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View Full Version : Appreciation for PSO2's Story and Writing



lunamaniac
Jan 9, 2016, 03:38 PM
I finished Episode 2 a few days ago, and just felt like sharing some of my feelings on it.

I had pretty low expectations when I started doing the story. Reception is pretty mixed, and certain people like to casually refer to how bad it is pretty much constantly on these forums.

I was surprised when I liked it.

Just, overall, I thought it was good.

The world building is actually quite well done, the way the game explores races like Lilipans and Dragonkin makes me want to learn more about them - and it does deliver. We learn about these species' past, their languages, and in the case of the Dragonkin we learn about aspects of their religion and culture.

The characters are varied, I want to know more about them. There is just so much content dedicated to expanding them, and it's not bad. If you don't like the over the top, fun and absurd tone these interactions have then I can understand not liking them. But it's not really an issue of quality.

The game also does something I haven't seen very often in any game - it mixes gameplay and meta strategy with story and characters. It mirrors attitudes towards classes with its own characters. The npcs debate which classes are the best and which combinations most viable. This isn't explored to a great extent, but it's definitely there and I personally find it pretty effective.

I don't want to get too much into the plot, as it's just quite massive. But overall it's enjoyable, and interestingly mysterious. Some people don't like the way time travel is utilized, and this is definitely a matter of opinion. But the emphasis is on different possibilities rather than the consequences of messing around with time, which to me is an interesting decision on its own.

It's ok to dislike it, but it does bewilder me that so many people choose to be so cynical. When it comes to video game writing, to me PSO2 is certainly towards the stronger end. It also helps that the voice acting is actually really good and enthusiastic.

Anyhow, I love you all. Look forward to reading your responses.

SPOILERS BELOW v

landman
Jan 9, 2016, 03:45 PM
I had a deja vu reading your post. Literally.

In any case I like the story, and I'd say it is actually the main reason why I will never truly leave the game, even if it's actually trash like it seems it will become in episode 4.

Hysteria1987
Jan 9, 2016, 03:59 PM
To me, Ep2 was the strongest of the three.

That said, the whole thing is a bit too much 'power of friendship saves the world' for me, and I'm really not a fan of that sort of thing.

Ep1 came across as too scattered with a few too many plot holes for me, and Ep3 to me seems rather forgettable.

I feel like Ep1 left more questions unanswered than it answered. Putting aside the part where it jumps around an awful lot between things that don't seem to matter in the early episodes, they say Naberius is safe, when they know it isn't. Fair enough, they can have their secrets... but letting new recruits wander round this most dangerous world just seems a bit silly to me.

Then there's the fact that Falz was sealed there only 40 years ago. They can try and hide it, but people are going to remember that something nasty went down there- there's a lot that the suppressors have to take on faith.

The voice acting I'm also not really a fan of. This is just my opinion and all, but it comes across as a little forced, and the writing doesn't always feel natural to me either.

I know I'm a western dude looking at distinctly eastern tropes and all, but they just don't really gel with me. To each their own, I suppose :-P

lunamaniac
Jan 9, 2016, 05:20 PM
I had a deja vu reading your post. Literally.

In any case I like the story, and I'd say it is actually the main reason why I will never truly leave the game, even if it's actually trash like it seems it will become in episode 4.

I'm slightly more optimistic about ep4, but only time will tell. I am a little bit interested, what sparked the deja vu?


To me, Ep2 was the strongest of the three.

That said, the whole thing is a bit too much 'power of friendship saves the world' for me, and I'm really not a fan of that sort of thing.

Ep1 came across as too scattered with a few too many plot holes for me, and Ep3 to me seems rather forgettable.

I feel like Ep1 left more questions unanswered than it answered. Putting aside the part where it jumps around an awful lot between things that don't seem to matter in the early episodes, they say Naberius is safe, when they know it isn't. Fair enough, they can have their secrets... but letting new recruits wander round this most dangerous world just seems a bit silly to me.

