(Spoilers) Rejuvenation, Sort of in Summation

[Norm]

Hey, have you heard about Pokemon Rejuvenation? It’s pretty fun! Story’s dogshit though. I’m just gonna jump out the gate with it, it’s almost fundamentally flawed. Rejuv interests me so much because it has heaps of potential from the outset, especially with the changes to earlygame. I genuinely thought I was gonna enjoy the rest of the game since all the earlygame problems are fixed so well. The thing is that the problems in the game after like Blacksteeple are on a much deeper level than what was presented earlier. Hope you like reading, cause this is a long one.

 

Spoiler

 

I tend to think that stories are balanced by two things. It's all about Emotion vs. Mechanics. Emotion are those… things that you feel. I have heard if it before. They are what the little guy on the screen feels and what the audience feels. Mechanics are all the things you learned in - insert 101 class here - like tone, development, plot. The two are like dog and cat people. Some parts appeal to people more than others, but c’mon man, who doesn’t like both? 

 

Rejuv strikes me as like 80/20 leaning heavily towards emotion. By that I mean that’s where it’s strengths lie. It is really good at doing emotional bits. Don’t lie, you wer feeling some type of way with that Nancy stuff. It can also do well just being lighthearted, and know when to get emotional. My favorite moments are the single character moments like cheering up Amber, helping Mosely, and connecting the dots with Narcissa’s past. They feel real, relevant, and rewarding. I think WLL gets it and just goes full on sappy, and that’s probably the best Rejuv thing, almost universally it seems. The problem is: that other part, the mechanics, are kinda trash.

 

Rejuvs plot is kinda hard to diagnose because it has an ensemble of problems. It feels uninspired, convoluted, nonsensical, camp, overindulgent, cursory, rushed, bloated, y’know I’m just gonna roll with “cheeks”. For starters, and it took me a while to see this, is that there really isn’t one? It sounds weird, but what’s the goal we’re accomplishing, and more importantly how are we seeking to accomplish it?

 

A lot of Rejuv just showcases characters sitting around until whoever the fuck sends something or someone along. 90% of the cast has no motivation and 10% of the remaining 10% actually work towards their goals. Plot is really simple actually. Mosley wants to save Maman, but she can’t afford the medicine. Problems ensue. That’s a plot. Our heroes need to save the world, so they sit in at home base until things happen to them  Is not a very active or interesting plot. This happens quite a few times, most recently in V13. Also there’s the archetype… and the interceptor… And then team Xen… uhh then they time travel… and terrorists! That’s not really a plot. What am I following? Why? What do the bad guys want? Huh? That one bitch is a robot? Huh??? Save the world plots are really dumb. There’s no personal stakes because what even somewhat sensible person wants to destroy the world. Even if they had the most noble reasons, virtually everybody else would oppose them on principle.

 

Point is the story is good when the characters deal with personal issues, and bad when it goes into JRPG nonsense. The best segment of the game is definitely the early story bits. They’re simple, flow well, and actually showcase the strengths of the writing: That being the character-motivated stories. I get so much more out of a rich world like this watching characters yearn and struggle then a do reading random dossiers on characters I don’t know or concepts that are kept vague.

 

Something like Melia's death isn’t good because it’s shocking. Nobody actually believed that. It’s good for what it does to Ren and Venam. They just lost their young, peppy friend, and have to grow up without her somehow. That’s an actual character moment. 

 

A huge problem with the game is that it often plays against its strength and goes for JRPG nonsense. And sweet formless lord does it go into JRPG nonsense. 

 

People, we’re talking about a game that casually introduces Time Travel halfway through the story. We’re talking formally introducing multiple universes in the newest version.

 

Rejuv treats these gigantic premises like ancient civilizations and a fucking machine that materializes dreams as casual set pieces. They only exist to move the plot forward with no care for how they’re used. It’s like the 2nd half of DBZ, but with less developed characters.

 

It’s all poorly explained and usually feels derivative from another thing that exists. It’s not interesting, but the game sure thinks it is. The game is dumb in this regard.

 

The problem is that the game gets it’s head up it’s ass and thinks this stuff is important. Rejuv likes to float a billion questions about the convoluted lore and mysteries because it’s deep? I think it’s to try and seem smart and surprise the audience. It’s like a child, or a redditor. Rejuv chooses to answer none of the important ones like, what do these people want? Why do they want that? Was this character/element necessary? and of course “what the hell’s the point game? And instead beats me over the head with “Who is -insert masked villain here-?” Or “what is the Interceptor?” You tell me, game. It’s a made up concept in a made up world that has been made within a pre-existing made up world. If you told me everything about the intercepted currently in the story anytime earlier, it really wouldn’t change the game in essence

 

If you’re going to float questions, you have to have the characters seek the answers to them and hopefully it actually feels like a narrative is being created through the Q and A. Aelita wants to know why her father is so distant? That gets answered through action, spurring more questions, spurring more action on her part. Rejuv usually opts to answer through long exposition or backstory dumps, usually over-complicating things in the process. It cares more about surface level things like “surprise” and “mysteriousness” than it does characterization and progression.

 

Also why is everything so convoluted. Do we really need all of Time Travel, Dimension hopping, Homunculi, Hypertech ancient civilization, and probably more coming down the pipe? Is this really the best part of Rejuv, is it necessary for this many things to work concurrently?

 

I could see these things maybe work, but they’re never really explained. Why does Saving Vivian change the future, but not anything else? Like shouldn’t almost everything we do in the past have irreparable changes? If the space chuds and Madame X can both time travel, why don’t they just go to the past and do something like kill Vivian?

