V13 Appreciation Post

[Dausk]

So me and many other posters on this site love to constantly bitch and whine about the state of the game. I thought that this overflow of negativity would be discouraging and quite upsetting to the otherwise diligent developers of the game. Therefore, I invite people to post something you LOVE about V13. Feel free to go into as much detail you desire.

 

Personally, I found all the new regional forms to look and work fantastically and has made me want to try all of them out; everything about route 4 was an amazing idea, it gives off a soothing ambience and offers much utility; and the early game rewrites were critical to my enjoyment of future character interactions.

[Norm]

1. I really, really like the sidequests and mapping/world. It all feels so rich and the love comes right of the page(er... screen). I think the sidequests are by far the most telling in the strengths of Rejuvenation. All of the character sidequests feel personal, and It's really nice to be able to help with the character's growth. They're all done pretty spectacularly, and they all showcase a different range of emotion and tone. The Hidden Library quests kinda feel like a good version of the mysteries in the current game. Karen's a bit annoying in dialogue, but I do like her descent into madness and lapses of clarity. I really adore the Goldenleaf stuff. The environmental story-telling there is top-notch. I just really like that the story details come together with Narcissa and the area through the various parts of the quest. The Goomink quest is super fun and wacky, and again the environmental storytelling is good. I also really like the ANA quest. I know this one is for sure gonna intersect with the Main Story, so juries still out on what happens then, but I really enjoy the progression and insight into Dylan and how his relationship with ANA grows. It's also well paced, it always feels like I'm getting a new piece to the puzzle. I honestly wish most of the story was told environmentally because it's done so well, and clearly leaves room for the characters to shine. 

 

2. The music's really great. I know it's a fangame, and a good bit of the music is more of a curation, but there isn't a bad track. The leitmotifs are used really well and fit the characters. 

 

3. I really like the more down-to-earth moments of the story. Points like comforting Amber and Erin opening up to Melia. There tends to be really good character stuff in these scenes. It makes me not only understand the characters but feel for them. Something like when Erin talks about how she would've killed herself if she didn't meet the crew actually heartfelt. I think these scenes show that Rejuvenation gets characterization.

 

4. I think the early-game rewrites more or less fixed any flaws that people had with the earlygame. It gets better characterization, things are more clear, characters don't randomly act like assholes, and it flows really well. If the rest of the story were as seamless as this, I don't think I could complain if I wanted to. It's good enough that I'm willing to look past its flaws because of the good parts. I think that's the balance I'm looking for as a whole. Rejuvenation is always gonna have flaws because nothing's ever perfect. If it can get the big things like character and story right, sky's the limit.

 

[chamomomile]

WOO do i love to ramble about my hyperfixations. i have devoted an ungodly time about this game so i have a lot to say.  SPOILERS FOR LIKE, EVERYTHING HAHA but especially do not read if you havent played the latest chapter

 

Spoiler

i love the aevium region forms, they're all so cool and pretty! the dev team really went above and beyond with the visuals, holy hell. especially with all the reworked maps, such as goldenleaf town (i believe that was commissioned), blacksteeple prison, the spring of purification, amethyst cave, route 4 etc etc etc. and god... big props to zumi for literally all the art she's done, as an artist myself i can feel the back and wrist problems from here. and i love the ui changes? like how you can see what pokemon are compatible with what tm, the cute music note that displays how many friendship points you get, and the little quest page that displays in the help centers! visually, this game is just so, so lovely, and it really has always been.

 

i love how expressive the sprites can be, with ren's face darkening during the goldenleaf arc, or amber's cute little sprite where she presses her fingers together. the character designs are really good too! i love them all, and i especially love saki's new look! sprite art can be really hard sometimes! i just. BLEGHHHHHHHHHHHHH i can literally ramble about this for AGES!! and i haven't even seen it all, i'm sure. 