Then there's the fact that Falz was sealed there only 40 years ago. They can try and hide it, but people are going to remember that something nasty went down there- there's a lot that the suppressors have to take on faith.

The voice acting I'm also not really a fan of. This is just my opinion and all, but it comes across as a little forced, and the writing doesn't always feel natural to me either.

I know I'm a western dude looking at distinctly eastern tropes and all, but they just don't really gel with me. To each their own, I suppose :-P

I liked ep2, and while a lot of ep1 didn't really go anywhere it did develop the world. We learnt more than we had too, which I actually like. I'm also a fan of mystery, not the crime kind, and most of the unanswered questions helped build up an atmosphere that I was generally a fan of. I'm actually holding off on starting episode 3 since the mighty translator gods are still working.

[SPOILER-BOX]Specifically, sending new recruits to a planet that isn't safe... If they really want to make it seem like they don't know anything then it's kind of unavoidable. To me, that just indicated they viewed new recruits as expendable. As for Falz, I get the impression that Luther kind of wanted it to be discovered. He specifically states at one point that he enjoys watching the futile struggle. "Loser" implies to me that losing is possibly in his nature, to the extent of somewhat bringing it on himself.[/SPOILER-BOX]

The voice acting is definitely 100% opinion. "Over the top" comes to mind. Most of the characters aren't intended to seem like real people, and are intentionally exaggerated in certain ways. They still make sense, and are in their own way good characters, within the game's setting. But there is a cultural gap for non Japanese players as this kind of characterization isn't too common outside of Japan. At least, from my own experience characters are mostly only designed this way for straight comedy in the west. I'm used to this approach though as an avid anime fan, and frankly the whole story is so "anime" that if you don't like that sort of thing I do accept that it might be hard to get into.

I guess that's kind of what you were talking about with "the power of friendship" too. This kind of theme is present, but it didn't seem too prevalent compared to other examples I can think of.

LonelyGaruga
Jan 9, 2016, 05:48 PM
The fact that a fight against Dark Falz Elder occurred at all is not kept secret at all, but the outcome of the fight is. The only characters that know that Elder was not permanently defeated are the ones that sealed him in the first place (Regius and the 1st generation Claris and Casra), plus a couple others like Luther (who in fact body snatched 1st generation Casra about a decade after the fight with Elder, this is mentioned in the Material Collection). Everyone else is told that Elder was defeated permanently. This is probably part of Luther's shenanigans with manipulating information, since Gettemhult is allowed free reign to pursue DF Elder, but Rogio is nearly assassinated for researching Naberius. The former would definitely have released Elder on his own without going around telling everyone within ARKS about DF Elder being around still, but had Rogio discovered DF Elder was sealed in Naberius, then the masquerade would have been shattered.

I'm not really sure where EP2 brought in the power of friendship (barring completely reasonable presentations of it such as Theodore and Ulc, since the whole reason Theodore broke in the first place was grief over Ulc's supposed death). It's not as though anything in the whole story is powered by friendship at all.


I am a little bit interested, what sparked the deja vu?

You repeated yourself a bit in some portions, lol

lunamaniac
Jan 9, 2016, 06:00 PM
You repeated yourself a bit in some portions, lol

Thanks, my post was a train wreck OTL

I've fixed it now. The whole post started as a response in the anime topic but it got long so I decided to paste it into a new one.

Twice, apparently. I didn't notice and edited it twice, apparently. Twice, differently.

My brain.

Hysteria1987
Jan 9, 2016, 06:40 PM
I'm not really sure where EP2 brought in the power of friendship (barring completely reasonable presentations of it such as Theodore and Ulc, since the whole reason Theodore broke in the first place was grief over Ulc's supposed death). It's not as though anything in the whole story is powered by friendship at all.I'm a bit short on time at the moment but I'll try address this as best I can in the meantime- there's a bit of hyperbole in what I said, but I'm referring to more than just Ep2. That said, I can see elements of such things in, say, the TD4 ending sequence, or (if we can go back to Ep2) the part in the mothership where everyone realises your character is awesome and joins your side, making a few dramatic speeches along the way. It's less the fact that they join you (which is the obvious conclusion when they're not brainwashed any more), but the full-on inspiring speech deal I seem to recall that this particular episode kept using.

