Episode 4 Story Discussion

[Altiea]

Chances are, Ardem would say something along the lines "Oh, I never wanted evolution! I was just homesick and wanted a place where I felt like I belonged! Let's be friends!". We already have Hitsugi wanting to redeem him.

Didn't Matoi and Player at least sort of killed Double? If we were to assume that the Double in the Profound Darkness raid are simply just hollow clones (which would be a really ironic fate for Double), that can be considered the only antagonist properly killed by the good guys.

Hitsugi is kind of a numbskull even as far as anime protags are concerned. She's literally genre blind.

Technically, Double killed themselves. We did push them to the breaking point where they were forced to do so, though, so we get a point there.

[Kondibon]

Didn't Matoi and Player at least sort of killed Double? If we were to assume that the Double in the Profound Darkness raid are simply just hollow clones (which would be a really ironic fate for Double), that can be considered the only antagonist properly killed by the good guys.

I'm pretty sure Double "died" because they shoved all of their photons into us to try and create PD in the first place. I mean... we were GOING to kill Double, but they did it themselves. I do think that was closer than Loser though.

[Meteor Weapon]

All that effort Mother Cluster's were doing just to get Aru is just dumb....and then there's this thing about what was the point of the whole Earth Guides vs Mother Cluster thing? It never really made sense on what were the organization were really fighting against each other for until Aru showed up. All those 6 original Mother Cluster seemed like idiots beyond saving (save for Ophiel and Aratron) who really had no reason to be in Mother Cluster in the first place other than to....well....make some sort of....uh connection? This whole doing for the sake of Mama feels baseless despite the lol forced melodrama of Och and Phul shove into our throats.

[Morgan Fumi]

Well:

Some Earth morons decided it was a good idea to mess with a highly advanced, militaristic civilization like Oracle (ARKS). Our character is tasked with watching over one such moron (Hitsugi) but somehow, we ended up getting two more morons to watch over (Aru and Kohri).

Eventually, the cliche anime evil organization responsible for these events appear and we fight them all one at a time (sometimes two at a time cause the Story clearly can't afford to waste any more time giving each one a chapter of their own).

After kicking their disappointing asses (with the exception of the cool rival one who unsurprisingly becomes friends with us), their leader (Mother) decides to kidnap Aru and we have to fight her two forms in what is pretty much a less exciting version of Luther's fight in EP2. She too decides to become friends with us after losing but then discount Luther (Ardem) literally stabs her in the back and takes her power and subsequently, the main villain position. He explains his cliche anime god complex motivation before teleporting back to his lair.

Currently, we're supposed to be preparing to fight Ardem.

Thank you.

One more question, where does the aether fit into all of this? I saw some presentation cutscene that was talking about using "player" characters to build up aether to transfer to mother or something?

[Kondibon]

Thank you.

One more question, where does the aether fit into all of this? I saw some presentation cutscene that was talking about using "player" characters to build up aether to transfer to mother or something?

Ether is just Mother's answer to Photons. It works slightly differently, being better at manifesting physical objects, hence all the phantoms, and Ether using humans basically summoning weapons as their main gimmick.

[Altiea]

This game apparently deems it fit to info dump everything EXCEPT what Ether actually is. Either they'll tell us by the end of the Episode or I'll just buy the Materials Collection and check its glossary entry.

[Kondibon]

This game apparently deems it fit to info dump everything EXCEPT what Ether actually is. Either they'll tell us by the end of the Episode or I'll just buy the Materials Collection and check its glossary entry.

I mean... they've told us about as much about what it is as they did with Photons... It's literally just an alternative to photons.

[TehCubey]

I mean... they've told us about as much about what it is as they did with Photons... It's literally just an alternative to photons.

You don't get it. PSO2 was scarce on info on Photons too but they were introduced in ep 1 so that gets a free pass. On the other hand, Ether is an ep 4 concept so it's horrible lazy writing. To summarize:

ep 1-3: flawless storytelling
ep 4: SHIIIIT

Got it?

[Zysets]

This game apparently deems it fit to info dump everything EXCEPT what Ether actually is. Either they'll tell us by the end of the Episode or I'll just buy the Materials Collection and check its glossary entry.

They DID explain though, when Hitsugi talks to Mother after their fight, she realizes that Aether IS just Photons, but they changed overtime to focus more on communication because Mother was actually calling out for attention and felt lonely.

Mother's feelings changed the Photons she produced (She is a Xion clone).

But what are Photons? I don't think any game in the franchise has ever given a direct definition of "Photons" for their respective universes. I'll just assume energy from light, because of the name, no idea.

[Dileth]

You don't get it. PSO2 was scarce on info on Photons too but they were introduced in ep 1 so that gets a free pass. On the other hand, Ether is an ep 4 concept so it's horrible lazy writing. To summarize:

ep 1-3: flawless storytelling
ep 4: SHIIIIT

Got it?

Eh. EP1-3 had some problems, but they're still better than EP4.