Originally posted by SotiCoto:

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Gotta love that Steam censorship...

Originally posted by fllthdcrb:

Gotta love that Steam censorship...

Ah. Right. Sorry. Sometimes I forget to cens0r-bypass properly.
Steam really does like adding extra hurdles for me to jump over. ¬_¬
I've fixed it now.

I get you. Those action scenes were like punch-porn. Kasai and Tomitake action scenes were more grounded, but I cringed whenever they talked for the 246th time about how beautifully deadly Akasaka's punches were.

I guess. But honestly, I've seen far worse. In I/O, for instance, there are multiple scenes with a certain protagonist fighting with guns, in a similarly invincible manner. But if Akasaka's scenes are "punch porn", then they are soft-core, while this other character's are hard-core gun porn! 😆 By which I mean, it goes into excruciating detail about what kind of gun he's using, how it works, how he handles it, etc.

Originally posted by fllthdcrb:

I guess. But honestly, I've seen far worse. In I/O, for instance, there are multiple scenes with a certain protagonist fighting with guns, in a similarly invincible manner. But if Akasaka's scenes are "punch porn", then they are soft-core, while this other character's are hard-core gun porn! 😆 By which I mean, it goes into excruciating detail about what kind of gun he's using, how it works, how he handles it, etc.

I don't know what I/O is that you're referring to... but sounds like the same sorta thing.

Did you also note that Akasaka got his own sprite even in the previous arc when he was, at best, only tangential to the plot? And he actually has two completely separate sprites in this last arc, which is one more than the series protagonist (who admittedly didn't even get a sprite until the Answer arcs).

Obviously 07's message for the entirety of Higurashi is that violence is bad, except when Akasaka does it, in which case it is awesome.
Actually, that whole message was screwed up for the series. Apparently it is badwrong to kill people, but okay to inflict GBH and possibly permanent injury on them with traps. The moralising by 07's little dev segments sounded like someone who did a Batman run of Undertale (i.e. it counts as pacifist if you beat them to within an inch of death).
Nevermind that everything might possibly have been resolved by merely talking to Takano if they'd only figured out her role in events sooner (like before the protag ever showed up).
BUT I've gone horribly off topic in my own thread...

Yeah... the Akasaka scenes broke immersion horribly with their fan-gushing.

I don't think they could have resolved the situation by merely talking with Takano. The point was that Takano had such a strong resolve that she wouldn't balk at massacring a whole town to prove her point... if so many deaths didn't deter her, I'm very sure that a speech about friendship and trust wouldn't have done the trick either.

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

I don't know what I/O is that you're referring to... but sounds like the same sorta thing.

It's another visual novel. Completely different genre.

Did you also note that Akasaka got his own sprite even in the previous arc when he was, at best, only tangential to the plot?

He may be tangential to the plot, but Akasaka's appearance in "Minagoroshi-hen" is a hope spot for Rika, given how important he was to her. I don't think it would have done to not show him. It was one thing when he was the viewpoint character, but another altogether from her perspective.

And he actually has two completely separate sprites in this last arc, which is one more than the series protagonist (who admittedly didn't even get a sprite until the Answer arcs).

Really? I'm not sure what you mean by that. Poses? Expressions? Clothes? Those all vary. If we go by clothes, which seems the most likely thing you mean, I only see one set for Akasaka. Meanwhile, Hanyuu has both her miko outfit and school uniform.

Are you using 07th Mod? If so, then note that, to the extent there are additional sprites for any character, that was Alchemist's doing, not Ryukishi07's.

Obviously 07's message for the entirety of Higurashi is that violence is bad, except when Akasaka does it, in which case it is awesome.

I don't see that. There are several cases of violence portrayed in the series. For instance:

• The Onigafuchi Guardians were rather violent. This was justified as a necessary part of the efforts to protect the village against the despotic actions of the government. As I recall, what was bad about them was more the illegality of some of their actions, as well as the over-the-top anger some of them had (because it ceased to be a useful emotion and turned them into the proverbial demons that cause tragedy throughout the story).
  
• In "Minagoroshi-hen", when Satoko finally decides to ask for the others to save her from Teppei, she ends up fighting him, albeit briefly and ineffectively. No one said she's wrong for doing so; arguably, Rika even encouraged it. (Having her say, "Help me!", right in front of Teppei was probably not a good way to handle the situation, but that's another issue.)
  
• The club members fought the Yamainu at the end of "Minagoroshi-hen". Well, they did make sure not to kill any of them, but it still counts as violence, you know?
  
