Mystic Messenger: Days 1 and 2
Apr. 4th, 2019 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Mystic Messenger is the most recent dating sim from Cheritz, makers of Dandelion (a girl's pets become cute boys) and Nameless (a girl's dolls become cute boys) and is about a girl...meeting a group of human friends on the internet?? But I get the impression things get Weirder as they go on.
It's only playable on phones, I tried playing it in 2016 when it came out and was really enjoying it but my phone kept crashing. I was thus very happy when I realised I could play it on an emulator. This is apparently against the terms of service, I guess since emulators can be used to cheat, but a lot of folk seem to do it without problems so hopefully I'll be ok. I PROMISE I WON'T CHEAT, CHERITZ.
I was determined to finish Ozmafia first but the pull was too strong. There's a kuudere girl. With short floppy dark hair and glasses. Also a playthrough takes 13 days (though you can skip some parts on replays), andmoonvoice just went on holiday for five weeks, so this seems like a good time to start.
At the end, in a marked section, I mention some major spoilers from later on that I've picked up via fannish osmosis, and pasted some trigger warnings I got from a friend. This post has no content notes beyond that.
So, the conceit of Mystic Messenger is that the protagonist downloads an app onto her phone and somehow find herself in the private chat room of a group of friends who run a charity. The game involves joining group chats, answering emails, messages and phonecalls in real time (not real phonecalls etc, it's simulated within the game). If you miss the time window for a given chatroom etc, you lose the opportunity to gain points with the relevant characters.
This creates a sense of veracity, like there's real people you're talking to with real lives. It's also a pain in the ass. LOOK AT THIS LIST OF CHATS FOR THE FIRST DAY. You have to start at midnight on the first day to see them all, and they happen every 1-3 hours after that.
I guess it could be fun to be surprised by them during the day instead of looking them up in advance...if you had a very different sort of personality to me.
On the plus side you can put off opening a chat until just before the next one opens, and you only need about a 50% hit rate to get a good ending. But I want to see them all!!
And you have TEN SECONDS to answer a phonecall. They're not plot/points relevant, and generally happen just after a chat, but come on. TEN SECONDS!
There's a reason the starting tips have "MAKE SURE YOU GET ENOUGH SLEEP" as a repeated theme. I say, writing this at 4am...(I had insomnia anyway, so thought it was a good time to start)
It's a free app, but you need in-game currency to do things like restart from a save or engage with a missed chat, and to unlock the later routes. You can get this currency by either spending real money or earning points with characters. You can grind for points by replaying, so I should be ok.
Here's the main in-game menu as it looks on my computer.
Those headshots lead to the characters' profiles, which update from time to time. From the left: Jumin, Zen, 707, Yoosung, Jaehee, and the icon I chose for MC (all the others looked like regular human girls lol)
(yes I am putting this post together after midnight on day 2 shhhh)
Ok! So that's the meta-game setup. Now for the actual plot!
The main character has no default name, 2016 me called her Chia for some reason. I'll call her MC in these posts. She seems to be a bit of a blank slate, I preferred the more fleshed out MCs of Cheritz's previous games, especially since she's implicitly a Korean woman in her early 20s, and she's a little hard for me to mentally model without more cues. On the plus side, the lack of any internal narration means I can imagine her actually disliking people and not being entirely oblivious, which is a nice change from certain other recent otome protagonists.
This is a pretty opening video. Everyone is adults, hooray!
MC downloads the mysterious app, then gets messaged in it by a random stranger, "Unknown", who says they've found a lost phone with the app and want to contact the owner. "Unknown" is overseas, so can MC go to the owner's house and leave a note?
Apparently if you doggedly pick the "this is too sketchy" options you get a bad end, lol.
MC opens a keycode-locked door to an apartment using the provided password. "Unknown" tells them to have fun with the app, then vanishes along with their chat log. The app opens a private chatroom where a bunch of people are chatting. When they notice MC they freak out. There is a mutual round of explanations.
This chatroom is for an organisation called RFA (Rika's Fundraising Association) They used to run big parties to raise money for charity, using this app to organise things. But then a year ago their leader, a woman named Rika, died, and since then they just use it to chat.
And the apartment MC is in belonged to Rika. Nobody knew the password but her, not even her boyfriend, V. She's quickly told not to look at any of the confidential information around.
RFA members (who are all male except Jaehee) and their associated colours:
Yoosung (green), 20: Boyish, cheerful uni student.
Zen (grey), 23: Flirty, vain actor. Real name Hyun.
Jaehee Kang (yellow), 25: Serious, polite, overworked assistant to Jumin.
Jumin Han (purple), 27: Serious, strict business man who loves his cat.
707/Seven (red), 22: Eccentric, snarky programmer/hacker. Real name Luciel.
