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Help with Flags


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So I'm pretty new to visual novels and i don't completely understand flags. Could someone please help me out here. I kind of understand what flags are and I know that flags are really important when it comes to getting different endings also a lot of VNs seem to require you to keep track of flags. So could someone explain to me exactly how to identify them and if i could get  a better understanding it would be really helpful.

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Well an easy way to understand exactly when a flag occurs or which ones are major ones is to look at walkthroughs. If you choose not to, your best bet is that choices that usually focus on one character are usually flags for you get closer with them. It varies from one game to another, but most times they can either be the most intuitive or the least intuitive of choices.

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Visual novels are often called a branching plot, but that plot does not necessarily look like a tree.

Often what they do is have one major branching point.  The portion before this point is called the common route and afterwards it divides into each heroine's route.

 

The flags are used to determine which route you will end up on.

 

At the beginning of the game, all girls' flags are clear.

As the game presents you with choices, afterwords there may be a short-term divergence in the story, and additionally some flags are set (unknown to you), depending on the choice you made.

Finally, when you arrive at the branching point, it will put you on the route of whichever girl's flags are set.

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Flags are basically events required for something to happen - or to put it in the oter way, events that set things into motion. Lets say that in the beginning of the story, you make a choice A - and when you get to a later point in the VN, it checks if you made the choice A (= it checks for the flag 'A'), and it continues based on that result. Only some VNs do this though, there are also VNs that split the plot directly from the choices themselves.

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You cannot identify them, nor are you meant to. Flags are hidden to give weight to choices and knowing which decision to make ultimately defeats the purpose. Half the fun of playing visual novels comes from not knowing how or whether or not you'd end up with a particular route. Of course, if you're looking to go for a particular ending, the only way to know which choice matters would be to consult a walkthrough.

 

You can, however, more or less figure out what continuation awaits a certain choice. It's very much common sense at that point, you ultimately treat a heroine as nicely as possible or have your main character lean to a certain trend/plot point. Some VNs handle this pretty much straightforwardly (e.g. Grisaia & Majikoi! S) Otherwise, when it's not entirely clear (e.g. Fate/Stay Night) or if you're obligated to coin encounters with the heroine (e.g. ClannadKara no Shoujo), you'll have to experiment. That is why we have the save button.

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I see, thanx for all the info. I'm playing fate stay night right now and i got up to the normal ending for UBW. I wanted to get the good ending as well and also the true end for the HF route but from what i found about the requirements for these routes there were some things regarding flags and points(of which I have little knowledge) so I also wanted to know as future reference for the other VNs that I will eventually play. Besides i really wanna avoid reading walkthroughs if possible unless i wanna know the requirements for a specific route.

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To go for true endings you usually have to select the choices that the characters themselves would select. Even if Shirou's being an idiot, you need to accept his idiocy because you die otherwise. 

 

In Aiyoku if you're too nice to the girls, you can't reach the true end. 

 

In most moege you just need to be nice to one girl and a dick to the rest of them, and you'll probably get their route. 

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To go for true endings you usually have to select the choices that the characters themselves would select. Even if Shirou's being an idiot, you need to accept his idiocy because you die otherwise. 

 

In Aiyoku if you're too nice to the girls, you can't reach the true end. 

 

In most moege you just need to be nice to one girl and a dick to the rest of them, and you'll probably get their route. 

I can't help but always think "but what if they try to trick me..." and I'm tempted to pick the other choice instead of the logical one. Sometimes this brought me to the route I was actually going for.. 

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In 95% of VNs, this is something you don't really have to worry about. The choices are usually obvious and you just have to be kind to or hang out with the girl of your choice at every opportunity. A few VNs though have a large amount of choices that can set a variety of flags which influence the endings, Fate/Stay Night being sort of like that. Honestly, I'd just read a walkthrough. I don't find that sort of "gameplay" where you have to discover the correct choices to get the best endings to be very compelling.

I can't help but always think "but what if they try to trick me..." and I'm tempted to pick the other choice instead of the logical one. Sometimes this brought me to the route I was actually going for.. 

 

It reminds me of Persona 4 where the s.link choices that got the most points were usually the ones that teased the other person the most.

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Your playing Fate/Stay Night which I know raising flags in that game can be tricky to get the desired true ending. I had a little help from a walkthrough but it should be easy to figure out which choices will get you there. In Heaven's Feel make the choices that will appeal to Sakura and also you must raise a flag with Illya to get to the true ending.

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Fate/stay night is actually quite tricky without a walkthrough imo. As soon as you get to HF route, it's almost guaranteed you'll experience a few death flags unless you're using a walkthrough. I think there are like, 3 points in the story where you need to have a specific amount of points with Sakura & Ilya in order to survive, and that can be quite tricky if you failed to pick the right choice once or twice.

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When I played my first VN I decided to do it blindly and see what I would get.

 

My first try at this was an inmediate bad end with the curren heroine I was on. Since that moment I was traumatized for life thinking that my choices in life will always led me to a bad ending with every decision I would had to make. [/joke]

 

Conclusion: I always make sure that my decision is the correct one that will led me to the good ending. Bad ends are depressing as hell.

 

Luckily I used a walktrough when I read Fate S/N. I suspected that I would have got all the death flags plus some bugs for dying too much.

 

I know this takes all the meaning for the choices but I just do not want to not know what happens next >.>

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This is something I've never understood. Why are you people using walkthroughs for F/SN when there's that glorious hint corner? It's funny, fun to collect, and above all, it tells you exactly what you did wrong. Why would you need a guide then?

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Personally I dont like using walkthroughs unless absolutely necessary.

 

This is something I've never understood. Why are you people using walkthroughs for F/SN when there's that glorious hint corner? It's funny, fun to collect, and above all, it tells you exactly what you did wrong. Why would you need a guide then?

 

Yeah I agree, even when i konw i know a choice will obviously lead to death I still pick it just to get the tiger stamp and watch the two man comedy show.

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Ah I dunno, I simply hate bad ends. Even in games like Grisaia, where there's a bad end for every heroine, I always only picked the choice that led to the good end and moved on the the next route immediately afterwards. I guess it's because I simply cannot handle bad endings. If a movie doesn't have a happy ending, it ruins the entire movie for me, no matter how good the rest of it was. Guess it's the same way when I read VNs.

 

And that's why I used a walkthrough for F/SN... The 1st time I walked into a death flag it pissed me off so hard that I almost stopped playing because of it. ^^ What I'm wondering, is there anyone who hates bad ends just as much as I do? Since I've never met anyone who hates bad ends with such a fiery passion as I do...

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