indigozeal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
indigozeal) wrote2011-12-30 10:53 pm
indigozeal) wrote2011-12-30 10:53 pm
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Neo Angelique playlog pt. 9
After all the excitement of being in on a release of a new installment of one of my favorite franchises, real-life considerations have conspired to keep me away from Maren no Rokukishi. Roku Kishi? I'm honestly not sure whether to treat that "roku" as a counter or not, but I think I might've made a mistake in initially doing so. Six Knights of Dark Love, how's that. Anyhow, to the point: the release window is slipping away from me so that I'd considered jettisoning Neo Ange for a waltz with the Six Knights, but the latter game's subject matter isn't very festive, and Neo Ange has been my very first otome game, so I think I'll finish dancing with what brung me before playing the field.
I played for what seemed like forever last time, back in the Triassic, but there's not much to report. I traveled to J.D.'s hometown of Kozu (I wish I knew how to spell that place) and met the family - J.D.'s dad, who looks slightly different here than in the anime, thinner and older, and who of all people gives Ange her nickname. (J.D.'s sister either isn't in the game or hasn't show up yet.) The visit to Kozu's a fun and sweet interlude surrounded by J.D.'s amiable Dragon Tribe friends, and I think I'm going to go for J.D.'s ending this time.
In connection with that: I'm afraid my idea of letting the Celestizam sit on their doilies when they finally came a-calling couldn't come to pass. I'm not sure I've explained this mechanic thoroughly, but relationships in Neo Angelique are primarily advanced by what the game calls "bingo talk." When you go to have a chat with a fellow Aube Hunter in your downtime, you'll access a grid of possible topics of conversation that changes according to your partner. Completing a row of topics will give you a big compatibility boost, and completing a specially-chosen row will send you to the officially-sanctioned Next Level of the relationship. You can't access all the possible topics of conversation immediately, though; you have to stumble across the proper keywords in your travels to unlock them. Now, in their continuing quest to wring all gameplay from the title, the programmers will outright tell you where any undiscovered keywords can be found - and one of J.D.'s super-special topics can be found only in...well, take a guess. So I couldn't tell the Celestizam to bugger off after all.
We met a nice middle-aged couple on a pilgrimage to the city who were pleasantly outside Neo Ange's usual young-lover NPC demographic. We repaid their helpful faith-based exposition by granting them access to the holy city by virtue of Ange's presence - apparently, despite the throngs of pilgrims perpetually gathered outside the city walls, the Celestizam doesn't open the gates that often to outsiders, devout or not. Pompous knobs; no wonder they murdered Mathias and his glasnost mindset. We ("J.D. & Ange" we, not "the older couple too" we) were eventually admitted to the inner sanctum and an audience with Rene, who was wearing a mask and talking in this exaggerated creepy old-man voice. He did nothing but natter on in teasingly opaque terms about the Queen and seems to be offering no genuinely helpful information - though I can't make that call yet definitively, as he went on for so long that I had to save in the middle of the conversation. I plan on telling the Celestizam to shove off after this.
Er, what else. There was an event with Rayne where he was an utter jerk to this village that had its wheat field set on fire, following by a thank-you harvest dance the next day with an Ange & Rayne date. They really do throw his events at you. I grinded a bit with J.D. - not that way - but still haven't gotten any of the special magic thingies that're supposed to unlock the Extra-Good level of endings; maybe I have to wait for them to be introduced in-game.
Rayne Engrish Watch: several, to be sure, but they were all repeats, I think
.
I played for what seemed like forever last time, back in the Triassic, but there's not much to report. I traveled to J.D.'s hometown of Kozu (I wish I knew how to spell that place) and met the family - J.D.'s dad, who looks slightly different here than in the anime, thinner and older, and who of all people gives Ange her nickname. (J.D.'s sister either isn't in the game or hasn't show up yet.) The visit to Kozu's a fun and sweet interlude surrounded by J.D.'s amiable Dragon Tribe friends, and I think I'm going to go for J.D.'s ending this time.
In connection with that: I'm afraid my idea of letting the Celestizam sit on their doilies when they finally came a-calling couldn't come to pass. I'm not sure I've explained this mechanic thoroughly, but relationships in Neo Angelique are primarily advanced by what the game calls "bingo talk." When you go to have a chat with a fellow Aube Hunter in your downtime, you'll access a grid of possible topics of conversation that changes according to your partner. Completing a row of topics will give you a big compatibility boost, and completing a specially-chosen row will send you to the officially-sanctioned Next Level of the relationship. You can't access all the possible topics of conversation immediately, though; you have to stumble across the proper keywords in your travels to unlock them. Now, in their continuing quest to wring all gameplay from the title, the programmers will outright tell you where any undiscovered keywords can be found - and one of J.D.'s super-special topics can be found only in...well, take a guess. So I couldn't tell the Celestizam to bugger off after all.
We met a nice middle-aged couple on a pilgrimage to the city who were pleasantly outside Neo Ange's usual young-lover NPC demographic. We repaid their helpful faith-based exposition by granting them access to the holy city by virtue of Ange's presence - apparently, despite the throngs of pilgrims perpetually gathered outside the city walls, the Celestizam doesn't open the gates that often to outsiders, devout or not. Pompous knobs; no wonder they murdered Mathias and his glasnost mindset. We ("J.D. & Ange" we, not "the older couple too" we) were eventually admitted to the inner sanctum and an audience with Rene, who was wearing a mask and talking in this exaggerated creepy old-man voice. He did nothing but natter on in teasingly opaque terms about the Queen and seems to be offering no genuinely helpful information - though I can't make that call yet definitively, as he went on for so long that I had to save in the middle of the conversation. I plan on telling the Celestizam to shove off after this.
Er, what else. There was an event with Rayne where he was an utter jerk to this village that had its wheat field set on fire, following by a thank-you harvest dance the next day with an Ange & Rayne date. They really do throw his events at you. I grinded a bit with J.D. - not that way - but still haven't gotten any of the special magic thingies that're supposed to unlock the Extra-Good level of endings; maybe I have to wait for them to be introduced in-game.
Rayne Engrish Watch: several, to be sure, but they were all repeats, I think
.