Board 8 > Anyone here played the Utawarerumono games? (possible playthrough topic?)

(+) Yeah! (+)

By this I mean the Mask of Deception/Truth games, since my understanding is there's a lot to this franchise.

Anyway I bought these games today partially on recommendation from a friend and partially because they seem to be popular among fans of the Trails series. I don't think I've really seen anyone on b8 talk about these games before, but I figured I'd at least check to see if anyone's interested in following along.

Also the art book that came with the first game (I got the special edition at no extra cost?) is really cool. Makes me realize that I miss when games used to come with detailed instruction manuals, since functionally this is similar in a lot of ways. (in that it shows off a lot of the characters/world and gives general descriptions of what's what.)
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To clarify I'm not going to keep this topic going if there's only like 0 or 1 people who respond. This is mostly an interest gauge for now.
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I've watched my friend play bits of it. It looked like a pretty good game to me.

As a heads up though, there's more visual novel in it than battles. Which I personally enjoy, but isn't for everyone.
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JeffreyRaze posted...

more visual novel

Just the way I like it. Why even bother playing a video game if it means I have to actually play a game?

(I generally like visual novels as much as or more than video games so that's not really an issue.)
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I have the two recent games, but I wanted to play the original game first. I know it's been fan translated, but wasn't it going to get an official English release?

I watched the first anime 10 years ago, but when the second one started airing, I couldn't get into it since I felt like I had forgotten so much of the world and setting.
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I've played the original and the second game, third is on my list real soon (probably the next game I'm getting).

Have you played the original or watched the original anime, TC?

No I only vaguely know the premise. My understanding is that I can start at this point without any real issues.
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pyresword posted...

No I only vaguely know the premise. My understanding is that I can start at this point without any real issues.

You've played Trails right?

It's kind of like that you can start at Cold Steel without playing Sky. There are returning characters and references in the second game that will lose meaning to you playing the second, but its definitely understandable.

Also it casually spoils a twist from the ending of the original toward the beginning of it.

I have heard the 3rd game ties into the first more heavily, but I can't confirm that myself as I have yet to play it.

Hmm, is it worth watching the first anime first?

For some reason I thought the anime series were completely separate things, but it looks like they're just adaptations of the original game and Mask of Deception?

Unless it's a good adaptation I probably don't want to bother.
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It's a fairly good adaption. The only thing that stuck out to me as being wrong with it when I watched it is they rushed the ending some.

I'd actually say the adaption of the second game is worse in some ways.

Well I have Mask of Deception so there is essentially zero chance of me watching the anime of that.
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played the first game, watched both animes, have both games on the PS4 just kind of sitting there right now.

i want to finish KH1 first but after that i'll probably jump into it.
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haven't played ray romano 1, but the animu seems like a reasonable enough adaptation plotwise other than seeming embarrassed about being based on an h game and trying to downplay the whole harem thing. it doesn't really explain the backstory or the whole Uitsualnemetia thing very well and kind of fudges some of the connections that the sequel built upon but didn't seem important at the time, so I wouldn't say that watching the animu would help too much since ray romano 2 is probably written assuming you haven't read the original or at least not recently and is from a new character's pov and everything important gets rexplained to him eventually anyway. though it wouldn't hurt to watch it either I guess.

the ray romano 2 animu is basically garbage though.
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Woah holy crap an Uta thread on B8. I absolutely adore these games and I think they're something a lot of folks on B8 would as well, but they never really caught on here.

I personally watched the anime covering the first game before playing the PS4 games, and I can definitely recommend doing that if you're open to it. It's a decent adaptation and adds a ton to the PS4 duology. I'd actually argue it's almost required reading for the second half to have the impact it should.
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I've heard they're good
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I thought about picking these up after seeing the animes. First series was awesome, second series was meh and I dropped it.

Cat girl who uses a metal girder as a sword is the best.
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JackMan posted...

I thought about picking these up after seeing the animes. First series was awesome, second series was meh and I dropped it.

The Mask of Deception anime doesn't do the game justice at all for the record.

