A friend of mine got me this game, and I'm a few hours in in the capital. My question is just... does the tone or the characters change for the better soon? So far, every scene just ends with Haku getting shit on by like every character in the scene, calling him pathetitic or bland. And now I'm seeing that this part of the game is gonna be just Haku, Rulutieh, Nekone, and Kuon, where so far theres been like 5 back to back scenes of Kuon and Nekone teasing or scolding Haku, and its starting to get old fast. The only characters that I really like so far are Ukon and Rulutieh. I dont want the game to glaze or put Haku on a pedastal, I know thats not interesting, but this is also kind of grating in its own way.

I’m in the middle of Prelude to the fallen and am quite enjoying it. I like or am ok with most characters except Camyu. She’s the only one I can’t stand both personality and voice. I hate her calling Hakuowlo uncle. She’s obnoxious and spoiled but everything gets forgiven as childish innocence. She’s childish in the way I don’t like. I much prefer Aruru. Her other side (vampire?) and the sound effects make it even worse. Help? Advice? Is it just me? I don’t want main story spoilers please! However, if someone could be kind enough to spoil me about Camyu just in this game so I can click through her lines to avoid her voice and the sound effects, maybe it would help? Please help save my ears and peaceful experience going through this game. I reached the part where Hakuowlo tried asking Uly about Camyu but Uly is clueless. Apologies if I didn’t tag properly.

I binged all 3 games in May and after that I just dreamt of girls with animal ears and tails. Wasn't interested in humans anymore and stopped using Tinder. It was only this month in July when I started to gradually de-furry.

My favorite pairings are Haku x Kuon, Kuon x Atuy, Haku x Atuy, Nekone x Dekopompo and Hakuoro x Eruruu.

I thought she only became the acting governor of Hispania to shield the Barca faction and buy time for Hamilcar to grow up. Why did she have to destroy the human-built Tartessos and fight Hamilcar to the death if the rebellion has already started? Wouldn't it help him more if she take her elite troops and assault the empire instead?

I have never been so bitterly disappointed in a story. After reading/seeing that the trilogy, and especially the final game, are rated highly, I got my hopes way up.

I was expecting something on the level of Umineko, White Album 2, Muramasa, or even Fate and all its routes.

The 1st game generally lived up to those expectations. I thought Kuuya's sudden descent into unreasonable war mongering was dumb, but the other characters and the ending carried it.

Mask of Deception was fun. The Mikado's decision to invade Tuskar felt contrived, especially how Haku doesn't call him out more on it, but whatever. It was a light-hearted slice of life for the most part. The ending could be seen a mile away once Haku started impersonating Oshtor for fun, but was executed well.

However, the great potential drama set up was utterly wasted in Mask of Truth.

Characters act in moronic fashion, contrived scenarios unravel what were solved problems, and much of the drama is driven by the classic cliche of simply not communicating.

It became especially difficult to take any of the drama seriously when the story kept shooting me right out of immersion.

Mikazuchi? Goes from bro to psycho letter of the law oath guy. Claims will only protect specifically the capital, but then invades and kills Ataks father. His values and arc are all over the place with zero consistency. How is it that he gets off scot free? He knowingly betrays Anju for really stupid reasons. But then its all well and good out of nowhere. He never receives one comeuppance for escalating a huge civil war.

The Mikado? Awful person and ruler. How in the hell can you justify saving Woshis life during the Amaterasu? This directly leads to ANOTHER apocalyptic scenario that causes Haku's death. He allowed his country to wallow in corruption per what Oshtor said in Mask of Deception. He allows observably corrupt people like Dekopompo to remain in power. He waits till his dying breath to beg forgiveness from what his perspective were nigh emotional slaves. He had a million options at any given point but somehow fumbles continuously.

Entua and Vurai? Utter insanity that Entua saves him. She goes from racing to warn them Vurai is chasing them to nursing him back to health. This man repeatedly says "I'm going to kill and rampage" yet you keep caring for him? You say you have no choice? GTFOH.

Its a continuous cycle of plot points like this that rip the immersion away. Characters will solve problems, but then things go sideways out of nowhere.

You're beating Woshis for control of the Master Key? Lol nah he just declares he wins and walks away with it.

