Let's talk mood breaking ( Major Spoiler!!)

[RosaHeart]

So I was just running through Reborn again and got to the point were you raid the Devon building with the Champion, DJ, and Victoria and was recalling how screwed up this whole mission was. Of course, get to the big shock of the Champion being killed by Lin and your forced to follow her...into another floor moving puzzle room. I get that not everything is going to be a straight shot but this was just...the biggest mood killer to me. Like, this whole situation is supposed to be tense and dramatic only to have you go solve more useless puzzles to progress. I can't help but feel that completely undermines the gravity of what just happened you know? Does anyone else feel this way? Or am I just being to dramatic? I just feel that once you witness that event, that's it, it should be the end of the "raid" that your attempting to continue solo.

[SadMoney]

The game is supposed to feel like real life and deals with complex themes.

 

No time to sit and mourn, gotta grind and get the rest of your friends out of trouble.

[RosaHeart]

18 hours ago, SadMoney said:

The game is supposed to feel like real life and deals with complex themes.

 

No time to sit and mourn, gotta grind and get the rest of your friends out of trouble.

I suppose that's one way to look at it. It's just kinda hard to really imagine a real life pokemon. Heck, even the live action detective pikachu didn't feel real to me. Not to say I didn't like it, cause I did lol.

[ToDie]

I kinda had the same feeling. In general, I love the puzzles in Reborn and I rarely had the feeling that the puzzles delay exciting moments. This was one of the very few situations where it felt wrong to find a way through a labyrinth instead of... well... just entering daylight would also feel wrong. Maybe we should be forced to stay in the room for two or three minutes until the door opens and the story progresses.

[RosaHeart]

6 hours ago, ToDie said:

I kinda had the same feeling. In general, I love the puzzles in Reborn and I rarely had the feeling that the puzzles delay exciting moments. This was one of the very few situations where it felt wrong to find a way through a labyrinth instead of... well... just entering daylight would also feel wrong. Maybe we should be forced to stay in the room for two or three minutes until the door opens and the story progresses.

Yeah actually that would have made it feel all the worse and intense. Having to stay in the room with the headless body for a little while. As it is now, you can literally just ignore the body and leave the room right after Lin. And I doubt Lin needs to "slow us down" using the puzzles and all as she and all of team Meteor have proven they can just go poof whenever they want.

[Egzample]

While Ame stated many times that she regrets putting herself into the game, I also feel like the way she got rid of herself seems forced. This could have looked differently.

[RosaHeart]

On 8/1/2020 at 7:00 PM, Egzample said:

While Ame stated many times that she regrets putting herself into the game, I also feel like the way she got rid of herself seems forced. This could have looked differently.

Honestly I wish she hadn't taken herself out. I thought it was kind of cool.

[Egzample]

14 hours ago, RosaHeart said:

Honestly I wish she hadn't taken herself out. I thought it was kind of cool.

I dont remember if she ever stated why she regrets putting herself into the game, nevertheless, without knowing the reasoning, from my perspective it would be better if she kept it as it was.

[Commander]

16 minutes ago, Egzample said:

I dont remember if she ever stated why she regrets putting herself into the game, nevertheless, without knowing the reasoning, from my perspective it would be better if she kept it as it was.

I think it's better from the creator's mouth and not mine but I believe what you are referring to is the posts Ame talks about disliking the self-insert idea. Let me just start by saying everything I say may be slightly off as I am both going off of my memory and other stuff but hopefully I can kind of clarify this.

 

The reason Ame included a self-insert is that the game was a storyline based around many real time events that happened during the league most notably events during the first season. It's probably one of the weirdest RPs as fact and fiction have kind of blurred together at this point. Ame really did fight all of the gym leaders to make sure they were qualified which did make it into the game. Ame did keep her character to a very minor role due to being a self-insert which can in some people's eyes be bad writing or narcissistic. And you really can tell that Ame doesn't like herself being in the game. She didn't write the story forcefully to kill herself off, but it was more like it was convenient. The story needed a moment to show just how brutal Lin was and it conveniently could solve another gripe Ame had. Two birds with one stone.

