Episode 5 Story Discussion

[loafhero]

I'd still call it fantasy-esque, maybe leaning into science-fantasy territory. Ancient, yet highly advanced, technology is a pretty common trope in fantasy, especially recently; look at Zelda, especially Breath of the Wild, for instance. Personally, I would classify the majority of the Phantasy Star franchise as more sci-fan than sci-fi.

I think Science-fantasy is a fair description for the series especially since PSO2 does like mixing fantasy and science fiction like how Forces default appearances are a mixture of old school mages with a lot of high tech flair on them.

I'd welcome a similar approach that Breath of the Wild took in mixing sci-fi with medieval fantasy.

[Xaeris]

Wild beasts are going to be wild beasts wherever you go, sci-fi or fantasy. SWTOR, for example, has loads of plain fauna to serve as mobs. But if we encounter an alien civilization, it'd be nice to encounter one at a similar (or even greater) level of technological development compared to Oracle for a change. The closest we've ever gotten was Lillipa, which is neat with all the robots, but we never really got much context regarding them.

[loafhero]

Plus, its a SEGA game so the first level is always going to be a green forest area with wild animals (or animals in power armor).

As for the Lilipa mechs, I'm gonna just say its Photoners... its always the Photoners fault.

Also, I just checked on Google images to see if Huey and Stratos have the same eye color and they do. I really hope we're not wrong about the little sister theory.

[[Ayumi]]

Plus, its a SEGA game so the first level is always going to be a green forest area with wild animals (or animals in power armor).

As for the Lilipa mechs, I'm gonna just say its Photoners... its always the Photoners fault.

Also, I just checked on Google images to see if Huey and Stratos have the same eye color and they do. I really hope we're not wrong about the little sister theory.

Or sex change. Can be anything.

[Vintasticvin]

WAIT, they named the HERO npc "Stratos?"
Attachment 41186

YEAHHHHHH MAH BOI STRATOS COMING BACK YO!

[Xaeris]

Twist: Stratos is the elder sibling his mom and even Huey thinks she's unreasonably chunni for her age the chunni just runs in the family.

[Altiea]

Unfortunately, the game pretty much abandoned explaining Lillipa past EP2 and the Ultimate field. We only know a few things:
1. It used to be a super-advanced high tech civilization a long time ago.
2. The Lillipans aren't actually native to Lillipa and were probably introduced to the planet by a foreign entity.
3. That foreign entity also probably created said super advanced civilization.

What happened between then and now? It's anyone's guess, at this point.

[Meteor Weapon]

On second thought, there's really no reason for us ARKS to know more about the history of Lilipa. It's a nearly lifeless planet, just some ewok knock offs offs living and ancient mechs running around with god knows how they keep producing themselves. A Dark Falz got stuck in there and all ARKS have to do is just keep reseal it. Unless there's a legit computer Mother Brain hidden in Lilipa controlling all the mechs, until then we'll never know.

Amduscia had their problem with corruption fields popping out of nowhere that was never really concluded or explained, maybe we'll get into it in EP5 with Xiao back in the picture.

EP4 completely ignores whatever the hell is going on in Oracle universe because we completely got stuck on boring Earth story, even Harukotan chapter didn't pull off that bullshit. Here's hoping EP5 don't pull the same bullshit focusing on PU:Omega only. There's just no new interesting information to digest related to the Oracle universe other than Mama being thrown away by Photoners like trash

As for the Lilipa mechs, I'm gonna just say its Photoners... its always the Photoners fault.

Last I check Aurora doesn't even know Lilipa's existence, the language symbols that appear in tunnel walls are also different. Inb4 its the Orn Empire

[loafhero]

Or the story just screws with us over Stratos's ties with Huey by pulling this twist:

Spoiler!

[Ryuhou]

That's actually not true, PSO drinks directly from PSII looks and lvl of technology (and Generation 1 as well), and a few easter eggs both in game (Lutz by Falz Memoria screen) and in artbooks (Searren design) are proof enough that at some point in the development they tried to make it a direct sequel. And that's why the original PS games were unique, because they were related to each other, and that's why the fans want to make a relation between each entry in the series, and that's why PSO2 is going to piss a lot of people off if everything related to PD and Earth end having nothing to do with what was established in the original games.

Actually I said that in repose to ep 5's fantasy setting being like old PS games.
Also, what you describe is pretty much what I meant, the relation of Tales or FF games with a lot of conventions and reusing some details here and there but setting, story and characters are very different.

Hey, if the story doesn't start off with a butt naked shota and unnecessary bath scenes that contribute nothing to the plot, it can't be that bad.

Lol, indeed. You could actually see his shota bits, I commend Sega on adding those to character models (female bits as well apparently, some underwear lets you see the outer parts as people like to demonstrate in the fashion catalog) but showing them for a good while as introduction for the ep 4 story was really not what I like to see.

Wait.....why is normal fantasy an issue now?

Didn't some of the original PS stuff have mobs like this?

Again, PSO2 is not old PS and therefore this doesn't matter. PSO2 is space opera and should not be bent out of shape being turned into something else. This is some kind of bait and switch, storywise players are in it for the space opera and giving us other stuff on such a big scale (a entire episode after another entire episode of modern Japan with only some space opera-esque elements) is annoying.
Being awesome space opera with a relatively unique setting is one of the most important and best aspects of this game (as well as PSO1).

We literally had "medieval Japan" as a planet, just saying.

But that is the amount of fantasy that is part of space opera. One of the charms of the genre is that you can have some fantasy like elements here and there. But the point is that this and ep 1-3 are almost entirely space opera with only a little fantasy added in. Ep 4 had already too much modern day Japan but was still acceptable cause of many sci fi elements all over the place.

On the other hand what we saw of ep 5 seems to be almost exclusively fantasy with the only sci fi elements being the players. That is virtually the same as just using out of place mounts / outfits in TERA Online like business suits (iirc they hd something similar) or those weird sunglass wearing color afro ostriches and cars that don't fit into the fantasy setting at all.

By far my favorite genre is space opera so I'm very disappointed. I like fantasy as well so I would be fine with an interesting unique setting like many FFs have but this generic crap is already boring and bad in actual fantasy games, in a space opera game it's total bs and like a slap in the face, Sega again not caring about coherence but just about catering to a wider audience and getting more new players.