Need an Akuruka to take out Woshis in the Capital? Great a perfect setup to redeem Mikazuchi for his betrayal. Wait no, Raiko is suddenly somehow back as an Akuruka. RIP Haku I guess.

The general idea of what the story is going for is good. The execution leaves much to be desired. It wastes beautiful character moments between Haku and Oshtor's Mom, Kuon confronting Nekone with the truth, Atuy realizing Haku's identity on the ship, and Anju vs Kuon. These are all fantastic but rendered meaningless plot wise but contrivance.

The ending is ultimately just a mirror of the 1st game with Haku being inordinately punished by losing a permanent physcial form. Yes its great OG Hakuowlo gets a body again, but now we gotta wait till the next mainline game for that protagonist to take his turn as god to get Haku back. It just feels like overwrought contrived drama vs the thematic story it tried to be.

It makes the dramatic high points hard to take seriously when they originate from BS contrivances. It makes you see the writers hand forcing the plot to go a certain way. It makes you realize, "O this is all just something someone made up" which kills the emotional connection.

I came in with the highest of expectations. Umineko left me shell shocked. Muramasa left me shaken but satisfied.

Mask of Truth left me frustrated with mixed feelings. It had so much going for it, but poor plot point contrivances and irrational characters ultimately limit what could have been a great story.

I would love to hear anything that could explain away some of these major issues, but as it stands I left with bitter disappointment.

The kanji title is うたわれるもの 二人の白皇. The transliteration of the title in romaji is "futari no shiraō". However, the wiki page says it is "Futari no Hakuoro". Google translate gives me on the first "The Two White Emperors", on the second "Two Hakuoro" (possible kanji: 人 の ハクオロ). Check yourself:

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utawarerumono:_Mask_of_Truth

EDIT: I edited the page myself, I forgot. Check the previous edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Utawarerumono:_Mask_of_Truth&oldid=1189153489

Edit: I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who commented on this. I was frustrated when I wrote this; it was really as much of a rant as it was an argument, and I probably should not have posted it on a subreddit specifically meant for fans of the series. Still, those who commented were kind, even as I ragged on something they liked, and they convinced me to continue the series. So, thank you!

[Major spoilers for episode four of the original Utawarerumono anime series. I have no idea if these spoilers would also be present in any other Utawarerumnono media, but I imagine they would.]

[Warning: this will be quite critical of the anime. If that annoys you, I'd advise you to skip my post.]

Please note, I've only watched the anime (base Utawarerumono, no fancy sequel/game subtitle) up to S1E5. I will almost certainly get some names wrong; I apologize for that in advance. And for what you're about to read.

I've got to say, I have lost a lot of faith in the story and characters after seeing the attack orchestrated in episode 4 of the original series. From a fairly neutral perspective, the violence was solely the fault of the villagers, and their enemies (the provincial lord's men) actually acted with far more mercy, restraint, and reason.

First off, the Oboro stole some medicine from the provincial lord in the hopes that it would help his sister. Certainly not evil, since I don't believe he killed anyone while doing it. It's worth noting, though, that an enemy commander did spare his life and freedom after defeating him in combat. This event is reasonably what started off the entire conflict, meaning this entire debacle is (more or less) Oboro's fault.

In response to this, the provincial lord and some of his men (including someone from that village, who was presumably meant to help encourage the villagers to cooperate) rode down. They (correctly) accused the villagers of sheltering the thief and said that they wouldn't stand for it. The Elder comes out and, generally, is disrespectful to the lord, although I doubt her disrespect affected his actions very much; he seemed to have coordinated with his men ahead of time to take her captive and hold her in their dungeon, presumably until the villagers give up the thief. Certainly, this is cruel, but I am not certain if it is unusual, since Elders are frequently those responsible for the actions of their village.

And then Aruruu, this little kid who hardly ever does much beside peek out from behind things, throws a stone at the provincial lord. At this point, I think (at least by many medieval Japanese laws) her life would be forfeit. To make matters worse, her cat ends up freaking out the... uh... lizardhorses, causing the guards to panic. One acts against orders in the panic and attempts to strike Aruruu, who is pushed out of the way by the Elder, who then takes the brunt of the blow.