A collection of all 3 games is coming out in Japan, so I'm hoping that gets released here. Loved the anime and especially Kuon.
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I really, really hope the remake of the first came comes westward. The writing and scale of the PS4 games is so staggering that I'd love to see a Korean fleshed out version of that story. Guess we have the fan translation but I'm sure it's not the same.
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I am Haku. (Soon-to-be) master combat strategist, and also playmate of giant birds. Didn't realize I was actually signing up for Hato

Game is pretty good so far. Kuon is indeed great. Also I'm glad our protagonist isn't quite as much of a fish-out-of-water in this world as I thought it was going to be when it was just him and Kuon. Ukon is (ironically) a very sobering presence for me as a player/reader. Also given Kuon's attitude about certain things I'm guessing that there's a lot going on behind-the-scenes with me having been dropped into the middle of it. Not really sure exactly what that is yet, but yeah.

Through looking stuff up I've been spoiled about the setting that I probably wouldn't if I'd just started with this game. I believe it's revealed in the first game, but I have no idea when it's revealed here or how big a deal it is though. Not too concerned on it adversely affected the experience though. It's something some people would already know coming into this game anyways, and it's not exactly the type of reveal that's going to come as a huge shock to people who are trope-savvy enough.
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You probably did find out the thing that is an end of story plot twist in the original if its about the setting

It's revealed casually VERY early on in Deception though so don't worry about it being a spoiler for it at least.

I'm waiting for the remake of the first game to come out here before I start the series
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Deleted my post cause I saw too late that autocorrect wanted to inject "Korean" into my post for some reason. >_>

What I meant to say is I'm really hoping the remake of the first comes westward. It'd be awesome to see that story in it's full glory after how amazingly fleshed out the writing and scale of the PS4 games are. I guess we have the fan translation but I'm sure that's not quite the same.
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remake of the first game would be amazing, it can use a LOT of upgrades by coming to a more modern system. hell, even the h-scenes wouldn't really be missed as they aren't that great and sometimes felt just shoehorned in from a time when all VNs needed 18+ scenes. like for some girls it made sense but iirc most of 'em were awkwardly done.
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Still not certain if I'm going to keep this topic going throughout, but I'll keep it updated in the meantime and bump it for the nighttime crowd. (especially because progress will likely not be as rapid as it was today given that it is a holiday)

Anyways I played a lot today. We're now in the capital and it looks like for the immediate future we're going to be doing various unsavory jobs for Ukon/Oshtor (truly a SHOCKING twist). Part of me is I think going to miss when it was just Kuon and Haku journeying in the woods, but I suppose we have to transition to the bigger picture eventually. "Two people on a journey across the world" is one of my favorite story frameworks in existence though, so part of me was wishing it would stay like that. (There's a reason I like Trails in the Sky FC so much ok.) Anyway not much else to say as it's been mostly character exposition so far, but I am enjoying it.

Miscellaneous remarks:

--Nekone is a pretty entertaining character. Not as big on Rulutieh's archetype comparatively speaking, but whatever. She still has a cute giant bird at least, and what more can I really ask for?

--I can't quite put my finger on it but something seems seriously off about Kuon. To a certain extent you can just write it off as a quirky anime girl personality, but it feels like there's more to it than that. I'm sensing a deeply tragic/traumatic past and possibly a betrayal of the main group coming up in the future. Less confident about the 2nd of those and don't have much concrete to base that on anyway, but my gut also has a decent track record with these things.

--One advantage(?) of getting an artbook with your game is that it allows you to identify when secretly powerful characters appear before being properly introduced. Such as when they are masquerading as candy sellers or as yaoi authors, for example. (ok one was a bit of an open secret anyway, but still)
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Bumping this for people who are potentially on at this time.
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Nekone is my favorite character

Kuon is my favorite so far, but take that with a grain of salt as nobody has really done all that much yet
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I'm planning on reading this if you keep it up. Fair warning though, I'm not usually good about posting in topics I follow.
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Bump for weekday evening people. (last time I'll bump for reasons other than keeping the topic alive)

Anyways it looks like there's some interest here at least, so I'll probably keep this going. I probably won't make get as involved as I have for other playthrough topics I've made (I went to character limit on updates in my Trails of Cold Steel playthrough thread multiple times...), but I'll at least try and provide updates/thoughts similar to what I did above.

