Part 40: Heroine Endings and Character Analysis
~Extra Update: Heroine Endings and Character Analysis~Now that the game is all said and done, there is one last thing to go over. I promised to discuss the other heroine routes so that you could find out what happens in them.
We've already seen Feene, Narika, and Chloe's respective routes. For the two that weren't selected for an ending, I'll just review what happens after the Star Conception Festival choice.
For a recap of Fuuko, Serina, and Torri's routes, see the bottom of this update.
Ellie's bonding events are all labeled in in the list of Updates. I don't have the room to recap them here.
We've already seen Chloe's route, so let's get to the ending.
Chloe's ending is pretty quick. Wake and her are just at the Star Conception Festival, the Disciples talk about how they want to hear her sing again, but they acknowledge that she seems to want to only sing for God's Gift now. Wake and Chloe decide to duck away from the festival to do some Curaoke together, which results in Chloe fulfilling her wish to dress in her Disciple uniform.
Wake tells Chloe that he wants to see her up on stage again because he can tell that she really wants to keep singing for everyone. Chloe is apprehensive, but Wake convinces her to do it since it's clearly something that makes her happy, and Wake is happy seeing her doing it. It ends with Chloe saying that, at least for today, she wants to sing only for Wake. She then says that she wants to sing a song she wrote for him called "You're the Only One for Me!" (very creative Chloe).
Wake has a chance encounter with Ellie and Lucian in the forest as they chase a "Heretic". It turns out that Heretics are a group planning to rebel against the Church and create a new world order. Apparently some priests once broke away from the Church of Aterra and stole a bunch of forbidden artifacts when they went. One of these was a spell that could create barriers which would brainwash people within it's sphere of influence. So the Heretics run around trying to set up these barriers, while the Gracia Church sends agents out to hunt them down before they can establish themselves. The X-Machina has a scanner that can search for the barrier's energy, but it has a short range and isn't pinpoint accurate, so agents like Ellie and Lucian have to drop everything and rush out as soon as a signature is detected because they have to drive around and try to zero in on the location of the Heretic.
Ellie uses the mind erase spell on Wake after this event in order to wipe his memory of the last five minutes, but Wake still retains a gut feeling that something had happened involving Ellie just a little while ago. After that, Wake accidentally walks in to Ellie's apartment one day to find her writhing in agony with weird spell marks all over her body.
Having been busted, Wake finally drags the truth out of Ellie about what happened to her. It turns out that Ellie did actually die that time that Wake discovered her. Wake's immense Ether caused Ellie's Star Energy to be sealed and restored her to life, in a sense. The Church of Gracia fully revived her using a secret technique and turned her into what is called a "Stillblood". Stillbloods are humans that have died once and are then revived by the Church using their secret spell. It only works on young children that possess abnormally high Star Energy (like Ellie). The process cannot be forced either. The person has to agree to the terms of the Church in order to become a Stillblood, which involves acting in their service (such as hunting down Heretics). Ellie agreed to become one because Wake had told her not to die and she wanted to keep living for his sake. So that is the truth behind Ellie's servitude to the Church. The reason why the Church uses Stillbloods to hunt down Heretics is because Stillbloods are resistant to mind control and incredibly durable. They can recover from near fatal wounds, don't require much (if any) sustenance aside from water, have a high amount of Star Power, and have an enhanced sense of smell. This leads to them being seen as something like hounds for the Church, meant to sniff out and hunt down Heretics.
Now for the fucked up part. No, having to hunt down people as a Church Assassin is not the worst of it. As seen in the CG above, being a Stillblood is not exactly all sunshine and rainbows. The Church can't just bring people back to life like it's nothing. All those powers that Stillbloods have obviously come at a price. First of all, it messes up the body (Ellie has completely lost her sense of taste for example), and it's also a constant drain on their energy since they are basically zombies being animated by their Star Energy. So in order to stay alive and be able to Wolverine their wounds, they have to periodically use a spell on themselves which forcibly restores their Star Energy.
This spell is not fun. The process of using this spell can take upwards of 3 days, and the Stillblood is in constant pain during this time because their body is essentially being torn to pieces and regenerating the entire time. Basically, just imagine laying in bed for three straight days while wounds are constantly inflicted and healed and you feel all of it. Lovely.