 

I think what people have more gripes on isn't actually the death scene which I think was delivered fantastically. I think it has to do with everything else leading up to it. Ame is the champion or pretty much the strongest trainer. Something Pokemon games like to do is build up the character for a big climatic fight. Blue you have this guy who always beats you to the punch and just want to keep beating him down. Lance you meet and he absolutely storms team Rocket and you just feel his power. Steven is there to support and push you forward. The main thing is that they are involved in your journey so you really got to know a few things about them. Ame takes the role of Professor which is the old fart you forget about right away. Suddenly they are broadcasted to actually be someone really important...then they die. It's really anti-climatic when you think about it.

[Egzample]

19 hours ago, Commander said:

Ame takes the role of Professor which is the old fart you forget about right away. Suddenly they are broadcasted to actually be someone really important...then they die. It's really anti-climatic when you think about it.

Thanks for that, I knew about the moments based on the real events, but I think you captured the essence: we had speculations about who the Champion is, and out of sudden, without any build-up, we get ''It's A-me!'', like, hey, Im the strongest trainer around and two steps later the strongest champion is gone, without us witnessing any bit of its power in fact. That's why I felt this scene is being forced. If this was, let's say, Radomus or Amaria, this would look differently. 

[Vinnie]

On 7/28/2020 at 10:27 PM, SadMoney said:

The game is supposed to feel like real life and deals with complex themes.

 

No time to sit and mourn, gotta grind and get the rest of your friends out of trouble.

Pretty much this, although I can kinda agree that perhaps puzzles weren't the best way to showcase it as puzzles aren't exactly the best antagonistic force. The puzzle itself doesn't give you the vibes of "Well, this sucks, but that's life. Gotta deal with it and keep moving forward." 

 

When I think of the whole in-game characters/player wanting to mourn yet having to do other things, I tend to think of a specific moment during Final Fantasy 15. At some point the main character wants to mourn the loss of his fiancée despite the fact that he has duties and obligations to continue moving forward. If the situation were left on it's own with him struggling to cope and deal, it wouldn't be that interesting, nor would it invoke as much feeling from the player as it did when it instead allowed the two older mentors to push him forward towards his obligations(along with the other issues). 

[RosaHeart]

1 hour ago, Vinnie said:

Pretty much this, although I can kinda agree that perhaps puzzles weren't the best way to showcase it as puzzles aren't exactly the best antagonistic force. The puzzle itself doesn't give you the vibes of "Well, this sucks, but that's life. Gotta deal with it and keep moving forward." 

 

When I think of the whole in-game characters/player wanting to mourn yet having to do other things, I tend to think of a specific moment during Final Fantasy 15. At some point the main character wants to mourn the loss of his fiancée despite the fact that he has duties and obligations to continue moving forward. If the situation were left on it's own with him struggling to cope and deal, it wouldn't be that interesting, nor would it invoke as much feeling from the player as it did when it instead allowed the two older mentors to push him forward towards his obligations(along with the other issues). 

I think Rejuvination does it right. Don't look if you haven't played yet.

When you try to escape the castle and your faced down with madam X. You had just gotten to battle alongside your mother to help you bond with her then when madam X tries to kill you. your mother gets in the way and dies instead. Despite this your forced to keep fighting for a bit but after it'sover, there is a time skip that is explained that your character had locked themselves up in their room on the boat, mourning the loss of their mother. That just hit me so much harder then this did.

[Vinnie]

12 hours ago, RosaHeart said:

I think Rejuvination does it right. Don't look if you haven't played yet.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

When you try to escape the castle and your faced down with madam X. You had just gotten to battle alongside your mother to help you bond with her then when madam X tries to kill you. your mother gets in the way and dies instead. Despite this your forced to keep fighting for a bit but after it'sover, there is a time skip that is explained that your character had locked themselves up in their room on the boat, mourning the loss of their mother. That just hit me so much harder then this did.
 

 

 

Eeh, these are different situations with different goals.

 

Rejuvenation's main character is allowed to mourn, and that's the goal. This is supposed to compel the player to mourn alongside the MC.

 

In Reborn, the MC is supposed to be filled with grief, dread, sadness, possibly hopelessness yet not have any time to express those. This is meant to make the MC's struggle harder(try doing anything with any sort of emotional burden, it can make even the simplest tasks slightly more difficult). This is the purpose of this story point, and these are the feelings that the player is supposed to be feeling through the MC.

 

The problem is Pokemon MC's don't really speak(aside from a few certain moments). Combined with the fact that the puzzle as an antagonistic force is simply an object that doesn't speak either and it's really hard to get these feelings through to the player.

