ()
Also, thanks for the compliment. As for the Routes, there are certain differences so far (and considering Alicetroemeria being so OP on Alice route, which one would be better), but I do think Part 3 will bring both the counterbalance to it (possibly more Unique recruits), and also the possibility, at least towards the end, to have both Alice and Ilias in the party (and the Unique recruits to still be doable via NG+). Time will tell I guess...