Anyone keen to summarise EP4's storyline for a return player?

[Altrius Véurr]

Through Google translate and my hazy memory of the last time I used "Talk" on Zeno prior to starting EP3, Zeno reveals that he used Abyss on Echo to negate Regius's Abyss order. Not sure if this is really true but it sure as hell is a better explanation than Echo resisting it with willpower. Echo is one of the most spineless and pitiful NPCs to bring around with you through a partner card. Unlike with Afin whose EP3 partner card updates his dialogue to come off as less whiny and more confident, Echo's EP3 partner card still has her dialogue coming off as whiny and pitiful.

I also remember in the EP3 Material that the devs believed that Echo's low popularity is due to her being "taken" which some of us here called out as bullshit by pointing out how Ulc ranked really high in the polls despite being obviously Theodore's long-term girlfriend. No SEGA, we couldn't care less if Echo is someone's sloppy seconds. If she's an underdeveloped, useless, dumb, and incapable of self-dependency, of course no one's gonna like her (yet she somehow ranked higher in the polls than Sara....).

Speaking of Ulc and Theodore, is there a particular reason why they are now top-of-the-chain? I can get why Ulc is chosen, for her neutrality and desire to change ARKS's for the better, but Theodore? Mr My-Girlfriend-Died-So-I'm-Going-To-Destroy-Everything? I may find Echo's development to be rather...stunted in a sense but at least she have the mind to not follow a mysterious guy preaching about Powers-Beyond-One-Can-Imagine, and neither did she actually went off to become a psychotic idiot. Doesn't Theodore find it weird that PC, the guy who knew Ulc and who he knew (personally as his - Theodore's - confidante) is on guard when Luther is around?

Honestly, from what I had seen in Episode 3, Theodore's main development is 'guilt, and to make things better for everyone but most especially Ulc', a guy who could easily slip into insanity and near the point of no return is not someone I would believe to be a good leader, and since he is second-in-command to Ulc (nepotism?), one must wonder what would happen if Ulc is really killed, and the chains of command fall onto him, would he have the entire ARKS mobilised for revenge? I really wonder if other ARKS would willingly accept his lead, after all, everything that is going on back then was revealed under the orders of Xiao for a open organisation. Though the fact that Ulc does not have any experience in administrative affairs is making me wonder what is Xiao thinking of?

[loafhero]

Theo is just Ulc's secretary. I doubt they'll give command to a secretary. Theo was shown to have good secretarial skills during EP3 as he helped to organize Ulc's work schedule and helped to remind her of the next task she's required to do. This was the only setup to him becoming Ulc's secretary in EP4.

If he does go crazy again, there's always us to kick his ass again. Would love for an updated Theodore boss fight.

Ulc was seen being coached by Xiao in EP3's special chapter (MB 3-EX) who helped her study all she needs to know to be a decent Commander. Prior to that, she's shown to be surprisingly politically savvy but I can't recall which cutscene that was. This is the only indication we have of her experience as a CiC but I honestly feel it would have been better if we're actually shown a little more of how she functions as a Commander instead of just telling us that she might be a good Commander.

[IchijinKali]

For Ulc she more or less gave Xiao quite the surprise in her demeanor after learning that she was already declared dead when shot down despite still being in radio contact and requesting for help. Instead of being a Debby Downer throughout the rest of the mission she suddenly up and 'got over it'. Gaining Xiao's interest when she declared she was going to change ARKs from the inside. As loaf explained she got the training she needed to be a competent leader, but Xiao apparently still hasn't taught her to tone that ego of hers down or maybe he encouraged it.

Xiera's series of 'HIGH' CASTs are 'modeled' after Ulc. You learn that little tidbit in a scene you can quite easily associate to a 'fan-service' filler episode of an anime.

[yoshiblue]

I also remember in the EP3 Material that the devs believed that Echo's low popularity is due to her being "taken" which some of us here called out as bullshit by pointing out how Ulc ranked really high in the polls despite being obviously Theodore's long-term girlfriend. No SEGA, we couldn't care less if Echo is someone's sloppy seconds. If she's an underdeveloped, useless, dumb, and incapable of self-dependency, of course no one's gonna like her (yet she somehow ranked higher in the polls than Sara....).