 

See the problems wanton use of something like time-travel makes? There’s some neat character bits that come with it, but you have to set rules, man!

 

I just don’t think most of the characters are used well. I think All the characters in the immediate family in WLL are good, like Aelita, Amber, Kenneth, and Tesla are pretty great! It could be because it gets a whole separate story, though… Erin’s cool because she isn’t a friendship drone and having an ascerbic character in the group spices up most of the dynamics. Mosely and Narcissa are really cool because they’re stories are actually personal and character driven. We get an introdution to these characters revealing everything we should know about them, and then they interact with the cast and story, developing along the way. That’s all I ask! Past that I got a hot plate of problems, again.

 

The game has a hard time developing even the most central of characters from some reason. Aside from some superpowers, Melia is basically the same person from the beginning of the game throughout. She has developmental moments, but they don’t ever seem to stick or aren’t really executed super well with the Jenner thing. We knew the guy for all of two seconds and half of that time wasn’t even devoted to showing his relationship with Melia. If Melia is gonna be this prevalent if a character, I’d hope she’d be interesting by now. Static characters are fine, but they’re limited, kinda goes with the territory. At some point, you’d hope they’d change or be existentially challenged after a while. Melia kinda tries to get developed, but there’s just not enough time for it to stick, I guess.

 

Characters either develop off screen, or are rushed through beats to get to the DEEP AND WATER-TIGHT STORY!! A character like Ren is more or less offscreen for like half of the game and comes back more or less the same. I guess he’s a robot now, or piloting a robot double, sapping all tension away from him in any scene. Everyone is fine with him being a high ranking Xen guy after one convo. Otherwise it’s something like Nim and Venam in V13, where their development is so rushed to it’s conclusion it’s barely there. Can’t you let these things stew for a bit. Development in real people can take years! Theres no way I believe these guys are changed after a conversation where that one sappy piano song plays.

 

I think the bad guy lounge thing tries to develop the villain group, particularly Ren. Guess what they do all the time when we see it? Sit around and knock back shots. Id say they could take their time and actually let us get to see these characters deal with shit, but we got to get to everybody else Everybody else is decidedly less inportant. Or annoying. sometimes both. 

 

Even worse, there are wayyyy too many characters in this game. There are like 80 different characters and probably 100+ if you count the lore and name drops. It could be fine if most of them were like one offs. But no, they’re all boxing for screen time, even the most ineffectual of them. Like what do characters like Reina, Huey, Kanon, Rhodea, or recent one offs like Risa even bring? These characters could be snapped out of the game and lose virtually nothing. Especially Reina and Huey. Do we need another bumbling booby and goofy girl in our adventures?

 

This problem is even worse then the villains. Rejuv really likes to recycle the “smug evil villain”. Y’know, the one that laughs at you and calls you a wiener head till you beat their ass. There’s Zeta, Madelis, Geara, Angie, Flora, Cassandra, Melanie, and the Space Chuds. Only like Crescent (who’s morality is arguable) and Madame X differ from this. A good villain can carry a story, but a lot of the villains either feel the same or suffer from the Ooh Mysterious background that wafts through the story like a stench. Half these guys could die or get cut out simply because they’re redundant. Geara literally shows up for two seconds and asks “why am I here?” Why is he here? He’s not even a threat anymore. I doubt many of these guys are actually going to be relevant in the final battles, though I don’t doubt they’ll be there…

 

I feel like if you picked 2 or 3 villains. (Say Madame X, Crescent, and the Space lady), actually characterized them, and had em go to town, You’d have some pretty competent, threatening villains. But they all just kinda sit around until their needed for a scene.

 

I guess it all loops back to that whole nonsensical plot… thing that the characters keep yappin their gobs about. It’s a shame because there are genuine parts I like about the game, but the plot is so, so bad. It feels purposeless and garbled, made worse by how in your face most of it is. If you turn your brain off and just casually view things happening, I think I could get the appeal. It’s like a Kojima game, but the fun Kojima moments are inconsequential side-pieces (So I guess Death Stranding).

 

The unfortunate thing is that, story wise. The game is gonna be hard pressed to salvage anything at this point. We’re in deep with garbo. I thought going into V13 that things would start to make sense with such a big volume, but no. The story might actually be getting worse as the volumes go on. It’s just more villains, more new plot points, more questions, and more characters, with a dash of clarity and growth.

 

 

I guess I’m curious what other people think about the story. If you’re able to look past all the flaws in stories, you’re one lucky bastard, lemme tell ya. What do you like about Rejuvenation? would you change anything? I feel like this thing has a lot more potential than just a Pokemon Fan Game, but conversely there is so much wrong with the story you’d basically half to either scrap or completely rework a huge portion of the story. Past that, I guess it’s cheers! I know I need a couple brewskis if I’m gonna keep thinking about this story, man.

[Smooge]

ratio

[bloww]

god damn. so much of this is just factually wrong i refuse to believe you played this game

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Our heroes need to save the world, so they sit in at home base until things happen to them  Is not a very active or interesting plot. This happens quite a few times, most recently in V13.

tell me you didn't play v13 without telling me you didn't play v13 (which is probably the case considering you dont mention anything that happens in it in this thread). the entirety of it is literally us coming up with a plan to save the world and then end team xen. come on

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Also there’s the archetype… and the interceptor… And then team Xen… uhh then they time travel… and terrorists! That’s not really a plot. What am I following? Why? What do the bad guys want? Huh? That one bitch is a robot? Huh??? Save the world plots are really dumb. There’s no personal stakes because what even somewhat sensible person wants to destroy the world. Even if they had the most noble reasons, virtually everybody else would oppose them on principle.