 

There's no indication of how the MC is feeling at this time which in turn doesn't really bring out the right feelings from the player.

[RosaHeart]

10 hours ago, Vinnie said:

Eeh, these are different situations with different goals.

 

Rejuvenation's main character is allowed to mourn, and that's the goal. This is supposed to compel the player to mourn alongside the MC.

 

In Reborn, the MC is supposed to be filled with grief, dread, sadness, possibly hopelessness yet not have any time to express those. This is meant to make the MC's struggle harder(try doing anything with any sort of emotional burden, it can make even the simplest tasks slightly more difficult). This is the purpose of this story point, and these are the feelings that the player is supposed to be feeling through the MC.

 

The problem is Pokemon MC's don't really speak(aside from a few certain moments). Combined with the fact that the puzzle as an antagonistic force is simply an object that doesn't speak either and it's really hard to get these feelings through to the player.

 

There's no indication of how the MC is feeling at this time which in turn doesn't really bring out the right feelings from the player.

 

 

hmmm, i see your point. it is hard to portray emotions through a blank slate character. Idk, I guess I just more into the Rejuv style of story telling.

[Display name]

Personally I felt the way that Ame's death was excellent. The purpose of being forced to continue onwards through the factory was to show that our character wasn't thinking straight.

 

This is how I see it the PC was greiving at the loss of Ame but also angry at Lin for killing Ame the reaction was for the PC to chase after Lin in hope of revenge.

Comparatively in Agate city when you see Lin again your Character who is much less emotional lets Lin leave because they realize that fighting Lin doesn't really help them.

I thought that the Devon corp sequence was delivered very well

Edited August 5, 2020 by Display name

[Arrok]

On 8/5/2020 at 4:02 AM, Vinnie said:

There's no indication of how the MC is feeling at this time which in turn doesn't really bring out the right feelings from the player.

I think this is the reason that when someone describes the main character as a wrecking ball I felt it really reasonated with me as the player. The PC doesn't show any emotion in game and speaks very little. As a result I feel more like a force of nature than a human being, especially given the heights of power we reach as a trainer. I don't feel like I'm primarily here to save the world or the people I've met along my journey. I feel like I'm here to fight, and have happily stumbled into the biggest, best fight going. The saving the world/people I care about feel like secondary motivations. I think it also doesn't help that I've found it hard to remember and differentiate between some of the characters since A: there's a ton of them that keep popping in and out, and B: many of them look similar. It also probably doesn't help that I'm almost exclusively playing with super speed enabled, because without it I find battle animiations drag on a bit.

 

What ground my gears the most narratively about Devon corp is that I've got a fully EV trained Blaziken here and Victoria has a team full of fighting types why the heck didn't we try to break out of our captivity using our pokemon before acquiescing to Lin's demand. To go on a bit of a tangent; that's actually something that gets to me most of the times we find ourselves 'trapped' but still have our team with us.  Especially the Nuzleaf trap near the beginning of the game. I've got a damn fire-type here. Why can't I just burn this wooden cage down. Or use cut (I think we have it by then) or do anything. But no our options are to grovel to Fern, or wait a while which are two pretty bad options, exacerbated by the fact that this isn't even a particularly secure trap. 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Arrok

[RosaHeart]

Oh I agree with your second statement soooooo much. It'd be one thing if we never saw people use pokemon out of battle for thing like that but we do, a bunch. Obviously the answer is for storytelling purposes but it does still bug me. For instance.

 

Spoilers for Reguvenation

When batteling at the top of the volcano and your player is pushed to the edge and slips slowly into the lava. Boy it sure would be convinent if I had a pokemon to ride on in the lava in the lava, you know like th ONE YOU HAVE TO HAVE IN ORDER TO EVEN ENTER THE DAMN VOLCANO TO BEGIN WITH! Eery time I did this I won the fight,  my fire type that knewmagma drift was AOK  from the fight and my character is just like nah, guess I'll just burn. All just so Crescent can prove a point or something? And don't even try to tellme, oh but your slipping so you can't grab your pokeball. First off, you can use one hand to try and hold on, and the other to grab theball.Second, many time do we see a pokemon can in ffact pop out on it's own if it wants to, so all you'd have to do is call for it. And by this point my fire type always as max friendship so  know it would come when called.

 

Anyways, rant over.