Also I think Kilika would have no reason to hide her identity to the point of wearing a motorcycle helmet at the movie theater.
Incidentally the movie I mentioned uses BGM from Nayuta.
Speaking of which, all these Garden Administrators need to apologize to Noi for dragging her title through the mud.
SpoilerIntermissionIf you watch the film "Memory of Climbers" about mountain climbers during the Intermission, you'll run into Hermes who tells you it's her dream to go climbing those mountains. With the comment during the race quest that her bike features some nonstandard parts, it sounds a lot like Angelica.Also I think Kilika would have no reason to hide her identity to the point of wearing a motorcycle helmet at the movie theater.
Incidentally the movie I mentioned uses BGM from Nayuta.
Speaking of which, all these Garden Administrators need to apologize to Noi for dragging her title through the mud.
It's okay, we have Blue Noi (or as I prefer to think of her, Kiseki Sylphrena) to balance things out.
Hermes still has the twin issues of having the wrong hairstyle and color for Angie so there's no real reason to even suspect it's her in the first place. Also, that is not Shindo Naomi's voice, nor is her VA even attempting to sound like her.
RE: Hermes: If Towa can make her way to Tokyo, then Silhouette could totally have landed on Zemuria, complete with a dye job, I guess.
If there were any doubts about Bergard's identity, they should be blown away at this point after the flashback with Van's training. Gralsritter medallion around his neck and all! I doubt they'd repeat the whole "Barkhorn trains a Stigma-bearing youth" thing again, but I do wonder what brought the two of them together...
It's going to be interesting to see what NISA does with that burst of Grendel Engrish. Not entirely sure what that was trying to convey lol.
RE: Hermes: If Towa can make her way to Tokyo, then Silhouette could totally have landed on Zemuria, complete with a dye job, I guess.
SpoilerChapter 4 endSurprising no one, Risette's an android! Hajimari made it pretty clear that the simulacrum tech was beyond anyone's capabilities at the time, right? Is it made clear if MTSC yoinked the idea from what happened back then, or has not much been said?
SpoilerIntermission day 1 endThis chapter feels like they're making up for cutting out the trip to Ymir back in CS1. Is Longlai a hotsprings town, too?If there were any doubts about Bergard's identity, they should be blown away at this point after the flashback with Van's training. Gralsritter medallion around his neck and all! I doubt they'd repeat the whole "Barkhorn trains a Stigma-bearing youth" thing again, but I do wonder what brought the two of them together...
It's going to be interesting to see what NISA does with that burst of Grendel Engrish. Not entirely sure what that was trying to convey lol.
The good thing about the localization lag is that by the time anyone has to actually make calls on stuff like that, we should have all the context needed to know what's going on and what the best way to render it would be in order to capture the intent of the Japanese.
The Japanese doesn't provide much help, though it does give us the impression that Grendel's ability to appear in the physical world is because it's tethered to Van in some way. The clearer flashback images depict Van being shown something in a book and then we have the black blob of something (Grendel?) surrounded by glyphs that seem to be binding it. It reminds me a lot of what we saw with Kevin at the start of Azure when he restrained the demonized Ernest. His second line in Japanese is something like 'I am the nightmare, and also the beast that consumes nightmares'. It's noteworthy that the pronoun used shifts from ore to ware there and the speech pattern in general becomes more archaic. Just going on what we have at the time of the scene, my thought on how to render it in localization would he to have the main text be in similarly archaic English with the supertitles rendering it in modern English, and keep the two voices as well with the former being getting the echoing effect and being the louder of the two. Whether it was intentional or not, the way it's rendered in English reminds me of the alchemical text that Hellsing made use of for one of its taglines. 'The Bird of Hermes is my name, eat my wings to make me tame'.
Completely unrelated to all of that but part of the same sequence, I was definitely not expecting Maxim of all people to be Yume's absent father. Which makes me want to say I no longer think there's anything suspicious about her sharing Mare's VA and having a name that means 'Dream' since I don't see Maxim as being the secret asshole of the game but... this is Falcom so I'm not quiiiiite ready to let go of that paranoia. Just mostly. xD
Oh, and yes, Longlai/Ronlai is a hot-springs resort (this got mentioned back in Hajimari), it's actually part of the name of the town when it first shows up at the start of Intermission, albeit part that wasn't rendered in romaji.