1. if you think team xen wants to just straight up destroy the world, im sorry but once again theres no way you actually read through the game

2. the majority of the things we do, we do them because of personal reasons: saving our friends, moving to a new place for gym badges, etc. gym 1-4 we're just looking for badges, gym 4-8 we want a way to go back home, and the rest of them we're trying to solve all the crazy shit happening at once (because the main cast is the only ones who can do so). theres a point to be made there with the midgame mostly being us being thrown around, but i dont think thats too big of an issue and it certainly doesnt make the game bad

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Also why is everything so convoluted. Do we really need all of Time Travel, Dimension hopping, Homunculi, Hypertech ancient civilization, and probably more coming down the pipe? Is this really the best part of Rejuv, is it necessary for this many things to work concurrently?

because its fun?? just because its not explained properly and its not a super in depth fictional interpretation of time travel/whatever doesnt make the writing "dogshit". its cool and makes for a nice overarching story. all the stuff with parallel universes and time travel is one of my favourite parts of the game just because they used it to create mystery perfectly

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

I could see these things maybe work, but they’re never really explained. Why does Saving Vivian change the future, but not anything else? Like shouldn’t almost everything we do in the past have irreparable changes? If the space chuds and Madame X can both time travel, why don’t they just go to the past and do something like kill Vivian?

the easiest interpretation is that everything we do changes the future, its just that with vivan its a noticeable change because our future literally doesnt exist if we save her. everything we did led to our present. and the antagonists didnt kill vivian because they obviously dont want to destroy the world, or at the very least not that way. dunno how youre making a wall of text about how the story is shit without being able to understand this, lol

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Melia is basically the same person from the beginning of the game throughout. She has developmental moments, but they don’t ever seem to stick or aren’t really executed super well with the Jenner thing. We knew the guy for all of two seconds and half of that time wasn’t even devoted to showing his relationship with Melia.

bruh

everything about this is wrong i dont even know where to begin. talk about how you dont like melia all you want, but saying shes the same character since gearen and that jenner is irrelevant is so wrong. i dont know what to tell you

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

I think the bad guy lounge thing tries to develop the villain group, particularly Ren. Guess what they do all the time when we see it? Sit around and knock back shots. Id say they could take their time and actually let us get to see these characters deal with shit, but we got to get to everybody else Everybody else is decidedly less inportant. Or annoying. sometimes both. 

 

aside from ren (and it makes sense because he's a main cast guy, not a main admin, although i understand the complaint that he doesnt get much in these scenes), they all get small development through the lounge. yeah, its not anything incredible in terms of character development, but theyre just short and fun scenes and theyre definitely more interesting than what youre trying to make them look like. the interactions between all the admins are great (aside from nastasia i guess, which is annoying imo)

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Even worse, there are wayyyy too many characters in this game. There are like 80 different characters and probably 100+ if you count the lore and name drops. It could be fine if most of them were like one offs. But no, they’re all boxing for screen time, even the most ineffectual of them. Like what do characters like Reina, Huey, Kanon, Rhodea, or recent one offs like Risa even bring? These characters could be snapped out of the game and lose virtually nothing. Especially Reina and Huey. Do we need another bumbling booby and goofy girl in our adventures?

you act like all 100 characters are important, lmao. theres like, 3 main casts: the gearen friends group, the terajuma arc friends group and the gdc friends group. thats it. everyone else is side characters, so they dont need that much spotlight and they definitely dont overwhelm people by existing. i also find it funny that you included kanon here when he's the most, or at the very least second most important character in the ENTIRE story for erin as a person as of v13. and 

Spoiler

risa raider isnt even a new character lmao. shes been a side antagonist for a few chapters as clear

the main casts are all imo super well developed (aside from like 2 or 3), and even if you think theyre bad characters you cant deny that a lot of effort was put into them

 

1 hour ago, Norm said:

This problem is even worse then the villains. Rejuv really likes to recycle the “smug evil villain”. Y’know, the one that laughs at you and calls you a wiener head till you beat their ass. There’s Zeta, Madelis, Geara, Angie, Flora, Cassandra, Melanie, and the Space Chuds. Only like Crescent (who’s morality is arguable) and Madame X differ from this. A good villain can carry a story, but a lot of the villains either feel the same or suffer from the Ooh Mysterious background that wafts through the story like a stench. Half these guys could die or get cut out simply because they’re redundant. Geara literally shows up for two seconds and asks “why am I here?” Why is he here? He’s not even a threat anymore. I doubt many of these guys are actually going to be relevant in the final battles, though I don’t doubt they’ll be there…

you cant seriously be comparing the xen admins (aside from cassandra, shes just an evil bitch tbh) with angie and melanie. i do agree that some most of the admins feel similar development-wise (zetta, madelis and geara are just kinda we were bad but now we're good), but in no way are they similar characters. crescent isnt even a villain.