V (aqua), 27: A reclusive photographer. Everyone defers to him, but he rarely gets involved in the RFA since Rika's death. Real name unknown.
There's also:
Ray (pink), ??: Has not shown up yet or been referenced by anyone, but he's in the gallery etc so I might as well list him. I have some idea who he is but it's in the spoiler section at the end of the post.
707 created the app for group members and has no idea how MC got access to it. He does a background check and reassures everyone that she seems legit and harmless (and is a cute girl, lol) though he doesn't pass on any further details to them. Then he contacts V, who decides that somehow this must all be Rika's will, and convinces everyone else to let MC run the RFA's parties from now on?? Jumin and Jaehee both point out that this is KIND OF RIDICULOUS but reluctantly agree, and so does MC.
I'm still trying to construct a mental model of MC's life and personality such that her agreeing so quickly makes a lick of sense. In need of direction and friends, I guess, and open to taking a risk on something interesting if it seems like fun, and will help others.
To begin with the only romance options are Zen, Yoosung and Jaehee. The first four days play out the same either way, but then it splits off based off of who you have the most points with. If there's no clear winner, or the winner is a currently unavailable character, you get a bad end.
You get a visual indication of points gains via an animation of a coloured heart, to match the character. 100 hearts can be exchanged for a single hourglass, and you need like 100 each time to unlock later routes and DLCs. But sometimes you get hourglasses during chats, and there's random drops from the menu. In the 36 hours or so between starting the game and editing this paragraph I've gotten 5-10 hourglasses and about 300 hearts. Missed chats can be unlocked for 5 hourglasses, but since I'm probably going to screw up this playthrough anyway I'm going to just let the cards fall where they may.
The alternative to farming hearts is to buy, like, 30 hourglasses for a dollar. And goddd I just exchanged 100 of my hearts to get a single measly hourglass and buying them instead looks mighty appealing...*forces self to wait until I actually need them*
The guides all say to romance Zen first but I have waited 3 years to win Jaehee's heart and goddamn I am going to go for it full tilt now. Apparently her route is ambiguously romantic but I'll take it.
I'm enjoying the game a lot so far! The characters are well drawn and fun, and there's a fair number of opportunities for MC to be witty or surreal which I really enjoy. And the chats feel like they should for a group of people with differing personalities who've known each other for years.
I am definitely not going to try to get every chat. But I want to see as many as possible. It's not like I have anything else to do.
And now to try to go to sleep again and hopefully wake in time for the 8am-10am chat slot...
Oops, there was also a Yoosung one at 7am, as I realised minutes too late. Afaict he chatted as normal until the point where MC would have responded, then left. How does that work for chats that are important to the plot? (There is...a plot, right?) EDIT: Ok, the chats sometimes go on for some time without MC if there's important stuff that has to be said.
I ended up kinda flirting with Jumin just to spite Zen, who is a sleaze. Jumin seems to be kinda douchey himself, in a strict boss who grew up rich kinda way, but he said some nice things about cats. Apparently Jaehee doesn't like cats?? I STILL LOVE YOU JAEHEE.
Looking at the chat schedule, my real issue with her is going to be that she's consistently up late working. I want to keep you company, Jaehee, but I need sleep ;_;
The chats aren't voiced except for the odd sound emote, so you only really hear character's voices in phone calls. So far I've had calls from 707 and Jaehee welcoming MC to the group. 707 pretended to be a phishing scam, while Jaehee earnestly and seriously recommended Zen's musicals, and reassured MC that the group are nice people.
Jaehee seems to have a crush on Zen but MC will win her over, dammit. But her squeeing over his acting is the main time her cool, professional demeanour slips, and it's pretty cute.
Unlike everyone else, Jaehee didn't join the RFA because she was friends with Rika or V, but was forced to join by Jumin as part of being his assistant. So she sees it as work, and is formal and businesslike. Despite this she expresses concern for Rika's legacy and everyone's well being, especially MC, because she is a sweetie.
The art is really nice. There's no sprites thus far, just little chat icons and animated chibi emotes, but characters post photos to the chat and their galleries. All of Jumin's so far involve his cat, a fluffy white persian called Elizabeth the Third. 707 is very private, even his icon is an abstract landscape. Also apparently he likes Elizabeth but plays with her too roughly. BAD SEVEN.
There's a little spaceship on the bottom of the menu screen which sometimes flies over a packet of chips, and if you click it you get extra hearts and hourglasses.
I find Yeonho's design a bit cutesy but he has a nice voice and personality so he's growing on me. All the voices are well acted, but Yoosung probably has the one I find most nice to listen to. Jaehee's is nice but she hasn't done much emoting with it yet except over Zen.
Mot of the chats are fairly short and are just small talk, but little bits of characterisation and backstory come through.
At the end of day one I forced myself to take a melatonin and get a solid 8 hours sleep even though it meant missing two Jaehee chats. All the important conversation seems to happen during business hours, thankfully.