SpoilerChapter 4 EndRisette's a cyborg actually, but they don't use that term, or at least they haven't yet that I've seen. It's mentioned that she was modified about a year ago and Van speculates that 'a large part' of her is artificial, but not all of her. It's specifically mentioned that MTSC got the technology from studying the Emperor's Simulacrum. That they were able to turn that into workable limbs in about six months is pretty damned impressive, but it's MTSC and they're inherently suspicious so I'd not be surprised to learn that there's more to that development than just being really good at reverse-engineering.
This chapter's just full of surprises. Aside from the above, the last thing I expected to see was hayseed Rocksmith. That's quite the look.
Is there something going on with Quatre and his reluctance to bathe with others? Is this a Wazy situation, or is there something else to it? The other scene at the start of this in the public bath had his chest covered in wraps or bandages, and now here he again doesn't want to join in. Hmm.
Speaking of hotsprings, somewhere in Erebonia, Dorothee is getting extremely hot and bothered and has no idea why. Falcom know exactly what they're doing with some of these Van/Aaron scenes, good grief.
Also, someone should really tell Agnes that the only thing Van's interested in riding is his car. I see you blushing up a storm, girl - please knock it off. Please. Think of poor friend-zone'd classmate-kun.
Sorry for double post.
I think I messed up the tags on the last post, because for some reason the section on chapter 5 is nested inside the section on chapter 4, and it won't let me edit it. That said, the spoiler tags do work, so at least you won't get chapter 5 spoilers from clicking unless you open the section on 5.
Huh, that's really weird. I can't see the editing options for that post either and I have no idea why, and your second post is displaying oddly like it's nested under the first one.
EDIT: And so is mine. I've put in a report with the software developer to see if this is a known bug. I did try looking at the post to see if I could find the editing options (without looking at the content under the tags, because you're ahead of me) and I found that they're hiding under the last spoiler tag but even I can't seem to edit them, the software just gets weird when I try.
SpoilerIntermission day 1 endHEY YOTAKA, WHAT WAS THAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT YUME?!This chapter's just full of surprises. Aside from the above, the last thing I expected to see was hayseed Rocksmith. That's quite the look.
Is there something going on with Quatre and his reluctance to bathe with others? Is this a Wazy situation, or is there something else to it? The other scene at the start of this in the public bath had his chest covered in wraps or bandages, and now here he again doesn't want to join in. Hmm.
Speaking of hotsprings, somewhere in Erebonia, Dorothee is getting extremely hot and bothered and has no idea why. Falcom know exactly what they're doing with some of these Van/Aaron scenes, good grief.
Also, someone should really tell Agnes that the only thing Van's interested in riding is his car. I see you blushing up a storm, girl - please knock it off. Please. Think of poor friend-zone'd classmate-kun.
Yes, yes I saw that. God fucking dammit Falcom...
- Yeah, he also gets flustered when he tries to go in when he thinks it's empty and is surprised when Van turns out to be there. It's possible there's something that happend to Quatre when he was one of DG's victims (which Falcom keeps dancing around) but it's also possible that he's just really sensitive about being seen even semi-naked. Bearing in mind that he was one of the children in Paradise, it could be psychological trauma with nothing more spiritual involved.
Oh, and yeah, Van's ability to sense the higher elements from the start of the game had me and floofy both going 'Well then!' as soon as that came up. The cleaner flashback images we just got make it clear that something was done to him in the past which probably explains his sensitivity.
- Given Van's obvious love for that truck, I'm surprised he hasn't given it a name. There's a couple NPCs who've named their cars (Giordano and Yunifa) so it would seem like the kind of thing Van would do. Maybe he named the original truck and he's still too broken up over losing it to Walter...
Oh dear. Please let me know if you would like me to try to delete the post to see if that unscrambles things.
