VoidlitAudino

Hmm. After the 9 appeared on the previous package, Saki's twitter retweeted a picture of Saki and (a presumably illusory) Risa hanging out - which happened to be the 9th post from that account. The account's 14th post is another picture: Still not 100% sure if this is what the numbers are referring to, but it definitely seems like whatever happened/will happen with Saki and Red Visor Lady might be connected to the packages. Maybe Saki is the speaker in the highlighted text for this one?

Alright, the keyword for this one is pretty effortless if you know the previous one. Makes me think this might have something to do with Spacea and Timpea. Then again, there was the thing with Saki's twitter involving Red Visor Lady, and the whole thing about "destiny is something she cannot run from" sounds like it might be about her. Could this be foreshadowing a connection between the Stormchasers and the red visor people? Good thinking. Yeah, I'm curious about how Grisilda/Giratina fits into this whole thing. As for the big string of characters in the source code, no idea what it could mean. I tried applying the mirror cipher to the URL again, but it didn't work - some other kind of cipher, probably.

All right! The amount of grinding Reborn required was definitely my biggest problem with the game, so it's great to hear that you're doing away with it! In particular, the EXP All and hard cap will make it easy to raise teams that are bigger than six Pokemon so that you can swap team members in and out depending on what you're up against. It was super convenient in Rejuv and I'm sure it'll be just as convenient here! Thank you so much for your hard work!

