What Did We Play Yesterday?

I have a love-hate relationship with visual novels. I feel like the genre has a lot of potential, but many of the tropes and conventions bug the crap out of me. I generally only play OELVN (Original English-Language Visual Novels, try saying that five times fast, EVN is becoming the preferred term). Even then, a lot of EVN follow Japanese VNs in terms of style and conventions.

I picked up the recent Humble Bundle for Asphyxia and the Royal Trap. (This means I have an extra copy of pigeon dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend if anyone wants it, and it also means I have access to Sakura Spirit, which appears to be an amalgamation of everything I despise.) 

The Royal Trap is a fantasy otome with a mystery plot. You play as a lesser noble named Madeleine, who is Prince Oscar's handler and is helping him vie for the hand of Princess Cassidy. The world-building is light, the main aspect of note is the societies are matriarchal and property and titles are inherited by women. Can't say too much more without spoiling aspects the mystery, I'll just say the title of the game is unfortunate and leave it at that.

I really liked Gaston's route (it's technically a yuri route because you can "romance" his assistant, Collette). Gaston comes off as this lecherous, shallow guy at first, but once you get to know him and Collette it's a lot of fun. He's my favorite match for Cassidy, too. Unfortunately the game glosses over intimacy between the women (whereas with the prince routes there are kisses and whatnot). It seems like that happens a lot with otome. If there's a yuri route it's always this chaste "we're BFFs who kiss when the curtain is lowered" thing.

The Royal Trap is pretty standard for the genre, so it doesn't avoid the things I hate. It has limited assets and the silliness of side-portraits really stands out here. I get using a side portrait for an unseen MC, but using a crop of a sprite when the sprite is RIGHT THERE is dumb. I'm overwhelmed when games have a ton of endings. RT has three endings (happy, good, bad) for each prince plus a few more, for a total of 15. I was willing to play through one ending for each of the princes because each route adds new information to the story, but I got burnt out by the third so Oscar's will have to wait.

I haven't played many otomes and I have yet to find one that really engages me. The Royal Trap has its moments but it's a diversion at best.

After getting a neutral-pacifist ending and the true pacifist ending, I didn't have the heart to play a genocide run. After being saturated with so much friendship magic, it was too much to contemplate. As soon as I got to the first room with random encounters I put the game away.

This is by design. By giving weight to all actions, however insignificant, Undertale forces the completionist to consider the negative outcomes that await. In the average RPG one doesn't think twice about random encounters, but in Undertale every encounter matters. Every monster is a character that can be eradicated permanently. Also, the game knows what you have done. It references previous playthroughs. It will know I've gone on a killing rampage long after the rampage is over, even if I cleanse the palate with a pacifist run after.

If I do this, my sins will be preserved. I already regret killing Flowey at the end of my first run, even though my motivations were altruistic.

The game bluntly tells you the true ending is the happiest ending and asks if the player will be content with that outcome or if they will start again and change things. And the only way to change things is to hurt people.

The thing that's motivating me to push forward is the promise of the undiscovered secrets. I still have questions and players are continually discovering hidden things in the game. It seems that with each playthrough something is different. Weird things are starting to manifest.

I brazenly reset my pacifist playthrough ending save, which I now regret because I missed some things, so I do have incentive to do at least one more pacifist run. I haven't decided if I should work myself up to it or push the pedal to the floor and go out in a blaze of glory, probably the latter. In the meantime, the Royal Trap awaits.

Let's talk about Undertale.

Undertale is a RPG where you play a child who has fallen underground into the world of monsters and you must find your way home. It's very Earthbound/Mother-esque in tone and art style. It's a rollercoaster of feels. I laughed quite a bit.

The game has three endings depending on gameplay style. Neutral (you kill at least one enemy, but not all enemies), pacifist, and genocide. Evidently you have to get a neutral or genocide ending first to make the pacifist ending possible.

In combat you can either FIGHT or ACT, with various actions that can be used to discourage an enemy from fighting. As the enemies grow more powerful it takes more complex combinations of ACTs to get them to stop fighting. Once the enemy is weakened you may either kill it or show mercy. You can also attempt to flee. Generally the enemies will talk to you, so if you pay attention to what they're saying or how they're acting you can figure out the ACTs to wear them down.

The turn-based battles have a heavy twitch element, likely inspired by Mother 3. All that bullet hell practice paid off, to say the least. The twitch games are really varied, enemies usually have multiple types of attacks, multiple enemies attack in tandem. It helps the game avoid the grindy feel of early turn-based RPGs.

The downside of sparing enemies is you get no EXP, so your character doesn't level up. I attempted a pacifist run first, but I got stuck on a boss battle and learned that you have to get the neutral ending first anyway, so I went ahead and leveled up a bit to increase my HP.

I did get a little frustrated on a few of the battles. There are two boss battles in particular that really challenged me. There is also a little running back and forth if you need to return to town to get supplies. But generally, I think the developer did a good job of avoiding the tedium that can easily accompany this type of game.

So this one gets the Renegade seal of approval. You really want to avoid spoilers, I'll just say it's a very clever game made by someone who obviously loves old-school RPGs. It's funny but also dark, and it's a testament to the developer how the tone can switch from amusing to dangerous in a moment. I look forward to the challenge of the pacifist playthrough, but I dread the genocide playthrough.