天下制覇

Japanese writing really doesn't have much respect for its audience, does it?

Impressions:

Thus ends the first route with an obvious bad end, although there's a very, very extended epilogue still to come that can basically be summed up as "all non-witches get amnesia, but I still have so many feelings!" That's a good enough stopping point for a week or two for the holidays so I can spend the time on the season preview and continuing to blaze through BB2. Short scripts/games are the best. As are porn scenes that don't go on for hundreds upon hundreds of lines. Of course, I still haven't done any of the flavor text, and making up stuff takes so much longer than just translating. Ah, the pains of having to engage one's brain in actual creative thought.

Anyway, an unsatisfying ending, predicated on any number of bad cliches that Japan loves so dearly, in particular the (future shocking reveal) that you have to accept the bad with the good. Pretty much all of them being the same ones that came up (and I complained about) with Mavis a month or so back, but amped up into overdrive so all the characters came off even denser or more idiotically antagonistic. I'm not even talking about the off-screen viscera either, but Japan's continued love of "I could explain everything and then it'd all make sense and you'd probably agree with me, but screw you," as a mechanism for padding out the few story ideas they have. Not that it's unique to Japan, as it's a standard of things like Buffy, Arrow, etc as well. And such subtle advertisements for the future route(s) too. Can't imagine what's going to happen in them. That's one of the things that really sticks in my craw when it comes to VNs. Well, meta stuff in general. It's not coy, just obnoxious. Especially coming on the tail of listing out all the threads we're going to be leaving dangling until later.

Our Story Thus Far:

Chapter opens with some kind of dream/flashback about how Queen Cynthia rules the wolrd and children spawn at random from the big magic tree. A new tree-baby named Kluciene (oh god, I don't remember the spelling) has the power of light. Kururu overcame all her hardships thanks to the power of family and love. She made a promise to a human that she'd never forget him and would be his heroine. That promise is power, apparently. Narrator reveals herself as Cynthia. We wake up to more shots of the background and talk about how we just had someone else's dream. Good work, Poirot. Kururu's sleeping with us. She says not to worry because we're going to DO OUR BEST. We all sneak out of the castle and head over to Fire Land to confront Orr. Also, we keep it secret from Cecilia because it's OUR JOB to save the world, and we're arrogant imbeciles with savior complexes.

We land at Fire World, but the elementals are apparently all gone. However, when we try to go towards Orr, the lava tries to stop us. Ringo sees something in the distance. It's a woman's severed head. We realize that we're wrong and it's not lava that's being obstructive, but blood. There's witch chunks scattered all over. They spend quite a while describing how grisly the scene is. Orr finally appears. She tells us that the flesh rots, but her soul will be with her forever. She offers a prayer for the departed, Mavis.

Orr repeats that this is all the witches of light's fault. She declares that the new leader of the world will be Natania as she stares as Wet Towel. Towelie declares it's not her. We all back her up, but Orr insists that Towelie knows the truth. We insist that dark magic tricks and deceives, but Towelie says that it's not just some random lie. Darkness draws out the bad stuff in the heart, but one can become stronger by accepting it. However, she doesn't want to see the world be destroyed. Towelie powers up and says she'll stop Orr. Orr says that if that's her hope, she won't stop her, but is pissed off at the rest of us for being ignorant fools.

Nothing special about the battle at all. Got lucky on a couple guesses. Got unlucky on a couple others. Yawn. As I said way way waaaaay back when, I don't particularly like this battle system for a number of reasons. The only battle I lost the entire run (admittedly on Normal) was against that Mike-Magimon at the start of the route because with only 3 chars, it takes like, 3 early misses on guessing randomly to kill you. Hell, since the Extra Attacks were unlocked, I ended most battles with 2-3 times more HP than I started with due to Kururu's heal/Iinchou's drain. There are issues.

After the not-particularly-noteworthy fight, we talk about how super serious a fight it was. Okay. However, the sky is still dark. Orr says that the black fog is spilling out from her heart and breath. It is her. She says that if we slice her to pieces with Masamune, the darkness will disappear. We surprise her by saying that Masamune is for peace and protecting. She reveals that Masamune was made specifically to defeat her. We realize that the random voices we've been hearing telling us to do stuff are Masamune. Orr demands to know our name. We think back to the legend we heard about her. Sol killed Orr to stop her murder spree. We wonder if Mavis wanted Masamune to kill Orr. She said that the "lost princess" would be enough though. The lost princess being Natania, whi must be Orr's daughter. However, Mavis and Orr fought, so… we're still clueless and just listing out the MYSTERY and remarking on how Mavis was the only one who knew the truth, and how if we had known what she was up to, things would've turned out differently. Thanks. Very subtle reminder about other routes existing. Orr interrupts out overlong mental recap and tells us to kill her to regain the false peace. We ask her if there isn't some other way to bring the light back.

She becomes annoyed again and says that the sky is not because of her. Ask the princess for answers. Kururu yells that she's full of crap. Orr tells us both to shut it and listen to her magic whatsits. We do, for whatever reason, and end up off on some astral journey listening to THE WORDS OF THE SOUL. Orr explains that the crowning of a leader requires sealing the darkness in their heart, which removes the right of dark witches from existing in the world. Those witches lose their power and end up in the human world. Witchland is filled with only light and goodness, like Eden. However, there are consequences and limits to sealing darkness. Darkness grew and slipped its chains, but because of what we did, its time was brought to a swift end and Orr will be sealed away, along with the darkness in witch's hearts. A false peace will return, as it has over and over again. Kururu screams from what we saw, but we jolt back to reality.

We have to kill Orr to stop Kururu from suffering from… whatever… but Towelie tells us not to. Orr says that darkness will continue to rampage as long as Kururu doesn't accept it. We interrupt her via stabbing. Towelie yells at us to stop. We bloodily yank the sword out. Orr asks us what we heard, but we say nothing but Kururu's suffering. She says to look upon Kururu, the new queen. Kururu gets pissed about mommy being murdered. Orr says that's the darkness inside Kururu.

Blondie grabs Masamune from us and cuts off a leg. Orr collapses, but continues taunting her, telling her to seal her and the darkness, making the same mistake Sol did. Kururu's gone berserk and bloodily hacks her up while yelling at her to shut up. Wet Towel tries to stop her, but Orr tells her not to grieve. Instead, she's happy to know someone exists who will carry on her will. Kururu pushes Towelie away and delivers the coup de grace. Everything in our head goes to white. Someone tells us that they cannot allow the tragedy to repeat itself and unlocks our mind or something. Uh… whatever.

We grab Kururu and tell her to stop and remember the fairy tale because we just did it again. She says she knew, but she couldn't stop. She hurts now. She doesn't want to suffer anymore. Darkness surrounds her hand, and she apologizes that she won't be able to keep her promise. She blasts us and says goodbye, then beheads Orr. Towelie starts to cry, saying that Orr was her… TRAILS OFF MYSTERIOUSLY, then screams. The darkness fades from the sky.