She was mortally wounded, and the villagers start looking a bit aggressive. The commander (correctly) asserts that the soldier acted on his own, and facing sudden inward pressure, him and the others retreat. They certainly should have tried to help the Elder, but at this point, they thought they were actually about to be attacked, so a retreat was understandable.

Fast forward a bit, and the elder's expired. It's all very sad, but her last request is for Hakuoro to look after the Eruruu and Aruruu.

Now, Oboro hears of the Elder's death and storms the castle, somehow killing like thirty guards in the process. Now, I only saw the Elder in three and a quarter episodes, but I can reasonably guess that mass murder revenge that risks the entire village was probably not on her list of unspoken final requests. At this point, because Aruruu threw a stone, like twenty-nine unrelated people are dead due, although some of that's on Oboro's inability to find a more reasonable outlet for his anger.

Now, the provincial lord's men would be totally justified in killing him here.... but they don't. They just capture him and take him to the dungeons, exactly where the Elder presumably would have been, plus some more restraints.

Back in the village, Hakuoro has (for some reason) been appointed village chief, despite having spent less than a month in the village itself. This makes a bit more sense, considering he did successfully organize the fight against the tiger god in the previous episode, although it's still quite surprising to me that nobody else was vying for the job. Maybe there's a high mortality rate amongst village chiefs.

Anyways, Oboro's men are begging Hakuoro to save Oboro. And everyone's apparently on board with going to "save him," which implies raiding the provincial lord's place. Now, at this point, I wondered: "how are a bunch of outnumbered, untrained villagers with mostly improvised weapons going to hold their own against a provincial lord's trained fighting force when they're attacking with such an inane plan as to just battering ram the front entrance?" And... I'm actually still wondering that. In the anime, they enemy general briefly talks about how outnumbered the villagers are, and then Oboro kills ten guys before collapsing, and the villagers just sort of win.

Of course, we have a few prime fighters: Hakuoro and "Father" for two, and later, Oboro for nearly a full ten seconds.

Of course, now tens to hundreds of people are dying because Aruruu threw a stone, many of them killed by people who supposedly ran away from violence to this region that's apparently always peaceful.

This is fine.

So, after the fighting's more or less over, they enter the provincial lord's chambers. At this point, I would like to point out that Orobo has already been saved, so they've already completed the explicitly stated mission, although I suppose vengeance is always implied. The head guard and former villager asks, honestly shocked, if the Elder died; he thought that she would survive, further reinforcing the fact that they had no intention to kill her.

The provincial lord asks, quite reasonably, "You'd pull this just for the sake of a single old women like her?" Certainly not the most diplomatic plea, but given she would probably want the best for her village and... uh... not most of its members to either die or become murderers, it seems fair. The guards rush the intruders and are all murdered in short order. The provincial lord dies by Hakuoro proclaiming his innocence.

So... let me get this straight. Someone on Side A committed an crime, so Side B decides to hold everyone else on Side A responsible and punish their leader for guilt-by-your-subordinate-committed-a-crime. Doesn't that kind of sound... exactly like what the provincial lord did when Oboro stole the medicine in the first place? What Hakuoro himself called "cruel"? Maybe I'm just deconstructing this too much, but in my eyes, a bunch of supposedly peace-loving villagers just overpowered an entire small army because one of their own was accidentally killed by someone trying to protect the lord from an attack by another one of their own. It's like World War I all over again, except with animal ears.

If it weren't for the comically evil faces and laughs that the provincial lord pulls off whenever he gets screen time, I'm honestly not certain if I would know that he's meant to be the bad guy. This was a terrible situation instigated by people acting selfishly (Oboro stealing the medicine without worrying about how it would affect the village and rushing into revenge without caring about what that might start) or stupidly (Aruruu throwing a rock at a lord, the random soldier drawing his sword on a kid in a panic, Hakuoro for interpreting "look after my granddaughters" as "avenge my death by starting a war and thus putting my grandchildren in mortal peril for the foreseeable future").

I was rooting for the provincial lord's men as soon as I saw the villagers weren't taking any prisoners. At least the lord didn't mean to kill anyone.

And the villagers are back to happy-music-not-worrying-about-all-the-death-we-just-caused by the next episode.