• And how can we forget the epic battle between the Yamainu and the club members that spans a good chunk of "Matsuribayashi-hen", with Akasaka not the least bit involved? I don't know about you, but I found it pretty awesome. Mostly for how they thoroughly outwitted a highly trained military unit. (Is it realistic? Probably not, but who cares?)

Actually, that whole message was screwed up for the series. Apparently it is badwrong to kill people, but okay to inflict GBH and possibly permanent injury on them with traps.

There certainly is a difference. But in any case, I think the whole trap thing isn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. Despite this being a serious story overall, there is quite a bit of comedy, and the traps fall into that, IMO. I mean, how realistic do you think that whole battle is?

I'm also reminded of the Home Alone movies, other stories involving a child defending himself with traps. Obviously, what he does is not something anyone in real life should do. But they're funny and entertaining.

Nevermind that everything might possibly have been resolved by merely talking to Takano if they'd only figured out her role in events sooner (like before the protag ever showed up).

Yeah, no. I don't think there's any way they could have convinced Ms. God Complex to just let her grandfather's precious research go. The best thing for her may be what happens in the bonus scene you get for connecting all the Fragments in the correct order. You should see it yourself, but if you really don't want to bother, it takes place just before the train accident that killed her parents. A mysterious woman* shows up on the way to her friend's house. The woman asks Miyoko if she wants to live or die, to which she replies that of course she wants to live. But then out of curiosity, she asks, "What if I want to die?" "Then you'll get a flag from the kid's meal." Miyoko decides it's okay to die, because she'll be with them. On the train, it looks like the accident is going to happen. Cut to evening, and the family returns home safe and sound, and presumably her life goes on as it should have. How? Who knows? But the same narrator from the purple void* is revealed to be the one manipulating fate. Then there's a message from Ryukishi07 thanking everyone for completing the story, encouraging then to play around with it, etc.

*Again, pretty sure I know who this is, but I won't say.

Originally posted by fllthdcrb:

Really? I'm not sure what you mean by that. Poses? Expressions? Clothes? Those all vary. If we go by clothes, which seems the most likely thing you mean, I only see one set for Akasaka. Meanwhile, Hanyuu has both her miko outfit and school uniform.

Poses. I mean if they want to change facial expression, for instance, it is quite easy to change just the facial features. If they want to change clothing it takes a little more, but they still adapt it to the existing posture of the sprite so they don't have to remake the entire thing.
But for Akasaka, he has an entirely reposed second character image which would need to have been made from scratch.

Are you using 07th Mod? If so, then note that, to the extent there are additional sprites for any character, that was Alchemist's doing, not Ryukishi07's.

Mod? What mod?

There certainly is a difference. But in any case, I think the whole trap thing isn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. Despite this being a serious story overall, there is quite a bit of comedy, and the traps fall into that, IMO. I mean, how realistic do you think that whole battle is?

Very little in the series is realistic. That isn't particularly relevant.
What I'm getting at is that they're only counting it as violence when it results in a death. Like there is some sort of magical line that only gets drawn when the person you've beaten black and blue actually snuffs it.

Yeah, no. I don't think there's any way they could have convinced Ms. God Complex to just let her grandfather's precious research go.

Who said anything about letting the research go? I mean if they'd made a concerted effort to get to know her motivations and relate to her better, before she made that deal to destroy the village, then she might have seen that for the sham it was. Who even knows how many possibilities there might have been before she became desperate (and infected).

The best thing for her may be what happens in the bonus scene you get for connecting all the Fragments in the correct order. You should see it yourself, but if you really don't want to bother

*Taps the Achievement box*
Seen it. And that outcome was pure whimsy on the part of 07 without any kind of direct input from the main cast. It can't honestly be regarded as a plausible outcome.

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

Poses. I mean if they want to change facial expression, for instance, it is quite easy to change just the facial features. If they want to change clothing it takes a little more, but they still adapt it to the existing posture of the sprite so they don't have to remake the entire thing.
But for Akasaka, he has an entirely reposed second character image which would need to have been made from scratch.

Fair enough. But then, Hanyuu actually has two poses as well. Whenever she's in her school uniform, her arms are folded behind her back, but while in the miko outfit, her arms at at her sides, with the left hand visible. Admittedly not as big a difference as with Akasaka, and it's 100% correlated with the clothes, but still bigger than a mere change of expression. I guess we can say you're half right about this.

Mod? What mod?

It's a mod that makes the Steam version more like Alchemist's PS3 port (except music, for some reason). Quite a big change, as there is a whole new set of backgrounds and character art, as well as OP videos, event CGs, voice acting, and lip sync, and the text is in ADV mode (text box) instead of the original NVL mode (full-screen). In short, Alchemist made Higurashi's presentation a lot like that of a regular VN, for better or for worse.

