Manic Emo Dream GhoulLol Hiruko just casually used that transforming blade as a weapon against the alien commander, who she knew is also capable of transform.
Just lucky that thing didn't end up re-transformed and add another 3 waves of fights.
I kept on thinking "He...moana? He moan nima?" Yeah so it just clicked to me that it's meant as American for "haem" so it's "Haem-Anima" which ... Ok I'm smart ok. I'm sometimes not entirely a stupid shit ok.
I think it's implied that while Darumi is the 4chan meme quoter, it's Eito who learnt everything about socialisation via watching bad anime while stoned out of his face.
Getting into the game expecting Danganronpa 2.0. Received Lord of the Flies that's actually good instead.
So far I recognised like 99999 danganronpa references, a persona reference, and a black lagoon (???!?!) reference from Darumi. Because it's Darumi, somehow it's not forced at all.
I'm a bit worried about the mean buns on the convoy belt in the kitchen, but somehow I suspect Darumi would be all about cannibalism.
PROJECTILE VOMIT IS LIKE THE BEST WEAPON EVER WHY ISN'T TSUBASA TRULY EMBRACE IT
Like when I was a child right, I could vomit by command. And so I- ok im sparing you the details but trust me, it's a useful skill
At this point, I feel that the general cast of Hundred Line is a lot intentionally nicer and normaller than Danganronpa, and I mean this both in a positive and negative way. Even the abrasive characters are not intensively and pointlessly antagonising like say Miu or Kokichi, and even the mutiny so far isn't pure anarchy like Danganronpa.
Now I think Hiruko is a dreadful leader, even just from the lack of transparency and how all she achieved so far is build mistrust. But it's also not quite like trolling for shit and giggles either.
I kinda miss the way the cast would organise themselves in rebellion in Danganronpa instead. Everyone here just felt so diplomatic and reasonable in comparison. Good in reality, in a chaotic fiction I just wish someone would move swing the fan around when shit hits, so there's a good even coating of the shit mist.
I also kinda hate this whole, "I'm gonna debrief properly but tomorrow" business. Tomorrow we'll find Hiruko chopped in pieces in a rubbish bin. Good god shed squishy enough to be the easiest target.
My Darumi theory is, there is a distinctive and intentional decision from the writers to make a Danganronpa character, but likable.
This is to say I really appreciate characters like Junko or Miu, but it's actually nice that someone has their energy don't also genuinely terrify me.
Sorry I kinda don't care about Hiruko. Her only strength was in extra info, which she made a theatrical show on withholding on; and as an ingame combater she's Z tier.
Which I'm sure is the real decoy in this game's 5D chess but still. The game play is basically screaming this is the one character made to be sacrificed early.
So invasions can also happen at night. Not like how in Land of the Lustrous it's day time only due to enemy's union's stance on working conditions
The real power fantasy is playing as someone who has an innate circadian rhythm. I'm sure Takimi isn't time blind either. Bastard.
I'm also super impressed how he's a teenager and maintained that neat bedroom for three weeks. Even accounting he owns nothing, I'd still struggle to do the same.
Seems like everyone have spent some time in a hospital? Which may or may not all be Kamukura General?
Eito took up leadership. He's so gonna end up chopped in a bin soon.
In a rare moment of (?unscripted) ludonarrative concordance, I made Takumi blow himself up during the exploration, and then he was abandoned in a building to die lol.
Whoops sorry.
Ok, not that sorry.
Something I just noticed, beneath each character in the report cards page, there seems to be a unique trait in Kanji. Of course I don't read Kanji, so there's another layer of vagueness and do not trust any of my translation. It's also flash and the words get blocked by the character art, so I'm guessing a lot of it, so also do not trust any of my transcription.
Takumi: 敗失 (Failure and loss)
Takemaru: 走爆 (Explosive)
Hiruko: 殺虐 (Killing by torture)
Darumi: 法魔 (Occultist)
Eito: 運幸 (Fortune)
Tsubasa: 車造改 (Vehicle modification)
Gaku: 事家 (Domestic/odd jobs)
Ima: 力能超 (Superpower)
Kako: 秘神 (Mystic deity)
Shouma: 盾 (Shield)
Nozomi: 護看 (Nurse and observator)
Kurara: 作工魔 (Construction demon)
Kyoshika: 道士武 (...Combat Taoist?)
Yugamu: 驗実体人 (Physical experiencer)
Moko: 魂闘 (Spirit fighter)
Eva: ☒☒☒（☒☒☒）
Mad props for not being subtle about unwinnable scripted losing fights.
