[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Overall Game Impressions

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Sauzer

Yeah, I remember that part. However I still don't follow the logic - "I can't choose who I love more, so better kill everyone and blow up the island" =/

And it doesn't change the fact that I think Shannon/Kanon is BS. I had an easier time swallowing Hinamizawa syndrome than this switcharoo. Not to mention in ep5 they are said and shown as 100% different people and witnessed by detective Erika with all of her hax powers activated.

No one actually "likes" the switching around.
The EP5 problem has been discussed to death in the spoiler thread and there have been 2 possible solutions:

1. Just for that one game both Shannon and Kanon had actually their own bodies. The "number of people is the same as in last games" red can be tricked by hijacking the definition of "people" in that Kanon and Shannon only count as a "half people".

2. Erika's "hax abilities" may actually be an active skill, so unless she actively "checks every single person in the room", she can be tricked (just like she didn't bother to check the so-called "corpses" of the cousins). Shannon and Kanon only appeard before Erika together when there was a larger crowd of people. She could be tricked by Shannon switching her voice between Shannon's voice and Kanon's voice (that is an easy task for professional voice actors, escpacially in Japan. Shkanon was at least able to fool Jessica with that in EP3 when Jessica was blind). Erika could mistakenly assume that "Kanon stood behind Gohda".

Not really satisfying solutions, but... what can you do?

Originally Posted by Sauzer

And what about "It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented.";"It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any clues."?
The fact that Kanon's body is not found in ep2 and ep4 is enough to say that Kanon and Shannon are one body?
Kanon being weak as a girl proves nothing. It's the other way around - Shannon being much stronger than a girl should be could count as suspicious. (And since that weakness is caused by an incident not known untill ep5+ it doesnt count anyway)

Shkanon as a solution was already considered by some people at around EP2/EP3, so clues must have existed enough for that.

Originally Posted by Sauzer

In ep3 after first twilight noone mentioned Kanon's or Shannon's body missing. Which means all of the parents+Nanjo are lying at the least.

You are wrong about that. The closed rooms can be constructed in a manner were Shannon is found first and Kanon is found as, let's say, 5th. Then it goes like this: Shannon plays dead, gets found, adults move on to second room, Shannon stands up, changes to "Kanon attire" while the adults investigate the 2nd and 3rd room and while they investigate the 4th room, Kanon starts to play dead in the chapel. Then Kanon gets found by the adults.

Originally Posted by Sauzer

Same in ep2 - after first twilight everyone except the cousins saw Shannon and Kanon together.
Which puts it into the realm of "everyone except the cousins is a cuplrit/accomplace or lying at one point or another".

We know that a lot of people in the story were bribed by someone before the Rokkenjima incident. And we had multiple different accomplices in the games.

But it could be a simple narrative lie as well. Just like the "magic battle" between Beatrice and Virgillia was a complete fabrication.

[Valkama]

I think my favorite Shkanon hint was in EP1 when Gohda interrupts a conversation between Kumasawa, Shannon, Kanon, and Genji and completely disregards Kanon's existence in the room. The Clues for Shkanon are everywhere. EP1 and EP2 even more so. For accomplices you should read Our Confession.

[tempteste]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...UtKwtM754/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...WPI/edit?pli=1
http://goatsreadingseacats.tumblr.com/

You might want to read these. They are pretty good and will help find things you missed.

Also, wasn't Shannon the one standing behind Ghoda in ep5?

[Sauzer]

Oh, well if there were hints.

I'll probably re-read it eventually when I have the time. However either way as far as I'm concerned Shannon/Kanon could not go on for any long period of time without anyone and everyone noticing. George and Jessica must get medals for knowing so little about their love interests that they manage not to notice anything in over two years.

But it's not like I'm hating on the story. It definetly had some great moments. Oh and Rosa carrying a suitcase with another person inside it...

Though I did wish that if Ange did go some time back in her future, that she'd get to at least to say sorry to Eva before the end. I mean seriously Eva got shafted so incredibly hard that even illusions inside Ange's head felt sorry for her.

[Renall]

There were hints, but it doesn't actually change that the entire setup was pointless. Kanon's entire existence is basically meaningless and everything that could be explained by Shkanon can be explained by just Shannon in most cases.

The reason this upsets you is that it is a bad twist. The reason you feel like Chiru blew it after the ep1-4 lead-in is because it did. The reason everything feels like it hasn't been properly wrapped up is because it wasn't. It's perfectly legitimate to dislike things for clear and obvious reasons, and you've outlined plenty of reasons to show general dissatisfaction with things that, I'd argue, are largely indefensible. Whether the author intended them or not (he did, at least Shkanon), and whether they were foreshadowed or not (they were), has no bearing on whether they were stupid (they were).

