Board 8 > Let me talk about Umineko 2!!! *still continue to not spoil me!!*

(+) Yeah! (+)

the best part of finishing something
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GANON1025 posted...

Erika is a (deliberately I imagine) frustrating element in this game

https://imgur.com/a9spk96

I didn't find erika frustrating, I thought she was pretty entertaining and fairly badass at times.

then again I'm a total sociopath so I probably identified with her more than most.
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Entertaining? Maybe at times. The frustration comes from her being an obviously-unwanted person around, so she just uses powers to do what she wants. And of course all the super-smart "i just love the puzzle" personality garbage sucks as well.

There's a real lack of finesse with how Bern and Lambadelta are handling this game. From just dropping in a super-smart detective piece who can use powers to force herself into the story, to Lambadelta literally just calling characters and getting them to do things.
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Smug Erika is good, but angry Erika is best.
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GANON1025 posted...

personality garbage

Amazing that you somehow managed to tranpose these two words

GANON1025 posted...

all the super-smart "i just love the puzzle" personality garbage sucks as well.

although I fully understand people disliking her, this is in fact the main reason why I do like her.
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glad to have another person aboard the "Erika sucks" train
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Oh, I guess also she has a perfect photographic memory. Wow!

At least Rudolf's amazing and powerful breaking-into-the-study was amusing.
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Oh, you're here. Prepare for nonsense.
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One thing I'll say is that I do sort of appreciate that Erika, being someone not related to the family, is more willing to ask and call people out on things. Like this alibi with Natsuhi. However, I think this is a role that Kyrie already fits pretty well, especially considering she was the one to ask the incriminating question in the first place.
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My name irl is Erika and self-inserting into her was a trip and a half.
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A new character, huh? Dlanor A. Knox.
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I'll admit, Erika and this new character Dlanor are pretty cool in this scene arguing against Beatrice. Part of why I think that is probably because I want the truth of Kinzo's death to finally come out to everyone, so I truly do want them to win.
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<Die the Death!>
<Sentence to Death!>
<The Great Equalizer is Death!!>
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Oh, is Battler going to do something cool...?
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One the one hand, Battler outsmarting Erika at her own game is great. On the other hand, Battler is 100% wrong and now this silly mystery about Kinzo will go on even longer. I got this feeling you get when playing a Phoenix Wright game, and you've already solved something but have to wait for the characters to slowly catch up. I kinda wish I didn't know Kinzo is 100% dead, because then this scene would have been awesome.

And, ugh, is Battler x Beatrice really going to be a thing?
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Wouldn't put it past Kinzo

wouldn't put it past him

wouldn't put it past him

the best
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I see. So Dlanor shouldn't have lost since Kinzo being dead has already been established. But she was basically forced to lose by witches for whatever reason.

Could there be COLLUSION..?
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GANON1025 posted...

I'll admit, Erika and this new character Dlanor are pretty cool in this scene arguing against Beatrice. Part of why I think that is probably because I want the truth of Kinzo's death to finally come out to everyone, so I truly do want them to win.

GANON1025 posted...

One the one hand, Battler outsmarting Erika at her own game is great. On the other hand, Battler is 100% wrong and now this silly mystery about Kinzo will go on even longer. I got this feeling you get when playing a Phoenix Wright game, and you've already solved something but have to wait for the characters to slowly catch up. I kinda wish I didn't know Kinzo is 100% dead, because then this scene would have been awesome.

I think her main value is based in the fact that Battler has always been emotionally weak at trying to actually solve the mystery. he's perfectly fine playing games with beatrice because he doesn't want to suspect any of his friends or family and so he ignores any possible solution to the crime while also refusing to accept the possibility of magic.

erika is a much better detective because she's fully willing to suspect anyone of being the culprit.

ryuukishi in general has this problem where he tries to present the cold and logical characters as "villains" in the story to try and make a point. the issue is that BECAUSE these characters are, by definition, logical, the logic behind what they do pretty much always checks out and so it's very difficult to make them seem like they are fully in the wrong.
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I just hope she's like child Eva, a gimmick for this episode that does not appear again.
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I suppose if I were to write down my "problems" with Erika, they'd be the following:

- She's not even 'real'. Like even in a story with magical beings that may or may not exist, Erika is even below that: a double of Bern that exists solely as her piece. Even more than that, she is an example of Bern and Lambadelta not taking anything seriously and just doing as they will with the game. It'd would be very tough to get invested in Erika at all unless you already liked Bern, which I don't.