I'm also loving the existence of Second To Last Defence Academy.
Between Day 28 to Day 37 it's pretty meh. It's mostly Kurara bullshit antics versus Shouma bullshit antics, and I found them both exhausting for opposite reasons. I just want to move on from this arc like, yesterday.
Thankfully that's over. Hope I'll never have to interact with Shouma ever again. I'm mostly bitter about losing 4 days where I couldn't do any scavenging or stats building because someone else is doing something else completely unrelated to what I can do with my time.
Darumi gets it.
This Confusion Commander fight is in-fucking-furiating.
Darumi is right, kill your confused team, they will revive the next wave, as if this isn't the shit you've been telling your team to blow themselves up for the past 44 days
Takumi is fired as team leader
Ok I kinda hate this specific battle, because the only reason it's hard is because the narrative forced your team to be complete idiots. So now I absolutely detest Takumi, as well as I hate the entire shitty Second Last Academy
I wouldn't mind the handicap so much if it wasn't written in such a way that essentially makes you lose respect for your entire team.
Lol and the only reason I lost the first time around was because I ~~~~couldn't get incapacitate my friends ~~~~ who was attacking the base, who's be revived within 5 min, then the only way to win next time around was to blow them all up.
Takumi sucks ass
Just got to the World Death reveal part. So far the alleged plot is Earth is sentient and it's sick of humans so the Earth commits suicide.
Knowing it's Too Kyo, this is absolutely not what's happening. Unless Darumi is like the literal humanoid spirit of the suicidal Earth.
I wouldn't mind to live in the courtyard cages, personally.
It's so good to finally have real ranged characters. I have feelings about the particular fight, not as strongly as the confusion fight as this particular annoying fog isn't shitting all over the established narratives, but alas.
A minor thing I really like, is Kurara isn't real noble at all, but a generational corporate oligarchy who essentially believes she's the royal.
Yeah so I'm entirely unconvinced that the cast is human. I think the commanders are humans though, possibly the original forms of the cast. Would explain why killing the commanders give the cast power.
Shouma is just so aggressive, in a cast of comically aggressive people. It's not the usual kind of, dude has low self esteem so he's out of the way, but more like Reddit Nice Guy kind of bringing every conversation back to how he's worthless everyone he's interrupting again because he's worthless wait you are doing something anything that isn't centred around Shouma's feelfeels how dare you he needs to stand on a table to yell about well actually as a Shouma
Which is irritating enough, but also I need literacy points and he's the only person who can provide that which is just. Give him gift block your ears and do a runner.
Like how My Little Pony has absurd character names, but no more absurd than actual racing horses' names; Moko's absurd wrestling series names sounds about right in middle of the wrestling norm bell curve.
The cast is weirdly confident that Takumi isn't a body snatcher like Moko, after that 5 day disappearance act.
I always found the relationship between Takumi and Karua mildly creepy, but I can't quite explain why in the way that the twins were obvious at. Please don't move to nappies next.
PS how good is the music of Day Nice
You know what. I don't even care what the actual plot is. My entire point of this game is to lose my shit at everything Darumi ever say ever.
PS, how good is the pixel splash screen
I hope someone rolled Nozomi's mum in a carpet and pushed her off a bridge.
I'm at day 75, 25 days to go.
So far I unlocked 48 event images, with 520 yet to be unlocked. This is wild maths. Like, is it just gonna be 500 pictures of protagonist screaming
Videos: unlocked 53, pending to unlock 151.
At least about half of the music was unlocked.
My latest hot take is this cast should never do any events ever again, include but not exclusive to: BBQ, country fair, sports day, formal dance, picnic day, killing game, girl scout biscuits selling, school disco, graduation, etc etc etc
Interestingly, on 84 the official identity of the tin can was Ima. By 85, he's officially referred to as Sirei.
Yeahh so Moko's character screen was blacked out immediately when you found out she's dead, but Hiruko's isn't after she's buried.
Why are eternal flames everywhere in this city though. I thought it was exclusively used as a barrier protection for the last defence school?
what the FUCK
Edit: that interlude was hella cool-creepy
The plot so far be like:
> Humans destroyed Earth's ecolog
> Earth as a life form activated its own immune system to wipeout humanity
> Humans have the technology to leave Earth and thrive in space
> Instead of that, humans opted to kill everything that's alive on Earth instead, somehow believe that will make Earth inhabitable again
Yeah I don't know what metaphor it's trying to make but damn
Sorry I'm kinda meh about every death so far, considering all the characters who died seem to make the situation worse chronically just by withholding important information as a form of power trip.
Ah, pity. I like Eito.
