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

[Jan-Poo]

I don't know what kind of logic they use on IMDB to classify movie. The word mystery certainly doesn't appear on the wiki page unless in the meaning of "something that can't be explained". That's probably the same meaning IMDB is using it and not "murder mystery".

Anyway that doesn't change the fact that Space Odyssey doesn't really have a set explanation, and it isn't even meant to have one. The meaning of the movie is that there are things in the universe that are beyond human comprehension. "Beyond human comprehension" means that you can't possibly understand them and it's pointless to try.

That's why comparing it to Umineko doesn't work unless you admit Umineko isn't meant to be solvable.

Half of you have Umineko avatars or sigs or quotes, yet none of you even liked the damn thing, in the end? Very depressing.

I even made fan works based on it. It's extremely depressing.
But at least there are some parts that I liked. I can't respect the structure of the story, but I liked the narrative style and the ideas attached to it. Those are the things I tried to emulate in my work, so it's not that bad.

I think Renall has it a lot worse since he actually tried to emulate the mystery side of Umineko.

[Sherringford]

Originally Posted by naikou

Half of you have Umineko avatars or sigs or quotes, yet none of you even liked the damn thing, in the end? Very depressing.

I liked the series, but the ending was kind of a letdown to me.

It felt like the world's best buildup to a very disappointing ending. I enjoyed the ride, but the destination wasn't all that it was cracked out to be.

Umineko is solvable, it just doesn't have a single correct solution (yet). Which is altogether fine.

A good friend of mine always went on a rant about that. He used to say that guessable and solvable are not the same thing.

I say used to because since Umineko ended he pretty much went "...meh" and stopped talking about it.

[naikou]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

That's why comparing it to Umineko doesn't work unless you admit Umineko isn't meant to be solvable.

There is something to that thought. It might not be.

Though I should say that I don't think "Space Odyssey" was meant to portray man's mental limitations as it's major theme. Rather, it shows the evolution of man from monkey to man to space man to star child. Overcoming limitations rather than being restricted by them.

But! I do agree with the statement: "if you think you understood everything about this movie you didn't understand a thing".

Originally Posted by Sherringford

A good friend of mine always went on a rant about that. He used to say that guessable and solvable are not the same thing.

In mathematical terms you can have:

3x - 2 > 7

which you can solve for x > 3, of course. Meaning x=4 is a true answer, as is x=8, as is x=15. But not x=2, or x=-15, or an infinite number of other solutions.

I think it's in that same kind of sense that Umineko can have multiple solutions. They aren't guesses, per se, they're just not precise solutions.

[naikou]

But obviously there is at least one solution

Spoiler:

A witch did it

[Jan-Poo]

Well scratch that I made a bad example.

[Mikachiru]

Originally Posted by naikou

Did no one like Umineko? Half of you have Umineko avatars or sigs or quotes, yet none of you even liked the damn thing, in the end? Very depressing.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really give a rat's ass about alot of Umineko except for the interesting "Mystery/Gameboard" parts (EP 1-4 ended in such an epic way), the music, certain characters (specifically Kinzo, Jessica, George, Kanon, Shannon, Virgilia, the Siestas/Belphegor, Lion, Will, the MILFs, and maaaaaybe Dlanor. I'm on the fence with her...) and the shit storm of fake spoilers and screenshots that follows when a new Umineko game comes out. Good times.

Given, I've only read up to EP 4, but with all the spoilers and stuff I've read, I've got almost no motivation to play except for the sake of feeling complete. And I don't regret getting spoiled either.

I didn't really like Battler as the main character.

I hated Beatrice due to the fandom insisting she's "moe" despite her trolling and other shit. However, I really liked her as a villian, even though it was established she was "a good actor" at the end of EP 4. Come on, she had that epic air about her. A cruel yet refine air about her. From the spoilers I've read, she gets less epic and more sympathetic. Bleh.

I REALLY hated Bern and 34. 34 gets redeemed in EP8 though.

The whole Yasu thing is squicky to me since Yasu is in love with three people who are her cousins and niece/nephews. And this is coming from the person who supports twincest, kissing cousins, and Oedipus complexes. Yeah, anyway...

Umineko was cool until I learned that this wasn't a mystery...

NO I DUN CAR WUT U SAY DEREZ NO WAI ANY1 COOD OF SEEN DIS IZZEN A MISTERRRRRRRY~~~!!!1!!11one

EDIT: To add on to what I cared about Umineko, the way certain scenes were written were really good to me.

[Jan-Poo]

Anyway Naikou, I think your example of multiple solutions doesn't really work.

that equation you have shown only tells you that "x > 3". But your objective should be to know what "x" is. That equation only limits the field. But infinite minus any number is still infinite. So in other words you don't really get closer to the solution.

saying that x = 3, or anything wouldn't make it right. In the end X must be a precise number.


From a mere quantistic pov using the schrodinger cat as an example, saying that the cat is alive is wrong, saying that the cat is dead is also wrong. They aren't both true, they are both wrong.

Now of course this can't realistically work for a cat in reality, but the state of quantic matter according to the common interpretation isn't defined as long as it doesn't collapse in a precise status after an observation.

That's basically what Umineko is now. It's not that there are many theories that can be true. They are all wrong as long as the catbox isn't opened. Or in other words: "the truth that you're looking for doesn't exist".

And I'm not even the one who says it. Battler says those exact words in EP8.

1986年の真実など存在しない。
猫箱の中は虚無だ。
……お前は、ありもしないものを求めてる。

"The truth of 1986 doesn't exist. The inside of the catbox is empty. You're looking for something that doesn't exist".