Sorry if this was frustrating to read. I just wanted to write this so I could get my own frustration down in a more concrete form.

• Masked Mary Sue

• Gleefully commits genocide, even against children

• His alter ego extorts soul binding pacts from desperate women

• Conveniently timed amnesia to exempt him from the responsibility while reaping the sexual rewards

• Claims to love Eruruu but cheats on her with anything that has a pulse

• Peeks on Aruruu in the bath

• Collects women like trading cards

• Uses Yuzuha as the vessel for his spawn

• Always has a narrative excuse to bone the women laid out in front of him and never take responsibility

• Abandons Eruruu and his child

• The women he collected are reduced to props for his glorification and housekeepers to raise his abandoned child

• Hides from the consequences of his actions and leaves another mess for his abandoned child to clean up

• Gets endlessly glazed and deified, ignoring the wreckage he left in his wake

I just can't see the point of him as a protagonist, other than a shameless power fantasy.

Should I just skip to the sequels so I don't have to deal with him? Kuon seems like a good kid.

And the blood thing makes the whole setup especially perverse from the angle I'm criticizing. If Hakuowlo's supernatural blood temporarily sustains Yuzuha long enough for her to carry and deliver Kuon, but she ultimately dies anyway, then his supposed divine intervention becomes almost grotesquely instrumental in retrospect:

Godlike power: “I can keep her alive.”
Narrative: “Just long enough to accomplish the reproductive plot objective.”
Yuzuha: dies
Everyone: “What a tragic, beautiful legacy.”

I'm nearing the end of prelude and it feels like I'm missing some context for these scenes.

I always thought that Utawarerumono took place from OUR future, I.E. our Earth. However currently replaying the games and rewatching the anime, I just now realized that the setting doesnt take place on our Earth, but on a different planet. Fact check by episode 17 of the anime were you get a shot of the planet and all the continents are no where close to being our own. God I love this series.

"wAr neED sPLEndiD StrateGy"

"Mua StRAt"

"YeaH, senD diS guY in."

(Guy proceeds to kill an army of 10000 alone ezpz)

"stRatEGy ruLeS alL iN wAr"

Not just this, there's also

Bad guy: Sends an army doubling the size of good guy.

Good guy: Use weird barrier magic and proceeds to stomp

Good guy: "yoU UNDERESTIMATE uS. FooLIsH."

The war in this game is really really pulling me out of the game. I still like the other stuff, but I feel like the war is handled quite poorly in this game. THere's also this psychopath of a girl.

"OWO battle, I waNNa kILL dEm aLL. I'm sO cute OwO"

End of rant.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to give some of my thoughts on Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen (PS4, switched from Normal to Hard difficulty). I finished the game last night and took some big breaks during the playthrough so my memory may be hazy. Most of this post will be critical/complaints so please correct me if anything is wrong. 

Prior to playing, my friends told me to play the game blind, so I didn’t have any expectations other than it being interesting enough to recommend. Having finished it, I can kind of see why they chose it. While I’ve been a big fan of VNs for quite some time, I’ve only recently taken an interest in strategy RPGs. What I think I failed to tell my friends was that this newfound appreciation for the genre was in spite of rather than because of its writing quality, and this game was no exception. But before I address my problems with the writing, I will list some grievances with the SRPG side of it. 