 

i know people love to shit on pokemon fangames and stories in general for not being masterpieces of writing but i think rejuvenation truly deserves its spot of #1 story for its insane work on characters and attention to details. very few works of fiction manage to utilize so many characters effectively and have so much foreshadowing that you can get while rewatching/reading/playing. it has a nice "everything was planned from the start" feeling that you just cant miss.

i think its pretty crazy that after a ton of saves you can still discover and understand new things, and every new version adds so much info that makes replaying insanely fun

 

story wise, yeah, time travel is always stupid in fiction and the bad future thing is a good idea but not executed perfectly. but the entire mystery about the interceptor, the archetype, and generally everything that appeared in v13 is super interesting and makes up for it tenfolds, because its actually a unique and original concept. it gives the game a real identity instead of being another pokemon game about death cults and gods (although thats where ill have to agree with that other recent thread, it really doesnt feel like a pokemon game anymore lol)

 

anyways spent way too long on this but please just replay through the game and try to keep your eyes open this time or something

[0 SPD Slowpoke]

Whatever Rejuvenations flaws are in writing, all of them are compounded to absurd degrees by sheer character bloat. The game even lampshades it with Huey by calling him Whoey, why does he even exist at all? you could say the same for so many other filler characters who only exist to serve filler plot points, and yet the game seems to think you care about them or even remember them. I thought Gloia the hippo was cool, but did we really need cutscene time dedicated to Rhodea? It went from cool detail/easter egg to yet another waste of screentime.

[Millmark]

The story seems to be very exposition heavy in the update. I still enjoyed the update, but there was more time talking and less time battling. Maybe because the plot has become so massive that they need to have heavy exposition to cover everything so there there aren't huge plot holes or things that don't make any sense.

[Dausk]

OP, I agree that Rejuvenation's story is deeply flawed, but I don't agree with everything you said. Therefore, I'll give my opinion (for V12, I am barely finished with the Erick fight in this version) and more concise grievances with the game's plot:

1. There are too many characters. Many of them are irrelevant and hog up the screen time. This is especially noticeable in v13 content (haven't reached GDC in V13, so I'm unsure as to how the rest stacks up now); they're here to stay, so they should instead have less dialogue (especially during scenes with tons of characters). I like Huey a lot, but his existence is largely irrelevent to the story.
2. The villain's objectives are rather vague. Team Xen wants to save their loved ones, but we get no hint as to how that would be accomplished. Team Xen's motives are fine, but are rather overused. Indriad wants to destroy the world for some inexplicable reason; he has no valid motives to do so, and this makes him as ridiculous as Maxie and Archie.
3. The game has too many exposition dumps, and are each rather long. This is extremely apparent in V13, and while I love the reveals that occurred, the dialogue was too excessive to the point that it was difficult to process was going on (in path 3, at least). The other two paths are fine story wise, but have too little gameplay in between. It would have been better if the exposition was more spread out throughout the game.
4. There is no issue with how outlandish the game became. Pokemon is a weird series, and the multiple universes thing was established by ORAS. The problem is that there are no established rules to how magic (and other additions) functions, it's limitations, or how these relate to the pokemon. Karen gives a brief statement in the starly sidequest and that's about it. For instance, there is no info on where the time crystals came from, and the ligosomnia machine being able to bring things into reality is questionable, since we know nothing about the platinum component.
5. The early-game rewrites were good and drastically improved the characters, but did not improve the plot all that much. One issue I had was that Sariah has no reason to trust Geara, because to her he's an outsider. So the Goldenleaf arc is worse because of this. Also the Madame X introduction was worse due to my next point.
6. The game has a severe case of gameplay and story dissonance. The pokemon exist in the gameplay but characters forget they exist in the story. For instance, Nancy retrieves her Sylveon instead of ordering it to attack Madame X, and she is somehow able to break Sylveon's reflect. This scene (and others) tries to be cool but ends up being cringeworthy because characters abandon basic logic; the rest of Blacksteeple is pretty great now though. This problem is amplified with certain battles, such as with Giratina (both encounters) and the Evil Gardevoir; you are required to win these to continue, but beating them changes nothing. Gameplay-wise, they are supposed to faint, yet still continue messing with the player afterwards simply because the story demands it. This is also happens with the Geara and Zetta fight, where even if Melia's and your pokemon survive, they are powerless to do anything in the situation; if the giratina battle didn't exist, the scene would play out much better. There are many other instances of such things happening, and they end up being a time waster for the player. This is the largest problem with Rejuvenation's story in my opinion.

The game also has some minor issues related to balance, but those are beside the point, and will certainly be addressed. Hopefully, the story issues will be addressed before the game's final version. Fortunately, its major problems are concentrated in one aspect when compared to something like Reborn. I should probably make an appreciation post one day, we bombast the game too much.

[Norm]

3 hours ago, bloww said:

god damn. so much of this is just factually wrong i refuse to believe you played this game

 

tell me you didn't play v13 without telling me you didn't play v13 (which is probably the case considering you dont mention anything that happens in it in this thread). the entirety of it is literally us coming up with a plan to save the world and then end team xen. come on

 

I guess you can... chose to believe I didn't play the game. I have. I even Beta Tested it! My bag got eaten, man. Eaten! Look now I gotta defend my internet honor because of your harsh, inflammatory statements!

 

I guess for the first two

3 hours ago, bloww said:

1. if you think team xen wants to just straight up destroy the world, im sorry but once again theres no way you actually read through the game

2. the majority of the things we do, we do them because of personal reasons: saving our friends, moving to a new place for gym badges, etc. gym 1-4 we're just looking for badges, gym 4-8 we want a way to go back home, and the rest of them we're trying to solve all the crazy shit happening at once (because the main cast is the only ones who can do so). theres a point to be made there with the midgame mostly being us being thrown around, but i dont think thats too big of an issue and it certainly doesnt make the game bad

I guess for the first two. I don't know what Team Xen's motivations are because they are neither told to us or unified through the action. Maybe I'm just dumb. But that thought makes me sad, so I'll just try and reason through it.