Sometime after Wake learns about this dark little secret, Ellie is captured during a Heretic hunt. Lucian goes to Wake for help, and the pair head off to rescue her together.
Ellie is rescued, although not exactly without incident. She recovers from having half of her face blown off since she is a Stillblood, but it still hurts like hell. After the rescue, Lucian comes to respect Wake a bit and he eventually leaves to head back to the continent.
Wake and Ellie then get a bit closer and share a few moments together now that Ellie's secret life is finally entirely out in the open. It ends with Wake saying that he wants to stay with Ellie forever and telling her that he has asked to become part of the Gracia Church. Ellie is obviously not stoked about that, but it's what Wake wants to do and the two do love each other.
Lucian puts in a good word for Wake at the Church (which, why does he even have to? Wake is GOD'S GIFT). Wake's immense Ether is what allows him to fight the Heretics, so from that point on both Wake and Ellie are partners in Heretic hunting.
After some more bonding and Fuuko possessing, Wake starts to notice that Fuuko is getting bothered by something. Ms. Ghost also mentions that Fuuko seems to be repressing some kind of trauma, although she doesn't know what it is.
The trio eventually focus their attention on a nearby underwater Nest that seems to hold some kind of meaning to Ms. Ghost. Ms. Ghost regains some of her memories and recalls that she died trying to seal/clear that Nest. They decide that this must be the regret that is holding the ghost back, so Fuuko agrees to let Ms. Ghost possess her body during an assault on the Nest.
It is eventually revealed that Fuuko once competed in a swimming tournament with a friend when she was younger. Her friend, Izzy's, father was very sick, but he came out to see his daughter compete in the tournament. Fuuko ended up beating out Izzy in the tournament however, and Izzy's father ended up passing away shortly afterward. This results in Fuuko blaming herself by believing that seeing his daughter lose the big tournament caused the sadness to overcome him and caused him to die. She feels guilty because apparently Izzy kept crying and apologizing to her father during his funeral, and Fuuko didn't know that she was going through so much pain while Fuuko was busy enjoying her victory. Izzy moved away to live with her mom after this happens, so Fuuko was never able to talk it out with her. This results in Fuuko downplaying her swimming abilities and trying to distance herself from it, even though she loves it.
Anyway, the day of the Nest Assault rolls around and Wake and Fuuko are able to join in on it with some help from Chloe, who vouches for them when the Aquatics Captain seems unwilling to let novices in on something so dangerous. The mission starts going south when Wake gets grabbed by a monster and dragged towards the depths of the sea. Ms. Ghost starts to panic because she can feel that Fuuko's body isn't up to the task of getting to him, but Fuuko convinces Ms. Ghost to give her control and she ends up pulling off a Shift in order to free Wake.
The event reveals that Ms. Ghost is the spirit of Fuuko's friend, Izzy. More accurately, she is the ghost of Mary Isana White, who became a Disciple after moving away and was among a small few group of students who was able to master "Shifting". Unfortunately, Mary died during an underwater Nest operation that went wrong when she tried to rescue the other members of her team. With her memories finally restored, Izzy and Fuuko are able to finally reconnect, and Izzy then passes on to the afterlife.
With the weight finally lifted from her, Fuuko finds the courage to confess her love to Wake and asks for him to kiss her, like she had done to him while Izzy had been possessing her body.
In Fuuko's ending, Wake reciprocates her feelings and the two attend the Star Conception Festival. A few years later, Fuuko is shown helping her and Wake's daughter learn to swim. Their daughter is revealed to be named Isana, and Fuuko uses the same "Izzy" nickname for her, telling her daughter that "We named you after a great swimmer."
In Narika's ending, Wake approaches her in the Old Schoolhouse and she asks him if he has made up his mind about who to take to the festival. When he tells her he has, she congratulates him and tells him that he shouldn't wasting time standing her with her. Wake tells her that Narika is the one he wants to take, and although shocked, she happily agrees. Before leaving, she asks Wake to wait a moment while she changes. She returns wearing a dress that she made herself. Both Wake and Sasami (who was passing by, I guess?) tell her that they are surprised she would go with such a bold look. She says that she thought it would make her look cute, and then starts becoming self-conscious about wearing it. Wake offers to cover her by holding her in his arms so she won't be embarrassed, and Narika asks him if he will hold her like that for the rest of the night.
