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VN Reading Club - October 2015 (Symphonic Rain)


Kosakyun

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I finally finished Fal's route

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Symphonic Rain foreshadows everything so hard that to me the revelation wasn't that impactful. Fal not being as nice and diligent as you would first think was established pretty early. 

 

But I agree that they should have had more character development with Fal after the revelation. It was interesting idea to have character so deeply distrusting in humans that she feels like there's no other way than to use people or to be used, but still have her fall in love despite these nihilistic ideas. At least that's how I saw it. But it came out pretty ambiguously, so it's no wonder if people were left with expression that Fal is just using Chris. Well, technically she is using Chris, but if one is happy with being used, then there shouldn't be anything wrong. That was the message I got from it. 

 

I kinda liked the ending personally, it was certainly unusual, but I also feel like it was little too short to properly utilize it's themes.  

 

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I finally finished Fal's route

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In hindsight there were a number of signs about Fal's "true" personality but the leap it makes from her being a little pushy and demanding to downright villainous so sudden and jarring I couldn't help but feel some kind of "narrative whiplash".

I finally finished Fal's route

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This is why we wanted an Al Fine for Fal.

All of my want!!

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I finally finished Fal's route

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I finally finished Fal's route

Hidden Content

 

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This is why we wanted an Al Fine for Fal.

All of my want!!

It's requiring 100% of my self-control to not expand these links. I'm still in my first route, Lise, but it's already clear to me that Fal is best girl. Ughhhh... I need to take approximately all of tomorrow to read through as much as I can, so I can actually read these and chime in properly ASAP.

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It's requiring 100% of my self-control to not expand these links. I'm still in my first route, Lise, but it's already clear to me that Fal is best girl. Ughhhh... I need to take approximately all of tomorrow to read through as much as I can, so I can actually read these and chime in properly ASAP.

Now it's hard to comment on this without spoiling anything. But I'll say I'll pick Fal as the best girl as well for a lot of reasons.

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Wrapped up Lise's route early this morning. It was ok, but I don't like overly-simple villain characters, so that was a bit of a downer. I'm kind of glad to have it done, in that regard. Also, of the heroines' themes, I think Lise's is my least favorite (both in its vocal and its BGM version), which kind of hurts the atmosphere, which as someone pointed out above is clearly a big element of Symphonic Rain's charm. I think Torta's song is the best, atmosphere-wise. Fal's has a certain draw to it, and is definitely the most fun to play in the mini-game, but it somehow seems like it doesn't fit the atmosphere as well.

I figured I'll be seeing more of Torta than of the others later on, so I'm doing Torta's route now, leaving Fal's for last (of the initial routes). I think I'm about halfway through Torta's route now (January 2nd), and rather enjoying it. The emotional tension is high, without succumbing to melodrama (yet).

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I like Symphonic Rain, but it feels little stale.

Playing through Fal's route and it's taking forever. Are they trying to build up some conflict or drama? because it ain't working.

Yeah, that's Symphonic Rain's biggest weakest imo, the pacing. It can feel super super draggy at times.

I was pretty much having a snorefest during Fal's route so I was completely caught off guard by that ending and left with a big ol' WTF

 

Arietta makes my blood boil. I don't know why, I just hate her. The fact that she's the bad ending doesn't help her at all, either.

Yeah..... Arietta sucks huh :sachi: I'd take Torta over her anyday :sachi: :sachi::sachi:

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No technical problems at all with Lise's route here.

 

I just finished Torta's route. Talk about frustrating:

While I'm not a particularly perceptive person when it comes to things like the little Ari/Torta intrigue, I figured that shit out ages ago (well enough, at least), and even at the end there, the main character still didn't get it? I knew who was going to show up at that door before it opened. And when she asked her little question, I was waiting for a nice choice so I could make things right. But nooooo, in this route, Chris is totally clueless as well as spineless. Now I have to play the rest of the routes ASAP just to fix his idiocy and get a proper ending...

Also, I really do want to see what possible motivation she could have for doing this. But in the meantime, I guess I'll be chatting up Fal... which is ok, since I have high hopes that she's going to be less incompetent than the rest of the main character crowd in this VN.