I'm becoming increasingly aware of Endwalker's imminent release, so I need to get moving on this, so I can no life that when it comes out!
I guess we can breathe easy about Yume...? Still, Mare being able to hack people is certainly bizarre.
Playable Judith at last! And step aside, Arios; you think summoning a mountain top for your S-Craft is hot shit? How about an entire god damn city? Seriously, as S-Crafts go, that one ranks up there as being totally off the wall.
I'm kind of disappointed it took so long to get to Shizuna, since she seems like she's a ton of fun. I just hope my alignment will be such that I get her as an option...whenever that mechanic finally comes into play.
Also, I must confess, I totally forgot that Arioch hadn't appeared yet. If you can even call that "hey, I'm still in this game, remember?" moment an appearance. Hopefully more from him soon.
Edit:
Deleted the post that was cursed by Campanella and recopying the content here.
Some belated remarks on chapter 4 and 5
cleared chapter 5 last night and have some theory-related thoughts (as opposed to comments on the writing orz) so I thought I would write them up here instead of on fusetter.
That was a huge paragraph but at least the formatting shouldn't summon one of the 77 devils now.
Oh Yotaka we may have a name for the islands to the south..
I blame Melchior for that post weirdness personally... I'm in the middle of Chapter 5 right now so I'll save responding to the end-of-chapter stuff for a bit. Let's see, I mentioned my thoughts on Van's perception before and with the events of Intermission we have a clearer picture (har har) of what might be involved there, vis a vis Quatre.
Oh Yotaka we may have a name for the islands to the south..
During Chapter 5? I'll keep an eye out for it. My guess is it must refer to the south because we're already told about city-states in that part of the continent and I very much doubt it's gonna refer to Not!Japan off in the east.
That said, one thing I noticed in Chapter 4 was a comment that astronomy was practiced in 'a ruined country in the far east'. Say, didn't Towa mention back in CS1 that her family has roots in the east and that her love of astronomy came from her grandfather...? xD
SpoilerIntermission endWell, after I rolled my eyes in Hajimari at Juno being destroyed with no casualties, they go and end the chapter like this. They're not kidding around with this game. Barring any magical reversals, of course. That said, I remain unconvinced of Dingo's death. The image of Gerard confronting him in the promo stuff is not something I've forgotten, so unless that was one of their made up images or a flashback or something, he is very much alive, as far as I'm concerned.I guess we can breathe easy about Yume...? Still, Mare being able to hack people is certainly bizarre.
Playable Judith at last! And step aside, Arios; you think summoning a mountain top for your S-Craft is hot shit? How about an entire god damn city? Seriously, as S-Crafts go, that one ranks up there as being totally off the wall.
I'm kind of disappointed it took so long to get to Shizuna, since she seems like she's a ton of fun. I just hope my alignment will be such that I get her as an option...whenever that mechanic finally comes into play.
Also, I must confess, I totally forgot that Arioch hadn't appeared yet. If you can even call that "hey, I'm still in this game, remember?" moment an appearance. Hopefully more from him soon.
Edit:
SpoilerFirst few mins of Chapter 5Welp. Falcom shut me the fuck up. God damn. RIP Dingo.
Yeah... that.
- Pour one out to Dingo, who might be the most stupendous badass in the series for standing there and recording it happen so everyone knows just who needs to be hunted down and brought to justice for the act, and telling Dantes off in the process.
- On the subject of Dingo and things shown in the OP, yeah, I remember noticing that was him and wondering what the context was. Would never have guessed what it turned out to be. The fight with Shizuna is definitely a bit of OP movie trickery though. It happens, but not like we saw it in the movie and Judith tells everyone off before we can actually fight her with her golden eyes. By the way, what exactly is she unifying with, to make that work?! She obviously got the idea from watching Rean but she doesn't have his explanation for where the power is coming from.
And a thought or two from Chapter 5's Edith segment and the first day of post-Edith content.
- I got a little chuckle out of Barkhorn's proper introduction having him literally tell some punks that their kung-fu is weak.