(Part of me wants to say something about the PD ending and Matoi at the end of Ep3, but I legitimately can't remember enough of them at this stage to determine if they're related to what I'm on about at all)

There was the part where everyone thought Zeno was dead too, causing Echo to get all mopey. Zeno had to be trained up, sure, but I can't see a legitimate reason that he couldn't have told Echo that. The fact that he didn't leads up to a dramatic reveal and another one of those inspiring speeches that I've come to dislike, so they could use their newfound hope and determination to accomplish some goal that just seemed too daunting before... I don't know, I just see the whole thing as a bit unnecessary, cheesy and well over-the-top. If I were Zeno, I'd be itching to tell Echo I was still alive- I doubt I could focus on anything like training properly if I reasoned someone I cared about was beating themselves up because they thought I was dead.

Buuuut all that aside, I legitimately don't mind the PSO2 storyline too much. Sure, it's not one of my absolute favourite videogame stories, and I'm certainly not it's target audience, but I found it entertaining and interesting enough while I was doing it.

LonelyGaruga
Jan 9, 2016, 06:56 PM
I don't know about the speeches (only one that comes to mind is Casra's "you suck" speech to Echo lol), but Zeno didn't tell Echo because Luther didn't know about Zeno, and if he did he would be able to plan around it. Same deal with how almost nobody knows about Sara or Ulc until it matters.

Zeno also quite frankly is completely oblivious about Echo and probably never thought to tell her. He has no clue how important he is to Echo and that's a running gag with them. It's likely that the player didn't tell Echo anything because, at the same time that they were saving Zeno, they were riding the campship back to the ARKS ship with Echo. Having to explain the player character's ability to be in two places at once would be impossible, so it was actually necessary for Echo to not be told about Zeno.

lunamaniac
Jan 9, 2016, 07:58 PM
I don't know about the speeches (only one that comes to mind is Casra's "you suck" speech to Echo lol), but Zeno didn't tell Echo because Luther didn't know about Zeno, and if he did he would be able to plan around it. Same deal with how almost nobody knows about Sara or Ulc until it matters.

Zeno also quite frankly is completely oblivious about Echo and probably never thought to tell her. He has no clue how important he is to Echo and that's a running gag with them. It's likely that the player didn't tell Echo anything because, at the same time that they were saving Zeno, they were riding the campship back to the ARKS ship with Echo. Having to explain the player character's ability to be in two places at once would be impossible, so it was actually necessary for Echo to not be told about Zeno.

Just adding a bit here:

Zeno specifically tells the player not to tell Echo because he thinks she's too dependent on him and would grow stronger if she had to tough it alone.

It's pretty mean, but it also demonstrates the trust between them. Zeno essentially trusts Echo not to break down, and to become strong.

These two aren't my favorite pair either, but I found them interesting to watch.

Selphea
Jan 9, 2016, 08:03 PM
If he wanted Echo to become stronger in Ep2 he should've left a note like "go be a Braver and spam more Shunka until Claris teaches you Fomelgion"

lunamaniac
Jan 9, 2016, 08:23 PM
If he wanted Echo to become stronger in Ep2 he should've left a note like "go be a Braver and spam more Shunka until Claris teaches you Fomelgion"

Yes, probably. :???:

Zorua
Jan 9, 2016, 08:38 PM
Considering her photon affinity is geared towards t-atk and not s-atk, he should have set her up with a spooky hand build.

yoshiblue
Jan 9, 2016, 08:54 PM
Take your darkness and turn it into light! The spooky hand will show you the way.

Nitro Vordex
Jan 10, 2016, 04:56 PM
The best way I could put it is like, EP1 seems more like an episode zero, where they lay groundwork for everything going on. EP2 feels like where everything really starts, in some ways. I really did like Episode 2, though I still need to play through Episode 3.