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One of the reasons I recommend reading Torta's route last of the character routes is that it's kinda purposely left incomplete, to be continued (in a fashion) in Al Fine.

Yeah, this was actually an intentional decision to do Torta for the same reason, amusingly. I thought I wouldn't want to immediately replay it all again right after finishing. But I learned my lesson now... it definitely would've been less frustrating going straight into the replay.

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Holy shit. Fal's route. The last little while was worthy of a 10/10.

Anyway, first 3 routes down, on to whatever's left.

Also, while fully realizing that there's always someone better, I'm curious if anyone can beat my 40,836 on Rain Musique.

Edit (with Fal route spoilers, kinda): 

Just read some of the other spoiled impressions on Fal's route. Quite a mixed bag there! Anyway, I really liked it. I felt like the foreshadowing was there but not overdone, in Fal's case - it was clear that something was up with her, but the scope of it was definitely not clear until it totally blew up. I was really on the edge of my seat while the drama unfolded, and I loved how everything played out exactly like Fal wanted - how Chris gave his best performance ever because he was so emotionally mixed up.

Also, I was able to buy into Fal's outlook enough to go along with both her and Chris's decision to be with her. She made me feel more like "Aww, I just want to cuddle with you and treat you well until you believe that people are actually ok", rather than "Wow, you're completely inhuman and I want nothing to do with you". And to be clear, I definitely was leaning towards that latter impression for a while, and was wondering whether I even wanted any part of a good ending with Fal, but in the end I landed on the former and felt pretty great about it. Apparently that's just my kind of drama right there.

Edited by Fred the Barber
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Glad to see you enjoyed Fal's route.

I got Fal's bad ending first because I took the choice to leave her or w/e #gowithyourfeelings. Going for the good end, however, made me think again. I can also understand her worldview, having had a case of something like it at some point. I also personally think that's she's trying to justify her own emotional decision rationally at the very end when she talks about using him as much as she does #convenientinterpretations.

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Finally finished Torta's route

During Torta's route it really started to bug me how similar the first three routes are. They have slightly too much filler on their own, and when they just reuse the same scenes with different characters it gets really tiring. Up until the "twist" or respective high point of the route, the routes are pretty much the same.

But, once again the final leg of the route was really interesting and rekindled my will to read on a little.  

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Wrapped up the final two routes / three endings. Overall non-spoilerish impressions:

Music - The music is by and large very good - the pieces are very listenable, and most of them don't get repetitive that quickly. However, there's a rather small amount of music, and the game is rather long all told, so unless you have a very high tolerance, it'll probably still get repetitive eventually. Fortunately for me, I do have that high tolerance, so I rather enjoyed it throughout. I still find that Torta's BGM, especially, tugs at my heartstrings. I bought the vocal album only a day or two after I started playing, and when I found they never released an OST, I quickly ripped it from the game data (the BGM is all just renamed wav files, so this is super easy to do yourself if you have the interest...)

Routes - Lise's is definitely the weakest, featuring both thin characters and a lot of unsatisfactory moments. Torta's leaves quite a bit to be desired as well, but Al Fine is there for a reason. Fal's was, IMO, excellent, but it's clearly highly divisive, so enjoyment of this route is really going to depend on the individual. Fortunately, the last two routes (Al Fine, unlocked after the first three, and the one unlocked after Al Fine) are fantastic. The pacing for reveals of the overall cross-route plot points was very well-done, IMO; I was rarely too far ahead of the game, and was usually ready for the next story at about the same time it became available, and invariably that next story delivered on the loose threads left by the previous route.

Characters - As I mentioned above, the characters featured in Lise's route are pretty thin. Fortunately, the rest of the main characters are much more interesting, and we get to see each of them in different lights throughout different routes. Al Fine and Fal's route (again, IMO, since this one is divisive), especially, did a good job of adding additional, believable dimensions to the characters featured in them.

Art - sprites and backgrounds took a bit of getting used to, but after a bit of acclimatization I grew to love them. The occasional bit of animation on the sprites was also quite pleasant (Fal's blinking, in particular, is unspeakably cute). I have a strong bias towards a good blush, and Torta's and Fal's blushing sprites in particular really push my "so cute" buttons. For the most part, to my surprise, I didn't care for the CGs. Although the stylistic differences between them and the normal sprites and BGs weren't huge, I guess there was just something that didn't sit well with me in the character art for most of the CGs. There were definitely a few that I liked, though, including Phorni's outstretched hand, and several of Fal's, notably the two with Fal holding an umbrella over Chris, and a couple of the later ones from her route.

