Magus543

I personally think Madame X is a brainwashed Nymiera just like Angie.

Four darknesses born of men? Well Ren is one of betrayal supposedly. Though I suspect Reina might be it. I always thought the whole Robot Ren thing was such a bizarre thing to add but it does kind of discount Ren from being of the dark by technicality. There's darkness of pure evil, greed, and obsession. I'm curious if this is even going to get paid off or just retconned away as not really important since the game is going with the direction that the Interceptors are the ones to decide the fate of worlds. And also Karma.

Yeah I think the devs can certainly deliver and despite my misgivings, I really did enjoy this update. I remember Jan in the Q&A session mentioned that he already has everything planned out in a document but judging how he was upfront that Paragon and Renegade is a relatively new addition in that blog post, I think some new plot points were added since then.

@Cyphre Yeah that's the other problem I've had with the reveal of Karma and the World Shatterer. The story has built up Vitus, Madame X, Clear and Kieran as threats with personal connections to the protagonists and while it IS to early to say, it feels like they are all falling off the importance bandwagon in favor of these bigger threats that are too grandiose. I dunno, maybe V14 can pull something off. I still want to pay Clear back for everything she's done. @SoulN7 Boy there are so many mysteries in this game. I am truly looking forward to seeing how the game wraps up all of it. I'm expecting a big hot mess that's at least entertaining. Kind of like Rise of Skywalker.

I hear she's more prominent in 13.5. Good for her.

Renegade seems to be going the path of the expendable alternate universe that's doomed to die anyway so the best ending can be achieved, and that concerns me. The major points in the Renegade MC's speech that he knows that everything is doomed, that the spell is just a mercy kill, that "they" will get everything, while he and the others will be deleted. This def paints the Paragon MC and Melia in a darker light if they are willing to support this kind of mass death, and the Renegade MC goes from villain protagonist to a very dark anti-hero if this is truly the case. I feel that these kinds of meta multiverse stakes are just too much for Rejuvenation. I'm not sure how to phrase this properly, but I'll try. Sure Rejuvenation has had some high concepts, there's already apocalypses, LOTS OF TIME TRAVEL, everything to do with the Interceptor, Gods, recycled worlds, but now there's evil A.I.s controlling everything the characters do and multiverses doomed to die. Making this worse IMO is that Rejuvenation's initial end goal "Defeat Team Xen and Vitus" hasn't even been accomplished yet, so throwing all this crazy shit feels like bloating the game to a whole new level.

That's the thing, I'm curious as to why Paragon MC and Melia are willing to give this kind of spell to the Renegade MC. Melia even says the spell is going to kill a lot of people, but it's all for some bigger goal. And we don't know what exactly Paragon MC and Melia are planning or how much they know about the Renegade timeline.

So can we discuss how the erasure spell came from the protagonist and Melia in the Paragon route?

It's been years, I cleared the latest ones, and I legit forgot what happened. So where do I start the latest ones?

Yeah that's a big shock, Nymiera might be just as bad as Spacea and Tiempa when it comes to the greater good. Certainly puts on a different spin to all her scenes now.

Wait, what's this about Nymiera?

Did you see the pink boxes in the Interceptor's nightmare realm?

Ah, so I'll get to that after I'm done with other stuff then.

Sorry, which sidequest is this?

Yeah, I'm not really fond of the seemingly meta direction this story is taking, it's too much escalation and we haven't even beaten Madame X and Team Xen OR Vitus at this point, so introducing MORE villain and threats feels like bloating an already stuffed storyline. And you hit the nail on the head about Spacea and Tiempa feeling like an afterthought with how they are dealt with, at least on the Paragon route. Renegade feels more fitting for them IMO at least. I think part of the problem is that as the story is reaching it's end, there's a rush to wrap up plot points and this game has a LOT. I have faith in the dev team in where they are going with this sort of thing, but this mystery box writing is just becoming a bit too much. At least the character work is still consistently good.