After graduation, Wake and Narika become members of the World Peace Council. Narika now has the courage to speak publicly without any issues and without the influence of the cursed pendant. Sasami says that she thinks Narika is very cool, while Mattero chimes in to make a pervy comment about liking her "ample figure". Wake states that Narika will likely remain a central figure in the meetings.
Wake learns more about Serina and Nazuna's past. Nazuna apparently used to run an Amusement Park before she opened the cafe, but said Amusement Park is now considering closing down due to declining attendance and the increased monster activity. Wake and Serina go to the park one day and Serina wants to take on a ride which is apparently very difficult to stay conscious on. The challenge to Wake hits a roadblock when Serina is found to be under the height requirements. Serina then demands to transform and the two tackle the ride.
Serina wakes up later to find that Wake is carrying her on his back after she passed out on the ride. She's not pleased by this, but eventually relents and allows him to keep carrying her. Later on, Serina finds out that the Amusement Park is indeed planning to shut down. While there and in her transformed state, the owner approaches her and asks if she would participate in a Beauty Pageant the park is having to try and boost attendance. Serina rightfully realizes that she can't compete in the pageant in her transformed state because that would be cheating, but she has the idea that Nazuna could compete. The increased attention from the pageant could be an opportunity to implore people to help save the park and draw lots of attention from the public. Nazuna declines to participate however, which pisses Serina off. Serina accuses her of not caring about all of the memories they had there, then decides to throw out that whole "cheating" hang-up and just enter the pageant herself using her transformation.
Serina enters the pageant, but the park is attacked by a monster during the contest. The crowd is reassured by God's Gift being there and Wake proceeds to hold off the monster since Serina can't use her Star Energy in her transformed state. Serina grows frustrated and decides to revert to her normal form in order to attack the monster. She rushes it and starts punching it until it is defeated. Serina starts to apologize to the crowd and admit that she had cheated, but the crowd applauds her for her bravery in attacking the monster. Serina vows to protect the park because it is a very special place to her and holds a lot of childhood memories. She then admits that she knows the park will close at some point, but she's proud of what she did to try and prevent it.
During her ending, Wake's dorm is closed off due to a supposed water leak, so he is forced to stay at a lodge. The event seems to have been orchestrated by someone, because Wake enters the hot spring to find Serina bathing. Turns out that Nazuna was the one behind the encounter, tricking both of them into staying at the lodge at the same time. The two of them end up agreeing to stay the night so as not to waste the opportunity. In the morning, Serina asks Wake if he would take her to the festival and this moves on to her confessing her feelings for him in the following event. Serina decides that she no longer needs to transform because she found someone that loves her the way she is. After three months, it is revealed that Wake and Serina are now running the Cafe, while Nazuna has returned to running the Amusement Park. Serina asks Wake to stay with her forever and offers to cook him all kinds of meals.
Wake goes out with Torri one day and winds up losing track of her when she runs off. When she runs back, she seems to be freaked out about something. She states that she someone was following her. Wake does indeed spot a man hiding out around a corner, so he goes to confront him. The man turns out to be an AngelMarker employee named Kirks, who was Torri's minder while she was at the Lab. Kirks was following her because he saw her wandering around with a stranger (Wake) and was concerned for her well being. He wanted to keep an eye on her, but he relaxes when he realizes that Wake is God's Gift. When Kirks leaves, Torri reveals that she left her parents and has lived at the Lab for as long as she can remember. She says that the staff were really nice to her, but they wouldn't let her go outside (which is where her whole "wanting to be free/flight/birds" thing comes from). After watching some baby birds take flight one day, Torri asks Wake to teach her as much as he can so that she can learn more about the world and be free to explore it on her own. This is followed by Torri running off to meet up with friends on the Combat Team who wanted her to act as a substitute. Wake joins Chlotz at a concert, but afterward Chlotz mentions how hard it's been raining lately. Members of the Combat Team then pass by and talk about the venue of the match being changed due to a mudslide. Wake asks them where Torri is and they tell him that she never showed up. Wake correctly assumes that Torri is at the original venue just waiting there, so he goes to fetch her. He finds her standing outside in the rain and she tells him that she thought everyone was really late and she didn't want to leave because she thought it would cause trouble. Wake takes her to the nurse's office since she starts sneezing. The nurse is nowhere to be found, so Wake puts Torri behind a curtain and asks her where her change of clothes is. She tells him and he goes to fetch it from the classroom.