Obviously taken by Xiao.
Or the grey color scheme.

[Altrius Véurr]

Theo is just Ulc's secretary. I doubt they'll give command to a secretary. Theo was shown to have good secretarial skills during EP3 as he helped to organize Ulc's work schedule and helped to remind her of the next task she's required to do. This was the only setup to him becoming Ulc's secretary in EP4.

If he does go crazy again, there's always us to kick his ass again. Would love for an updated Theodore boss fight.

Ulc was seen being coached by Xiao in EP3's special chapter (MB 3-EX) who helped her study all she needs to know to be a decent Commander. Prior to that, she's shown to be surprisingly politically savvy but I can't recall which cutscene that was. This is the only indication we have of her experience as a CiC but I honestly feel it would have been better if we're actually shown a little more of how she functions as a Commander instead of just telling us that she might be a good Commander.

Keyword is might I guess, Luther may not be well-liked by the in-verse ARKS, but no one can deny that when he was around, anyone who tried to enter the organisation is quickly rooted out, his magnificent plans that was only foiled because of our PC's existence, and his centuries-worth of manipulating ARKS. I understand that Ulc is still young and somewhat inexperienced, but really, they have a bonafide assassin capable of bypassing any form of security (barring PC's ability to track and sense photons) and they did not even think about sending her down to assassinate someone (or to be precise, she have the Six Pillars as her aides, can't she think of something else) or to hack into YMT's database (I assume that Hagith's identity is known to ARKS by that point) to find out more about Mother Cluster and/or Earth Guide if they are going for the non-aggressive pact? Really? Unless they are trying to ensure Quna doesn't overwork herself due to the stress of the Mai Blades, if so, they could always do something like peek (sorry, information gathering) on YMT's operations and whatnot like what they did with the Earthlings.

By then, my favourite members in the executive committee is ranked as below, Casra, Casra, Casra, Quna, Huey (for all his large ham attitude, he is a better partner than both Hitsugi and her older brother in the fight against Phaleg), Claris Claes (because she dissed Hitsugi and proved herself to be capable of character development), Sara (because she is Sara, and due to her interactions with Claris Claes and Xiao), I can't say for the others, because Sega apparently, did not see the need to let us have a cutscene with them in the weeks (or months since PC's awakening), one would think that the return of ARKS's most famous operative of the generation would garner some interest) - because I find all his paranoid behaviour to be understandable and wonder why does my PC's dialogue doesn't have a third option other than 'this is too much' and 'it's not necessary to ask' like say, 'it's fine, I get what you are saying, but they do not know much about anything other than the bare surface, and therefore, utterly useless even if you interrogate them'.

Halfway (nearly to the end, I'm glad I'm on holiday) through the story, I'm either fast-forwarding the scenes related to Earth and cliche school anime cutscenes, or wondering what in the world is wrong with the ARKS's management team (both in-verse and outside). Organisational politics isn't really that hard to understand is it??? Plus, if they can come with with things like Death Squad, or Time-Travel cliches that ties everything up nicely in the end, I wonder why can't the ARKS in-verse be paranoid for once and search everything they can on Earth Guide, because a kind, benevolent for centuries organisation can't be all that bad, no it can't - don't they learn anything from the first few Episodes?

However seeing that Episode 4 is pretty much done and over with, I'll just hope that episode 5 will be better.

[Altiea]

However seeing that Episode 4 is pretty much done and over with, I'll just hope that episode 5 will be better.

That depends; do you like a medieval fantasy world filled with AU versions of currently existing Oracle characters better than a generic anime high school plot?