 

Team Xen has 2 objectives I can think about. 1. Get Melia. This seems to be their primary goal until it fails. The prevailing theory is that Madame X is a Theolia, if not just an evil Melia, and has lost her Super Saiyan powers through something. I think V13 says that the bad guys more or less win if they get any of the blondies. The problems arise with this in that they are really, really bad at this wincon. If they really need Melia, or anybody. Why not send the deathwings: the guys that kidnapped an entire town of people? The Deathwings definitely could've stomped almost everybody on Terajuma. The only real threat is Tesla, and even Madelis figured out how to neutralize her via a hostage. 2 They kinda do want to destroy, or at least inflict damage upon the world. They ruined Carotos Mountain, The Xenpurgis is literally made to kill an entire population of a city. Madame X is in some form of partnership with the Clear and Kieran, who literally have said they want the world destroyed. I'll give you the game doesn't make it clear at all, but that's literally my main issue with it. Making thing's clear is the games job, not mine. If you want people to understand your story, make it understandable. I clocked  at least 100 hours into V13, why should I have to play the game again to make things more clear. Is that not a flaw in the story?

 

2. I don't really think those are super personal reasons. Those are like utilitarian reasons. What I want is motivation. Aelita has personal motivation. She wants to discover herself initially, but she also wants to know more about her family, she wants to become Sensei despite the obstacles, she wants to beat the tar out of Clear. Those are all personal, unique to her. That drive is what makes her develop and special as a character. Solving all the crazy shit that happens is basically the plot to everything ever. It's not personal enough to make it super unique. It can get the job done, but shouldn't we want more? It's perfectly fine if you don't think it's as big of an issue, we've already acknolwedged that it is an issue. I personally think its a knock on the game

3 hours ago, bloww said:

 

 

because its fun?? just because its not explained properly and its not a super in depth fictional interpretation of time travel/whatever doesnt make the writing "dogshit". its cool and makes for a nice overarching story. all the stuff with parallel universes and time travel is one of my favourite parts of the game just because they used it to create mystery perfectly

 

the easiest interpretation is that everything we do changes the future, its just that with vivan its a noticeable change because our future literally doesnt exist if we save her. everything we did led to our present. and the antagonists didnt kill vivian because they obviously dont want to destroy the world, or at the very least not that way. dunno how youre making a wall of text about how the story is shit without being able to understand this, lol

 

Again, I do think that having an aspect of a story is stupid? It's fun, yes but it's a lot of hard work. To put in perspective. The highest grossing movie of all time tackles time travel. Endgame probably has legions of people on quality control and actual paid worktime was put into developing that time travel seamlessly. Even they goofed it up! Time Travel is really, really hard to stick the landing on, but it is fun! That doesn't mean it absolves it of the inherent problems that happen when it is just never explained. If everything we do changes Time Travel, why doesn't Anju recognize us that one time? One a bigger scale, why doesn't the timeline change drastically every time we do it. Cutting down a sapling changes an entire ecosystem. I'd imagine interacting with a younger Nastasia would at least do something! If time is that alterable, Couldn't the heroes or the bad guys just try and nip the problem in the bud? If doing something like killing Gardevoir did little, what happened in the original timeline? 

 

Can I ask what is so perfect about the parallel universes? I'll try to be open minded given it just got introduced. But I'm also skeptical because it was introduced so late. Rejuv has too much myster IMO, there's more to a story than mysteries. Even mysteries answer questions. There are still dozens of mysteries that we don't know about. Doesn't the existence of a parallel universe kinda break the concept of an Interceptor, at least a bit? I thought that there was a system of fate that they were immune to. Parallel universes and fatalism don't mix because the former's existence implies free will is basically infinite. Would the universal reset bring the resetter to the literal beginning of time? If it happened once, how would we even know that? I'm sure some of these questions are going to be answered, but I also feel pretty justified in being tenuous about the whole thing.

3 hours ago, bloww said:

bruh

everything about this is wrong i dont even know where to begin. talk about how you dont like melia all you want, but saying shes the same character since gearen and that jenner is irrelevant is so wrong. i dont know what to tell you

 

 

the main casts are all imo super well developed (aside from like 2 or 3), and even if you think theyre bad characters you cant deny that a lot of effort was put into them

 

What's wrong about it, I voiced my opinion on it based on my experiences. I'm fine disagreeing because I really don't think Melia is very interesting or well integrated. But if you think the stuff is perfect, but can't substantiate any reasons. That's on you, my sharp-tongued compadre. I also don't deny that effort didn't go into these characters. I just don't think that effort has paid off. I don't think we're getting anything close to good developed characters in my eyes. These guys aren't exactly the Elric Brothers, or even Cheren and Bianca for Pokemon references. I feel the development of these characters so much stronger because I feel their flaws and desires for something more so much better than I do Melia. There are efforts to develop Melia, I just don't think they ever really hit the mark. As a result, I still think they're bad characters

 

3 hours ago, bloww said:

 

you act like all 100 characters are important, lmao. theres like, 3 main casts: the gearen friends group, the terajuma arc friends group and the gdc friends group. thats it. everyone else is side characters, so they dont need that much spotlight and they definitely dont overwhelm people by existing. i also find it funny that you included kanon here when he's the most, or at the very least second most important character in the ENTIRE story for erin as a person as of v13. 