My sole consolation is to pretend this all mostly transpired in the stories and that Yasu is just kind of a lousy writer and none of that stuff actually happened in reality (also she's not insane, just imaginative). Doesn't excuse it being a stupid drag on everything with no purpose or meaning, but it at least isolates it to the in-universe context of amateurism where it's appropriate (sorta like how Erika is intended to be a Mary Sue, which excuses it because of how awful she is).

Just don't go off half-cocked that the solution couldn't be this bad and go looking for some gnostic solution that only you can see exists and makes everything better. There isn't one. But if you do want to remember what made you enjoy the series in the first place, why not check out Witches & Woodlands?

[Sauzer]

Yay someone agrees ^^

Originally Posted by Renall

There were hints, but it doesn't actually change that the entire setup was pointless. Kanon's entire existence is basically meaningless and everything that could be explained by Shkanon can be explained by just Shannon in most cases.

However that's the thing - Kanon/Yasu/Beatrice personalities kinda become necessary. Because like I stated IMO Shannon cannot commit mass murder. Everything shown about her contradicts that. Especially in ep7 Shannon goes out of her way to say to George how her previous relationship with Battler doesn't affect her feelings for George and how it will not complicate things.

You can develop Shannon however you want, have her say and do whatever you want and it's all valid and true, but hey - Yasu/Kanon/Beatrice have completly different feelings and personality, so they can do whatever the hell they want. Oh but Shannon's feelings are still true! ... they are just muted at that particular moment...

That's why I despise multiple personalities when characterisation and motivations are of most importance. Why aren't they in Knox's 11 or something?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Sauzer

You can develop Shannon however you want, have her say and do whatever you want and it's all valid and true, but hey - Yasu/Kanon/Beatrice have completly different feelings and personality, so they can do whatever the hell they want. Oh but Shannon's feelings are still true! ... they are just muted at that particular moment...

The thing is, these are supposed to represent the conflicting emotions of a single person. They just... don't do that particularly well, in my mind. And if you accept that this is the case, you're pretty much invariably led to the conclusion that this person almost certainly couldn't go through with anything like this in reality, because they're so conflicted.

It's definitely a characterization cheat of sorts. Give Shannon no sense of anger or resentment because you've shunted all of that onto Kanon, then pretend like it's totally cool and these things are easily reconciled. If the point is that they're actually not easily reconciled that could be a good thing, but it's something that just didn't get taken far enough.

[Sauzer]

Actually one other thing I noticed.
At least eps 1-4 have a parallel with Bern's game's purple truths. All of the narratives, character testimonies, descriptions etc. could all be true and yet all be BS. And reader must dig through it and figure out what information to trust. However there were never any rules right off the bat on how to approach the solving of those eps unlike Bern's game. First hints are in ep1 for example Battler doubting Kumasawa's story about Kanon's death. But only during ep3 courtroom is it set in stone that both people and narrative blatanly lies.

In that sense I enjoyed Bern's game a lot more and it was the highlight of ep8 for me. And damn if only it wasn't for the ep5 Ronove's "noone ever said corpses have to be corpses" I might've solved it without any hints

[AuraTwilight]

The solution Renall and I have chosen to come to, mind you, is that Yasu's characterization and indecisive nature, along with Beatrice effectively martyring herself as a figure that takes all the blame, leads the two of us to believe that while Shannon and Kanon are culprits in the FORGERIES, she wrote them to take credit for the crimes of an actual person she wants to protect, whoever that person is.

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The solution Renall and I have chosen to come to, mind you, is that Yasu's characterization and indecisive nature, along with Beatrice effectively martyring herself as a figure that takes all the blame, leads the two of us to believe that while Shannon and Kanon are culprits in the FORGERIES, she wrote them to take credit for the crimes of an actual person she wants to protect, whoever that person is.

Very highly plausible, Yasu's characterization is of such a kind and yet yearning person that if during the actual 2 days of Rokkenjima she found out that someone precious to her was a murderer, she most certainly would want to cover it up.

This kind of theory allows us to imply Black Battler for example(assuming that Yasu=Shannon and that Yasu/Shannon wouldn't want the world to know how deranged Battler had become).

Battler isn't really a detective, he just has a vague, general understanding of the Mystery Genre from Kyrie.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by ALPHA-Beatrice

Battler isn't really a detective, he just has a vague, general understanding of the Mystery Genre from Kyrie.

Battler was sharing experiences of mysteries with Shannon at the age of 12 and younger. I think he does in fact know mysteries very well.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Battler was sharing experiences of mysteries with Shannon at the age of 12 and younger. I think he does in fact know mysteries very well.