As I write this sentence it's 4pm on day 2.
Day one was mostly just people welcoming MC to the group, getting to know her and introducing themselves. Day 2 has been people going into a bit more detail about things, and trying to simultaneously reassure themselves that she can do the job even though she's a TOTAL STRANGER WITH NO KNOWN ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND, and make sure she's not under too much pressure. They remind her to eat and sleep a lot which is nice, if ironic on a meta level. MAYBE I WOULD SLEEP BETTER IF YOU DIDN'T SCHEDULE CHATS AT 3AM, CHERITZ.
I recently got my first "email" (to MC, still within the game): I have to answer these the right way to get people to come to the party MC is organising. Afaict a successful party is the difference between a good end and a medium one (I assume the bad ends split off from alienating the LI or making specific wrong decisions) Looking back over the exchange, the guy clearly expressed an enthusiasm for a grand party and I told him it would be small and cute, oops.
I've just been following my gut so far, playing a good natured, hard working, happy go lucky sort who generally only jokes with people who seem to be into it. The sort of person who would go "Sure, I'll run your massive social event" 5 minutes after meeting a secret organisation via a sketchy stranger on the internet, and then do her best to succeed at it and get along with everyone. There's been the option to play her as self doubting and hesitant but nah.
Late last night it turned out Jumin dropped his cat off at Jaehee's house with no warning even though Jaehee doesn't like cats, blandly replying to her restrained but bitter complaints that she should just consider it part of her job.
There was a phonecall at around lunch time with Jaehee where she makes sure MC has eaten(*) and recommends the soup from her building's cafeteria...although she herself just ate sandwiches, since she had to work through her break as usual and doesn't want to trouble anyone to bring her anything. "Exercise after eating is good too, I walk back and forth while reading documents". Jaehee, let me save you from your awful boss and take you away somewhere nice ;_; Thankfully I have had multiple oppurtunities to call Jumin out on mistreating Jaehee, and I have taken every one.
(*)while I don't usually self insert, I generally answer questions like "have you eaten"/"are you tired" as myself, so the answer is reliably yes.
There have been what looked like opportunities for MC to ship Jaehee with Jumin but nooooooope.
OOoooh the 5:30pm conversation felt important: Seven traced "Unknown" to a religious organisation?? Yoosung says Rika, who was his cousin, was like his sister, and that he doesn't like how V got over her death quickly, getting rid of everything to do with her, and distancing himself from the RFA. Jumin thinks V is just grieving in his own way, as do I (and MC). Also, Seven has changed his icon to a semi-abstract picture of himself.
Seven, Yoosung and Zen all had immediate "OOH A CUTE GIRL" reactions in different ways. Zen has been overtly flirty, and also pointedly sighing about having been single for five years. Yoosung has flirted more lightly, in a way that could be read as just friendliness, and his complaints about not having ever had a girlfriend are less pointed but still feel like a hint. Time will tell if Yoosung is actually less sleazy than Zen, or just more subtle about it.
Compare and contrast these profile screenshots, taken at around the same time: (those are fan letters in Zen's, he showed them off with very obviously false modesty)
Seven "flirts" but it mostly just feels like an extension of the sort of jokey teasing he does with everyone. Like, I don't think he'd complain if MC sincerely flirted back, but he isn't seriously attempting to hit on her.
Jumin is too professional to flirt when they've just met, but I can see him being kind of intense about it once he's decided he likes MC. He's brusque and sensible in group chats but his vibe on the phone leaned a little more towards Christian Grey. Not a lot more, but giving off the sort of "commanding businessman who is surprised to find the heroine tolerable" vibe that suggests his route will lean heavily towards M/f.
There has been nothing remotely flirty in the conversations with Jaehee ;_;
None of the other guys flirt with Jaehee, but they seem to think of her as "Jumin's assistant": a perfectly nice person, but not really a friend, or someone it's appropriate to flirt with. A number of them have given Jumin crap for being a bad boss, I do think they like her on the whole, and she likes them.
Some of the flirt options with Yoosung were enjoyably silly, and he hasn't been sleazy, so I've flirted with him the most. It's possible that Seven and Jumin are flirtier by this point in the branch of the game with their romances in.
Speaking of the way the game branches, I'm wondering if there's going to be an explicit time loop aspect like there was with the other two games. I love me some time loops. The branches are:
Casual Story (free): Jaehee, Yoosung, Zen
Deep Story (paid): 707, Jumin
Another Story (paid): Ray, V
Oh noooo I got an email reply from that dude and he said the party sounded horrible and he wouldn't be coming ;_; LESSON LEARNED, I GUESS. Hopefully I can recover from this by judging people's preferences better in future (I didn't realise that was the aim!)
Ahahaha. So. Zen is excited about a new musical based on a romance novel.