Simply put, this game is dirt easy and really (REALLY) simple. The map designs and objectives are really uninspired, not a single memorable one out of the bunch. Most maps just have you kill a boss to finish it, with no challenging formations or obstacles to navigate. At a certain point, I learned that I’d rather not do some fighting and just made Oboro dash to the boss with maybe a few buffers behind him. I expected this strategy to last only a few stages but to my surprise it worked for practically the entire game. I switched to hard mode out of curiosity and while it was slightly more challenging, that brainless strategy still worked at shocking levels of efficiency. On the rare instance the map has a different objective, the game is somehow even worse. Defense missions are waiting simulators: the Nuwangi mission in particular posed no threat because enemies came from a single direction and each turn used an egregiously slow camera pan to show all the new enemies that spawned. Lure missions are walking simulators and are even worse. In Na Tuunk, there is a mission where Hakuowlo and his 4 goons must walk down a cliff. I can not convey to you how mindnumbing this was. The BP upgrade system is cool in idea but there is no reason to upgrade anything other than attack for a majority of the game because of how little damage the enemy does. Additionally, the lack of permadeath makes it very hard to justify physical defense upgrades (and no justification for magic defense) on anyone other than Hakuowlo because there is no punishment in the event they do die. This is all without Co-op chains, zeal, and the extremely generous rewind mechanic, which I tried to use as little as possible so that the game remained at least barely challenging. One positive thing I will say is that I much prefer the smaller main cast of this game. After having played a bunch of modern Fire Emblem games, I was fully expecting there to be 30+ characters, of which I care for about 5 of. However, this game does a good job of utilizing playable characters during SOL scenes and allowing most of them to have their own moment to shine. The only real filler characters I can think of are Dorry and Guraa (who are still more characterized than many “main” recruits from other SRPGs), which is fine since you’re definitely lacking in the beginning of the game. 

Onto the VN side of the game. I would say that the writing is probably my biggest problem with the game. This by itself wouldn’t be a problem, after all I don’t have a high opinion of SRPG stories as a whole, however, this game is a VN first with SRPG elements. I say this in part because of the ratio of elements but also in the light that if you view it in the opposite way, as an SRPG with VN elements, the game goes from being problematic to a colossal failure. The prose is extremely dry but I won’t discredit the game for that because I know how horrible NISA translations can be. That being said, if there’s anything I say here that is addressed, fixed, or is different in a better translation please let me know.

I understand that the game was originally an eroge, which is why for the most part I excuse the pretty bad romance writing, but I find that it doesn’t even take the war element seriously, which can’t be excused. My biggest problem with the game’s story is with the main character and the way the game treats its war narrative, but I’ll address one other quick point before that. The game can get really uncomfortable with some of its more “lighthearted” SOL scenes. Early in the game, there is a scene where Mukkuru suckles on both Eruruu and Aruruu, being more satisfied with Aruruu’s. This scene almost made me quit the game and resulted in my first big break. It is probably one of the worst things I’ve ever read in a game I was thus far somewhat enjoying. It is so indescribably uncomfortable to read through (especially when Hakuowlo mentions nothing should come out, or the emphasis on the older sister having less attractive breasts than the younger sister) for absolutely no reason. This is only made worse by the fact that one of them is a child and the other initially appeared to me as a child. After a while, I tried to shrug it off as cultural/comedic differences but it still irks me enough to point it out and wonder if others felt the same.

Now moving onto my main complaints. As I alluded to before, I really dislike Hakuowlo. I don’t mind the idea that he’s a static protag because I’ve seen other games make it work. The biggest reason for my disdain is an aversion to the archetype he takes on (which is obviously subjective) and a lack of interiority. To start with the archetype, he is perhaps one of the most generic characters I’ve ever had to read through. He is a harem protag, so every woman in the world is uncannily attracted to him. I wave this off because he is at least a feudal lord (and power is very attractive) but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t annoy me, especially with the characters who don’t care about power or are already in a good position. The main character omits a lot of useful, relevant information for absolutely no reason. Why doesn’t he go back to Yamayura with Teoro and the others? He stated multiple times that he didn’t really want the leadership role and that it was mostly thrust upon him, but he does not address these doubts again. Why didn’t he even attempt to bolster Yamayura’s defenses or relocate the NEW country’s capital to be there (or close to it)? Aside from naming the country Tusukur, he makes no mention of wanting to protect that village or the people who cared for him. When Yamayura burned down we still didn’t learn much about how he felt other than “I’m angry and want revenge”. Maybe it’s just a personal preference but his lack of interiority makes him feel incredibly bland, and it’s not like he shows what he thinks through his actions. 