 

the main casts are all imo super well developed (aside from like 2 or 3), and even if you think theyre bad characters you cant deny that a lot of effort was put into them

See even with that, you're still looking at least a dozen characters, not counting any antagonists. That's still honestly too many to work. Most animes and JRPGs tend to do like 4-8, and even then you can still have a couple duds. I think that among the main cast, the stuff is spread too thin, and then you have the 80 side characters to address, sapping even more time and resources away from the main characters. If the rest of the characters are useless. Why even have them? Probably every big story has had to cut or downplay the role of certain characters. I would genuinely be surprised if there was anything on the cutting-room floor for Rejuv. 

 

4 hours ago, bloww said:

you cant seriously be comparing the xen admins (aside from cassandra, shes just an evil bitch tbh) with angie and melanie. i do agree that some most of the admins feel similar development-wise (zetta, madelis and geara are just kinda we were bad but now we're good), but in no way are they similar characters. crescent isnt even a villain.

thing

I am! And I will!. I think the villains are generally pretty bad. Angie/Indriad is actually one of the worst just because the game always hypes them up, only for them to fail. They are definitely similar characters. They're all pretty overconfident, vindictive, and enjoy inflicting harm onto others. That fits Melanie and Angie to a T. They're not exactly the same. Madelis is a goofy clown, for example, and Melanie manages to actually be entertaining because I actually know her motivations! I'll give you I was confused about Crescent. There's no doubt that she was likely a villain until somewhat recently. She is now moreso a grumpy good guy. Her

 

4 hours ago, bloww said:

 

i know people love to shit on pokemon fangames and stories in general for not being masterpieces of writing but i think rejuvenation truly deserves its spot of #1 story for its insane work on characters and attention to details. very few works of fiction manage to utilize so many characters effectively and have so much foreshadowing that you can get while rewatching/reading/playing. it has a nice "everything was planned from the start" feeling that you just cant miss.

i think its pretty crazy that after a ton of saves you can still discover and understand new things, and every new version adds so much info that makes replaying insanely fun

 

story wise, yeah, time travel is always stupid in fiction and the bad future thing is a good idea but not executed perfectly. but the entire mystery about the interceptor, the archetype, and generally everything that appeared in v13 is super interesting and makes up for it tenfolds, because its actually a unique and original concept. it gives the game a real identity instead of being another pokemon game about death cults and gods (although thats where ill have to agree with that other recent thread, it really doesnt feel like a pokemon game anymore lol)

 

anyways spent way too long on this but please just replay through the game and try to keep your eyes open this time or something

Again, I'm not going to try and quash your opinion, but I'll defend mind. I really don't think characters are used effectively. I don't think foreshadowing is something that's necessarily praiseworthy. It's like praising shot-focus in a movie, or sound quality in a song. It's one of those things you'd hope would be in the story. Can you imagine if there was no foreshadowing in Rejuvenation!? I think my brain almost hemorrhaged... I also don't think V13 was super original. Doesn't the second part of the Intro in Rejuvenation both feature a death cult that worships a god? That whole high school bit felt like a really budgeted version of like Persona or DangleRonple. I think the Interceptor bit is kinda interesting in a meta sense, but I think the archetype could be replaced by any sort special good guy power in any RPG. I think it's fair to disagree, don't know why you're so upset though. I'm interesting in what makes this game so interesting in the eyes of other people. Pejorative posts like this make me decidedly less interested in what they have to say, but it takes all kinds.

[pizzagod13]

I want to say first that I really like the story of this game. I even wrote a "guide" that provides a "quick" overview of the story.

 

1. I disagree that characters do not have motivation. Tons of them do. Melia wants to not get kidnapped. Her friends want to help protect her. Crescent wants to protect the MC so on and so forth. Plenty of characters have motivation. It might seem like they are doing nothing sometimes, but that is really rarely the case. For much of the game they did not really have any direct actions they could take, the bad guys are overwhelmingly stronger than the main cast, until very recently at least. And now the group is acting. They are trying to awaken Adrest to help against team Xen, and they are now planning to raid team Xen's base to stop them. Before then they banded together to stop Team Xen elsewhere, usually by keeping Melia safe. So I don't really see this. As for the time travel stuff... ya it is a bit silly, time travel makes all stories really weird, since it breaks a lot of stuff. 

 

2. I can somewhat see the point about them casually introducing random elements. I felt the same way playing the most recent version, it felt like the Devs just wanted to keep one-upping the story. But they do fit into the wacky world, so I do not really hate them, it helps drive the plot forward and helped to facilitate the story. 

 

3. The game does tell you what the interceptor is. They are somebody who can change fate and is very powerful. They can also cheat death as we have seen many times. As for the masked villan. Well you got me there. I really think they should have been introduced by now as to who they really are. I am thinking they are a future version of someone we already know like Melia or something. (The evil version of Melia used the Y legendary and Madame X does also, but that is theory crafting for another time I suppose). Regardless, having some mystery is good, and unlike in some games like the original Pokemon, where Giovanni is just some evil dude, we at least know some things about Madame X beyond that, so I would say she is not too bad. 

 

4. Why is everything so complicated. I agree with this for the most part. Like I said before it feels like they wanted to constantly do twists and shocking revelations. But at some point it becomes less interesting. Like oh the main character can come back from the dead cool, the main character is special. The main character is a third of Arcues also... hmm okay, the MC is very special I guess. The MC is actually someone else entirely... oh and they are just a magic box that makes a person. Like I agree it is a bit ridiculous that they pilled on some much in such a short span of time, but oh well. I still like the story a lot.