Yoosung: Ya? Ur mucical?
Zen: Are you playing LOLOL? There's no point talking to you. Chia, hear me out.
My options:
"You must be starting a new piece~ Congratulations."
"Ya i'm listenibn"
GUESS WHICH ONE I CHOSE :D
Zen: LOOK AT MY CHAT BUBBLE DAMMIT
MC: T_T
Zen: Just kidding, it was cute. But yeah my fans are all clamouring for me to play the lead. Am I so popular?
MC: Lol. Such a narcissist.
Zen: Clearly I haven't won you over yet. Look at this sexy picture of me some more.
And then MC and Yoosung troll him until he leaves :D
Zen organises for someone from a romance writer association to contact MC about the party. I tell her of COURSE they'll all be able to meet Zen personally. *hopes the moral of my previous failure was indeed to lie and say whatever the person wants to hear*
I had the option to be dubious about romance novel authors because that is a THING with Cheritz.
The romance author replied asking me which of the associations novel's sold better?? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BLUFF MY WAY THROUGH THAT?? *picks the one with the more exciting premise*
Ohhh there's three little symbols at the bottom and two of them are lit. So hopefully if I got that right she will be successfully hooked. The dude's email is marked FAILED and sits in my inbox haunting me ;_;
Haaa so the final chat of the day involved me trying to navigate a conversation with Jaehee where she talked a bunch about how great Zen is. I didn't want MC to lie and say she's a fan, but also didn't want to offend Jaehee. I ended with 4 hearts which isn't bad, go me. And I actually got to ask her if she has feelings for Zen, she flailingly said NO in a way that screamed YES. She warned MC that dating a celebrity like him would make life difficult because of jealous fans, I wonder if she's jealous that Zen flirts with MC constantly but never with Jaehee, who he barely seems to notice BECAUSE HE SUCKS. (Also at 25 she's a few years older than his 23, while MC pings as more like 21)
And I am going to post this now before it's day 3 and I get caught up in things again! EDIT: oops. I tried.
This has been fun! It'd be a lot less hassle as a regular dating sim, though, and I have to wonder how annoying it'll get as a go on.
Day one completeness: 88%, Day 2: 81%
****** Major (late game?) spoilers ****
I know a bit about this game via osmosis, mostly via a friend who is VERY INTO 707. But I still don't really know what it's about, asides from Rika having Dark Secrets and possibly not actually being dead. Also 707 has an evil twin or something?? I'm guessing that's "Ray" from the gallery, since he looks like a white haired 707. He gives off "obligatory Cheritz creepy secret LI" vibes in the trailer, and I assume he's "Unknown", unless that was Rika.
Yep, from looking up stuff on the wiki later, Ray=Unknown.
And here's the trigger warnings from my friend, she tried to avoid spoilers but some are implied. Having read them once to make sure nothing hits my buttons (Jumin looks like I'll have to brace myself but I should be ok with the rest) I'm not going to read them again and will try to put it out of my mind.
Original Story routes:
Jaehee
======
A pure and healing route, honestly ray of sunshine, nothing to worry about here.
Zen
===
The most badly written of the routes (it was the first they wrote) but otherwise no real issues. There's a Bad End that references mind control but nothing very deep, just an implication.
Yoosung
======
One of the Bad Ends goes involve both YS and the player character dying, but is not graphic in any way.
The non-bad-end does have a character injured badly in one eye, this is only referenced and not shown.
Jumin
======
He gets a bit Amnesia: Memories Toma vibes with the way he becomes clingy with the player after a certain point, though he doesn't actually lock them in a cage hahaha. But there is a feeling of being trapped for a few days when he is trying to protect the player from Bad Thing Happening.
Seven
====
- While his route reveals the most of the main plot, there's nothing really content-warning-y about it
Secret Ends (playable after Seven's route)
- gunshot wound cg (not super graphic)
- attempted suicide (not graphic but super emotional)
- attempted murder (not graphic but their is a CG of someone being strangled)
- character death (not the player)
Another Story routes (best played after the other routes and the Secret Ends unlockable after Seven's route, they they 'spoil' the main plot from the start)
Both of these routes are much darker as they deal with the main antagonist organisation of the original story, though set two years earlier than the original story.
V
=
Drug use (including forced drugged use, not against the player), poisoning, implied torture (nothing graphic), stabbing (you see a bloodied shirt, I think), Day 8-9 of his route are extremely draining emotionally as you have to watch a couple different people fall apart and you're just. well. this is great. cool. shame i can't stop this in any way!!!
Ray
- even more drug use than V route, implied torture but not shown, forced drug use (not the player), player is non-consensually touched (but it doesn't go further than pushing them against a bed and being all Mwahahahah I'm So Evil at them), referenced child abuse (drugs, psychological), though all we see is one CG of said child shackled in a prison
Mystic Messenger is the most recent dating sim from Cheritz, makers of Dandelion (a girl's pets become cute boys) and Nameless (a girl's dolls become cute boys) and is about a girl...meeting a group of human friends on the internet?? But I get the impression things get Weirder as they go on.