And to be fair, humanity isn't exactly lovable in this series.
And clever move to make the character screen "commanders absorption" number rather than "souls absorption" because, hey if technically speaking the absorbed are not commanders...
Most importantly, now Darumi my precious got her classmates killing each other thing going, 5 days before deadline.
Huh so the ending suggestion is:
Because Takumi gets levelled up special power by absorbing Eito with levelled up special power, who in turn got levelled up special power by absorbing ???; AND Takumi can retain all his stats and just jump to a different time line.
So just... Kill every one the moment he meets them, absorb all their powers, then just restart with full god tier powers? Like killing your team don't even matter if they can be re-done from beginning, while keeping your stats
Oh fuck this pseudo choice. Pet peeve of mine.
If it's anything like Zero Escape, I'm estimating I'm at 45% of game completion. Tbh at this moment it feels less satisfying than either the first run of Zero Time Dilemma as well as Danganronpa V3, specifically because I hate pseudo choices and Zero Time Dilemma fully embraced throwing a hard WTF at the player right in the first playthrough without pseudo choice that later turned out to be core to the main plot.
I sure hope there's a good inbuilt ending map though, no way I'd be able to remember what ending was caused by what and how what what the f
Hey, it could be worse. As someone fond of Raging Loop, that game spent 13 hours(!) setting up by forcing you to sit through people playing Mafia badly.
You know that thing in Zero Time Dilemma where you start the game, flip a coin of life and death at 15 minutes, immediately get a good ending with credit rolling and be like what the actual fuck just happened.
The Hundred Line isn't quite that over the top, but I'm getting sus that the real game is about to start from the point and onwards, as there hasn't been any decision trees other than the infuriating pseudo decision. Ultimately what I liked about Zero Time Dilemma is it's a linear game with many branches that acts as parallel chapters, and it's well communicated accordingly.
What I would really want now, is a clear route path laid out in flowchart. Zero Time Dilemma, Raging Loop, Quantum Suicide, and Ai the Somnium did this well. Gnosia barely gets away without it only because of achieving each ending is fairly straightforward with a guide.
I'm just too old and too tired to keep track on 100 routes otherwise, even super good games like Buried Stars just left me with, nah, I can't force myself through that many repeats and hope something's gonna change.
I should also point out Zero Time Dilemma, Gnosia, AND Raging Loop was meh at first ending, but then it got _good_.
HOLY SHIT THE TITLE SCREEN'S BACK GROUND VERTICAL RED LINE TURNED INTO A RED 2.
So, upon game completion, it's The Hundred Line 1 -> The Hundred Line 2.
Zero Escape team, please fuck me up. I expect a lot now.
Edit: yes "The Hundred Line 2" is completely expected to be the second half of the branched out game. Look at on the saving file, it stated number of clears is 0 even though we've seen the credit once already.
Roflmao not only continued at where the first playthrough ended, if you go to backlog it has the backlog of the last conversation you had at the end of the last ending. It's basically Day 101 rather than NG+.
Also your entire party kept their stats, and the various rocks, rags and sticks you collected from last game are still here. I don't even want to know what their storage looks like.
I fully admit I have the temptation of wiping my entire team to absorb their powers, then reset to a new game.
Thankfully the actual game play don't reward this. Thinking about how Raging Loop got to the point that the characters were murdering each other for fun because they were so sick of the loops.
Lol finally there are actual options in a game that's all about 100 endings.
Interestingly so far Eito comes across as a lot more in the right than everyone else, considering what's allegedly done by humankind is so demonic that getting rid of humans is doing this world a service.
But also it's one of those games less about playing as me, and more about fuck around and find out. So behaving outrageously is the entire point.
Not a spoiler, things people probably want to know getting into The Hundred Line, QoL wise.
1. There is a good, clear laid out flowchart of choices. I was most worried about not having this and losing track.
2. While it started off screaming Danganronpa, indeed the Zero Escape shines through later on. Seems like you can't fuck up lost forevers in terms of the branching stories, though I can't confirm it at this point.
3. While the battle system isn't quite Nippon Ichi, as far as Too Kyo goes it's competent enough. I was worried it's another replaying skateboard minigame hell, but thankfully I'm wrong.
4. One good decision made that I don't expect to love, is the mandatory flow of time. Given the scope, the game don't want you to be dwindling on one day for 25 hours. Which is wise.
Sometimes I get to a point and think, hmm I should get an achievement/trophy pop up now, except because it's Switch such a thing don't exist, and I feel such relief for the lacking of another silly KPI that I should know better to care about. So I might not 100% the game. I'll play until I had enough then I will stop.