When he comes back, Torri is standing naked in the office with the curtain on the ground. She says it fell over somehow and she had taken off her clothes to try and dry out. She starts wandering around to look for a towel and is about to head out into the hallway before Wake stops her and makes her change into her spare clothing. Later, the Combat Team members ask Wake to pass on a message to Torri that practice is cancelled. Wake goes to look for her, only to find her standing out in the rain again, except this time she is wearing a swimsuit so that "her clothes won't get wet". Other Disciples and Chlotz find this incredibly strange, so Wake decides to change into a swimsuit and join her in the rain so as to make her feel better and not so strange. This results in Chloe, Chlotz, and Narika eventually joining in for a big game of tag in the mud and rain. The other Disciples all start cheering them on and Torri is happy.
Wake joins Torri one day in the workshop as she tries to get the improved version of her plane air-ready. While they chat, Torri talks about why she wants to fly so badly and also asks Wake if he has anything that he really wants in life. Wake says that he really wants to stop the Dusk Circles and bring peace to the world.
Once again, Torri gets it in her mind that she needs to do this and make Wake happy. Everyone runs around in a panic trying to find her and Wake eventually remembers how interested she was in his "wish" to seal the Dusk Circles. After checking in with Chloe, she confirms that the Savage was activated recently and that there's even a God Brace missing from the labs. Wake immediately departs for the Labyrinth and manages to track Torri down as she is struggling to fend off monsters. The God Brace is making her head hurt and she is surrounded. Wake saves her and pulls her out of the Labyrinth, where everyone expresses their relief that she is okay. She is also chastised for how reckless she was being. She states that she did it because she really wanted to give Wake what he wanted most in life. Wake points out that he doesn't want Torri risking her life for his sake like that. She ends the event by asking Wake to take her to the Star Conception Festival because of how much he cares for her and helps her.
Torri's ending involves her finally completing her plane, and with the help of Wake's Ether, she is able to fly it anywhere she wants. Torri is overjoyed at finally being able to fly like a bird, and Wake promises to go with her wherever she wants and stay with her forever.
The Harem Ending
The Harem Ending is unlocked after viewing every heroine's ending. I originally thought that you had to complete every single event for all the heroines, but you actually just need to do all of the main ones. Sub-events and things like the School Festival heroine choice event don't count.
In the Harem Ending, Wake realizes the problem with all seven girls asking him to take them to the Star Conception Festival. He starts to think that maybe he should turn them all down, since if he chooses just one of them then the others will be hurt. Meanwhile, the girls are all waiting in the Old Schoolhouse for Wake and wondering who he will ask to go with. They slowly come to the realization that all of them have asked him and start to wonder what will happen when he arrives. Even though the others might feel sad, they all agree that they have every intention of waiting for him and hoping to be the one he chooses. Wake is revealed to be on his way to the Old Schoolhouse, having admitted that running from this choice wouldn't be the right thing to do.
When he enters the Old Schoolhouse, he finds all seven of the heroines in dresses, awaiting his decision. They ask him to make his choice, and they also shout out that he can't say "everyone".
Despite saying that, it is shown that he did indeed choose everyone. The group leave to go on a tour of every heroine's hometown. Ellie solemnly admits to her work for the Church, but everyone states that they already know about it. They all pledge to be there for her in her duties and to assist her in stopping the heretics. Wake then ends things off with an incredibly badly fumbled line that did not translate well:
Yyyyeeeeaahhh. Apparently this is actually a really sweet line in the original Japanese that is a play on the title of the game. Unfortunately this 'play on the title' thing didn't work out too well in English, and Wake comes off sounding like a total asshole. "Don't worry about anything, just focus on pumping out my babies" is a terrible line to go out on. This really should have been cut a sentence short, loyalty to the original be damned.
~Character Analysis~
This part is heavily opinionated. Fair warning. I wanted to do a small analysis of each of the main heroines, and what I like or dislike about them can easily be the reverse for someone else. So if you absolutely cannot take someone critiquing your favorite character, then stop here.
For everyone else that is crazy enough to want to read my rambling discussion of character, let's get to it. If anyone wants to chime in with their own views, then go right ahead.