 

i /know/ a lot of people have complaints about the story, but i quite like it, especially with the new changes! the pacing of it is really nice, and i quite like the difficulty venam's gym brings now, because your starter (most likely your strongest pokemon at that time) will be unevolved, and you don't have the new pokemon from goldenwood forest! i definitely struggled with it. i love the mystery about the whole interceptor plot, personally i quite liked the time traveling plots! i think they're fun :) the new plot reveals as of v13 are really cool! a lot of the chapter was lore dumps, but my mind was blown so much i physically could not comprehend anything by the end of it

 

narcissa, imo, has been vastly improved over her v12 and later counterparts! i loved the whole sequence with the fans during the giratina fight. ren /definitely/ got a makeover, and he's improved quite a lot! i love him, i love da bird boy. i really liked the whole cutscenes where we see team xen in hq and just... shooting the shit. given how they're leaning towards making them more, uh, human?? redeemable??, it gives them a new side we see of them, because they're hanging out with people they actually like! i know she's controversial, but i really like melia! her development is lovely, me thinks. i like how we can tell her jenner is her dad... it's so sweet. aelita is hands down my favorite character, i love the scene when she first meets texen, it's hilarious. she's just. mmmmmmmm. aelita my dearly beloved. i think it is so cute how she clams up but instantly starts talking when the player shows up after going to. i forgot the name but the spring in the pyramid

 

uhhh, i think it's cute how we can tell ryland his brother's gonna be gone for awhile! a neat touch. i love ryland quite a bit actually

I LOVE THE HUMOR IN THIS GAME. there are some examples that im not thinking of, but one that stands out is during the blacksteeple arc, where melia puts zoroark in place of her, and neved comes in. i was sobbing, i cackled for like, a solid 5 minutes. also the moments between huey and uhhhh i forgot his name.... cofagrigus man, and he just went to space??? and during lavender's realization, it reappears? i love that. so much. this is getting so long and my friends want to play minecraft, but i'll be back! one day!

 

OH OH EDIT BECAUSE I FORGOT: i like rorim b a lot! his new design is fun, and i like his interactions with novae! he's just like..... everywhere. fun dad i love him lol

 

[Ghostea]

aaaaah i love the characters!! ;o; i'm autistic and really latch onto characters that make me feel like. safe? if that makes sense? and i have that so much with several of them in rejuv!! 

 

i'm not good at expressing but yeah. also the whole atmosphere of the game, esp early-mid game? [chef's kiss]

 

SUPER digging the v13 changes and music also! :>

[Magus543]

While writing my next part of the V13 reviews, I'd like to take the time to appreciate the changes to the early game plot, such as changing when Venam's gym battle takes place so it isn't an absurd time waster and more of a friendship moment, and in general making Early Game Ren and Venam feel like more of a team instead of obstacles that you are supposed to care about.

 

 

I also like that Nim is instead trying to cheer you up instead of stalling you. It makes her much more likeable and I say that as someone who likes her. And Chapter 3 is well, I won't get much into it, but holy shit, it's leagues better than the OG version. 

 

Also I like how Aelita is actively trying to help us with Keta instead of just passively letting us do all the work. Seriously, making the early game cast actually help us instead of nonsense battle and forcing us to do the work REALLY makes the difference.

 

 

Serious kudos to the team for taking the time to iron out the plot even more than previous versions. 

[eggon]

The new rewrites of the old chapters are fantastic, The story flows much better and feels much more natural now. 

[Ace321]

Kudos to the dev team for delivering this banger for version. The graphic, music, gameplay and plot was just what I needed to spend my vacation on.  

My personal highlight of this version is the dancing maid and Erin trying dance made me laugh my ass off! 

[Brauvo]

I must also point out how great the rewrite at the early chapters is. Fabulous cleanup of the story. Things are streamlined so that it doesn't feel like every chapter is its own game being pieced to another. Things are a lot more sensible. Truly great stuff from the team. 

[RisingSun]

As a whole I've been really impressed with V13. The art has been fantastic for all the different zones, the music adds a great touch to everything. I love the dialog and all the characters. It's cool seeing the story come together. I also enjoy the challenge of the battles.

[Feng Lei]

I think a lot of the perceived negativity is really more "there is this or that bug" that got past beta. But yes, the game really is amazing. And V13 overall was worth the wait.

 

Spoiler

I especially loved pretty much every single scene in Path 1. Path 2 was absolutely immersive and very, very epic. Path 3 ended amazing, and, considering how many loose ends it ties up and how much it ties together, was handled far better than I ever could have imagined. The scenes with Huey were very well handled and done perfectly. I always did like Huey and Lavender. Interesting that everything resolved in that particular part of the plot was established when we first enter GDC. Excellent foreshadowing and writing.

 

I've complained about certain music choices, mostly the gym fight and a couple other fight music choices, but overall the new music is good. (Madelis' battle theme was like a character in itself and I always wanted to write a review for Rejuv since playing last year. Alas, that didn't get to happen. So I will mention it here.) Especially the stuff playing in Path 1 and 2. The third layer's soundtrack was on freaking point.