Overall - Truly excellent. After agonizing between 9 and 10, I gave it only my second 10/10 rating on VNDB.

Spoilered detailed thoughts on the last couple routes, since I haven't talked about them yet in this thread:

First of all, it came as quite a shock to me in Al Fine when the rain turned out to be in Chris's head. I'd noticed just prior to that, during the performance with Fal when the rain was so strong it was literally off the "Piova" chart below the text box, that it was tied to Chris's emotions, but it never even crossed my mind that it was all a delusion. I felt like this particular element was very well-executed and impactful for me - this kind of mystery, where the point of view character is suffering in some unique way of which he's not even aware but the people close to him can see, seems to be a fairly common storytelling technique in VNs (Little Busters! comes immediately to mind), but when done well it apparently is a real gut-punch for me.

Although that reveal was the biggest shock by far in Al Fine, they really kept the pressure up in this same direction with the running exposition of Torta's view of the world and her own mental state, while playing almost entirely the same events that were seen in her route. I was really moved by the vastly different interpretations of the same exact series of events, as seen by Chris and Torta respectively; it makes me consider just how tenuous reality is, if two people can share their experiences so closely and yet be so far apart in what those experiences mean to them.

While the Al Fine "best ending" wasn't my favorite (I was a little confused about just how I was supposed to feel), it did an excellent job setting the stage for the final route.

So, Phorni's route. Wow. I was getting shivers for a lot of the first half, and then I was crying through most of the second half. This route was a really straightforward appeal to emotion: no reveals remaining, no big tricks left up the storyteller's sleeves. I pretty much knew where it was going right from the start, although I wasn't quite sure whether the situation was salvageable, but all told the ending was no surprise. But the way the story all built up to this moment served to make me feel like every little miracle was hard-earned and meant to be, and watching those predictable but important moments play out filled me with joy.

I'm so glad I read this!

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Finished Lise's route last night (spoilers for Fal's route included)

I enjoyed her route, more than others it would seem.


I will agree that the drama was pretty forced, especially at the very end which kind of spoiled the atmosphere the vn was building. It probably would've worked better if it either focused on Lise being bullied or if Garve had been more sympathetic, more of a dilemma than a straight up villain. And much like Asino being a dick in Fal's route, Garve throttling Lise to near-death was just unnecessary, rushed and underdeveloped.

I liked Lise more than I did Fal though, maybe it's because I'm a sucker for the introvert archetype. Another reason is to do with her development. In my experience with vns, introverted character's like this open up significantly after one event, but here the transition feels more developed and natural. If you were to ask me to point to the part where Lise opens up I couldn't do it because it was a smooth transition with no definitive leap.

Overall I enjoyed Lise's route more than Fal's. It was paced a lot better, finishing when it needed to and not dragging on and the ending didn't leave me with foam coming out of my mouth like Fal's did.

Moving onto Torta's route now, I recently heard her song for the first time...

Boy, that was Subtle 

:amane: 
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Wrapped up the final two routes / three endings. Overall non-spoilerish impressions:

Music - The music is by and large very good - the pieces are very listenable, and most of them don't get repetitive that quickly. However, there's a rather small amount of music, and the game is rather long all told, so unless you have a very high tolerance, it'll probably still get repetitive eventually. Fortunately for me, I do have that high tolerance, so I rather enjoyed it throughout. I still find that Torta's BGM, especially, tugs at my heartstrings. I bought the vocal album only a day or two after I started playing, and when I found they never released an OST, I quickly ripped it from the game data (the BGM is all just renamed wav files, so this is super easy to do yourself if you have the interest...)