Who said anything about letting the research go? I mean if they'd made a concerted effort to get to know her motivations and relate to her better, before she made that deal to destroy the village, then she might have seen that for the sham it was. Who even knows how many possibilities there might have been before she became desperate (and infected).

I suppose so. But then, they didn't even know until the end of "Minagoroshi-hen" that she was their enemy (and only Rika and Hanyuu even knew there was an enemy before then), as she kept that stuff secret. Sure, she was always a little creepy, what with telling everyone who would listen about the village's dark past in that sensationalized way, but no one thought of it as a problem; she was just a creepy person who liked to entertain young people, not enough to suspect her of being involved in murders, much less wanting to massacre the entire village (and she didn't even necessarily want to do that at the start).

And it's not like the village council could just interrogate everyone who moved there, just in case they wanted to do something terrible or something. That wouldn't be very welcoming. Plus, there was already an official veil of secrecy around the research before she even arrived to start it, so I don't see much chance of anyone not directly part of it finding out without her deliberately telling them.

Which only leaves the possibility of them getting to know her as they should any other villager. That was, perhaps, a failing on the part of the villagers. But even if that would have helped, no one could suspect what she would end up doing (except maybe those people in Tokyo). So, I have to conclude it's not fair to expect them to have tried to stop her from the beginning.

*Taps the Achievement box*
Seen it. And that outcome was pure whimsy on the part of 07 without any kind of direct input from the main cast. It can't honestly be regarded as a plausible outcome.

No, but it would still have been the best thing for her. Her parents dying in that accident was the ultimate trigger for her life going downhill. Take that away, and she would have turned out far differently. And this sort of speculation about what could have been—this "pure whimsy", as you call it—is exactly what Ryukishi07 wanted out of us, after all. That's what he said in his message at the end of the bonus, and he wrote and sanctioned so many alternate scenarios.

Originally posted by fllthdcrb:

I suppose so. But then, they didn't even know until the end of "Minagoroshi-hen" that she was their enemy (and only Rika and Hanyuu even knew there was an enemy before then), as she kept that stuff secret.

They could have known with only a little effort.

Putting aside whether Hanyuu can report back to Rika the things she sees when they move separately, there was one event that either of them needed to witness to make it obvious that Miyo was up to something. Admittedly it is a tricky one.
That event is Miyo dumping the corpse of her former lover by the roadside... which, annoyingly enough, takes place about the time that Rika was doing her ritual thing for the festival.
BUT... and I can't stress this enough... Rika went through the cycle hundreds of times. And she was fully aware that the last death event happened, AND where the corpse was found. All she needed to do was to get out of doing the ritual just ONCE in order to witness the corpse-dumping... OR as previously suggested, get Hanyuu to scout out the scene.

If she had bothered to do that in one of the earlier cycles, Rika could have identified Miyo as at least someone whose course needed to be changed and could have taken action towards that end.
But it is obvious she never did.
In fact, for all her talk in the later arcs about having given up on trying to make a difference, this makes it seem like she never gave a damn in the first place.

No, but it would still have been the best thing for her. Her parents dying in that accident was the ultimate trigger for her life going downhill. Take that away, and she would have turned out far differently. And this sort of speculation about what could have been—this "pure whimsy", as you call it—is exactly what Ryukishi07 wanted out of us, after all. That's what he said in his message at the end of the bonus, and he wrote and sanctioned so many alternate scenarios.

Not as good as if it had rained money from the sky and a magical unicorn and five technicolour puppies showed up to bring her a hundred thousand kids meal flags... ¬_¬

It is funny, but one of my own rules comes into play here: If you've already committed to an impossible fantasy, there is no point even having restrictions.

Though now I think about it, if Miyoko's parents hadn't been killed, the Irie Clinic would never have been set up, the Mountain Dogs wouldn't have been there, that kid would never have been kidnapped... The dam plan might have gone ahead despite the murder, and the village might have been sunk. And even assuming the dam plan had been cancelled due to the murder, Satoko killing her mother and stepfather would still have happened and she wouldn't have got any treatment for it, so she would have gone final L5 and probably killed herself.

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

Putting aside whether Hanyuu can report back to Rika the things she sees when they move separately, there was one event that either of them needed to witness to make it obvious that Miyo was up to something. Admittedly it is a tricky one.
That event is Miyo dumping the corpse of her former lover by the roadside... which, annoyingly enough, takes place about the time that Rika was doing her ritual thing for the festival.
BUT... and I can't stress this enough... Rika went through the cycle hundreds of times. And she was fully aware that the last death event happened, AND where the corpse was found. All she needed to do was to get out of doing the ritual just ONCE in order to witness the corpse-dumping... OR as previously suggested, get Hanyuu to scout out the scene.