It's only playable on phones, I tried playing it in 2016 when it came out and was really enjoying it but my phone kept crashing. I was thus very happy when I realised I could play it on an emulator. This is apparently against the terms of service, I guess since emulators can be used to cheat, but a lot of folk seem to do it without problems so hopefully I'll be ok. I PROMISE I WON'T CHEAT, CHERITZ.
I was determined to finish Ozmafia first but the pull was too strong. There's a kuudere girl. With short floppy dark hair and glasses. Also a playthrough takes 13 days (though you can skip some parts on replays), and
moonvoice just went on holiday for five weeks, so this seems like a good time to start. At the end, in a marked section, I mention some major spoilers from later on that I've picked up via fannish osmosis, and pasted some trigger warnings I got from a friend. This post has no content notes beyond that.
So, the conceit of Mystic Messenger is that the protagonist downloads an app onto her phone and somehow find herself in the private chat room of a group of friends who run a charity. The game involves joining group chats, answering emails, messages and phonecalls in real time (not real phonecalls etc, it's simulated within the game). If you miss the time window for a given chatroom etc, you lose the opportunity to gain points with the relevant characters.
This creates a sense of veracity, like there's real people you're talking to with real lives. It's also a pain in the ass. LOOK AT THIS LIST OF CHATS FOR THE FIRST DAY. You have to start at midnight on the first day to see them all, and they happen every 1-3 hours after that.
I guess it could be fun to be surprised by them during the day instead of looking them up in advance...if you had a very different sort of personality to me.
On the plus side you can put off opening a chat until just before the next one opens, and you only need about a 50% hit rate to get a good ending. But I want to see them all!!
And you have TEN SECONDS to answer a phonecall. They're not plot/points relevant, and generally happen just after a chat, but come on. TEN SECONDS!
There's a reason the starting tips have "MAKE SURE YOU GET ENOUGH SLEEP" as a repeated theme. I say, writing this at 4am...(I had insomnia anyway, so thought it was a good time to start)
It's a free app, but you need in-game currency to do things like restart from a save or engage with a missed chat, and to unlock the later routes. You can get this currency by either spending real money or earning points with characters. You can grind for points by replaying, so I should be ok.
Here's the main in-game menu as it looks on my computer.
Those headshots lead to the characters' profiles, which update from time to time. From the left: Jumin, Zen, 707, Yoosung, Jaehee, and the icon I chose for MC (all the others looked like regular human girls lol)
(yes I am putting this post together after midnight on day 2 shhhh)
Ok! So that's the meta-game setup. Now for the actual plot!
The main character has no default name, 2016 me called her Chia for some reason. I'll call her MC in these posts. She seems to be a bit of a blank slate, I preferred the more fleshed out MCs of Cheritz's previous games, especially since she's implicitly a Korean woman in her early 20s, and she's a little hard for me to mentally model without more cues. On the plus side, the lack of any internal narration means I can imagine her actually disliking people and not being entirely oblivious, which is a nice change from certain other recent otome protagonists.
This is a pretty opening video. Everyone is adults, hooray!
MC downloads the mysterious app, then gets messaged in it by a random stranger, "Unknown", who says they've found a lost phone with the app and want to contact the owner. "Unknown" is overseas, so can MC go to the owner's house and leave a note?
Apparently if you doggedly pick the "this is too sketchy" options you get a bad end, lol.
MC opens a keycode-locked door to an apartment using the provided password. "Unknown" tells them to have fun with the app, then vanishes along with their chat log. The app opens a private chatroom where a bunch of people are chatting. When they notice MC they freak out. There is a mutual round of explanations.
This chatroom is for an organisation called RFA (Rika's Fundraising Association) They used to run big parties to raise money for charity, using this app to organise things. But then a year ago their leader, a woman named Rika, died, and since then they just use it to chat.
And the apartment MC is in belonged to Rika. Nobody knew the password but her, not even her boyfriend, V. She's quickly told not to look at any of the confidential information around.
RFA members (who are all male except Jaehee) and their associated colours:
Yoosung (green), 20: Boyish, cheerful uni student.
Zen (grey), 23: Flirty, vain actor. Real name Hyun.
Jaehee Kang (yellow), 25: Serious, polite, overworked assistant to Jumin.
Jumin Han (purple), 27: Serious, strict business man who loves his cat.
707/Seven (red), 22: Eccentric, snarky programmer/hacker. Real name Luciel.
V (aqua), 27: A reclusive photographer. Everyone defers to him, but he rarely gets involved in the RFA since Rika's death. Real name unknown.