Which makes his inability to catch on to some things that seem to be happening in the first few episodes a bit implausible to me. He's able to swiftly reason some things but seems ignorant of tricks Yasu practically got out of a book.

Just lends credence to my thought that Battler probably was quite different in "reality." Or at least more knowledgeable than he's written to be.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Renall

Which makes his inability to catch on to some things that seem to be happening in the first few episodes a bit implausible to me. He's able to swiftly reason some things but seems ignorant of tricks Yasu practically got out of a book.

Just lends credence to my thought that Battler probably was quite different in "reality." Or at least more knowledgeable than he's written to be.

Exactly. Meta-Battler and Piece-Battler are probably wrong or at least outdated despictions of Battler. Oddly enough, Battlers monologues often tell the answer to a murder immidietly, but then get dismissed for some reason. Battler has a strange evolution though. Battler changes a lot from EP3 on (obviously because that is the first non-message-bottle story.) EP5 also shows a lot of development for Battler. The degeneration of that development and OOCness of Battler in EP6 seems very weird, which led us to the genius Battler theory.

For EP1-EP2 though it is most likely Yasu not having met Battler for 6 years, so she puts her mental image of an 12-year-old Battler into the body of an 18-year-old-Battler. This would imply the message bottles to have been written before the Rokkenjima incident. It also opens up the possibility that Kyrie and Rudolph were bribed to make sure that Ange doesn't come to Rokkenjima (prime), so that the number of characters between the forgeries and reality matches.

You could say that Battler's personality was getting closer to his real personality over the episodes and probably reached the complete form at the EP5-???TP.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

No one actually "likes" the switching around.
The EP5 problem has been discussed to death in the spoiler thread and there have been 2 possible solutions:

1. Just for that one game both Shannon and Kanon had actually their own bodies. The "number of people is the same as in last games" red can be tricked by hijacking the definition of "people" in that Kanon and Shannon only count as a "half people".

It's actually the same trick Battler pulls on Erika at the end of EP6, just turned around the other way. "People" can mean either the physical sense (number of bodies) or the social sense (number of names).

EP4: 16 bodies, 17 names
EP5: 18 bodies (+ Kanon, Erika), 18 names (+ Erika)
EP6: 17 bodies (+ Erika), 18 names (+ Erika)

The EP5 trick works because the red truth that "besides Erika, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games" refers to the social sense, so you don't notice that the number of bodies got bumped up.

[Sauzer]

I was wondering - what were everyone's favorite episodes?

For me it would've been ep1, because it was very tense and almost scary. People dropping like flies all over the plase and noone has a clue what the hell is going on. The only thing that drags it down is that the first part is so. friggin'. long.

So with that ep2 and ep3 are slightly even better for their own reasons. And the EVA's courtroom was just so many awsomes.
And even though the anime version didn't have the red webs, at the end the way EVA is saying "The red only tells the truth!" all I can hear is "Fuck you, I win!" ++++ points to Miki Ito

ep4 was mostly carried by the "escape" for me.
Chiru certainly had its moments in every ep (carrying a person in a suitcase ftw), however IMO ep2 and ep3 tower above chiru.

So in the end it would be

ep2 / ep3
ep1
ep4
ep5-8

[Renall]

In general? Well, I'd say probably...

1) Turn: Beatrice is at her best right out of the gate, and honestly only declines other than a few great moments in ep3 and ep4.
2) Banquet: A very solid episode with lots of good stuff in it. Battler is better in it but Beatrice is slightly worse, up until the end.
3) Alliance: Could have been the best episode with better pacing. Its good moments are among the best in the series, and it has the best music.
4) Requiem: Pretty much what I think Chiru should've been. Great characters, mood, and sense of wonder, the only truly Anti-Mystery episode of what should really have been the Anti-Mystery arc. Second-best music.
5) Legend: A great second half marred by an immensely slow buildup. Unlike ep4, its highs aren't quite as high and its lows are much lower.
6) End: Boring filler. I never liked Erika even though I acknowledge she's pretty well-done. The trial is probably the single worst meta-scene in the series.
7) Dawn: I hate this episode so much I had to invent a brilliant theory to make it palatable.
8) Twilight: I've made my opinion on this one known quite a bit. The manga might redeem it by eliminating how rushed it was.

[AuraTwilight]

Renall pretty much beat me to it, though my opinion of End and Dawn is slightly less negative.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

1. End
2. Banquet
3. Alliance
4. Requiem
5. Turn
6. Legend
7. Dawn
8. Twilight

I really liked ep 5 and it's teaparty. I can see why people hate it, but it was incredibly exciting watching that, and with Battler and Erika jumping each other, with Tsubasa(ver hope) starting.. Ah, that was amazing.