I'm going to start with the character I like the most, which is also the character that seems to get called out as being the weakest on message boards. There isn't a big fanbase for this game, but from what I've read on Gamefaqs or Steam, people seem to consider Narika to be a flat character (lol, it's ironic because she has big boobs! Get it? I swear to god that's a comment I saw from like three different people).
So why do I like her the most? Because she's the exact opposite of a weak or flat character. On the surface, Narika is a typical anime trope character. As others in this thread noted in the beginning, all she was really missing were glasses. She's shy, timid, and easily embarrassed.
But here's an important part of why she's a good character: Her growth comes from her own desire to improve. The main character is not the catalyst that pushes Narika to be more outgoing and brave. Before Wake has even stepped foot on the island, Narika already became the Class VP and was taking up activities to get better at public speaking and being more confident. She volunteered at the Church, handled Vice President duties, and helped out when people came to her asking for it.
Narika recognized that she had a problem, and strove to overcome it on her own. She wasn't a static object waiting for the main character to roll up and start pulling the strings of her life. Certainly, some of what she gets involved with is not because she wants to, but because it's foisted on her by others. Even still, despite how uncomfortable something like the Strategy Conference made her, she still buckled down and gave it her all because she saw that people needed help and she felt she had a duty to act.
Wake doesn't convince her to stick with it or push her forward, he just acts as her support. What happens when Narika is nervous about collecting donations for the church? She goes to the rooftop to practice. What happens when she blows the first strategy conference and Sasami shits all over her? She's hurt and ashamed, she runs off, but when Wake catches up to her she tells him that she doesn't intend to quit. The next time Wake finds her, she's in the classroom practicing her speech and trying to iron out any flaws. That's not because Wake's dating game hero-ness convinced her to keep going. It's because she didn't want her classmates efforts to be wasted. It's because she wanted to change.
That's a strong character. It's also referenced by her theme song "A Little Bit of Courage" as well as her title "Saint Brave". Not many people who don't like being in the spotlight would look at someone asking them to speak in a major conference and say "Okay, I'll do it. I'll give it my best." Even fewer people would, after nearly being laughed off stage, dig in their heels and try again.
Narika has serious guts. We also learn a lot about her as a character over the course of her route, even though the latter half of it has her partially possessed by a demon or something. She's kind and generous, aware of her faults, has a strong sense of faith, and she's not completely rigid when it comes to her duties (she is willing to overlook Chlotz' open stupidity when he starts blabbing about potentially skipping classes, despite her being the Vice Class President).
My only major complaint with Narika's route is the possession thing. I'm sure people will argue that it makes her route more interesting or exciting, but it also kind of drags down her character development. At the very least, they should have pushed that whole subplot back until just before the third conference. Narika should have been given the second conference to show how much she had improved entirely on her own. The demon pendant giving her the confidence to stand up in front of everyone kind of undercuts her natural growth. And yes, she does have the potential to reach that level with practice and determination. We see during her ending that she becomes a member of the World Peace Council and regularly presents with complete confidence. So I would have much rather seen her get to that point entirely on her own merits. But at the same time, I recognize that a lot of people would see that as not being exciting, or too pedestrian.
So that's why Narika is my favourite of the heroines. She has a surprising amount of depth to her character, and she isn't reliant on the self-insert protagonist to help her spur her arc. Honestly, it's a little arguable as to whether or not Wake's involvement is entirely a good thing. She certainly may have wound up in that park and bought the pendant without Wake, and if she had then she definitely would have been much worse off (assaulted, dead, a monster, who knows). There's also a chance that Wake is the reason that they ended up in the park that day, though. Even if look forward to later in the route, Narika admits that one of the reasons why she didn't throw the pendant away when she noticed herself changing for the worse is because she didn't want to lose her relationship with Wake. Without Wake there, Narika may have thrown the pendant away when she saw it hurting her friendship with Fuuko or potential friendship with Sasami.
Of course, that's all speculation and 'what-ifs', which is something I don't really want to do a lot of. Doing that just results in every heroine's route becoming "yeah, well if this happened instead then she would be a better character too and then Narika would still be the weak character".
Also, as with every heroine, everyone has a 'preference' when it comes to character types. So Narika is probably just my favourite because I like this type of character, in the same way that some people think Serina is the best because they have a preference for Tsundere types. However, regardless of stuff like that, I wanted to offer up a defense of Narika in general. I'm a big fan of narratives, either in books, games, shows, or whatever. It lets you do a lot of examination of character motivations, personality, thought processes, and so on. I really enjoy that stuff (yeah, I'm kind of a weirdo).