There's also:
Ray (pink), ??: Has not shown up yet or been referenced by anyone, but he's in the gallery etc so I might as well list him. I have some idea who he is but it's in the spoiler section at the end of the post.
707 created the app for group members and has no idea how MC got access to it. He does a background check and reassures everyone that she seems legit and harmless (and is a cute girl, lol) though he doesn't pass on any further details to them. Then he contacts V, who decides that somehow this must all be Rika's will, and convinces everyone else to let MC run the RFA's parties from now on?? Jumin and Jaehee both point out that this is KIND OF RIDICULOUS but reluctantly agree, and so does MC.
I'm still trying to construct a mental model of MC's life and personality such that her agreeing so quickly makes a lick of sense. In need of direction and friends, I guess, and open to taking a risk on something interesting if it seems like fun, and will help others.
To begin with the only romance options are Zen, Yoosung and Jaehee. The first four days play out the same either way, but then it splits off based off of who you have the most points with. If there's no clear winner, or the winner is a currently unavailable character, you get a bad end.
You get a visual indication of points gains via an animation of a coloured heart, to match the character. 100 hearts can be exchanged for a single hourglass, and you need like 100 each time to unlock later routes and DLCs. But sometimes you get hourglasses during chats, and there's random drops from the menu. In the 36 hours or so between starting the game and editing this paragraph I've gotten 5-10 hourglasses and about 300 hearts. Missed chats can be unlocked for 5 hourglasses, but since I'm probably going to screw up this playthrough anyway I'm going to just let the cards fall where they may.
The alternative to farming hearts is to buy, like, 30 hourglasses for a dollar. And goddd I just exchanged 100 of my hearts to get a single measly hourglass and buying them instead looks mighty appealing...*forces self to wait until I actually need them*
The guides all say to romance Zen first but I have waited 3 years to win Jaehee's heart and goddamn I am going to go for it full tilt now. Apparently her route is ambiguously romantic but I'll take it.
I'm enjoying the game a lot so far! The characters are well drawn and fun, and there's a fair number of opportunities for MC to be witty or surreal which I really enjoy. And the chats feel like they should for a group of people with differing personalities who've known each other for years.
I am definitely not going to try to get every chat. But I want to see as many as possible. It's not like I have anything else to do.
And now to try to go to sleep again and hopefully wake in time for the 8am-10am chat slot...
Oops, there was also a Yoosung one at 7am, as I realised minutes too late. Afaict he chatted as normal until the point where MC would have responded, then left. How does that work for chats that are important to the plot? (There is...a plot, right?) EDIT: Ok, the chats sometimes go on for some time without MC if there's important stuff that has to be said.
I ended up kinda flirting with Jumin just to spite Zen, who is a sleaze. Jumin seems to be kinda douchey himself, in a strict boss who grew up rich kinda way, but he said some nice things about cats. Apparently Jaehee doesn't like cats?? I STILL LOVE YOU JAEHEE.
Looking at the chat schedule, my real issue with her is going to be that she's consistently up late working. I want to keep you company, Jaehee, but I need sleep ;_;
The chats aren't voiced except for the odd sound emote, so you only really hear character's voices in phone calls. So far I've had calls from 707 and Jaehee welcoming MC to the group. 707 pretended to be a phishing scam, while Jaehee earnestly and seriously recommended Zen's musicals, and reassured MC that the group are nice people.
Jaehee seems to have a crush on Zen but MC will win her over, dammit. But her squeeing over his acting is the main time her cool, professional demeanour slips, and it's pretty cute.
Unlike everyone else, Jaehee didn't join the RFA because she was friends with Rika or V, but was forced to join by Jumin as part of being his assistant. So she sees it as work, and is formal and businesslike. Despite this she expresses concern for Rika's legacy and everyone's well being, especially MC, because she is a sweetie.
The art is really nice. There's no sprites thus far, just little chat icons and animated chibi emotes, but characters post photos to the chat and their galleries. All of Jumin's so far involve his cat, a fluffy white persian called Elizabeth the Third. 707 is very private, even his icon is an abstract landscape. Also apparently he likes Elizabeth but plays with her too roughly. BAD SEVEN.
There's a little spaceship on the bottom of the menu screen which sometimes flies over a packet of chips, and if you click it you get extra hearts and hourglasses.
I find Yeonho's design a bit cutesy but he has a nice voice and personality so he's growing on me. All the voices are well acted, but Yoosung probably has the one I find most nice to listen to. Jaehee's is nice but she hasn't done much emoting with it yet except over Zen.
Mot of the chats are fairly short and are just small talk, but little bits of characterisation and backstory come through.
At the end of day one I forced myself to take a melatonin and get a solid 8 hours sleep even though it meant missing two Jaehee chats. All the important conversation seems to happen during business hours, thankfully.
As I write this sentence it's 4pm on day 2.