- So... Garden is a new group formed from the remnants of the Moonlight Horse and the DG Cult. I... wasn't expecting that. Kinda takes them out of the running for having Secret Sept-Terrion Knowledge and definitely puts the last nail in the coffin of my Alamut idea. Though they do seem to have a collection of artifacts that the Gralsritter are no doubt keen to take off their hands, which I'm guessing came mostly from the Moonlight Horse side.
- I see I was right about the third church figure being part of the Papal Guard but I didn't expect to learn that they have their own special operations group. One that's named Iscariot, no less. I wonder if someone at Falcom is a Hellsing fan...
- Almata turning the combined forces of everyone showing up in Oracion ready to kick their asses into a game is jaw-droppingly brazen, but they've got the fantasy nuclear bomb and nobody wants it to go off, even the people in town with less than clean reasons to be interested. I can see this getting very interesting.
- Ended up with everyone but Heiyue unlocked as a potential partner, so I have a save to go back to later to check out most of the alternate options but I went with Ikaruga for my team-up because I wanted to see them in action the most; I'll probably do an Ouroboros run next. Arioch showing up randomly in the middle of a fight scared the crap out of me and I had to burn a Zeram Powder to revive Agnes and use her S-Break to recover after he got two turns in a row and killed three quarters of my party before I could act.
Yeah... that.
SpoilerIntermision ending/Chapter 5 start- The way you hear that Creil was destroyed and then actually see it happen was on one level kind of odd and on another level really effective, for pretty much the reason you articulate. First you hear about it and think 'Oh shit, they really did that, didn't they?' because this is Kuro and you're not gonna put it past Falcom. Then they cut to just beforehand and you're both wondering if maybe they're going to show how it wasn't as bad as the report made out (because Falcom did that with Juno) and at the same time you're dreading Falcom proving you wrong... and then they prove you wrong. And just to rub salt in the wound after making you watch Gerard more or less literally nuke a village and kill everyone we met there but two, they make that the title screen image for the next chunk of the game.- Pour one out to Dingo, who might be the most stupendous badass in the series for standing there and recording it happen so everyone knows just who needs to be hunted down and brought to justice for the act, and telling Dantes off in the process.
- On the subject of Dingo and things shown in the OP, yeah, I remember noticing that was him and wondering what the context was. Would never have guessed what it turned out to be. The fight with Shizuna is definitely a bit of OP movie trickery though. It happens, but not like we saw it in the movie and Judith tells everyone off before we can actually fight her with her golden eyes. By the way, what exactly is she unifying with, to make that work?! She obviously got the idea from watching Rean but she doesn't have his explanation for where the power is coming from.
So, do we know if that was an actual nuke? Or at least the Kiseki equivalent of one. There was talk of radiation, right? Although Dingo's camera obviously wasn't irradiated. Also, how the hell did Gerard even survive being at ground zero of that really nicely animated mass murder? Seriously, I think that's the best looking sequence in the game thus far.
Isn't Rean using Spirit Unification in Hajimari? What's he unifying with there?
Yeah, the state of camera did leave me kind of scratching my head.
I can't be the only one who kind of rolled their eyes at the sudden tragic backstory that we got from those two. I'm sorry guys, but you work for a guy who just murdered who knows how many people in Creil, not to mention have enough blood on your own hands, so I'm not exactly shedding any tears for you. I do like that Aaron pretty much voiced that to Alexanndre, at least.
I'm wondering what the deal with our two new Dominion's Stigma is. The coloured symbol is something new.
Speaking of Stigmas, I'm seriously starting to quesiton if Barkhorn really does have his stigma anymore, and maybe Gaius really was telling the truth. He's obviously not using it in his S-Craft and I have to wonder what the point would be in hiding that he still has one, when he's not exactly being secretive about who he is.
Edit: 60fps and animation skip patch? Why yes, I will take that, thank you Falcom!