A lot of my grievances with Rejuv's story have already been said by other people above, particularly Norm. But just to reiterate, and to note a few points where my opinion differs from theirs: The mystery box. Keeping an audience hooked based on unsolved mysteries alone is a dangerous gamble, because there's always the possibility that the resolution to those mysteries will be unsatisfying, thus retroactively souring all that time you spent invested in the mystery itself. Obviously, this is something I have to at least somewhat reserve judgement on until the game is finished, but just based on the sheer quantity of mysterious plot threads the game has introduced - Team Xen's motivations, Indriad's cult's motivations, the whole deal with the Theolia siblings, the precursor civilization that built the pyramid, Crescent's backstory and motivations, the Puppet Master, the siblings disguised as the protagonist and Nancy, whatever plan Amandabot was part of, and many, many more - and the fact that there are only four gym badges worth of content left with which to resolve them, it seems unlikely to me that all of them will be wrapped up in a satisfying way. I feel like they really need to start answering big questions ASAP, so that we actually understand what exactly is going on, where the tension in the story is going to come from, and what exactly we, as the protagonist, should be trying to accomplish. The sheer volume of major characters. I dunno if I really dislike any of the characters in particular (except for Flora, but I already did a whole rant about that in its own thread, so I'll spare you all that), but there's just so gosh dang many of them, and I really think the story would be a lot stronger if it just picked a few of them to really focus on. This isn't that big of a deal to me, since, as I said, I don't really dislike any of the characters, even the minor ones. But it really does add to the sense that the plot is just meandering around in filler content until it's time to actually move the plot forward. Speaking of... The filler-y feel of a lot of the content after Terajuma Island. So, near as I can tell, Team Xen are still supposed to be the main antagonists of this game. Just one problem with that - how long has it actually been since we directly fought Team Xen as part of the main plot? Not since Valor Mountain, right? In fact, since then we've been working with Team Xen quite a bit - teaming up with Madame X to escape the bad timeline, teaming up with Ren to help Alexandra and fight Gardevoir, teaming up with Nastasia to reach the pyramid, helping Cassandra keep control of GDC because the game decided Flora was the bigger problem. Not saying that all the episodic side stories of the recent chapters aren't interesting on their own, but it really makes it feel like we're not really accomplishing anything, since we haven't made any significant moves against the main antagonists for almost half the game at this point. It's also worth pointing out that we probably are actually accomplishing plot-important stuff, but because so much of the plot is still shrouded in mystery, we have no idea why it's important or what any of it means. So I feel like the solution to this might just be to reveal more of the mysteries so we have a better sense of what we're working towards overall. The writing style. This one might just be a personal gripe, and it doesn't bother me too much, but it feels like a lot of this game's dialogue is just throwaway lines. It's been a while since I last played through the game, so I can't thing of too many specific examples, but I remember there being a lot of just protagonists and antagonists slinging petty insults at each other that did nothing to move their characters or the story forward, and just various lines that could've been cut without actually changing anything. Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Valerie quotes the Space Jam song at some point??? It all just feels very cheesy and unnecessary. The antagonists. I dunno if it's just me, but most of them feel kind of same-y to me? Like, whether it's Madelis, Indriad, Angie, Gardevoir, Melanie, Lorna, Flora, or even that random Anti-Assist grunt from the Goomink quest, they've all got to deliver their anime monologue about how superior they are to the heroes, only to break down when the heroes inevitably manage to get the upper hand on them. There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of villain, and a lot of the examples in Rejuv are done pretty well. But not only does the same old schtick get old after a while, a lot of these villains have very different motivations from each other, and should probably have different personalities to emphasize that. Flora is really the greatest offender here - if she's motivated by the greater good and improving GDC, why is she going around calling her people-puppeting vines "beautiful" and gloating to the heroes about how powerless they are against her? Shouldn't a villain with motivations like hers be more stoic and unfazed by whatever the heroes are doing, reflecting how she's supposedly "detached from her own humanity?" Now, not every villain is like this - for instance, Neved is a personal favorite of mine for breaking this mold and making it clear that his villainy is really just business to him. And again, there's nothing wrong with most of these villains in isolation - it just gets old when that seems to be the only trick in their book. The silent protagonist. The most recent chapters have spent a considerable amount of time letting us play as other characters besides the protagonist, and we even got Where Love Lies, which took place entirely from the perspective of Kenneth and Taelia. And my big takeaway from all of those segments is that Rejuv could've avoided a lot of problems if we had just been playing as Melia from the beginning, instead of having a separate silent player character. As it is, you spend pretty much the whole game getting jerked around by the actual main characters and watching their stories unfold, oftentimes not even really doing anything of consequence. Reborn mostly managed to avoid this problem with its silent protagonist by having the other characters acknowledge them for what they were - an unstoppable powerhouse who can plot-armor their way through any Pokemon battle you put in front of them. Even though you can't contribute to the story in terms of character interactions, you can still move the plot forward by winning tough battles that nobody else can, particularly against the PULSEs. This becomes particularly relevant when the villains mind-control you and suddenly have your unstoppable plot armor on their side for a while. You also contribute by actually making meaningful choices that have pretty big impacts on how the story moves forward, particularly the Zekrom/Reshiram route split. In Rejuv, meanwhile, while you do win a lot of battles, it rarely actually changes anything - for instance, at Valor Mountain, even though you beat Geara and Zetta, Geara basically proceeds as though you didn't, and due to cutscene-induced incompetence, you can't take the obvious step of sending out your distinctly non-fainted Pokemon to stop his puny human muscles in their tracks. It's repeatedly shown (especially in the sections where you're playing as someone else) that the other major characters are just as powerful and competent as you, which really makes it seem like you could take the protagonist out of the story and almost nothing would change. And Rejuv doesn't really let you make important choices, at least not in the main story - the one time when it actually seemed like my choices would matter (whether to expose Flora or not, and thus whether to become an honorary Bladestar member or not), the game just didn't actually let me go through with the option I chose. This point particularly stands out because of the whole Interceptor thing - if your whole role in the setting is to be the one person who gets to defy destiny and alter the course of events, there really need to be some actual meaningful choices made by the player character to reflect that. It seems like they're trying to keep the protagonist relevant via the whole mystery surrounding Adrest and the house in Hiyoshi City, but it really feels like a band-aid to the larger problem of the protagonist's irrelevance to the story, rather than an actual justification for their presence. Assuming that rewriting the game from scratch to no longer include them isn't in the cards, I feel like this could be helped quite a bit by, once again, making the story less mysterious, so that we actually know what the protagonist is accomplishing, how close to/far from victory they actually are, and what their unique contribution to the story is, independent of the other characters. Not sure how coherent that whole thing was, but basically, I agree with a lot of the above replies that the biggest problem is the excess of unsolved mysteries. If we actually knew the main antagonists' motivations and the true nature of the story's stakes, I feel like that would solve or at least mitigate quite a few of the other problems all on its own. But, while this has been a big long list of everything I didn't like in the game, there's a lot I did like as well. The setting is really interesting with lots of unique and memorable locations to visit, the characters are all very likeable and fun to watch, I think Melia is a decent (if somewhat generic) protagonist and definitely not a Sue, the sidequests are phenomenal and do a fantastic job fleshing out the more minor characters without interfering with the main story, the cutscenes always feel very cinematic and dramatic in a way that no other Pokemon game, outside of maybe the Mystery Dungeon games, have really managed to capture... Really, it's only because the rest of the game did such a great job of drawing me in that these things bother me - the game is good, so I wish it were even better. So... Yeah. Hopefully at least some of this stuff is addressed in V13 and beyond.