Day one was mostly just people welcoming MC to the group, getting to know her and introducing themselves. Day 2 has been people going into a bit more detail about things, and trying to simultaneously reassure themselves that she can do the job even though she's a TOTAL STRANGER WITH NO KNOWN ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND, and make sure she's not under too much pressure. They remind her to eat and sleep a lot which is nice, if ironic on a meta level. MAYBE I WOULD SLEEP BETTER IF YOU DIDN'T SCHEDULE CHATS AT 3AM, CHERITZ.
I recently got my first "email" (to MC, still within the game): I have to answer these the right way to get people to come to the party MC is organising. Afaict a successful party is the difference between a good end and a medium one (I assume the bad ends split off from alienating the LI or making specific wrong decisions) Looking back over the exchange, the guy clearly expressed an enthusiasm for a grand party and I told him it would be small and cute, oops.
I've just been following my gut so far, playing a good natured, hard working, happy go lucky sort who generally only jokes with people who seem to be into it. The sort of person who would go "Sure, I'll run your massive social event" 5 minutes after meeting a secret organisation via a sketchy stranger on the internet, and then do her best to succeed at it and get along with everyone. There's been the option to play her as self doubting and hesitant but nah.
Late last night it turned out Jumin dropped his cat off at Jaehee's house with no warning even though Jaehee doesn't like cats, blandly replying to her restrained but bitter complaints that she should just consider it part of her job.
There was a phonecall at around lunch time with Jaehee where she makes sure MC has eaten(*) and recommends the soup from her building's cafeteria...although she herself just ate sandwiches, since she had to work through her break as usual and doesn't want to trouble anyone to bring her anything. "Exercise after eating is good too, I walk back and forth while reading documents". Jaehee, let me save you from your awful boss and take you away somewhere nice ;_; Thankfully I have had multiple oppurtunities to call Jumin out on mistreating Jaehee, and I have taken every one.
(*)while I don't usually self insert, I generally answer questions like "have you eaten"/"are you tired" as myself, so the answer is reliably yes.
There have been what looked like opportunities for MC to ship Jaehee with Jumin but nooooooope.
OOoooh the 5:30pm conversation felt important: Seven traced "Unknown" to a religious organisation?? Yoosung says Rika, who was his cousin, was like his sister, and that he doesn't like how V got over her death quickly, getting rid of everything to do with her, and distancing himself from the RFA. Jumin thinks V is just grieving in his own way, as do I (and MC). Also, Seven has changed his icon to a semi-abstract picture of himself.
Seven, Yoosung and Zen all had immediate "OOH A CUTE GIRL" reactions in different ways. Zen has been overtly flirty, and also pointedly sighing about having been single for five years. Yoosung has flirted more lightly, in a way that could be read as just friendliness, and his complaints about not having ever had a girlfriend are less pointed but still feel like a hint. Time will tell if Yoosung is actually less sleazy than Zen, or just more subtle about it.
Compare and contrast these profile screenshots, taken at around the same time: (those are fan letters in Zen's, he showed them off with very obviously false modesty)
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Seven "flirts" but it mostly just feels like an extension of the sort of jokey teasing he does with everyone. Like, I don't think he'd complain if MC sincerely flirted back, but he isn't seriously attempting to hit on her.
Jumin is too professional to flirt when they've just met, but I can see him being kind of intense about it once he's decided he likes MC. He's brusque and sensible in group chats but his vibe on the phone leaned a little more towards Christian Grey. Not a lot more, but giving off the sort of "commanding businessman who is surprised to find the heroine tolerable" vibe that suggests his route will lean heavily towards M/f.
There has been nothing remotely flirty in the conversations with Jaehee ;_;
None of the other guys flirt with Jaehee, but they seem to think of her as "Jumin's assistant": a perfectly nice person, but not really a friend, or someone it's appropriate to flirt with. A number of them have given Jumin crap for being a bad boss, I do think they like her on the whole, and she likes them.
Some of the flirt options with Yoosung were enjoyably silly, and he hasn't been sleazy, so I've flirted with him the most. It's possible that Seven and Jumin are flirtier by this point in the branch of the game with their romances in.
Speaking of the way the game branches, I'm wondering if there's going to be an explicit time loop aspect like there was with the other two games. I love me some time loops. The branches are:
Casual Story (free): Jaehee, Yoosung, Zen
Deep Story (paid): 707, Jumin
Another Story (paid): Ray, V
Oh noooo I got an email reply from that dude and he said the party sounded horrible and he wouldn't be coming ;_; LESSON LEARNED, I GUESS. Hopefully I can recover from this by judging people's preferences better in future (I didn't realise that was the aim!)
Ahahaha. So. Zen is excited about a new musical based on a romance novel.
Yoosung: Ya? Ur mucical?