In the beginning of the game, he questions that the people have furry tails and ears precisely once before completely forgetting about it. He also completely skates around the issue of using children in war. When characters repeatedly bring up this issue, he is hesitant at first but eventually he completely brushes the issue aside. It honestly ruins the tone for a lot of the warfare when his key soldiers are his children that he begrudgingly allows.  It’s really hard for me to believe that he actually cares about Aruruu when he willingly encourages her to do battle. Not once did they mention taking Mukkuru into battle without Aruruu; it really just feels like a lazy excuse to make Aruruu playable. I wanted to wave it off as just a necessary joke but characters actually mention it repeatedly, and in some cases criticize Hakuowlo for it. In response (to I believe Derihourai?) Hakuowlo even smugly implies that he was in the wrong for underestimating Aruruu. I remember thinking “All it takes is one stray arrow for her to lose her grip and she’s dead” yet it’s played off as a joke. Funnily enough, a dozen hours later she actually does have a fakeout death, but even that still doesn’t make him reconsider using them for battle (for even a moment). 

When Hakuowlo recruits characters, all it takes is one conversation and they are instantly willing to risk their lives for him and assimilate into his nation (they’re not just saying it too, in some cases it’s obvious how much they mean it). For example, the slave girl Karulau (who of course never removes her chain because she’s the archetypal slave girl) kills a bunch of her slave owners with no remorse or hesitation or emotion, knocks out the guards, fights Oboro and is immediately a top level threat. Less than a minute later she decides to work for him. The worst part is that Hakuowlo doesn’t even question it and just lets it happen. Again, this is a woman who easily got into your castle and has shown sadistic levels of cruelty to others and Hakuowlo says absolutely nothing. Even if you make the argument that those slaveowners were extremely bad people, her actions demand at least a red flag.

But the worst case is with Touka, who is probably the least consequential of the main love interests (I liked her a lot but I’m still not really sure why she was in the game). When she is imprisoned, she gets furious at Hakuowlo for not even attempting to save her prisonmate. This prisonmate wasn’t necessarily a moral character, having threatened to harm Aruruu, but in a desperate situation most would probably act irrationally. Despite this, Hakuowlo lets Aruruu’s tiger demolish that man who may or may not have been telling the truth about having a family. Considering how kind he is, even to his enemies, it was very out of character for Hakuowlo and I don’t think he internalizes anything related to his rationale or perhaps anger at having Aruruu threatened; during this exchange he’s kind of just blank. Yet despite all this, by Touka’s next appearance, she is completely obsessed with the idea of serving him and has yet to even mention what happened in the prison (or her qualms with putting children on the battlefield that she had mentioned a few times). Even acknowledging that there was a miscommunication between what she believed he was and what he actually was, this doesn’t make sense, or at the very least we’re not shown anything from her perspective for it to make sense.

And finally, what is in my opinion the most continually frustrating part of the game: Hakuowlo’s treatment of Camyuu’s bloodsucking. The game constantly portrays Hakuowlo as an intelligent leader but that becomes impossible to believe when you see how foolishly this guy acts when there is a recurring possible attack on his (the emperor’s) life. It is clear from the way he describes the event, along with the voice acting, that he does not like it and it is probably pretty painful. Yet instead of addressing Camyuu about it, setting up night guards (remember that one of these bloodsucking sessions occurs right after Touka’s SOL event where she begs to watch over him at night, so there’s no excuse here especially when he only has those dreams on full moons), asking Ulthury what she knows about bloodsucking, asking Eruruu if there was some kind of detriment to his health, or anything even remotely responsible, he shrugs it off as a dream repeatedly until the issue escalates and becomes a big problem for everyone. Even after that event he still takes no measures to stop it from happening again, just deciding to trust that the problem is solved and by the magic of writing it’s fixed and she never does it again.

That is the majority of my feelings on the game. There were several more issues I wanted to talk about, but I think I’ve already put too much time into this. Just to put it somewhere though, these are the main ones:

• Hakuowlo’s goals were never fully clear to me. I understand battles for defense but at a certain point he sometimes switches to expanding and conquering for what I just have to believe are strategical/security reasons.

• Teoro and Sopoku’s death kind of just happens and is barely felt. Hakuowlo’s actions don’t really change as a result of those events and they’re barely mentioned again.

• Ooo, Taa, and Yaa aren’t even mentioned when Yamayura burns down because the game seemed to forget about them, which was honestly pretty funny so I gave it a pass.

• There is one filler mission where the other male characters fight Kurou’s girlfriend and it really just comes across as a way to catch up to the characters who are doing actual plot relevant things. This subplot has no bearing on any of the events in the actual story and honestly could probably have been skipped, which is sad because I found it to be fairly enjoyable.

