Hatoful's Revenge

[davidn]

Aaaagh! Just as soon as I thought I'd finished this, a further pile of madness arrives begging to be sorted through. And not only that - just as soon as we thought we'd seen everything the game had to see and were just using this route as a practice run, it sprang something entirely new on us. Anghel's route might have multiple sub-scenes depending on who you talked to during the rest of the route. I don't know - stop asking me.

This 22-minute episode has about 17 minutes of game and 5 minutes of trying to work out what just happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsGXRc6ffV0

0:10 Previously
0:35 First mess-up
2:50 11 Wisdom
3:30 Next year
4:20 Pre-empting the game
5:25 Coo.
6:05 Kazuaki narcolepsy
6:45 Yuuya interjection
7:30 Anghel bursts in
7:55 Gage/gate
8:20 11 Wisdom (2)
9:00 Panting
10:00 Yuuya/Anghel
10:30 Beak smile
11:30 Recorder/homework music lesson
11:40 11 Wisdom (3)
12:30 Cultural Girl
13:05 Confusion
14:45 11 Wisdom (4)
15:30 Game mutation!
18:00 The pit of insanity and confusion

Comments

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Actually, now that I think about it...other than the "Help Kazuaki/Go to the library/Conquer Macedonia" section, were there any selections to make between Tanabata and there?

Now I want to know what would happen if we had chosen to help Kazuaki stay awake while grading papers...dammit, now that's gonna be driving me bananas until I get Sczer back up and running in Anchorage! D:

[davidn]

I think that really is the only one, though I'd be interested to see if the decisions you make before the Anghel route also matter (if that "Study in the library" decision just gives you a huge boost to Nageki, or if it's a hard "This means you'll get Nageki's scene). From a practical point of view, having three scenes, one for each of those choices, sounds more likely - but I have never been able to really tell what this game might be thinking, ever.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Considering Nageki's route prefers Wisdom, and every choice we'd made prior to unleashing the Crimson Angel was Charisma/Yuuya/make-me-sing-like-a-pigeon-based, there's no feasible way that one choice made a huge enough boost. I'm certain the scene was hard-coded to flag upon choosing the library while on Anghel's route.

I wouldn't be surprised if choosing to help Kazuaki set a similar flag...I also wouldn't be surprised if Kazuaki just took all of Anghel's high-strung lunacy with a dose of nonchalance.

"Black Dantalion, the aura of the Dark Grimoire envelops this place! Edel Blau and I must leave at once and rid this world of its accursed presence!"
"Oh? Well, just be careful not to run down the hall, you two. I'll be right here if...you need..... Zzz...."


(Side note: Yes, I know what we all said about tempting the game. Personally, though, this is something I'd LIKE to see, so I'm willing to accept the consequences.)

[davidn]

Kazuaki has... exactly the right attitude for anyone who teaches in that hive of lunacy :) Just ignore it and keep teaching quadratic equations, pay no attention to our doctor who sounds like Severus Snape dismembering your classmates at the end of the corridor...

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I hold the theory that he's simply too tired to catch exactly what's going on, and that about 10 minutes after any one of those conversations there's a moment of "wait....what?"


Also, another side note: "Black Dantalion" wasn't just something I came up with off the top of my head; according to the Hatoful Wikia's page on the Absolute Zero manga (http://hatoful.wikia.com/wiki/Absolute_Zero), that's Anghel's title for him: Nightmare Sage Negrudantalion.

[davidn]

(A week later, a realization)

Black Dantalion! So Anghel's name for him shows that he knew about the whole Hitori transformation from the start, as well...

Anghel knew everything - he is just too obviously mad in outward appearances to communicate this to the other characters. And the best/worst part is that we, too, laughed at his gibberish when we didn't know the truth, not realizing that every single thing he said would eventually foreshadow the entire plot of the real game (the real game where we were unknowingly yet to arrive..)

This game really is something special. And in a perfect mirror of this situation, it's impossible to tell anyone this because it's obviously a stupid game about talking bird photos.

[kjorteo]

It's easy to nonchalantly roll with all the madness when you're just quietly biding your time before you kill Murderbeaks and get your brother's body back on what you believe are his orders....

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

The test pattern. Perfect.<3

[xaq.livejournal.com]

"We are currently experiencing psychological difficulties. Please stand by."

[davidn]

I will definitely use that phrase if I have cause to insert another!

[davidn]

Retrospectively, the BBC test card is unnecessarily terrifying, what with the ghost-girl and clearly undead clown puppet.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

This summer, from the joint psychoses of Stephen King, creator of "It," and Hideo Nakata, creator of "The Ring," comes a nightmare of epic proportions...

Starring Johnny Depp, Dakota Fanning, and featuring Jonathan Ross...

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

Please stand by...your life depends on it.


(This film not yet rated.)

[kjorteo]

I'm more pleased with myself than I probably should be that my Nageki "Coo. :|" made the list of highlights this time. Thank you!

Also, Raven is right; the test pattern is perfect.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I don't know why I'm so surprised that coo derailed us all so bad. Your deadpan delivery of it was excellent. XD

[kjorteo]

Well, I mean, it's Nageki. How much enthusiasm is he supposed to have?*

I still think DavidN wins with the preliminary test (before we even brought the group together and started recording things) wherein he (who was voicing Nageki for this) took the BBL Sakuya/Ryouta library "stop talking nonsense about things that aren't there" conversation and inserted a quiet background Nageki "I'm right here :(" at which point I just completely lost it. Still, I'm glad that my mere coo this time was enough to at least derive some amusement, anyway. Thanks. :D

* (It should be noted that, in that very same scene, DavidN also turned a flat "Yup." line of his into a completely uncharacteristically chipper "Yup! :D" which made me lose it even more, proving before this group even formed that he is better at ad-lib Nageki insert jokes than I am despite him being my character.)

[davidn]

As much as I would never tire of being told how great I was at any point... don't deflect a compliment on to me! That 'coo' really did break everyone up (it was just one of the points where I had to turn my microphone-blasting laugh down)... sometimes there's no telling what will set us off :) I did the same thing, unfortunately not captured in a recording, when you had Sakuya impatiently intone "Dot dot dot" during that unexpected pause.

The part in this endeavour that did it the most to me was... Kaye's dramatic declaration that "we would all have got there without a single traffic violation", after which I completely broke down at the game's sheer absurdity and was struggling not to make any helpless laughing/crying/gibbering noises throughout the rest of the conversation.

It's quite extraordinary how it still managed to surprise us! In any other game I could just imagine that... it has a couple of different sub-scenes depending on some other decisions you made, but... with this one, being a game that already behaves so much like one straight out of a nightmare, I'm afraid of what it might be thinking to itself underneath.

And I can't pronounce "Yup." in a depressed voice! It is an inherently chipper response.