- She has a horrible personality. There's the "I only care about the puzzle" mixed with the "I'm better than all of you" holier-than-thou attitude she exudes. But, she's also a little brat who throws tantrums whenever she loses.

- Yes, because she's 'logical' she is willing to ask the hard questions. But does that make a good character? At that point, her worth is as a device to move the plot forward. Which I will admit she can do well at.

But I think these feelings are all intentional. I don't believe I'm supposed to like Erika, and my hope is that (along with Bern and Lambadelta) Battler will eventually get the upper hand.
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I do see what you are saying but for me it just comes back to that scene with Dlanor and Erika against Battler in the scene you were talking about earlier. not that I bring that up because you recently finished it, but for me that's actually one of the specific scenes I'd bring up anyway.

yeah certainly lines like "I WOULDN'T PUT IT PAST KINZO" are a lot more entertaining, but for me I can't get over what is really happening there; Battler is spouting a bunch of dumb nonsense because he's so invested in refusing to look at reality. he abuses the power of rhetoric to try and make unbelievable scenarios sound like they could be plausible, and yet we as the reader already know that none of what he is saying is true. for me that's the kind of person I hate in real life. scumbags who will lie and knowingly spin yarns just to avoid admitting the truth, all while refusing to admit that, in their hearts, they know even they don't believe any of the crap they are spouting.

it's much easier for me to side with erika. at the very least, even if she's not right, she's making decisions based on the best information she has available at the time. every scene where battler is acting cool in the first four episodes is just the same thing; a major hypocrite who refuses to accept that magic is real, but also won't use even one brain cell trying to solve the mystery and would rather keep denying the idea that anyone on the island could possibly be a culprit.

GANON1025 posted...

Yes, because she's 'logical' she is willing to ask the hard questions. But does that make a good character? At that point, her worth is as a device to move the plot forward. Which I will admit she can do well at.

and to respond to this specifically I'll just say, no, that's not what makes her a good character. what makes her a GREAT character is that ryuukishi so desperately put all of this effort trying to make her unlikable because he wanted to write a deconstruction of the mystery genre, and yet at the end of the day the results were still very controversial. the strength of the mystery genre, and the stability provided by having logical rules and detectives that behave in a fashion that makes sense, provides so much value that it was very difficult for him to get every reader to simply throw that away just by making Erika act like a brat.

even as bad as she is, even as annoying as her personality can be, even investing so much time and effort into making her "unlikable" the mystery genre itself is represented in erika as the detective. and for a lot of people that is still better than whatever the hell else ryuukishi is trying to do at times. to me, that is a fascinating thing that is rarely seen in any other works. it's like he unintentionally made a very strong argument against the entire point of his story while attempting to make a strawman. erika was supposed to be strawman and she instead turned out to be the personification for why the rules of the detective are needed to arrive at a real conclusion in this story.
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man I just like her because she's a good heel, that and pirate hat. Then again Umineko was pretty much my introduction to mystery, so I'm coming from a very weird spot where all the meta stuff was pretty much entirely lost on me.
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Those are some really interesting thoughts!! I ultimately find Erika to be a "love to hate" kind of character. She has created an interesting wrinkle in this game that I can appreciate to some respects, I just wonder who much of this specific game will matter in the long run of the story. This is in contrast to someone like Rosa, who I genuinely wish to never see again. I definitely pick up on the fact the write doesn't want us to like Erika, and at least for me it is working.
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Erika is basically the epitome of "shit human being, would fail to resist the urge to just punch her in the face IRL, but really, really entertaining as a fictional character".

Also, I have zero investment in what Beatrice is doing in this game. Like this whole thing about protecting Natsuhi and moving the corpses. Like I understand this is obfuscating the real culprit moving the bodies, but beyond that I can't say I really care about piece Beatrice's reasons here.
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Tom Bombadil posted...

man I just like her because she's a good heel

this kinda goes along with what I'm getting at

ryuukishi wanted to deconstruct the mystery genre but he didn't have any particular argument for why the standard rules were bad other than the fact that he didn't like them. so instead he just makes erika this stawman who is supposed to make people agree with him simply by making them hate erika.

- condescending intellectual
- makes a little girl cry for no reason
- people hate mary sues right? sure, let's make her a mary sue
- what you still don't hate her? fine, she throws temper tantrums like a little brat when she doesn't get her way
- see the detective is just a giant asshole who only cares about the mystery! obviously the story I'm trying to tell is better than that!

meanwhile half the audience is going 'oh cool an entertaining heel,' 'I like her hat,' or 'wow finally someone is going to solve the mystery.' literally. despite all of that, fans are still happy about the fact and excited that someone showed up who might solve the mystery. it cracks me up that he failed so hard at doing what he set out to do with Erika. no matter how much you try to make us hate her it's NEVER going to change the fact that we naturally crave a real solution to the mystery.