[loafhero]

I once asked myself as to why Quna wasn't sent to do any spy work on Earth but back in EP1-3, its repeatedly made clear to Player that Quna is actually a pretty lousy assassin. In EP1 (Quna's story arc), she says that she would have been disposed of had it not been for her pretty face and singing voice. Hadred's (Quna's adopted little dragon bro) suicidal rampage against ARKS started exactly because he found out that they tried to dispose of her. That's right, her suckiness as an assassin kickstarted the plot of EP1's Quna arc. In Quna's first cutscene in EP3, Casra blatantly tells her that she sucks as an assassin so she shouldn't be in any rush to return to doing any assassin work and should stick to idol work for now. Quna (despite being pissed) does not deny it.

If you've seen the anime, a character named Aika (who works in the same division as Quna and Casra) was sent to do undercover work on Earth but she's shown to be really terrible at spy work too.

Obviously taken by Xiao.
Or the grey color scheme.

Now that I think about it, her grey and black color scheme is pretty depressing to look at.

[Altrius Véurr]

That depends; do you like a medieval fantasy world filled with AU versions of currently existing Oracle characters better than a generic anime high school plot?

Better that than a generic anime high school plot, at least with an AU of an existing Oracle, they would be able to touch on (even a little) about Oracle's history. At least, there's what I'm hoping, plus the design for Tokyo and Las Vegas is turning me off, its...well...simply put, rather bright and ostentatious and nowhere like what I had seen its real-life counterpart as. Medieval with its brown (and maybe green) scheme might be better than ostentatious, and would fit in with the usual Planets (Naberius, Vopar, Desert) and so on since it wouldn't look...fake like Tokyo and Las Vegas.

I once asked myself as to why Quna wasn't sent to do any spy work on Earth but back in EP1-3, its repeatedly made clear to Player that Quna is actually a pretty lousy assassin. In EP1 (Quna's story arc), she says that she would have been disposed of had it not been for her pretty face and singing voice. Hadred's (Quna's adopted little dragon bro) suicidal rampage against ARKS started exactly because he found out that they tried to dispose of her. That's right, her suckiness as an assassin kickstarted the plot of EP1's Quna arc. In Quna's first cutscene in EP3, Casra blatantly tells her that she sucks as an assassin so she shouldn't be in any rush to return to doing any assassin work and should stick to idol work for now. Quna (despite being pissed) does not deny it.

If you've seen the anime, a character named Aika (who works in the same division as Quna and Casra) was sent to do undercover work on Earth but she's shown to be really terrible at spy work too.

Better Quna than Aika, and Quna might be bad at the whole assassination thing, but one cannot deny that she is skilled when it comes to gathering information, EP 2-5 had proven it (though she did receive a bit of help from the information sisters), and all she have to do is simply turn on Mai Blades, sneak into YMT or somewhere, steal all the data, and disappear. And is it just me, or am I the only one that dislike Aika? Basic Skills Test, really? When she herself is so hopeless when it comes to a battlefield than even a new non-ARKS operative fights better than her? At least Quna knows how to fight, better than she does, while not the best, is hardly the worst, after all, one does not assassinate or kill artificial Dragonkin creations without gaining some semblance of fighting skill.

[Altiea]

Better Quna than Aika, and Quna might be bad at the whole assassination thing, but one cannot deny that she is skilled when it comes to gathering information, EP 2-5 had proven it (though she did receive a bit of help from the information sisters), and all she have to do is simply turn on Mai Blades, sneak into YMT or somewhere, steal all the data, and disappear. And is it just me, or am I the only one that dislike Aika? Basic Skills Test, really? When she herself is so hopeless when it comes to a battlefield than even a new non-ARKS operative fights better than her? At least Quna knows how to fight, better than she does, while not the best, is hardly the worst, after all, one does not assassinate or kill artificial Dragonkin creations without gaining some semblance of fighting skill.

Some people prefer to think of Aika' s COs as more of "testing" the player. She has a decent amount of competency in battle (she did go toe-to-toe with Dark Falz Apprentice and wield a Genesis Weapon for a time), just not to like, Quna's level or something. She also apparently claims to have cleared all the XQs and knows how to use Compound Techniques.

[pkemr4]

bland and cliche, if you watch enough anime you already know whats going to happen and how it ends.