That's why it bothers me to see people write a character off as weak and boring without getting into any kind of solid reasoning outside of the character just looking like they fit a particular type. I'm sure someone could write up a response to this explaining why Narika is actually a completely flat and uninteresting character, and then turn around and write about how Torri is actually the most rounded character out of the heroines. I like reading that kind of thing as well, assuming that the person responding actually put some thought into it and analyzed the character.
Feene is my second favourite. The reasoning isn't as in-depth as with Narika. Feene is just a very pleasant character to interact with. She's the typical "perfect girl" of the main cast. That type of character is often the "rich girl/noble lady" on top of that, which I am decidedly not a fan of (that fucking laugh, man. Hate it so much).
Thankfully, Feene is instead the modest type of this character. I thought her overly formal interactions with Wake to be cute, especially upon the revelation that she is secretly a little more rough around the edges when she was back home with her friends. She is also one of the few people in the game that actually shows Wake an appropriate level of respect. Most of the cast is either ambivalent to Wake (Aya, Rhiod, Alec to an extent), outright disrespectful (Watts, Ruby, the Hospital Director), or indifferent.
Her modesty does go a little too far though. She even goes farther than Fuuko in brushing aside compliments she gets and playing up her imagined deficiencies. The good thing is that this doesn't crop up a lot, but it is noticeable. It's also a thing that a lot of the heroines do, so I can't really say that this is solely a Feene thing.
Feene also has very supportive and enjoyable friends, such as Raul. Aya is a total pain in the ass, but it's more out of over-protectiveness for Feene than any real malice. As much as I might hate how she gets on with Wake, she did notice Feene's feelings for him and knew when she was beaten in the pursuit of her affection.
Chloe is maybe, kind of, my third favourite. It's a little difficult to pick between her and Fuuko, which sounds a little weird considering that Fuuko is not an especially well-liked character (or hated, she's very middling). Chloe is a very composed character and seems to have a better handle on her emotions than the other heroines. Basically, I like that there is a 'mature' character in the main cast of heroines.
What drags her down is the fact that her determination is very quick to fall apart. She talks a lot about caring for her students and wanting to help people, but she buckles immediately under any sort of pressure. I understand that in many of these cases, she has to factor in unintended consequences of her actions (such as possibly getting the Choir club shut down), but it's still really disappointing to see a smart, strong, maternal character like this totally fall apart the moment someone scowls at her.
Her taking responsibility for that voyeur student is also a massive strike against her. I know it is meant to make her look very protective of her students, but it comes off as being incredibly stupid. That kid committed a crime, and Chloe covering his ass for it is not going to deter him from trying something like that again, either with Chloe or with a different girl. Chloe is relying on the idea that this kid made a stupid decision that he will realize he regrets, but that is a dangerous thing to take a chance on. The kid had this planned out, it wasn't a spur of the moment decision. He should have suffered some type of punishment for his actions, because that kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
So Chloe is a bit of a mixed bag for me. She is both relate-able and not relate-able as a character. She is also very wishy-washy when it comes to what she wants to do. She likes being a teacher and caring for her students, then she likes to be a DJ and make the students happy, then she likes to sing at concerts to make people feel better, but then she decides to back peddle on all of that after all but 1 of the Dusk Circles is sealed. She still does it because she wants to protect and help everyone, but Wake actually has to talk her into singing on stage again during her ending. Even with the world at peace and the Academy she taught at closing its doors, she was going to avoid singing again in order to make a romantic gesture to Wake.
The reason I place Fuuko so high in terms of character is because she was a really fun character to have around. Sure, her entire theme is that she is a very boring or exceedingly average girl, but that's endearing in its own right. Out of the heroines, she felt the most natural, I guess. Her early interactions with Wake and Chlotz are especially good, because she just acts and sounds like a pal. She's very easy to talk to and joke around with, friendly, supportive, and pretty outgoing. Wake needs to push her a bit during her route, but she is quick to accept to things like a ghost talking to her or flat out being possessed by said ghost.