I probably won't get too much more into it just because this isn't my topic, but yeah, that's the sum of my thoughts.

GANON1025 posted...

Also, I have zero investment in what Beatrice is doing in this game. Like this whole thing about protecting Natsuhi and moving the corpses. Like I understand this is obfuscating the real culprit moving the bodies, but beyond that I can't say I really care about piece Beatrice's reasons here.

assuming beatrice isn't real, what do you think these fantasy actions represent?
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Right I now I would say her actions, which I think only really consist of hiding the bodies if were are talking about physical actions that effect the 'real' world are that of the culprit.

What is really complicating things is this mysterious man, or rather if this man exists. If I am supposed to take what I've seen with those calls 100% seriously, in that Lambadelta is literally just calling Natsuhi and using weird meta powers to do so, then really the whole mystery of this game is thrown out. It really doesn't matter what's actually going on if Bern and Lambadelta are just directly influencing the game. Erika used red text meta powers earlier to force her way in to the investigation ( which really is something I don't like, I think it would have been much more interesting for her to show some sort of prowess that convinced the family to let her be part of the investigation ), so I really don't know what is real or not now. It kinda feels like this whole game is a huge mess, and there's no reason to play along and try to solve it.
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the story intentionally tries to demotivate the reader. it's almost like ryuukishi himself is a witch that is trying to make you give up at solving the mystery. but assuming that beatrice isn't real and lambda and bern aren't real, your observations would suggest that the culprit is:

- capable of moving the bodies in secret.
- able to call natsuhi and have a phone call with her about privileged information.

that's valuable information!
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If we go that route, why not cast doubt on the calls themselves? In reality, Natsuhi is the culprit and we are being shown these calls between her and a mysterious man in order to obfuscate her movements. Like, the fact she has no alibi the night of the first twilight is explained because "she was forced into it by a mysterious man", but could just as easily be "she performed the killings, perhaps with Krauss, and will claim to have been alone in her room all night later."

This line of reasoning has two holes I think. One, Genji took the calls from the man. Genji didn't recognize the caller, and he has no reason to lie about a call coming in to Natushi alone. By that I mean, if Natsuhi was with people maybe she and Genji could have colluded in secret to plan a fake call. But by themselves there's no reason to lie about what is happening. Second is that I see no reason why Natsuhi or Krauss would kill Jessica. So right now I find it hard to believe either of them are the killer right now.
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hmm
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Forget Battler x Beatrice, I'm pushing for Kinzo x Natsuhi
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that's a take
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ew
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it's all good
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So Bern and Lambadelta are from a different VN, right?
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Sorta.
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It's Higurashi, I think? I guess that's by the same guy?
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Higurashi is correct. However, they aren't exactly from Higurashi and you don't need to read Higurashi to understand them.
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Yep. (Disclaimer: I am75% through higurashi)

I don't think they are explicitly confirmed to be the same characters and bern at least has a pretty different personality, but it's at least heavily implied
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if I'm not mistaken, the very first line in higurashi is a quote by frederica bernkastel. (edit: to clarify... the quote is definitely there. I'm just not 100% sure if it's the first line or just one of the first few after a specific scene)

but yeah I do agree that it's not clear they are the "same" characters. it's more like... they are just characters whose appearance is heavily based upon these other characters in higurashi. and most important it's all basically totally irrelevant background details that aren't needed to understand one story or the other.

like umineko has bern and lambda sitting around in the tea party scenes interacting with each other and with other characters in the story. to my knowledge, higurashi doesn't have any of that. I'm not sure ""bernkastel"" even appears at all aside from that opening quote.
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It would probably be more accurate to say that they are based on characters in Higurashi, but with significant differences in character and history to the point that they don't feel like them at all.
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Did Higurashi or Umineko come first? I'm guessing Higurashi from context.
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higurashi is first yeah. it has notably lower quality art and music as a result.

I think it's a much better story, but there are plenty who would disagree.
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Wait the art is WORSE than the art in original umineko??? Are they just literally stick figures?
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this actually isn't even particularly bad by the standards of the game. there are some poses that rena or satoko do where they have massive blobs in place of hands, with a huge emphasis on those hands, despite them lacking any detail and being way out of proportion to their bodies.
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That's pretty rough.
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