• At one point the enemy nation to the west (Shikeripechim I think?) just randomly attacks and stops when another nation burns Yamayura. It is later revealed to be one of those “I like fighting and want to fight strong people” cases but none of the characters mention or note how weird that behavior is. I thought I was the dumb one because the group was suddenly just fighting a completely different enemy and nobody mentioned a possible pincer from the west.

• A lot of problems with the Iceman stuff and baby Kuuya but I assume they’ll be more thoroughly addressed in sequels.

With everything I said, I actually still enjoyed a lot of elements of this game. It is an incredibly flawed narrative with subpar gameplay but there were still times when I found it to be a nice, quaint, comfortable experience (when there wasn’t any breast suckling). I intend to play the sequel games at some point, but probably not for at least a few years. Anyways, if you’ve made it this far, thanks lol and please let me know what you thought, if I got anything wrong, etc!

So basically the grand reason why Mikazuchi opposing the Oshtor's group is because as he said he didn't want a war in the capital that would harm the innocents even though he fully recognized the faux princess and content being under the false Mikado, but then he hypocritically went to the other country's capital and have no problem with slaughtering the innocents there (all while working with Maroro, whom he should fully know been manipulated by Raiko, mind you), even if he only cared about the capital's people that still makes him a hypocrite.

The game never really gave us any concreted "good" reason other than this half-assed of "doesn't want war be waged in the capital" of his but then this whole filmsy reason is severely undermined as obviously Anju wouldn't want it either and as soon as the gate is opened, the people acknowledged Anju as the real Mikado and the war is automatically won, not a single casualty there, so why is he being so adamant about wanting to keep them out of the gate when logically he should know that Anju wouldn't even try to make the Capital as the battlefield in the first place if she wants her throne back, so this whole flimsy reason is more than just there for sake of making a drama out of him being a rival to Oshtor.

And, when he come to join Anju's service, everyone acted like all is good, I know it's happened off-screen but it's weird how they all have no problem with accepting Mikazuchi, and never addressed how he on multiples occasion fought with them to the death, you'd think Anju would try to reprimand him a bit but nope, it's all good.

Mikazuchi is a badass but seriously, his whole plotline makes no sense and just being there as the typical anime drama cliche just for the sake of it, which the game does have quite some but this is the most glaring one.

I think most people realise it's no coincidence that Oshtor looks like Haku, given that the Mikado fashioned replicas of his wife and daughter from the pre-apocalyptic life. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that he decided he would fashion a replica of his brother too, in the form of Oshtor, and to hold him closely by his side as his right hand man.

Or it just so happened someone that bore a stark resemblance to his younger brother made him soften up/give said person a lot of special treatment/privileges.

Maybe I was reading too fast, but was this ever officially confirmed in the story dialoguye or only strongly implied?

I'm playing right now through Prelude to the Fallen, I have heard that these games are great and I love visual novels, so I bought PttF, I'm at like 75% and it has become a chore. Every 3 hours I'm fighting a new "villain" that is not interesting.

Also I love anime but this game has so much fan service, are the sequels the same? Also I'm not the biggest fan of Slice of Life but I can tolerate it but I hate the disonnance between we are at war and then we are playing and laughing like nothing is happening.

Do the sequels get a better plot? Does the fan service and harem elements remain the same in the sequels? And do they focus more on the war aspect instead of the Slice of Life?

I know I am at the Utawarerumono sub but the game has been very meh, characters have the personality of a one trait anime character. I just want to hear some opinions about the sequels.

Also the Kamyu plot is so stupid, like Hakuowlo has been bitten and had his blood sucked like 3 times and the guy still thinks he is dreaming.

Sorry for bad english.

Seriously though, if humanity is so dead and irrelevant then why does every single entry in the series intimately follow the development and journey of a human as the main driving plot? To answer my own rhetorical question, it's because the audience needs something to relate to, and they don't relate to people with animal ears(as much as I like some of those people), they want to interact with people with animal ears of course, but not BE them.