[AuraTwilight]

Wouldn't it be funny if there really was no truth in the catbox, and it turns out Umineko exists in a Last Thursdayism universe.

[naikou]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

But infinite minus any number is still infinite. So in other words you don't really get closer to the solution.

You get a different class of solutions. For instance, I can say "All odd numbers are solutions". This is an infinite set, sure, but it has meaning. It is the same "size" as the set "all natural numbers", but they are distinct sets. (for reference, not all infinite sets are the same "size". All "real" numbers is a larger cardinality than natural or odd).

I think saying "the cat is alive" and "the cat is dead", are both correct, but imprecise (these correspond to x=4 or x=5). Saying "the cat is both alive and dead" is correct, and precise (this corresponds to saying x>3).

As for Battler's quote, idk, I would have to read the context.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by naikou

I would think that Ryukishi was skilled enough to pull it off well. The only reason I can think that lying in third person would be bad writing, is that it might be confusing. But Umineko was easy enough to follow.

Clearly he wasn't, or nobody would doubt him. It's not like we're cynics for the heck of it. If your position is, "he's skilled enough to pull it off," it falls to you to demonstrate why and how you believe he did in fact pull it off. That means elaborating upon the existence of the very things we're challenging don't exist. If you can do that, convincing us he was skilled enough to do it will be incidental to the clear proof he actually did do it.

Speaking of. We're nine pages into this thread, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that I am a one man army, and that I am failing to convince anyone that my cause is good. Did no one like Umineko? Half of you have Umineko avatars or sigs or quotes, yet none of you even liked the damn thing, in the end? Very depressing.

As a Dallas native, I love the Cowboys to death, when I'm not bitching about everything they do. You don't get angry if you didn't care in the first place.

By the way you're both right about 2001, at least according to Clarke.

Also I was trying to emulate the mystery side of Umineko in the same sense Buffalo Bill was trying to emulate being a woman. But don't tell anyone.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Wouldn't it be funny if there really was no truth in the catbox, and it turns out Umineko exists in a Last Thursdayism universe.

"You took the box!? Let's see what's in the box! Nothing! Absolutely nothing in the box! Stupid! You so stupid!"

[naikou]

Originally Posted by Renall

It's not like we're cynics for the heck of it. If your position is, "he's skilled enough to pull it off," it falls to you to demonstrate why and how you believe he did in fact pull it off. That means elaborating upon the existence of the very things we're challenging don't exist. If you can do that, convincing us he was skilled enough to do it will be incidental to the clear proof he actually did do it

Hey, I've been working on that for... 9 pages, now? I won't say I've been successful, because convincing anyone of anything is really hard, especially on the internet. But I have been trying!

[Leafsnail]

If nothing else, Umineko seems to be one of the funnest stories to bitch about. Hey, I guess you could call that a new theory.

[neutrino]

Discussion of plot devices is supposed to take place here, so here are some photos of the actual 1923 Kanto earthquake aftermath. You can see why it would have caused such devastation to the Ushiromiya family. This was 7.9; the recent had a magnitude of 9.0, 1400 times more powerful. Where did the game say that Rokkenjima was located? If it was on the east coast of Japan, the tsunami probably would have hit it.

[Renall]

It's part of Izu, south of Tokyo. It would probably have only been lightly hit.

[nevill]

Originally Posted by naikou

Speaking of. We're nine pages into this thread, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that I am a one man army, and that I am failing to convince anyone that my cause is good.

That's not true. Though the outcome is not something to rejoice about, it doesn't leave a foul aftertaste for those who didn't think about the novel as a mystery in the first place. I abandoned this thought somewhat late, around EP6, when the Author Theory was the only one that clicked with me, and was able to accept the story. It was the most entertaining read I had in two years.

It does include mystery elements, and the Knox Rules are fun to play with, but mostly it was about finding out about hopes, beliefs and thoughts of people who were stuck on the island for those two days. Once you knew the souls of everyone involved, with Beatrice being the last, the rest was left to your imagination and to your interpretation of the facts presented, which may mean more than the facts themselves.

Originally Posted by naikou

Umineko is solvable, it just doesn't have a single correct solution (yet). Which is altogether fine.

Umineko does not have a solution in a sense most people apply to the word. The solution is yours to create, believe in and defend. The individual games might be solvable, but the whole story is about something else entirely.

It was sad seeing Jan-Poo, the one who created W&W fanfiction that was so true to the spirit of the novel it might as well be included in the game, dissatisfied with it. But I guess he had a very different expectations from what he had received in the end.

[Chron]

Jan-Poo just had high expectations.

As I've said before, "choose your own adventure" stories appeal to a very limited number of readers, and even fewer consider them to be capable of being considered good stories. But that doesn't mean that there isn't an audience that does enjoy them wholeheartedly. Different strokes and whatnot.

[naikou]

Actually, I think Umineko is one of the few Visual Novels which is not a choose your own adventure game.

[Chron]

Eh, then I guess you forgot what I meant by that, which is to say that "The answer is whatever you believe it to be" is itself a "choose your own adventure game".

[naikou]

No I didn't forget, I just thought it was funny that you should disparage Umineko for being a "choose your own adventure game", when 90% of VN's are literal "choose your own adventure games".

For Umineko, I would say it is an open-ended story. I wouldn't call "As I Lay Dying" a choose-your-own-adventure, for instance. Use whichever terms you like, though.

[Chron]

I don't think anyone's trying to call Umineko a bastion of originality at this point, right? If there are some holdouts, then I must have missed their comments.

But yes, I think it's rather clear I hold some disdain for the practice, after all, leaving it to your reader to make up elements of your plot for you is...Unprofessional, I guess.