Episode 4 Story Discussion

[loafhero]

Yearning for early game's plot and characters is pure nostalgia. Misplaced, delusional nostalgia.

Yeaaaah, because in a game I've only had 2 years of experience in, apparently wanting a story structure opting for self-contained but inter-connected stories that doesn't put too much focus on just one set of characters and wanting the old Episodes worlds and characters to not be completely ignored and actually expanded upon is delusional nostalgia. Fuck us for wanting consistency and decent continuity!

It TOTALLY has nothing to do with EP4's bad writing and characters being bad even by PSO2 standards nor has it anything to do with a desire for a darker tone from the last Episodes complete with actually competent/threatening villains.

... Look, the bottom line is that as bad as EP1 to 3 was at times, it wasn't nearly as bad as EP4. I've already said my piece as to why EP4 has so far been worse than anything EP1 to 3 ever had.

[Meteor Weapon]

For anyone who takes story telling seriously, EP4 focuses way too much on a single setting/plot along with bad writing/characters and almost completely ignored whatever is going on in Oracle, something which EP1-3 had never done. I also seriously hate the way they do clinghangers in EP4, can I just get a package of a chapter like they did in Ep1-3 instead of putting small bits of scene similar to a fucking multi DLC just for a new scene? It's dumb.

For two whole years our character has gone cyrosleep, there was no development over what's going on Harukotan, Amduscia, Vopar, Lilipa and Naberius. It's the same shit as what's going on EP3 other than the introduction of Summoner, change in hierarchy and introduction of Hi-Cast Xiera series. The entirety of EP1-3 took 1 year and half something in-game time, discovering the existence of PD in a very short amount of time. During our character's cyrosleep 2 years have passed and nothing has really changed for us. This is what I call a timeskip badly done. Do they really need our characters so bad to just further move the development of a planet's story? If they showed us more of serious stuff going on the Oracle side then I wouldn't have minded much, it's something for me to get distracted from Earth.

[TehCubey]

Sega ever cared about developing PSO2's setting? News to me. The fact that Lilipa and Amduscia were discovered a long time ago and yet no one did anything on them, not even discover the dragonkin language or lilipans' existence until Aki and Fourier appeared with the player character in tow - it shows that this game doesn't have a real setting to speak of. It has a collection of set pieces to serve as background for whatever plot is happening at the moment. As soon as plot takes them elsewhere, they might as well not exist.

And once again, this is not introduced in ep 4. It has been like this since the beginning.

[Altiea]

I always assumed the lilipans were originally from Naberious, because it's mentioned that they're not actually native to Lilipa at one point.

Damn it Sega, not only do you never explain some of the ruins on Naberius (implied that non-Photoner civilization was there at some point), but you never elaborate on where the Lilipans came from!

Should I get the book out again?

[Zysets]

Should I get the book out again?

Does it say anything about that? That would be neat.

[loafhero]

Should I get the book out again?

Sure, why not?

[blkbox11]

Yeaaaah, because in a game I've only had 2 years of experience in, apparently wanting a story structure opting for self-contained but inter-connected stories that doesn't put too much focus on just one set of characters and wanting the old Episodes worlds and characters to not be completely ignored and actually expanded upon is delusional nostalgia. Fuck us for wanting consistency and decent continuity!

It TOTALLY has nothing to do with EP4's bad writing and characters being bad even by PSO2 standards nor has it anything to do with a desire for a darker tone from the last Episodes complete with actually competent/threatening villains.

... Look, the bottom line is that as bad as EP1 to 3 was at times, it wasn't nearly as bad as EP4. I've already said my piece as to why EP4 has so far been worse than anything EP1 to 3 ever had.

I'll disagree. To me, EP4's lighter tone was actually a relief after EP 1~3, but most importantly: the fact that our character finally gets seen as a badass to be feared by the villains is great.

Earlier on, other friendly characters were usually stronger than you and the more prominent ones (Zeno and the Council) almost always stole the credit for things you did. Maybe some players enjoy the thought of just being another, albeit special gear in the works that always fights an uphill battle against smug supervillains, but I prefer the style of something like Ace Combat or early Armored Core when it comes to stories with faceless protags.

Back to the thing about the darker tone - it is also very subjective. I have a feeling most people who are upset about it are more displeased with the Earth highschool setting than the actual tone of the story though. If there were no highschool involvement, and Hitsugi started out as just an ARKS civilian studying in a college on an ARKS ship, there may be less complaints, even if the story was not as dark.

That being said, I do think you're expecting way too much from SEGA on this. They aren't writing the story for westerners.

[Altiea]

Looks like I'm back at it with the snapshots.

Since you mentioned the Ruins, here's an image of that giant spire you always see in the background. It'd help if we could get someone got translate the notes.

Spoiler!

Now, the book doesn't say much about the Lillipans aside from their unusual proficiency with advanced technology. However, it does say that the Lillipans were probably brought in by someone who created the ancient Lillipanian civilization.

Oh, and just because, here's concept art for an unused Elder Lillipan idea.

Spoiler!

[Zysets]

Lilipans were almost both Yoda AND Ewoks

I actually love the Elder Lilipan, it reminds me of Jijimon from Digimon.

[loafhero]

the fact that our character finally gets seen as a badass to be feared by the villains is great.

Its done terribly. I too like the idea that the Player is acknowledged as powerful but EP4 takes it to such obnoxious degrees that I've gotten sick and tired of hearing the NPCs praise my character's power. Its now a sickening use of "Tell, Don't Show" in regards to our character's power.

Lets look back MB 2-5. We first see Matoi having single-handedly kill a Dark Vibrace, showing how powerful she is to have done so. In the final half, our character, who rarely ever fights alone until now, fights off an onslaught of Darkers to get to Matoi and eventually kills a Dark Vibrace on their own too. To top it off, our character finally has an evenly matched one-on-one duel with Persona of whom the Player previously had to either run away from or require backup and this is all done with a decently animated fight scene actually showing our character locking blades with Persona. So, instead of going "Oh, [Player]! You're so strong and fearsome!" like how EP4 LOVES to do all the time, we see for ourselves how powerful the Player is on his/her own.

I'm not saying that EP2 was a masterpiece of story telling but it at least did some things right better than EP4 does and made decent use of "Show, Don't Tell".

If there were no highschool involvement, and Hitsugi started out as just an ARKS civilian studying in a college on an ARKS ship, there may be less complaints, even if the story was not as dark.

No, because there's still the problem of Hitsugi herself as a character. Yeah, I'm willing to admit that I would have preferred that Hitsugi be a student at the ARKS Academy but if she's still the same character as she is in EP4, I'd still be criticising the crap out of her. You can change the layer of frosting on the cake but when the cake still takes like shit, you're just delaying the inevitable disappointment and disgust.

That being said, I do think you're expecting way too much from SEGA on this. They aren't writing the story for westerners.

How am I expecting too much when all I'm expecting from the Story is to not be worse than EP1 to 3? Being as decent or slightly better than the last Episodes Stories is NOT a high expectation.

I watch a lot of anime and manga, both of which are clearly designed with their Japanese audience tastes in mind yet the ones I really liked are great because their not trying to appeal to Western tastes. EP4's story is not bad because its not written for Westerners. Its just bad in general. I'd never ask for PSO2 to be more Western oriented.

For crying out loud, not even the Japanese players like Hitsugi judging from how she's not even in the Top 10 favourite female characters of EP4 (as of the current mid-term voting results).