Zen: Are you playing LOLOL? There's no point talking to you. Chia, hear me out.
My options:
"You must be starting a new piece~ Congratulations."
"Ya i'm listenibn"
GUESS WHICH ONE I CHOSE :D
Zen: LOOK AT MY CHAT BUBBLE DAMMIT
MC: T_T
Zen: Just kidding, it was cute. But yeah my fans are all clamouring for me to play the lead. Am I so popular?
MC: Lol. Such a narcissist.
Zen: Clearly I haven't won you over yet. Look at this sexy picture of me some more.
And then MC and Yoosung troll him until he leaves :D
Zen organises for someone from a romance writer association to contact MC about the party. I tell her of COURSE they'll all be able to meet Zen personally. *hopes the moral of my previous failure was indeed to lie and say whatever the person wants to hear*
I had the option to be dubious about romance novel authors because that is a THING with Cheritz.
The romance author replied asking me which of the associations novel's sold better?? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BLUFF MY WAY THROUGH THAT?? *picks the one with the more exciting premise*
Ohhh there's three little symbols at the bottom and two of them are lit. So hopefully if I got that right she will be successfully hooked. The dude's email is marked FAILED and sits in my inbox haunting me ;_;
Haaa so the final chat of the day involved me trying to navigate a conversation with Jaehee where she talked a bunch about how great Zen is. I didn't want MC to lie and say she's a fan, but also didn't want to offend Jaehee. I ended with 4 hearts which isn't bad, go me. And I actually got to ask her if she has feelings for Zen, she flailingly said NO in a way that screamed YES. She warned MC that dating a celebrity like him would make life difficult because of jealous fans, I wonder if she's jealous that Zen flirts with MC constantly but never with Jaehee, who he barely seems to notice BECAUSE HE SUCKS. (Also at 25 she's a few years older than his 23, while MC pings as more like 21)
And I am going to post this now before it's day 3 and I get caught up in things again! EDIT: oops. I tried.
This has been fun! It'd be a lot less hassle as a regular dating sim, though, and I have to wonder how annoying it'll get as a go on.
Day one completeness: 88%, Day 2: 81%
****** Major (late game?) spoilers ****
I know a bit about this game via osmosis, mostly via a friend who is VERY INTO 707. But I still don't really know what it's about, asides from Rika having Dark Secrets and possibly not actually being dead. Also 707 has an evil twin or something?? I'm guessing that's "Ray" from the gallery, since he looks like a white haired 707. He gives off "obligatory Cheritz creepy secret LI" vibes in the trailer, and I assume he's "Unknown", unless that was Rika.
Yep, from looking up stuff on the wiki later, Ray=Unknown.
And here's the trigger warnings from my friend, she tried to avoid spoilers but some are implied. Having read them once to make sure nothing hits my buttons (Jumin looks like I'll have to brace myself but I should be ok with the rest) I'm not going to read them again and will try to put it out of my mind.
Original Story routes:
Jaehee
======
A pure and healing route, honestly ray of sunshine, nothing to worry about here.
Zen
===
The most badly written of the routes (it was the first they wrote) but otherwise no real issues. There's a Bad End that references mind control but nothing very deep, just an implication.
Yoosung
======
One of the Bad Ends goes involve both YS and the player character dying, but is not graphic in any way.
The non-bad-end does have a character injured badly in one eye, this is only referenced and not shown.
Jumin
======
He gets a bit Amnesia: Memories Toma vibes with the way he becomes clingy with the player after a certain point, though he doesn't actually lock them in a cage hahaha. But there is a feeling of being trapped for a few days when he is trying to protect the player from Bad Thing Happening.
Seven
====
- While his route reveals the most of the main plot, there's nothing really content-warning-y about it
Secret Ends (playable after Seven's route)
- gunshot wound cg (not super graphic)
- attempted suicide (not graphic but super emotional)
- attempted murder (not graphic but their is a CG of someone being strangled)
- character death (not the player)
Another Story routes (best played after the other routes and the Secret Ends unlockable after Seven's route, they they 'spoil' the main plot from the start)
Both of these routes are much darker as they deal with the main antagonist organisation of the original story, though set two years earlier than the original story.
V
=
Drug use (including forced drugged use, not against the player), poisoning, implied torture (nothing graphic), stabbing (you see a bloodied shirt, I think), Day 8-9 of his route are extremely draining emotionally as you have to watch a couple different people fall apart and you're just. well. this is great. cool. shame i can't stop this in any way!!!
Ray
- even more drug use than V route, implied torture but not shown, forced drug use (not the player), player is non-consensually touched (but it doesn't go further than pushing them against a bed and being all Mwahahahah I'm So Evil at them), referenced child abuse (drugs, psychological), though all we see is one CG of said child shackled in a prison
no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-04 09:13 am (UTC)Yes, I don't know how anyone who actually does things during the day manages it.