13.5's main story is split into two, so it does feel smaller. That said, this update really is a .5 in terms of plot progression. Yeah there's a lot that happens, but the overall plot doesn't progress much. It's all character work and buildup. It's kind of wild to me that we haven't even defeated Team Xen or Madame X but the story is still throwing more and more escalating threats.

Jan said the routes would both complement each other, and there's a couple of things in Paragon that affects Renegade as well, such as how M2 is able to enter Zeight despite being confused about it herself. It seems Melia accidentally gave her access somehow from the Paragon timeline.

Well in my route, Florin was backing up Talon when he fought me and M2. What happens if Florin is dead?

So in V13.5 the plot gets a lot.....meta. There's a twist that all the characters have been in a loop IE the game keeps updating and things go differently each version, there's an evil A.I. that's controlling events, sees everything as a game, and wants the perfect ending, as well as competing against an undisclosed she who keeps destroying worlds, which feels like a reference to the fact this game was inspired by Reborn by Ame, the fact that all the characters except the protagonist are all pre-programmed to act in certain ways so events play out IE they are all characters in a video game and that they have no free will.(Which feels like narrative suicide so I'm hoping there's a catch or that it's some kind of lie.) And lastly, the password to unlock Ardrest's file revealing all of this is POKEMON REJUVENATION. That's the name of the game. Which brings me to my silly theory. What if Jan and Zumi are the avatar of the system? No not the RL Jan and Zumi, the ones in-game. This would be a pretty weird way to incorporate the fact that IRL they are avatars of the RL dev team members but the story is getting meta and referencing that it's a game through it's own characters and leaning on the fourth wall moments. The system feels like in-game devs trying to direct the plot. I remember Jan had these words for us in the dev blog: "Oh, but uh... If you're going down the route of oblivion... That means you're attempting to destroy our game, and our world. Just know that..." I won't make it easy for you. :) So with this in mind, I can see in-game Jan and Zumi fighting us as a last resort to save their from the players who want to destroy the game on the renegade route. They might even be among the final bosses on that route, what better way to destroy the game than deleting the avatars of the dev team? Yes this theory is silly but the game is getting too meta for me, so might as well play along.

This video explains it quite well.

I'm so excited for when Zumi inevitably draws fanart of psychotic M2. Her VS sprite alone is so expressive.

Okay just finished the Renegade route. What a ride. So damn fun. So this is the route where we go full on anime villain protagonist. Our influence is infectious it seems, because it somehow causes the Melia of Christmas future to overtake our Melia as well. And I gotta say, M2 is hilarious. Jan really does this kind of humor quite well. She was the star of this route. I almost feel bad about having to delete her. Almost. It's just too much fun being a supervillain in a Pokemon game. Her interactions with the protagonist are the bulk of this route so it's a good thing she's entertaining and antagonistic at the same time. I can follow her logic despite her insanity and she's got a LOT more presence than Melia.(Disclaimer, I don't hate her.) So the evil A.I. thing might be behind the mind switch. Yeah I really don't care for that plot point, and look forward to deleting these puppets. Let us bring true oblivion to these fools! And it seems Aelita is it's next victim if the ending is anything to go by. Well my friend, my enemy, I look forward to our inevitable dance. Man this game really seems to hate Spacea and Tiempa. Like we're being told how awful they are and shit, but man they barely show up enough for me to care. But it was hilarious when we got the tera raid. Somehow all the challenges felt more fitting for what this route is. Shout out to Cyphre for the save file so I could try this route. Trying to keep this short but this route was hella fun. It bumped up the update from a 7 to 8/10. Now maybe Christmas break will let me have the time to play the game from the start.

Oh my god, this is the good shit. I'm really enjoying this one so far. Gotta say, M2 is just such a fun partner in crime. She'll backstab me eventually but I'll enjoy playing with her for the moment. So this route really does complement paragon, there's a couple of things that get explained like what happened before Melia showed up in the bad timeline, and things that need the paragon route to be explained such as how Melia got into Zeight. It appears the two timelines are intersecting. Jan seems to want us to play both versions. I've said how Paragon seems to be missing scenes at times, hmmmmm......

Ah that explains the confusion then.

Interesting. Wonder where she is in the Paragon route then.