 

[SoulN7]

16 hours ago, Dausk said:

So me and many other posters on this site love to constantly bitch and whine about the state of the game. I thought that this overflow of negativity would be discouraging and quite upsetting to the otherwise diligent developers of the game. Therefore, I invite people to post something you LOVE about V13. Feel free to go into as much detail you desire.

 

Personally, I found all the new regional forms to look and work fantastically and has made me want to try all of them out; everything about route 4 was an amazing idea, it gives off a soothing ambience and offers much utility; and the early game rewrites were critical to my enjoyment of future character interactions.

I really like the change of events, like First Gym before helping Melia in G. Forest or Melia being nice since Blacksteeple beginning, her behavior as "Emma" makes more sense. I really love giving MOOOORE dialogue choices to the main character, giving him/her/them more character development and more emotions (like with Mom's death in Blacksteeple or with Melia's "death"). The fact that my character decides to use "Willow" as his "local hero name", to remember Marianette, was actually a good choice.

Edited July 24, 2021 by S7rife

[7ravens]

Story-wise I think this game has improved tremendously, especially early on. The old chapters 1-6 felt like a pretty bad pokemon fan-fic but the story has really been cleaned up a lot. The way characters are written like venam, ren, and melia are way more consistent with how they become later on in the game. Several of the team xen admins like geara, madelis, and natasia have way more personality now. 

Gameplay-wise:

I've currently replayed the game up the end of chapter 12 on intense. I can say for certain that the game is MUCH harder than it used to be. Personally, I think it's a good thing since I always play games on the hardest settings and I'm always up for the challenge. Although I will say that there are a number of fights that are bordering on  far too unfair (new zetta+geara and new puppet master on intense is what comes to mind immediately for me). Those fights didn't really seem to be very well play-tested imo. However for the majority of fights (probably 90%+ of them) I feel that the new difficulty is very good and really challenges the player into using mons and strategy they would never consider usually. I've been amazed by how at points in the game my best mons were a meowstic and a hariyama. 

[Horyzon]

I cheesed the Puppet Master fight with Flash lmao.

[Lillietea]

I, like many other people, really love how the early- and mid-game storyline was changed, it just makes much more sense now! Love how many locations got an overhaul, honestly, even before I thought that Rejuv has the prettiest locations, and now that's even more true! Even though I haven't used Aevian mons much I love the designs of the ones I've seen so far.

Now onto the stuff that I liked the most: I absolutely adore how MC introduced themselves to Volta, smirk, Marianette's nickname and all! Love the Team Xen interactions among themselves, especially our first meeting with them at the HQ, it's just sooooo epic, I had goosebumps!

 

Spoiler

On a more spoilery topic, I loved the protags' backstory, notably the fact how all of them have their own personalities and how the whole scene makes you feel

And the music is fantastic, like usual!

[Brauvo]

I recently finished chapter 12 and wow. This was beautiful before, but the changes really made this a great chapter. A lot of the gunk was removed, like how annoying the ship was. More on Melia and her Emma persona was detailed. There are slight changes here and there to the lore. This was just a great experience and is worthy to be praised. 

[Mia789]

I started replaying the game after finishing chapter 15 in my original playtrough and I must say I love the change of the early chapters. The early chapters were a little dragging for me and character development and pacing didnt make much sense for me. But now It is just great. I love nearly every change except maybe

Spoiler

the bossbattle against the guardevoir and other rifts. Maybe i am bad but I didnt stand a chance against Guardevoir except with the Sylveon I didnt want to use originally. Before it was easier for me with a double battle but with the sleep it just sucks and the early chase of the dusknoir I needed so many tries casue i often bumbed against the walls and got caught same with the snowy tangrowth thingy. And the change of Valor Mountain with locked my character and made me start a new run from the start. (Kind of not tested enough in my opinion when I am not the only one that managed to get softlocked. I also couldnt acept any more quests after Kristalline town after a bug with the help center.

Ren was always my favorite character but I disliked how he was treated in the early chapters and how he just betrayed them without much reason switching back. Now it makes much more sense

Spoiler

Seeing all from team Xen interact with eachother was soo nice and gave me a better understanding of them and I love Zetta the most of them I am still sad what happend to him.. I kinda hoped for a happy ending for him. Reminds me a little of Taka in Reborn. Seems my favorites always day in vain.. The new looks and functions of most places is well made and I love the character sprites before each battle they are soo well fit and one of my favorite changes. Finally getting the Megaring is also nice even tough cant really use it I dont have single megastone for one of my team. Thats one of the thigns Reborn kinda does a little better.