I also liked the Shkanon twist. And Chiru (Liked, not loved). I found ep 8 incredibly pointless, though.

[Kealym]

1. Turn : Mostly because Beato is a beast of a character, here, and even though solving Turn is easy as balls, theorizing was still wide, wide open. Also, fantasy fight scenes, also Worldend Dominator.

2. End : The trial was kind of obnoxious on a logical level, but I'm not gonna lie, this EP was just ... fun to read, and is the only EP, IMO, where it at least seemed like Ryu had an editor working for him. Also, Natsuhi received some of the best character work in the entire series, and the Tea Party, except for the Gold Truth being whipped out, was immensely satisfying.

3. Banquet : It was solid, EVA was pleasantly crazed, I was indeed "fooled". Like, I yelled at my laptop sreen.

4. Dawn : Eva's "Buddha's palm" sequence and Kyrie's backstory, were things I enjoyed immensely. I was also entertained by the entire Logic Error debacle, more Erika, the twin Beato's, Ange's commentary... I have no big complaints regarding Dawn, actually.

5. Requiem : I've never been terribly fond of Yasu's "oh, woe is me"-ness, so most of this EP was kind of a drag, for me. What pulled me through was Will's coolness, and, in all honesty, Bern's determination to be as terrible as possible, to literally everybody.

6. Alliance : The Rokkenjima sections are really good. Ange's segments were informative. But I kept thinking her actual investigation was very lacking, just as a way of obfuscating certain informations, and they tended to drag on forever. The constant timeline jumping was also very bizarre.

7. Legend : Nothing against Legend, but the pacing was almost unbearable.

8. Twilight : This. Is a wierd EP. Alot of things I really like happen : everybody getting their fight on, Bern's logic puzzle, Lambda giving a crap, etc. etc., but the actual writing itself was just insubstantial, and it's obvious, and it leaves a very bad taste, being the final EP. And don't get me started on the Trick "ending". And don't get me started on "Eva and I split up in the tunnels." And don't get me started on Ange's characterization. Or Erika's. Or Battler's. And don't get me started on "oh, you don't need to find the truth". And don't get me started on Eva's diary. What I mean is URGGGHHHHH EP8

[GoldenLand]

1. End of the Golden Witch
I found this game both entertaining and dramatic. In particular, I like the logic battle in the study. All of the fight/argument scenes in this, really. Natsuhi's plight with Discolor playing was probably the most moving point of the series.

2. Dawn of the Golden Witch
Ditto. I liked chick Beato's evolution, and the drama of her assault upon the church. I also loved the logic error.

3. Requiem of the Golden Witch
I adored Will and Lion, and I liked the setting of the story and the use of the Theatregoing power. Bern's non-magical scenario was great, too.

4. Alliance of the Golden Witch
There are some things I dislike about this game (basically, much as I like Ange, I found that the future segments dragged at times), but the things I do like about it outweigh them. The action in this one was fabulous. Krauss's fight with the goat and that goat in general were classic and a contender for the best scenes in all of Umineko, in my opinion. I loved the way that piece-Battler was isolated for most of this game and was contacted by phone.

5. Turn of the Golden Witch
I like the way that Beatrice threw down the gauntlet to Battler in this one (well, okay, she really did that at the end of Legend). But still. I liked the way that Battler was confused. I loved the fact that suit Beato showed up as a piece. This was probably Beato at her best and most iconic.

6. Twilight of the Golden Witch
I loved this game. I really, really did. It's being rated as 6th rather than 4th or 5th because I have to acknowledge that it was half finished and never reached its full potential, and because there were some things I disliked specifically. But this thing was glorious in several ways. Especially the scenes with Lambda and Bern, the interaction between Erika and Ange and Evatrice and Ange, and the purple truth game. If only this thing had had more time spent on it and had a decent editor. The manga adaptation appears to be shaping up very nicely indeed.

7. Legend of the Golden Witch
Don't get me wrong, I adore this game too. But because it's the game where the scene is set, it's a bit redundant in places and drags a bit. I do like the way that Beatrice feels as if she has a presence on the board despite not turning up until the very end. I also really like the way that Legend contains information that will only stand out once you know some of the secrets of the board.

8. Banquet of the Golden Witch
I just wasn't very interested in Eva-Beatrice, and she was all over this. It might be worth reading it again and seeing if my mind has changed about it.

My opinions here probably have a lot to do with (a) that Dlanor, Erika, Lion and Will are my favourite characters, and (b) the fact I started out watching the anime. After the anime, if I remember right, I read Alliance to catch up on anything I might have forgotten from the end of the anime, and then I went on to read End and Dawn, and then I read Legend and Turn and (probably) Banquet while I was waiting for Requiem to come out.