Also I understand. I am also terrible at posting in threads that I'm following along with sometimes.

Anyway going to play more now. I did get somewhat farther after my update last night. It's been mostly silly VN antics though, as the only real development is that I also met Atuy. I'm totally okay with VN antics mind you (I liked kick-the-can in Ever17...), but it doesn't exactly give much talking material here. Oh I guess there was also a spooky foreboding scene of the twins talking to someone (presumably the Mikado) in an altar.

Edit: Oh one other thing I forgot to mention is that my video game playing habits don't always lend themselves well to making playthrough topics. It wouldn't be unheard of for me to go 4 days in a row without playing and then randomly play 8-10 hours straight on a weekend and not even know where to begin with a topic update >.>
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"Oh let me just play until the start of the next combat scene and then I'll go to bed. It's probably not that far away."

Boy what a mistake.
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Ok so yeah. Was trying to play healthy amount last night but I kept assuming a good stopping point was just around the corner. Figured incorrectly that there'd be a battle when we went to guard the fat general's storehouse, and then again figured incorrectly there'd be a battle when we went to intercept Nosori doing something. There are a lot (and boy do I mean a lot) of slice-of-life type of scenes in the meantime. Which again are quite entertaining but don't give me much to talk about here. Other significant developments include the twins leading me to a strange strikingly human-like man (presumably the Mikado), and then both the princess of Yamato and one of the most powerful generals of the land laying claim to our stashes of snacks and BL. >.>

Oh also something's up with Kuon, as I've seen her talking to a mysterious invisible stranger (or something) and the snippets of conversation we here are somewhat ominous, at least for her well-being.

Other comments
--I won't say everything is a hit, but this series has some A+ comedy scenes. I especially liked Nosuri raining gold on the citizens of the capital and also the whole shogi gag during the warehouse mission.

--A bit about Anju. I wouldn't say I like her comedy scenes necessarily (though I don't really dislike them either. However I think she has a lot of potential to be a great character once the plot starts getting serious

Ok think that's all I have for now. I probably forgot something as I'm a bit distracted at the moment but if I remember something else I'll post it. Maybe.
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Oh duh I know one thing I forgot, which is preliminary character rankings:

Kuon > Haku > Ukon/Oshtor > Nekone > Karulau > Anju > Atuy > Nosuri > Maroro > Rulutieh > Touka > Kiwru > Moznu
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Bump. Stuff started happening. Will hopefully make a real post later.

Also does anyone know how long the game is? Feels like I'm about halfway through based on my impressions and the number of secret trophies there are, not I'm not sure
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Ok so a lot's happened. Notable events include an invasion from a barbarian nation whose name I've already forgotten, as they are beaten back by the 8 generals some of whom have literal godlike powers. (Vurai is scary...) There's also bunch of foreshadowing, of some sci-fi stuff, which leads up to the reveals that humans have gone near extinct on account of turning into deadly slime things. Also the Mikado is a human (which was pretty obvious), and is also Haku's brother from before he got put to sleep or whatever. Also now there is talk of an invasion of Tuskur which brings me untold amounts of rage. I swear to god if you make Kuon cry...

Other comments:
--Lots of good scenes I haven't explicitly mentioned above. The investigation of Dekopompo's ship and Haku/Ukon sharing drinks afterwards was fantastic. Also a huge fan of the scene with the purple haired barbarian girl when she is found by Jackwaldt and Haku after the barbarian war was really great. Having trouble putting into words, but stories like that about peacefully diffusing pent up emotion are a thing that really gets me a lot.

--Also a huge fan of the Mikado's backstory. Made him into a really tragic character which caught me somewhat off-guard.

--Not a huge fan of the twins for a few reasons.

--I like Camyu and Aruru. Also Kuon got some pretty solid development in those scenes and is looking to get more in this upcoming arc, which is great.

Anyway think that's all I've got for now. Really looking forward to where the game is going from here though.