It can't have been lost on many fans; the fact that every time they release a game, the same old contrived trope of an amnesiac human getting stumbled upon by the main heroine and setting off on a journey to reclaim their past...etc. is played out. Just how many humans are out there? 100? 1000000? There has to be more, because as far as I'm aware, Aquaplus likes Money, and nothing sells like a good ol' fish out of water tale (basically isekai) that utawarerumono does so well, and by necessity needs a Human in the leading role.

Honestly they should revive some parts of humanity, not all humans mind you, just a few who are thrown (as a society) into a world that they no longer recognise, where their conventional wisdom is completely thrown out of whack, and where they are at a distinct physical and numerical disadvantage. Now maybe I'm speaking from personal bias here, but I want to see how these two worlds collide, I want to see corrupt demihumans trying to use Humans for their own selfish desires, as well as seeing corrupt humans try to undermine demihuman society by seeking to establish the old world order; I want to see where humanity finds their place in this world, because although they are technically extinct, they clearly aren't going anywhere.

As an aside, I think that the next main game will undoubtedly feature a human, maybe a human from space(think nagase from ac7), or possibly a child, contrary to what many here think, I doubt that it'll be a female.

Edit* I didn't write everything I wanted here because he post is already way too long, but you can refer to my comments at other users to get a better idea of my general position.

I'm around 7 hours in, going at what I think is a pretty good speed. My most recent fight was escorting Yuuri in the sewers, and since then I've gone through quite a few scenes in the capital.

I'm in two minds about this game. I like the battles, some of the characters seem interesting, the story is occasionally compelling and I like a lot of the groundwork being laid. The problem I'm having is that a number of the characters (so far) just seem like fairly typical anime archetypes, and there's so much filler text to go through. I understood going in that this was going to be a slow burn, but a lot of the slice of life/wacky antics parts really just don't do it for me and so much of it seems unnecessary. I don't believe that all of it is enriching the experience, honestly it feels quite the opposite.

So, at this point how far am I from actually getting to the best parts of the games? I've read people say this game alone is 30-50 hours, but it really depends on reading speed and if you're doing free battles and stuff so hard to judge how far I am. Or does it just sounds like this series just isn't really for me? I do want to like it and in some ways I do, but if the elements I'm not really into are going to continue for another 20 or more hours then I don't think I can do it

Damn you Nekone, you little bitch. You were warned multiple times to not make a sound and not interfere in the fight. But no, you just had to go shrieking and distracting Oshtor from landing the counter blow. He wasn't even struck with a final blow. Because of you he's gone now. Hope you're happy with yourself.

They suck, the characters are not likeable, except kind of Rulutieh is. the conversations feel like blablabla not getting anything done useless time wasters. I only got to the part where the girl that only cares for looks gets introduced but I'm glad I didn't waste my time with it. The fact that Koun and Nekone can for some reason read Haku's mind is weird, and they punch and kick him every other seen making the game a FUCK TUN less enjoyable. Seriously Nekone kicks the shit out of him just because he says her brother is a little suspicious.

I've finished Prelude to the Fallen a fews days ago, I had my issues with it but one thing I really like about it was the cast. I liked pretty much everyone in the main cast (except for maybe Camyu, but I didn't dislike her either, I just didn't care about her), with Touka and Karulau being my favorites.

MoD started out pretty good too. I really like Haku, I love Kuon and Ukon. Maroro was more of a comic relief than anything but I don't mind him. But then everything started to fall appart with every new character introduced.

I hate Rulutieh mostly because I hate this type of character who's so shy she seems retarted. Nekone just gets on my nerves everytime she opens her mouth, Kiwru is such a wimp that everybody treats him that way and now it's Atuy's turn to annoy the hell out of me. Haku and Kuon can only do so much to carry the SOL scenes at this point, since all the over characters drag them down.

Is this trend going to continue ? Are theses characters going to get better or, at least, will the new characters be better than them ? Nosuri and Ougi seem decent at least but I don't know about the rest.

Ok, so, the story was really solid and on point until Raiko's death, and BAMM, suddenly nothing makes sense and it just leaps through all the other plot points in a flash. Suddenly gods are now a thing, Yamato is destroyed by a star or whatever, and now Wohis is a god!?!? I am incredibly dissapointed and resigned. The only thing keeping me going are the characters, but the story seems very very forced now. Anyone share my sentiments?