2015 was when the first demo (up to the 3rd gym) was released, and then the second was in 2019. So yeah, there are huge gaps between updates, and it probably won't be finished any time soon. I dunno, I still think it's really good with just what's there so far. You're right that pretty much no other fangames can compare to the sheer volume of content and craftsmanship that went into Reborn and Rejuvenation, but this guy has finished both of those already, and just because it's not quite going to be at Reborn/Rejuv's level, doesn't mean it's bad.

I recommend Pokemon Alabaster! It's only finished up to a little past the fifth gym (out of eight), but what's there so far is really cool, particularly the original soundtrack and how much the story changes depending on player choices! You can find it here!

Well, yes. Flora, as written, is a total hypocrite who caused way more harm than necessary in pursuit of her goals, and probably would've ended up becoming a Robespierre-style dictator had she successfully taken power. What I'm really concerned about is the fact that that is how the game chose to depict the only person actively trying to fix GDC's biggest problems and get it out of Team Xen's hands. Let's compare this to something similar in Reborn. In that game, we have Titania, and to a lesser extent Saphira, who use way more violent methods than any of the other heroic characters when fighting Team Meteor. And they're depicted as being pretty unambiguously in the wrong for doing so, as we're always shown friends and family of the Team Meteor members they killed and are meant to empathize with them. Yet despite that, Titania and Saphira are also depicted as still being firmly on the side of good. They regularly work together with the player character and the other main characters, and while they're depicted as being wrong about that particular thing, they still have a lot of other good values to bring to the table. Because in Reborn, the focus is always on the central conflict against Team Meteor. Meanwhile, in Rejuvenation, you spend the majority of an entire chapter ostensibly helping Team Xen maintain its control over a major city, because the people trying to stop them are just that big of jerks. The game seems to put a lot more focus on avoiding the wrong way to combat injustice than it does on actually combatting injustice. But, as I've said before, these complaints are only about the story as it exists now, up to v12. I might change my mind depending on how the issue is handled in future installments. And even then, I don't have too much of a problem with the game depicting extremism the way it does, so long as it's being done deliberately. It's less of an actual flaw with the game, and more just not what I would've done if I were making it. (Though even then, they really should've made it more clear that joining Bladestar wasn't an option. That one is an actual flaw as far as I'm concerned.) As for Bladestar being "shoved in there," I guess I agree with that? I think it's more a consequence of the game trying to juggle too many villains and villainous factions at once, and not having enough time to devote to each of them. Especially since Team Xen has been taking a backseat to all the other villains, and it sort of feels like the main plot has ground to a halt while we deal with all of these other guys. So yeah, I see what you mean about it seeming like filler. But I guess that's another thing that I'm going to wait to fully judge until the entire game is finished, to see if there's some larger conclusion that all the sub-plots and minor antagonists tie back into.