 

5. I disagree with Melia. She starts off weak and pathetic and has to depend on her friends to stay safe, she tries to push them away but realizes that is a mistake and instead decides to grow stronger so she can protect her friends and defeat Team Xen, who took her father from her and hurt her friends.  Sure she stays in the same ball park of wanting to protect her friends, but there is nothing wrong with that. She is meant to be a trusting a friendly character. 

 

6. I do agree with Ren being very weird. Everyone is just fine with discussing their top secret raid plan with the guy who is literally part of Team Xen. Sure maybe he does not want to be with Team Xen, but he wont leave them also. It really makes very little sense to me. Maybe he can't leave and they put him in the robot body with the stipulation that his real body would be killed if he betrays them? I am not sure, but it is indeed weird that everyone is just ok with it. 

 

7. Too many characters. Yeah I agree. It is quite confusing having to rack my brain about who these characters were after not hearing about them for so long. The "friend group" is also getting pretty large which does lead to the exact problem of their being a bit too many characters. 

 

8. Madelis is hardly a smug villian, she also has tons of characterization also and actually changes over the course of the story, She wants to stop the stuff team Xen is doing, but is powerless to do so. This is shown perfectly in the newest version, where she questions if the Xenpurgis should be done and also tries to warn Melia to flee. Flora and Angie on the other hand are less smug villains types and more complete psychopaths. Lastly, Zetta is hardly a smug villain.

 

9. I disagree that the plot is that hard to understand. It is very simple. Bad guys want Melia. Stop them from getting her. There that is the plot in a very simple form. Sure it has other elements that come up, but at the end of the day the story is about stopping team Xen from kidnapping Melia. 

 

So in short I agree with some of what you are saying but I think overall the game and its plot are fine. It may have a few problems but I think it is not that problematic overall. 

[Dausk]

Alright, let me play devil's advocate here:

5 hours ago, Norm said:

Team Xen has 2 objectives I can think about. 1. Get Melia. This seems to be their primary goal until it fails. The prevailing theory is that Madame X is a Theolia, if not just an evil Melia, and has lost her Super Saiyan powers through something. I think V13 says that the bad guys more or less win if they get any of the blondies. The problems arise with this in that they are really, really bad at this wincon. If they really need Melia, or anybody. Why not send the deathwings: the guys that kidnapped an entire town of people? The Deathwings definitely could've stomped almost everybody on Terajuma. The only real threat is Tesla, and even Madelis figured out how to neutralize her via a hostage. 2 They kinda do want to destroy, or at least inflict damage upon the world. They ruined Carotos Mountain, The Xenpurgis is literally made to kill an entire population of a city. Madame X is in some form of partnership with the Clear and Kieran, who literally have said they want the world destroyed. I'll give you the game doesn't make it clear at all, but that's literally my main issue with it. Making thing's clear is the games job, not mine. If you want people to understand your story, make it understandable. I clocked  at least 100 hours into V13, why should I have to play the game again to make things more clear. Is that not a flaw in the story?

During the Blacksteeple Arc, Neved mentions that Team Xen benefits regardless of the prisoners' fates. This implies that there is more to their objective than just capturing Melia, they need some resource from the mines and need people to die. This is likely the purposed behind the Xenpurgis. If all they needed was Melia, then they would have never handed her over to Jenner in the first place. The deathwings are being used to gather people for this purpose, and if Melia was the sole missing piece, Madame X would have likely pursued her herself instead of relying on the admins she blatantly considers to be incompetent. Madame X also influenced Kanon to oppose Indriad, who blatantly wants to ruin the world. Of course, the game is still rather vague on how Clear's and Kieran's goals align with Team Xen's, and what "resetting the world" actually means.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

I don't really think those are super personal reasons. Those are like utilitarian reasons. What I want is motivation. Aelita has personal motivation. She wants to discover herself initially, but she also wants to know more about her family, she wants to become Sensei despite the obstacles, she wants to beat the tar out of Clear. Those are all personal, unique to her. That drive is what makes her develop and special as a character. Solving all the crazy shit that happens is basically the plot to everything ever. It's not personal enough to make it super unique. It can get the job done, but shouldn't we want more? It's perfectly fine if you don't think it's as big of an issue, we've already acknolwedged that it is an issue. I personally think its a knock on the game

I don't think every character needs to have some super unique motivation for them to be solid. Their personality plays a much larger role into how the players view them than their motivation. Also, I think the whole concept of a "group" or "team" structure necessitates the members be subjugated to similar circumstances.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

Again, I do think that having an aspect of a story is stupid? It's fun, yes but it's a lot of hard work. To put in perspective. The highest grossing movie of all time tackles time travel. Endgame probably has legions of people on quality control and actual paid worktime was put into developing that time travel seamlessly. Even they goofed it up! Time Travel is really, really hard to stick the landing on, but it is fun! That doesn't mean it absolves it of the inherent problems that happen when it is just never explained. If everything we do changes Time Travel, why doesn't Anju recognize us that one time? One a bigger scale, why doesn't the timeline change drastically every time we do it. Cutting down a sapling changes an entire ecosystem. I'd imagine interacting with a younger Nastasia would at least do something! If time is that alterable, Couldn't the heroes or the bad guys just try and nip the problem in the bud? If doing something like killing Gardevoir did little, what happened in the original timeline?