If she had bothered to do that in one of the earlier cycles, Rika could have identified Miyo as at least someone whose course needed to be changed and could have taken action towards that end.
But it is obvious she never did.

Okay, you have an excellent point here. Hanyuu could easily have watched the event. No idea why she never did. It's a plot hole. Actually, now that I think about it, a character who can go anywhere and observe anything that takes place where she is, can easily break the story.

Not as good as if it had rained money from the sky and a magical unicorn and five technicolour puppies showed up to bring her a hundred thousand kids meal flags... ¬_¬

Okay, fine. The best thing for her among the things we were shown. Happy now? 😆

It is funny, but one of my own rules comes into play here: If you've already committed to an impossible fantasy, there is no point even having restrictions.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Good stories, even impossible fantasies, still need rules (i.e. restrictions). Without rules, there are unlimited ways to avoid conflict, which is generally thought to be an essential part of a good story. Even if the audience—or the author—isn't aware of them, there are often still rules at work. Of course, there are plenty of bad stories, but I won't call a story bad just because it's an "impossible fantasy"; there are still myriad ways to make it work.

(Also, I'm refraining from stating any opinion on whether Higurashi should be considered a "good story". That's beside the point here.)

Though now I think about it, if Miyoko's parents hadn't been killed, the Irie Clinic would never have been set up, the Mountain Dogs wouldn't have been there, that kid would never have been kidnapped... The dam plan might have gone ahead despite the murder, and the village might have been sunk. And even assuming the dam plan had been cancelled due to the murder, Satoko killing her mother and stepfather would still have happened and she wouldn't have got any treatment for it, so she would have gone final L5 and probably killed herself.

All true. But it doesn't really negate my point. Miyoko would probably be living a happy life in that scenario. I never said it would be the best thing for the other main characters.

Originally posted by fllthdcrb:

Okay, you have an excellent point here. Hanyuu could easily have watched the event. No idea why she never did. It's a plot hole. Actually, now that I think about it, a character who can go anywhere and observe anything that takes place where she is, can easily break the story.

Funny thing is we're actually shown that Hanyuu can do that, because she was doing it with Satoko's inkblot test in the clinic. AND it was explicitly stated that she wanders about the village on her own, even significant distances away from Rika.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Good stories, even impossible fantasies, still need rules (i.e. restrictions). Without rules, there are unlimited ways to avoid conflict, which is generally thought to be an essential part of a good story. Even if the audience—or the author—isn't aware of them, there are often still rules at work. Of course, there are plenty of bad stories, but I won't call a story bad just because it's an "impossible fantasy"; there are still myriad ways to make it work.

The random old lady appearing out of nowhere to advise Miyoko with future knowledge still qualifies as a fantastical solution to a mundane problem. It still qualifies as something which has no precedent within the story and thus destroys immersion... most probably because there is no solution to Miyoko's problem that doesn't at least require a precognitive agent.
It happened long before Rika was even conceived, so it can't be her doing.

I think the very closest to an internally consistent explanation that I could dream up for it would be that Higurashi and Umineko happen in the same continuity, and we're dealing with an Umineko-style witch.

But putting that aside, the suspension of disbelief has already been stretched too far... and past that point there is no value in pretending we're still playing by the rules. i.e. We're in fantasy mode. If precognitive witches are a thing, why not unicorns?

All true. But it doesn't really negate my point. Miyoko would probably be living a happy life in that scenario. I never said it would be the best thing for the other main characters.

Given 07 tried to justify it by saying they wanted to "save everyone", I believe it is definitely worth pointing out that you can't save Miyoko without sacrificing Satoko... or at least not with a quick solution like this. It would need a replacement plot to bring the Irie Clinic back.
Point being that 07's premise was flawed. Everyone can't be saved within a single timeline.

Glad to see I'm not the only one bothered by this, even if I'm several months late.

Originally posted by Ryukishi07:

His moves were well-trained ones, and showed no mercy against evil. They were as destructive as armor-piercing ammunition.

Originally posted by Ryukishi07:

The power of Akasaka's punches were so incredible that they simply broke the man's bones in his attempt to block them!!

I thought the final fight scene in Tsumihoroboshi was a bit of a mood-breaker too, but this is just ridiculous. It's like the VN turns into a batman comic all of a sudden.