I opted to keep Eito alive mostly to see what shit and giggles he's gonna come up with.
My theory is Hiruko is someone who time travelled a lot more than Takumi, a common trope that's more common than the trope where protagonist is the only time traveller, also her specialty is "torture and murder". I also suspect there will be more core characters because of the weird empty gaps in explore layouts.
At this point seems like the studio owners are struggling financially too tbh. And holy fuck the scope
... And seems like the cast is a reality show after all.
Expect to fight a commander, ended up with Organisation XIII
I'm so glad to finally move on from the other route. Out of the 52 routes 48 didn't have Darumi, and it's so good to have her back.
I'VE ALREADY GOT THE TRUE ENDING
AND ALSO WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING IN THIS TIMELINE
I remember an earlier The Hundred Line interview pre release, where the comment was something like the routes written by Kotaro Uchikoshi are incredibly obvious that they are written by Kotaro Uchikoshi.
Yup.
Interestingly it felt less like Zero Escape and more Ai the Somnium. Also made me realise how rest of the game are way more Danganronpa in mood than anything else.
Lol I'm annoyed with early Takumi again. I can do with playing as someone with a little more spine than him, consider by this stage he knew that he can really resist Hiruko's constantly questionable behaviours. But I suppose in all THL2 by about day 60 he got a lot better.
After the romance route every alternative is better. Even though sob I trust Eito so much more than Sirei
Sirei just got re-dissembled. I suppose there is an alternative timeline Eito who we never accounted for. Also a Queen infested Kako in Box of Calamity timeline too.
DANGANRONPAAAAAAAAAAAA
Takemaru has some unique solutions to "not fighting a woman". The best part is, we all know Kyoshika would win regardless of all other variables.
For what it's worth, Kyoshika is probably one of the few cast who give me cis girl energy.
Darumi forgive me for taking the killing game away from you.
Also how does THL2's chapter system even works lol. Killing Game route seems to be sharing a chapter with a different route.
When Shouma isn't interrupting in middle of important conversations, he's legit almost as funny as Darumi. I like him now but it took a while.
Liking the implied ongoing G'ie storyline.
Want more from Ruby Tear/Retsnom storyline.
Huh so whatever happened to the corpse retrieval drones
Yeah I can get used to talk to Hiruko about cats. Most cats are better at communication than Hiruko though.
It's so good to hang out with my fictional cringe daughter while my IRL cringe daughter is napping on my lap
A nothing ever happens route
Starting a new thread on generic overall THL2 comments, might migrate a few other posts here.
Something I love is in every timeline, people just flatly ignore Shouma when he interrupts to bring the conversation back to him and trying to demand pity. Like people just flatly talk over his interruption, the only way to deal with this kind of personality.
He reminds me half of The Bear's Jamie's mother, half of circa 2000 Nice Guys who tried to use their low self esteem performance to get pity sex. Maybe also a bit like Dead Loch's serial murderer.
To his credit, in route 11 he actually managed to do something not entirely self centred. I'm pleasantly surprised.
Generic The Hundred Line 2 comment without spoilers. The character [redacted] gave such strong aroace energy without naming a label. I don't even care if turned out they are allo later, because that particular scene is someone who gets it.
I have to give Nozomi credit on this: the routes I've done so far, she's a master at effortlessly stirring up drama. Almost all events can be squirt sideways and you can argue it isn't really her fault, and being characters who don't know about split branches it's easy to overlook her centre role in every one of them. Except having the over view, it's always Nozomi. Eito can only hope to be this sleek.
There's something about the special kind of creepiness where she can go from remorseful and teary and demand to be told she did nothing wrong when someone died because of her, to jolly and hyper-optimistic and all giggle; within five sentences. And Takumi doesn't see anything wrong with it.
I wonder if she's a homage to Akane Kurashiki. I can't say I like Akane given her particular kind of sociopathic traits, but I do consider her one of the most interesting villains. She's just so gentle and so nice and love to talk about morality, what could possibly go wrong.
Ok so I'm increasingly convinced that Nozomi is homage to Akane, which also means I think Nozomi is the True Villain. Both are childhood friend of protagonist who manipulates the protagonist's desire to protect them hard, both are superficially pleasant and very good at stroking the protagonist's ego. Yet everywhere they go, they stir up shit while still managed to hide away from the others, specifically by using protagonist to tank the hate for them.
I'm lowkey bothered by how Takumi is obsessed with demanding blame and responsibilities onto himself, over situations that are entirely outside of his control. For the lacking of better term, it's almost a form of narcissism in the belief that he's the centre of the universe.