I'm not sure enough can be derived from the Anju scene to conclude whether she recognized us or not; I might be misremembering though. The game has explicitly stated that destiny exists; there are also certain actions that display the message stating that the future has been changed (such as cutting the tree and picking up the weird diary). From this, we can assume that the other events were fated to occur, and only these are actual deviations originating from the MC's role of interceptor. Remember that the MC devotes a substantial amount of time solely following the other characters around, who cannot alter fate themselves.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

Can I ask what is so perfect about the parallel universes? I'll try to be open minded given it just got introduced. But I'm also skeptical because it was introduced so late. Rejuv has too much myster IMO, there's more to a story than mysteries. Even mysteries answer questions. There are still dozens of mysteries that we don't know about. Doesn't the existence of a parallel universe kinda break the concept of an Interceptor, at least a bit? I thought that there was a system of fate that they were immune to. Parallel universes and fatalism don't mix because the former's existence implies free will is basically infinite. Would the universal reset bring the resetter to the literal beginning of time? If it happened once, how would we even know that? I'm sure some of these questions are going to be answered, but I also feel pretty justified in being tenuous about the whole thing.

Parallel universes could mix with fatalism if they originate from actions performed by the Interceptor. Cutting the cherry blossom tree and grabbing the weird diary caused a deviation in the timeline. Clear and Kieran could be from one of these. That said, this is merely a conjecture, meaning Rejuvenation could still implement it in a completely different manner.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

What's wrong about it, I voiced my opinion on it based on my experiences. I'm fine disagreeing because I really don't think Melia is very interesting or well integrated. But if you think the stuff is perfect, but can't substantiate any reasons. That's on you, my sharp-tongued compadre. I also don't deny that effort didn't go into these characters. I just don't think that effort has paid off. I don't think we're getting anything close to good developed characters in my eyes. These guys aren't exactly the Elric Brothers, or even Cheren and Bianca for Pokemon references. I feel the development of these characters so much stronger because I feel their flaws and desires for something more so much better than I do Melia. There are efforts to develop Melia, I just don't think they ever really hit the mark. As a result, I still think they're bad characters

You have a point here, Melia is not particularly interesting. I can't seem to recall any moment where it became apparent she developed from her struggles (I may be being stupid though). That said, neither the Elric Brothers nor Bianca and Cheren are particularly memorable in my opinion. Their motivations may be more unique, but their personalities and demeanor are not. I guess it is a matter of preference.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

See even with that, you're still looking at least a dozen characters, not counting any antagonists. That's still honestly too many to work. Most animes and JRPGs tend to do like 4-8, and even then you can still have a couple duds. I think that among the main cast, the stuff is spread too thin, and then you have the 80 side characters to address, sapping even more time and resources away from the main characters. If the rest of the characters are useless. Why even have them? Probably every big story has had to cut or downplay the role of certain characters. I would genuinely be surprised if there was anything on the cutting-room floor for Rejuv. 

I concur, it would have been preferable if Rejuvenation did something like Desolation, where most characters fulfill multiple roles in the story. On the positive side, they make the world feel larger and more lively; however, it would have been much better if they had minimal screen time in the main story, and develop them through sidequests (like how Karen and Karrina used to be, and how Dylan and Ana currently are).

5 hours ago, Norm said:

I am! And I will!. I think the villains are generally pretty bad. Angie/Indriad is actually one of the worst just because the game always hypes them up, only for them to fail. They are definitely similar characters. They're all pretty overconfident, vindictive, and enjoy inflicting harm onto others. That fits Melanie and Angie to a T. They're not exactly the same. Madelis is a goofy clown, for example, and Melanie manages to actually be entertaining because I actually know her motivations! I'll give you I was confused about Crescent. There's no doubt that she was likely a villain until somewhat recently. She is now moreso a grumpy good guy. Her

I disagree. The characteristics you listed apply to many, many villains in all types of media, not just to those within this game. I think the game does a good job at distinguishing the Team Xen admins from each other. Angie is absurdly psychopathic, no other villain is similar enough to be distracting in my opinion. I can see the similarities between Melanie and Indriad, but since they're presumably related, it makes sense. I think this also applies to Cassandra and Flora, but I think it fits rather well with Flora's initial noble goals and how trying to enact them corrupted her into being as bad as Cassandra.

5 hours ago, Norm said:

Again, I'm not going to try and quash your opinion, but I'll defend mind. I really don't think characters are used effectively. I don't think foreshadowing is something that's necessarily praiseworthy. It's like praising shot-focus in a movie, or sound quality in a song. It's one of those things you'd hope would be in the story. Can you imagine if there was no foreshadowing in Rejuvenation!? I think my brain almost hemorrhaged... I also don't think V13 was super original. Doesn't the second part of the Intro in Rejuvenation both feature a death cult that worships a god? That whole high school bit felt like a really budgeted version of like Persona or DangleRonple. I think the Interceptor bit is kinda interesting in a meta sense, but I think the archetype could be replaced by any sort special good guy power in any RPG. I think it's fair to disagree, don't know why you're so upset though. I'm interesting in what makes this game so interesting in the eyes of other people. Pejorative posts like this make me decidedly less interested in what they have to say, but it takes all kinds.

Fair.

 

Overall, I feel that your criticisms hold much validity, but are quite exaggerated from my perspective. I simply don't think that most of these concerns are what end up breaking the story. I believe these can be thoroughly fixed provided that Jan puts extra effort into the story. The game just needs to cut and add a couple of lines in the right places, it is not necessarily at a point of no return. Conversely, feel free to save this post to laugh at if V14 makes my justifications obsolete.