Even though her backstory is a little cliche and involves the typical "I feel guilty about something that I had no control over, so I constantly put myself down", the story itself is still pretty heartwarming. She never got the chance to talk to Izzy or tell her that she felt guilty about what happened, and Izzy never got the chance to tell her that she doesn't blame Fuuko for what happened. Fuuko carrying that weight on her shoulders is somewhat understandable when the last thing she hears about her friend is about how that friend was crying at her father's funeral and apologizing to him for not winning the tournament. It would be hard to shake that feeling, even if you stepped back and looked at it from the logical view of "Her father was already sickly, so him dying didn't have anything to do with me winning a swimming contest".
Fuuko also gets major points for having the guts to straight up ask Wake for a kiss. Serina does this out of a desire to trigger that transformation thing, and she wants Wake to kiss her hand. Fuuko just goes right for it once she comes to terms with her feelings.
So while she might not be particularly exciting as a character, since her design is meant to invoke the "tomboy/girl next door" type, she is surprisingly strong and likable.
Oh boy, Ellie. Ellie is positioned here on my list mainly because I dislike Serina and Torri, rather than me overly liking Ellie.
She isn't a bad character exactly, but there isn't really anything I can point to with her that I really enjoyed. She's pretty cheery and fun in her normal interactions with the rest of the cast, but she is also absurdly self-depreciating in her interactions with Wake and it kind of chafes me whenever she starts talking about how much she sucks or how she's a weirdo, or too small, or secretive, or etc. Even more so than the other heroines, Wake has to act as her personal cheerleader by constantly reassuring her.
So I don't really have a strong feeling on Ellie as a person, one way or the other. She's just kind of there in my opinion. Part of that may be the fault of her route. Ellie's route is by far the most interesting out of the heroines, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Ellie herself.
Let me try and explain. Conception 2 doesn't do a great job at world building. The game takes place in a very narrowly focused on part of the world. We are told extremely little about life on the continent, the Church, the government, or anything that isn't directly related to Dusk Circles. We only get little bits and pieces from the other heroines, such as Feene's home town, the Strategy Conferences, that kind of thing.
But Ellie's route is a fucking treasure trove of information about the stuff going on elsewhere in Aterra. We learn about the structure of the Aterra Church and about the holy capital of Shelgard. We learn about the Church secretly fighting a rogue group of fanatics called Heretics that are trying to brainwash people and overthrow the Church. Then there's the stuff about Stillbloods and X-Machina. It's a really interesting plot thread that I wish was tied into the main story somehow.
Except all that interesting stuff is only tangentially related to Ellie. Ellie is really just there to be the vehicle for the player to experience all of that. If you removed Ellie from her own route and just had Wake interact with an NPC Stillblood or Lucian or someone, then the route wouldn't really lose any of its interesting qualities in my opinion.
In comparison, if you remove the other heroines from their routes then none of it is particularly interesting. Feene? Without her you would just have Wake taking pictures and maybe getting harassed by Aya since she hates men. Narika? You would learn a bit about the Strategy Conference, but the Strategy Conferences are mostly just a backdrop to the focus on Narika's character arc.
But Ellie isn't really the focus of her route. It's the stuff Ellie is involved with that is the focus. Shady Church things, Heretics, Church Assassins, brainwashing cults, Star Energy animated living dead, that's cool shit.
Ellie's character arc even repeats itself several times. The cycle is pretty much: Ellie doesn't want Wake to learn her secret because she's scared of what he'll think of her -> Wake learns her secret -> Wake reassures her that he still likes her -> Wake tells her that they are friends and she should trust him and let him help -> Ellie is relieved and thankful -> Return to Step 1.
As a recap, Ellie's actual character arc is this: Actually met Wake 10 years ago when he saved her -> Wake eventually remembers -> Ellie says she was afraid to say anything but Wake tells her that he doesn't think she's weird or dislike her -> Ellie is happy -> Ellie can't tell Wake about her work for the Church -> Wake finds out anyway -> Wake reassures her -> Ellie is happy -> Heretics -> Wake finds out, reassures her -> Ellie is happy -> Stillblood -> Finds out -> Happy
She is a very tiring character to interact with, but you stick with it because you know that there's something interesting going on behind her.
Maybe it's just because her character archetype doesn't appeal to me, but I ended up caring more for the backdrop than the character. It's kind of like going to a play and ignoring what the actors are doing because you're too busy admiring the craftsmanship of the set.
