cheshirenoir

Masterlist.

My Episode 1 post is pretty dry and full of details, because I mostly engaged with it as a murder mystery puzzle and world setup. Episode 2 has more about characters and feelings, and is where I got more attached to those aspects. It's also where things start to get Surprisingly Weird.

Halfway through writing this post I had an EPIPHANY and now have a THEORY. I have written it upo in my Theory Post, which will come after I have written up Episodes 1-5 since it draws on all of them.

I just finished Episode 5, and kind of want to finish writing everything up before Episode 6 throws all my ideas out the window, but also I want to see what happens next!!

( Read more... )

Masterlist.

I started writing a "short summary" for people who haven't played and to get my thoughts in order, then realised it was (a) getting long and (b) would be easier if I looked up a plot summary to remind myself. So lets go episode by episode until I finish or get bored haha. You can also just read the wiki page I referenced yourself but mine is shorter, if you can believe it, and has a few extra thoughts.

I mostly go through the mystery stuff, there's a bunch of humour and character moments which aren't captured in this summary. I'll avoid anything that significantly spoils later Episodes until a later post, but will not be super strict when it feels more logical to mention things now, or if I have current speculation that I either did or could have come up with at the time.

Please do not leave any comments which spoil past episode 1! I have played up to partway through Episode 5 but some people reading might not have.
( Spoilers for Episode 1 )

I've been watching a Let's Play of the classic, epic Japanese visual novel "Umineko: When they Cry" by Ryukishi07, and am currently up to Episode 5 of 8. I'm quite enjoying it but it's LONG. The LP is 168 episodes which are 30 minutes to two hours long.

I'll try and write a proper review when I'm finally done, since the story keeps reinventing itself, but so far it's a family drama and murder mystery with supernatural elements, which explores events from different angles in ways which cleverly play around with narrative, both from a storytelling perspective and as a way of exploring how people view the world and each other in different ways.

It's very much worth going into unspoiled if you are interested. But content warnings for violence and gore (mostly just text), suicide, child abuse (well written but harrowing), gender essentialism, male gazey character designs and and "joking" perviness (sometimes condoned by the narrative, though it's better about female characters than you might initially assume)

No unambiguous consent issues so far asides from some rape jokes but it feels like the kind of story where that could definitely be a Thing.

I'm watching Jokrono's let's play, which involves two young male gamers sometimes being thoughtlessly Unfortunate, especially about Japan. I'm sure there's others out there but this is the one I was recced and I'm overall enjoying it.

( Just cut for length, no spoilers )