Also are people still reading this? It doesn't necessarily bother me much if you don't have anything to say, but I want to at least ensure I'm talking to a silent crowd and not a non-existant one.
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I'm still reading! Was mostly waiting for you to get to the first major bit of action in the game, which you just have! Mask of Deception has a shitload of slice of life stuff - which is actually super well-written and does an incredible job of world building - but you can expect Mask of Truth to be way more of the kind of things you just saw.

pyresword posted...

--I like Camyu and Aruru.

Since you didn't watch the first Uta anime I'll go ahead and take this opportunity to point out that Camyu/Aruru are both super important characters in the original game! That whole story takes place in Tuskr where a whole ton of shit goes down. Seeing them in this game was a super neat moment if you either played the first game or watched the anime. Especially Aruru who, erm, grew up quite a bit since the first story.
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I'm also still reading

And yeah both Aruru and Camyu are major characters from the first Utaware. You've met several more as well (the innkeeper and the clumsy worker at the inn) and a few more will pop up during the story.

Also the masks in general would have a bit more importance/mystery to you if you are familiar with the original.

As for length, I'd say halfway is about right?

oh shit
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I'm also still reading.
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Long day at work and I don't feel like doing an extended update, but I played more last night.

Yamato got got by Tuskur, to the surprise of everyone other than Kuon (who is still the best by the way). Then the Mikado got got by...someone, and they're framing Oshtor for it. And now the main party is back in the capital and will presumably be saving the princess and Oshtor.

(Next paragraph gonna all be in spoilers just in case) By the way I have no idea who would've killed the Mikado. Entua is the obvious answer, which is precisely why it can't be her, along with the fact that the writers wouldn't have bothered to come up with that weird hypnotizing excuse she gave if it wasn't actually what happened (there was no need for her to bring up the subject at all). Also I'll be disappointed if they end up retcon-ing the emotional weight of her previous arc like that. So that leaves...who? The most likely candidates in my mind (Woshis, Raiko) appear to have been ruled out by their own inner monologue. Vurai's character doesn't make any sense if it was him. No way is it Munechika or Dekopompo. Don't think it's anyone I've met from Tuskur either although Karulau/Touka might have been prepared to do it themselves. Mikazuchi maybe? He didn't strike me as that type of character but I guess you never know. (Either Mask of Truth or the end of this game is gonna be real interesting if it was Mikazuchi...) He also knows about Haku's gang and may have been in a reasonable position to use those undead Uzurashians which we fought in a battle on Tuskur. There's also that one pillar general who was introduced as a nobody (Tokifusa). I don't know much about him but that makes him as good a suspect as any.

Oh and also until looking through the glossary a second ago I totally forgot about that dude (seemingly Kuon's dad) who Haku met in a bar. Not sure I buy him as a suspect either but again it's as good a guess as any.
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NO KUON STOP HE'S RlGHT THERE WHAT ARE YOU DOING
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Oh geez
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Mask of Deception beated. Probably make a longer post tomorrow maybe.

Pretty great ending other than one mostly minor detail. There are...uh...a lot of ways Mask of Truth could play out and I'm pretty excited to see how this goes.

Also uh I guess I'll edit spoiler tags into my previous post lol. Think anyone reading this already knows how it plays out but whatever,
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I want to congratulate you on your fantastic appreciation of Kuon, btw. Best girl. The ending broke my god damn heart in two, I reacted pretty much exactly like you did. D:
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Nekone > Kuon for me but they're definitely my top 2

Nekone was obviously pretty dumb in the ending but I can't really blame her too much for it either. It'd be pretty hard to let someone that is basically the one you love the most in the world to seemingly go to their death without wanting to try to help them, even if its not a rational thing to do.

It is definitely her fault Oshtor died but I don't think he'd want her to beat herself up over it and I hope Haku helps heal her obviously broken heart in Mask of Truth :(

If you have a character at max level, you can get a double exp accessory when you transfer your save file. And if someone has max bp, you can get a double bp accessory.