Yeah, sorry, I was a little imprecise with my wording there. I've played BW2, I know Team Plasma technically sticks around after the first time they're defeated. What I really meant is that after the end of BW, no further consideration is given to whether they were right about humans mistreating Pokemon. It's just assumed by everyone that they were wrong, and everyone just carries on catching and battling Pokemon as though nothing happened. Certain characters, most notably N, do pay lip service to the idea of establishing a more equal relationship between humans and Pokemon without the need for Pokeballs, but that's not reflected in the gameplay or in any of the characters' actions. To my knowledge, all Rood's group in Driftveil does is look after Pokemon who were stolen by the original Team Plasma, with the intent of returning them to their original Trainers if possible, not preventing Pokemon abuse on a wider scale. And of course, all Ghetsis's group cares about is world domination and stuff. So Team Plasma's original goal of trying to overturn the unjust system of Pokemon ownership has indeed been permanently thwarted by the BW player character. That's what I meant when I said they were destroyed.

Thank you for the very thoughtful response! Those are very interesting points about the player character in particular. I never knew about that Adresteia thing, and the idea that the Interceptor represents Zygarde makes a lot of sense, considering that they are supposedly summoned by the universe as a last-ditch effort to restore balance. However, the Interceptor is also established as having the unique ability to stand outside of destiny and make choices that influence the future. Which is a large part of what made me think that the player's choices would have more impact. But of course, Jan can't possibly create content for every possible choice that every possible player would conceivably want to make, so there have to be a lot of restrictions on those choices no matter what. It'll be interesting to see how those two somewhat conflicting aspects of the Interceptor's role influence things moving forward. In hindsight, yes, it does seem like the option to join Bladestar was never intended to be a way to actually side with them. I really still think that it at least should've been more clear from the beginning, though, especially since there are other fangames like Alabaster that actually do give you the option to join similar groups. Again, I don't mind too much if the game wants to take a firm stance against extremism. The real reason I disliked Ch. 14 so much was that, to me, the game gave off the false impression that it was letting me decide for myself how I felt about the issue, and then walked back on that. The whole thing would've been fine if it was just more clear up front that I wasn't joining Bladestar for real. But regardless, you're absolutely right that we should wait for future versions to see how the whole issue of Bladestar and their cause concludes. I was kind of jumping the gun, assuming that because they were officially destroyed at the end of the chapter, that this was the last we're going to see of the whole issue. I was worried it was going to end up exactly like Team Plasma did, where they use the group's extreme methods and blatantly evil leader as an excuse to ignore what they were actually fighting for. But I should give Jan a little more credit than that, and wait to see where that plot thread goes in the future before making assumptions. And while I would've handled the specifics of Bladestar's role in the story a bit differently, you're absolutely right that Jan did a great job with creating them and exploring the issues they bring up. It's a rare story that's able to get me invested enough in its outcome that I'm inspired to write a whole essay about it. Thanks again for responding and giving me some perspective about this!

So, I discovered and played through Rejuvenation a few months ago. I really liked it for the most part - It's got a lot of nice gameplay improvements over Reborn, I like all the sidequests and how some of them tie back into the main story, and while I think Reborn has the better story and writing overall, I still really enjoyed Rejuvenation's story and got invested in all the main characters. However, my enjoyment of the story dropped off quite sharply at certain points - in particular, the majority of Chapter 14's main plotline. And I've been sitting on this giant rant about it for quite a while, which I've finally decided to get off my chest. If Jan, Zumi, or anyone else on the dev team happens to be reading this, I'm sorry I'm about to be so negative about something I know you put a whole lot of time, effort, and creativity into. Please understand that the only reason I'm so upset about this is that you did such a great job for the most part, and got me really invested in where your story was going up to this point, and I feel like it let me down. So let's get into it. Spoilers for the entire game up to Chapter 14.