The 3 paths were also well made and unique. The story of Erin & Kanon was my favorite and Melia,Rens & Venam's I liked the least story- and playwise. I kinda shipped Erin & Kanon before but now they are definetly one of my favorite pairings (even if they dont end up together they are just sooo cute together) The maincharacters backstory with explainig the diffrent personalities was great and a little freaky.

Simple said big ty for this great game. I love it and the drawings and the music in the extra post.

[SoulN7]

3 hours ago, Brauvo said:

I recently finished chapter 12 and wow. This was beautiful before, but the changes really made this a great chapter. A lot of the gunk was removed, like how annoying the ship was. More on Melia and her Emma persona was detailed. There are slight changes here and there to the lore. This was just a great experience and is worthy to be praised. 

Spoiler

I personally like how now Melia care about other friends, instead of only Venam. In my run, I saw the Red Ribbon being more a symbol of bond with the MC and Venam than only Venam. There is more bonding moments with MC than the previous version, many in the ruined present. Changing opinions about characters now...am I the only one who saw that Madame X was more in shock that she saw MC being alive, confirmed being the Interceptor?

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by S7rife

[Caelliox]

I only just got done with Blacksteeple Castle and... wow, just wow. The early game always stood out to me as the weakest part of the game but it has been reworked so much that it's now up there with the rest of the game imo. The writing of the characters, how the story flows, the areas... everything has seen so much improvement. 

I also love the new music, especially those for Xen grunts, high-ranking grunts and Executives. 

I don't know about Intense getting even more hard but at least winning the hard fights feel even more rewarding than before. Gotta say I got a bit frustrated at being walled by both Giratina/Geara and Narcissa tho, took me while to make some progress at that point. I'm concerned G/Z might be even more of a nightmare now, but so far, fantastic experience.

[SoulN7]

Spoiler

Oh, I forgot: I like the "ultimate battle" in Valor Mountain, which gives more time for Jenner to "be forgiven" for what he did to Melia. I like Zetta being more doubtful about what Geara was doing with Nim's death and Jenner's. It's easier to see his frustation for what Geara was doing. To end this, I actually like MC's return after death, which gives him more "importance to his role as Interceptor". I enjoyed destroying Z/G's team, which every of their Pokémon was at 1 hp, meanwhile mine were full of energy, lol. Actually, is it me or they were nerfed in this "battle?". They took time to beat my Charizard...

 

[The Swordsman]

I really appreciate the hard work done to make the full game better, the gen 8 pokemon which I wouldn't have experienced otherwise and the new crests. You guys did a excellent job.

[R.A.M CXZ 007]

in v13 the thing i like thee most are everything its super cool we go super saiyen on certain someone

[CheddarSouffle]

I just finished playing through all of V13, and I just wanted to praise the devs for their hard work. The cinematic scenes that were amazing pre-V13 were made even better (Chapter 12 in particular), and the finale of V13 was also incredible with an amazing soundtrack as well. I thought Rejuvenation was phenomenal back in V5 when I started, but this is in a league of its own. To the devs and Rejuv team thank you so much!

[VoidlitAudino]

By far my favorite addition to the game in V13 is the little dialogue choices sprinkled throughout both Chapter 15 and all the redone earlier content. You wouldn't think that these tiny choices that don't actually affect anything other than relationship points would have that big of an impact on my play experience, but they really made me feel like a direct participant in the story in a way I didn't before. One of my complaints about the story in V12 was that the silent player character felt completely unnecessary, since they were always just kind of going along with whatever was happening to Melia and the gang without making decisions of their own. Just having the ability to feel like I'm having a dialogue with the events happening on-screen - to be able to actually try to support Ren when he wants to challenge Narcissa, or tell Geara that I think fighting him is a waste of time, or being honest with Melia and Venam that stopping Team Xen by any means necessary is a bigger priority to me than helping them specifically - makes me feel like I have a purpose in the narrative, even if I'm not actually changing anything. In fact, my biggest complaints with V13 are the few chapters where these dialogue options weren't added - namely chapters 7, 10, 13, 14, and the beginning of 11. Suddenly becoming a mute again was a bit jarring after how nice it felt to have a voice. But you know you've made a good design decision when the biggest thing I have to complain about is that I liked the new features so much that I wanted even more of them.