As I'm still at like, 7% completion, this might change.
Somehow THL2 managed something I've never seen in games before: Gaku constantly tries to body shame Moko for being large, except the punchline of these jokes always end up falling onto how pathetic Gaku is.
The context is Moko is large, tall and stocky. She's a professional wrestler who worked hard to have this body type, and her strength is something crucial to the team's function. It's pretty obvious from the beginning that literally everyone respect Moko (Heart and Determination of the Party) more than Gaku (Incel), and everytime Gaku whinges about Moko not being sexually attractive to him, the joke is Gaku is basically a Redditor who is deluded into thinking anyone even cares what he likes to jack off to.
I love this. I love not hiding that lots of men/boys do behave like this, and I love that without fail the only loser is Gaku.
The Hundred Line 2, and endings thread.
The Retsnom Route: seems like this is primarily a route of Cthulhu/body horror.
Darumi is the VIP of this route. I already love her a lot, this route went further on why she's the way she is, and it just made so much sense. She's a child of chronic domestic abuse from every direction, implied she had far worse formative years than Shouma. Her approach is to never take anything seriously, be as obnoxiously cringe as she can be, because it's easier to be hated than liked. She's also far more observant than people give her credit for, and altruistic in a non-obstructive way. Her chronic suicidality is absolutely no surprise to anyone, and that's her main drive. Whether it's the altruism or the suicidality resulted in Darumi chose to be hosted to Eldritch Horror, who knows. Maybe both.
In How Darumi Felt, Darumi-Retsnom fooled Takumi into believing she was fully eaten by the Retsnom parasite, baited Takumi into killing her permanently, and in return revived all dead team members. This is a good ending, they all got what they wanted, especially Darumi always wanted to die by the hands of someone she bonded with.
In We Are One, Darumi was indeed completely overtaken by her parasite, and followed by devouring every single creatures ever existed, and re-spored the emulated Retsnom version of all of them again. In this world the only thing left alive are the current population but with an understanding that they need to cease the permanent warfare, and live in peace and understanding. This also felt like a good ending, humanity stopped existing in its original form, but given what happened in THL1 so far, this humanity is a much less cruel and brutal one.
Both endings were hinted from the first 90 days, but also gave some different interpretations to some of the earlier interactions. They are mutually exclusive. They are also as satisfying as each other, they don't feel one is to serve the other ending at all.
This is going to be my life until like, 2027.
Coming-of-Age Route: this one felt distinctively less satisfying, and sloppier than the Retsnom route. The longest endings ended on day 65, and while it is okay, and I especially liked the Best Friend ending (as far as this route goes), all of them felt incomplete and just sort of, fizzled out.
The bond between FB and Tsubasa was super lovely though. That's the best part of this route.
This is the route that makes me scream Nozomi is the Akane Kurashiki of The Hundred Line, but also it left me trusting Sirei a bit more than I did two routes ago.
It seems that every route end up with solidly 4 endings. But then only 81 endings would be accounted for?
Cult of Takumi route: best in terms of giving context of the setting. Worst in terms of so many sexual assaults holy fuck
V'ehxness route: it's good to hang out with the enemy commander for once as PoW, but also Here with You is hella weird. I'm just mad that none of the ingame devours for Takumi shown in his base stats, but for some reasons Tsubasa's did?
Rebellion route. Seems to be the best so far, where if you just accepted that Nozomi needs to die even though it's not her fault that she's so physiologically parasitic, you'd achieve peace.
Fuck the humans though. I just wish there's an ending where Futurans got their justice.
This route doesn't have a name, just called "Last Defence 2nd Scenario" and had a FMX for ending, which makes me think it's the true ending (or as true as this game can have). Unfortunately the route name also spectacular fucked up the entire 9 branch decision tree earlier in terms of route names, I suspect it's a bug.
While it's not as hopeful as Rebellion route where the team work together with the locals to bring peace, in a way it's more about the game kicking in player's shin about what shitty people they are for continue to facilitate genocide knowing what they now know. Either way, humanity essentially gets obliterated in the same way humans chose to destroy the locals. V'ehxness gets neutralised no matter what. Not sure what becomes of the Kamyuhn rebellion sect.
The redemption route is pretty sweet, everyone except Nozomi died to prevent the bomb from going off, and the local people accepted Nozomi despite she's a human.
If the team chose genocide, they end in the worst I Have No Mouth horror. They get rebrainwashed, and forced to reproduce to "save humanity" until end of time in a lifeless planet. Which, ok whatever lol it's hard to feel bad for the team considering.