Routes - Lise's is definitely the weakest, featuring both thin characters and a lot of unsatisfactory moments. Torta's leaves quite a bit to be desired as well, but Al Fine is there for a reason. Fal's was, IMO, excellent, but it's clearly highly divisive, so enjoyment of this route is really going to depend on the individual. Fortunately, the last two routes (Al Fine, unlocked after the first three, and the one unlocked after Al Fine) are fantastic. The pacing for reveals of the overall cross-route plot points was very well-done, IMO; I was rarely too far ahead of the game, and was usually ready for the next story at about the same time it became available, and invariably that next story delivered on the loose threads left by the previous route.

Characters - As I mentioned above, the characters featured in Lise's route are pretty thin. Fortunately, the rest of the main characters are much more interesting, and we get to see each of them in different lights throughout different routes. Al Fine and Fal's route (again, IMO, since this one is divisive), especially, did a good job of adding additional, believable dimensions to the characters featured in them.

Art - sprites and backgrounds took a bit of getting used to, but after a bit of acclimatization I grew to love them. The occasional bit of animation on the sprites was also quite pleasant (Fal's blinking, in particular, is unspeakably cute). I have a strong bias towards a good blush, and Torta's and Fal's blushing sprites in particular really push my "so cute" buttons. For the most part, to my surprise, I didn't care for the CGs. Although the stylistic differences between them and the normal sprites and BGs weren't huge, I guess there was just something that didn't sit well with me in the character art for most of the CGs. There were definitely a few that I liked, though, including Phorni's outstretched hand, and several of Fal's, notably the two with Fal holding an umbrella over Chris, and a couple of the later ones from her route.

Overall - Truly excellent. After agonizing between 9 and 10, I gave it only my second 10/10 rating on VNDB.

Spoilered detailed thoughts on the last couple routes, since I haven't talked about them yet in this thread:

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I'm so glad I read this!

IMO, the reason the 3 main route are kind of meh/dull is due to the fact that the character perspective remained with Chris. There are certain parts of the story that felt rush when you read it but you'll realize in Al Fine that everything actually makes sense.

About the last route

I love that route. After all the bittersweet endings and the bullshit that Chris and Arietta/Phorni gone through, they get the ending they deserve.

Edited by Snowtsuku
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Moving onto Torta's route now, I recently heard her song for the first time...

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One nice thing about both Torta's and Fal's songs, especially, is that the lyrics have more to say as you learn more about the characters. So while right now you're seeing that slap-in-the-face confession, there's still more going on in that song than first meets the eye.

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Well, I read Al Fine

It was pretty great. Before starting the route I expected the twist to be that Arietta was actually dead, but I guess comatose is close enough. Also something, I can't really remember what though, tipped me earlier about the rain being imagination of Chris, but because there were some contradicting parts, I wasn't totally sure. If you pay close attention, Symphonic Rain will give hints right about everything and quite like it.

This time the repetition of same events actually worked really well, I was really engrossed in seeing what was actually going on in Torta's mind and "behind scenes", so to speak.

I agree with the ending being little confusing, the resolutions weren't very conclusive and the final thoughts and emotions of Torta and Chris remained quite unclear. And it's not really a bad thing. I feel the uncertainty was fitting for the ending, I certainly can't imagine  what one would or should feel in that kind of situation.

Next up is Phorni, and I'm already feeling exited about it. 

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Finally finished my first route. Went for Fal because I've heard her song before. Trying to shotgun the rest so I can finish in time.

 

I feel so betrayed by her. I didn't even want her good end after that. Now going through Lise's route and Fal just seems evil.

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Finally finished my first route. Went for Fal because I've heard her song before. Trying to shotgun the rest so I can finish in time.

 

 

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I totally get where you're coming from, but if you can, try to take a step back, take her words with a grain of salt, and see if your feelings don't soften a bit. As people say, actions speak louder than words, and I find Fal's actions reflect a person who is terrified of the world because of living a traumatic life, rather than reflecting the actions of a true psychopath. My belief is that Fal is misunderstood, especially by herself. She's definitely got problems, but I don't fault her for them, and I hope that in the universe where her good ending happens, she and Chris together heal each others' wounds.

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You can read the side story #2 if you want to learn more about fal, outside her route.

Side stories #1 and #3 deals with the rise of Phorni and her Piova adventure and the reason as to why Phorni is a flightless fairy respectively. The other are not translated but you can read them in Japanese from the Digital Art collection.

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