SpoilerThat thing in chapter 5I don't think it was a nuke. While it's clearly meant as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, the text is not clear if the actual device involved matter-antimatter annihilation reaction, nuclear fission or fusion, or something based on Orbal mechanics that doesn't work in this universe. In any case there's no way a consumer camera in close quarters would have survived the intense heat released by such a weapon, let alone the radiation. (I tend to think it would knock out the orbal cloud network too, but who knows.) So I suspect Falcom may have pulled a fast one there (TBD).
Yeah, it's definitely a metaphor.
And yeah, the camera surviving is on the nose, because it was right there with Dingo at ground zero and I can't think of a remotely plausible explanation for how it didn't get vaporized instantly.
SpoilerChapter 5 Field trip Day 1 and 2 endGotta say, the game continues to defy my expectations. Never did I ever expect that we'd be given the choice to actually kill the enemy. If it happens a third time in the same circumstances, it's going to feel a little contrived, but regardless, seeing Van just straight up stab (not sure how that works, since his weapon doesn't seem to have sharp edges) Alexandre was a shock. I accidentally selected the other for Viola before I checked what the options were, so at the time I was wondering what I'd missed. That said, I do wonder what this means for the next game. I can only assume they won't really show up much if you saved them, as it'd probably be too much of a chore to account for every possibility. Or maybe it's just a flesh wound, and they'll be back regardless.I can't be the only one who kind of rolled their eyes at the sudden tragic backstory that we got from those two. I'm sorry guys, but you work for a guy who just murdered who knows how many people in Creil, not to mention have enough blood on your own hands, so I'm not exactly shedding any tears for you. I do like that Aaron pretty much voiced that to Alexanndre, at least.
I'm wondering what the deal with our two new Dominion's Stigma is. The coloured symbol is something new.
Speaking of Stigmas, I'm seriously starting to quesiton if Barkhorn really does have his stigma anymore, and maybe Gaius really was telling the truth. He's obviously not using it in his S-Craft and I have to wonder what the point would be in hiding that he still has one, when he's not exactly being secretive about who he is.
I was going to save all my Chapter 5 commentary for when I finished it (I'm at the terminal phase of the events now) but I had to jump in after I saw you echoing my thoughts exactly on some stuff earlier on.
After seeing Viola's death I went back to my pre-fight save because I just had to know what happened if you chose to spare her. I was honestly certain that Melchior would show up to shank her for failing and possibly to pay her back for almost gunning him down 'by accident' in Tharbad. But no, we have a distinct split where we have characters who can be either alive or dead now, and presumably this is going to be tracked in the future. It's not quite Toby Fox-levels of consequences but I'm quite impressed that Falcom's done this.
On the Stigma issues, yeah, Barkhorn says he doesn't have it any more and he's clearly not hiding his survival from Ouroboros at least (since he openly chats with Elroy) but we've already gotten lies about his situation, the whole 'How do you 'transfer' something described as being literally carved into your soul?' and he does mention that one reason he cut off contact with his students was to be a 'trump card' but he doesn't say for what or for who. So I think the jury's still out on that one.
What color symbol were you referring to with Celes and Rion? I noticed a really cool visual effect with the air around them rippling when they manifest theirs but the rest of the effect looked pretty much like we've seen before. I think the only one that looks really distinct is Gaius' where the mark appears to be hovering way behind and somewhat above him, where all the other instances have the Stigma almost appearing to grow from the back like wings.
Oh, and some follow-on stuff for the next day.
Also, we can add this to the list of 'Gralsritter, you have one job to do...' since they managed to miss yet another remote village with a super-dangerous artifact. On that note, Olympia is pretty much the worst aspects of Wazy's past combined with Renne's status as a Pater-Mater test subject.
And on other notes, Zect Arms being really suspicious with these tests giving Shard Skills to monsters, Iscariot being pretty similar to the Hellsing group they're probably named after (imagine an entire organization of pre-character development Kevins...) and I really wasn't expecting a boss fight as part of the story sequence in the afternoon. Also, while I haven't gotten the exact explanation for what she's doing, the way that Agnes seems to have conspired a way on very short notice to get children out of Oracion just in case is amazing.
I should be finishing the Chapter as a whole either tonight or tomorrow, won't be able to start until later so it'll depend on how long the final segment is.