 

And just to list out some of the other things I liked, because V13 is really just phenomenal overall:

• All the detailed character artwork is fantastic, and it's nice getting a better idea of what each character looks like than just what you can see from their tiny overworld sprites. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed, Zumi.
• I absolutely love almost all of the Aevian regional forms. My favorite is definitely the three different varieties of Sandygast and Palossand - not only are they really appealing castle monster designs on their own, but the fact that they correspond to Valor Mountain's three different moods really makes the setting and gameplay feel very interconnected. The Aevian Litwick line is a close second, what with how it switches from Fire to Electric as its technology grows more advanced.
• One of my favorite aspects of any video game is the music, and the new OST for this game did not disappoint in the slightest. I got the Xen Grunt battle theme stuck in my head for at least a week after replaying the early game. Fantastic work from both Zumi and Glitch.
• The early- and mid-game script has been cleaned up considerably, cutting out almost all of the extraneous fluff and bringing out the unique personalities of each character even more than before. A whole bunch of new detailed animations have been added to these segments as well, playing into what I think is Rejuv's greatest strength, its well-crafted cinematic aesthetic. Like with the dialogue choices, all I can really complain about is that these weren't added in even more places.
• There is a backflipping Slugma in Valor Mountain. I'm pretty sure that automatically makes Rejuv objectively the best video game ever made. There is no possible way mankind could ever create anything more wonderful.
• Spoiler

  There's a lot I could say about the new Chapter 15 story, but my absolute favorite section was the player character's Nightmare Realm, with the revelation of what happened during Storm-9 and the dramatic confrontation between the player and the character hosting them. I don't know if I could specifically pin down what about that scene was so impactful to me - I guess it's because it felt almost like a struggle against my character's inner demons? Maybe it just felt more personal because it was specifically relevant to the player character, whereas most of the story focuses primarily on Melia and the rest. And of course, the rest of the new story content was great too. I really liked the character arcs given to Kanon, Nim, and Saki in particular.

   

• A while back I made a big stink about how I didn't like how Bladestar was handled, and while a lot of my complaints still apply to V13 considering that most of that story arc hasn't been touched at all by the rewrites, it does seem like there are plans to let players actually fight for Bladestar's cause in V13.5, given that Florin has taken over the organization and let me join for real. I'm still withholding judgement on that until V13.5 (or whenever that content actually comes out), but at the very least, I greatly appreciate the development team for making an effort to address specific complaints like this.

 

All in all, V13 was fantastic, and in spite of whatever complaints I or anyone else have about the state of the game, there is absolutely no reason for the development team to be discouraged. V12 was already pretty darn good, and V13 was an enormous step up from that, so the game will almost certainly only continue to get better from here. Thank you to Jan and the rest of the team for all their hard work, and I'm eagerly awaiting whatever future versions have in store!

[SoulN7]

Spoiler

Third time I post here an opinion of mine of V13. (SPOILER)

 

Starting Rejuvenation with a Instense Mode character, I found a suspect dialogue in the prologue, in the S.S. Oceana: I decided to take a look in the right side of the first floor, and I found an outside of the ship, with Crescent in the rightest part. If we talk to her, she asks if we remeber her. (I have a screen where she is before Team Xen's attack) Obliviosly, the dialogue will end with some "...", leaving us to finally move. I started to think that actually, it seems like Crescent has still some "thoughts" on the character, despite we actually don't remember anything. Like showed in MC's Nightmare Realm's path, Crescent was the best friend of our character and he/she/them decided to do the ultimate sacrifice to save her. From that, we don't know what happened to her, but it seems like she went trough a lot, only in the attempt to take back to life us, not the other students. Only our character. I actually felt sorry for Crescent, in the flashback with her and Nancy, which seems like the first got in panic. A cold and enigmatic character like Crescent doing like that? I never expected so soon something like that. I really enjoyed knowing finally the first few "character development paths" of Crescent. Is it possible that MC is the true weakness of her? I'll let you remember what she said when our past counterpart was finally revived: "I do that just for us, to be together" (maybe I'll took some screens with the help of my backup, I remember she told something like that)

 

So, I hope more moments and truths discovered about Crescent's story, I like her character.

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by S7rife