Haku or Kuon will probably be at or near the level cap by the time you finish the postgame without any extra work so it's worth considering, but getting max bp requires a fair amount of grinding so it might not be worth it.
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Is the postgame worth doing, given that I'm someone who is mainly in this for the story? I was planning on just jumping straight into Mask of Truth.
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it's a gag/dream battle sort of scenario. so there's no plot.

it isn't really any more difficult than the rest of the game,but there isn't really much in rewards at that point other than a cg that isn't in the gallery which doesn't count towards trophy completion. mainly to give you something to do while trying to get max level.
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Ok so yeah final thoughts on Mask of Deception (Major endgame spoilers below, yadda yadda)

Really like the ending overall. Really interesting direction to take Haku's character by having him essentially throw away his life/identity in order to keep his/his friend's hopes for Yamato alive. The story is going to miss Ukon I think, but I'm relatively confident that removing him is going to be a springboard to better places even if he was a pretty good character. One thing I will say is that for Haku's character arc to come full-circle I think he has to bring back the Haku persona in a real capacity at some point, similar to how the Oshtor/Ukon dynamic worked out. This almost certainly won't (and shouldn't) happen quickly, but I am going to be somewhat disappointed if he just pretends to be Oshtor for the entire 3rd game.

Also yes the one thing I didn't like about the ending is the way Nekone acts during the fight itself. If you want to have Nekone be responsible for Oshtor's death then that's fine, and it's probably essential for the direction they want to take her character in the next game. But, having her run screaming into the middle of a heated battle is kind of dumb. There's plenty of other ways they can capture the same effect without making it seem to be outright stupidity. For example maybe have the two of them watching from above and then Nekone loses her footing and falls into the fray of things? In any case I didn't like the way they handled this particular aspect.)

As a whole I really liked the game, especially considering it feels we're only just now getting to the story that these two games really wanted to tell. I do wish the game and been a bit longer and that some of the side characters (think people in a similar position to Asuy, for example) had gotten more development, but those aren't major complaints at the end of the day. The plot points the game wanted to focus on were handled really well, mostly. Also this is something that's generally hard to nail down the exact cause, but this is one of those games that for whatever reason was really easy for me to sit down and play for extended periods of time. And given the workload I have in grad school right now and how hard it is for things to hold my attention as a result, that's not an insignificant thing.

Other random comments:
--Haven't talked about the gameplay much because as I alluded to above it's really not why I'm playing these games, but it was pretty good. I feel like the difficulty on Normal was not well-balanced (as in it was slightly too easy), but eh.

--Interestingly, one particular scene I'd be really interested to see in Mask of Truth is some kind of confrontation between Haku and Aruru (who I'm assuming could figure out his secret relatively easily). From a plot continuity standpoint it's hard for me to imagine right now how such an interaction between these two characters could be brought about, but it would be interesting to see nontheless.

--Just to get this out of the way now, I will mention that I fully expect the mental well-being of various characters to get worse before it gets better. It's possible Nekone's already at rock-bottom here, so to speak, but I expect that as the plot develops in the next game that Haku and Kuon in particular will not be doing so hot...

--Just realized never mentioned anything about Kuon having literal demon god powers so uh yeah that's a thing. (Something related to this is also a plot point of the first game I think, yes?
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Actually I am going to put what was post #50 here instead so that it doesn't get lost at the bottom of the last page. So, for everyone's information:

Also I will continue leaving thoughts in here as I play through Mask of Truth, so for those that have only played Mask of Deception, this is your warning that there will be spoilers for Mask of Truth past this point in the topic. Initially I'll just put literally everything on Mask of Truth behind spoiler bars so that any discussion on Mask of Deception can finish without those people having to worry, but I'll probably stop that after a couple days time or something.

In particular I will mention that I think it's going to be impossible to discuss Mask of Truth in any capacity without spoiling certain things from the ending to Mask of Deception, so read any future update posts from me at your own risk, regardless of whether or not they are marked. (Again, for the time being any Mask of Truth post will be placed behind spoiler bars.)

Anyway going ahead with Mask of Truth now, so yeah. (Actually I already played an hour or so last night, but whatever...)
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