The game also leans heavily in her favour because of that. Ellie receives a lot of attention, even during the main story. Her introduction hints towards her having a history with Wake and there are some skits I had to cut with Mark and Chlotz where they talk about rumored spells that the Church has to raise the dead. The game nudges you towards Ellie, her first two events hook with by revealing her history with Wake, and then it keeps going from there. Don't get me wrong, this is a well designed route. I just wish that the other heroines had this kind of attention given to them.
It's a tough call between Serina and Torri, personally. Even with me trying to be unbiased during the LP, you could probably tell pretty easily that I hate Tsundere characters. Serina just pisses me off with her attitude. But it's also because of that that I have to rank her higher than Torri. At the very least I feel something towards Serina, even though that something is annoyance and anger. Serina at least has a developed personality, it's just a personality that doesn't appeal to me.
But anyway, staying on the topic of Serina, I really don't like her or her route. She the kind of character that walks around basically begging for a fight. Always with a chip on her shoulder. It's even worse in this case because there's no evidence that anyone actually looks down on Serina, yet her belief of that is her motivating factor for wanting to be different.
Outside of that one NPC jerk during her introduction, and Chlotz, I don't recall anyone making any snide remarks about her height or body or anything. She seems to have some friends from her class and they don't treat her any differently. Her sister Nazuna is supportive, if maybe a bit too protective of her. But Serina is convinced that she needs to have a big bust and be 6 feet tall in order to be taken seriously as an S-Rank. This is a girl that worked her way up from the bottom rung of the Elites to S-Rank entirely through her own hard work. She wasn't just automatically placed there due to her Star Energy or something. That's really impressive, but it doesn't seem to matter to her at all. She appears to look at that achievement as an unimportant stepping stone. Just a piece she needs to fulfill her vision of who she thinks she should be.
I just can't relate to her at all. She's really annoying and comes off as being kind of entitled. The major theme of her arc is obviously the tried and true "love yourself the way you are", and while there's not anything wrong with that message, it's not all that well delivered. Serina ends her route with the realization that someone loves her for who she is and she doesn't need to change just to try and get people to like her, or something to that effect anyway. However, the thing that doesn't really get touched on during the route is that the reason why transformed Serina was so well liked is because she was confident and approachable. She didn't look like she was going to bite your damn head off if you so much as said "Hi". Ignoring the fact that there's no real evidence that people look down on her, all Serina really needed to do to get people to like her more and respect her is to be less antagonistic towards people.
There's also the complete mess that is the Amusement Park plot thread. Serina wants to save the Amusement Park and rightfully states that it wouldn't be right for her to cheat in the pageant in order to do it. Her brief show of honor goes almost immediately out the window when her brilliant backup idea is shot down though. She plans on just using Nazuna, but when Nazuna refuses to enter the pageant then Serina tears into her and goes straight to the cheating route.
And when Serina's cheating is ultimately exposed? She's rewarded for it. Sure, she did the right thing by dropping her transformation in order to help protect innocent people. But she didn't do that because she had some kind of moral crisis about what she was doing, she did it because she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't just stand back and watch Wake fight to protect the crowd while she did nothing. It's not as though she had a moment of clarity where she looked at what she was doing to achieve her desire and felt it was wrong.
The crowd cheering for her and voting for her to win the pageant is meant to seem like a big heartwarming moment because Serina gave up her chance to win in order to protect people, and she had the noble intention of trying to save the Amusement Park because she felt it was an important place.
But that isn't how I see it. That event comes off looking like 'the ends justify the means'. The message is that it doesn't matter that Serina knowingly cheated in order to fulfill her personal interests, she did her duty as a Disciple and therefore deserves to have everything she wanted.
This situation is similar to what happened with Narika. The major difference there is that Narika didn't knowingly buy a cursed monster pendant to help her win. The shopkeeper told her that if she prayed to it then it would give her strength. That's the kind of bullshit salespeople use all the time. By the time anyone realized what was going on, Narika was already under the influence of an outside force. That didn't happen with Serina. Serina openly stated that doing what she did would be wrong, but as soon as her Nazuna plan falls through she turns her back on her principles and goes right ahead with cheating.
Narika also felt guilt about what happened, despite it not being her fault. She gets on stage in front of the school and acknowledges the contributions of everyone, then calls herself out as a weak coward, and admits that she caused a lot of trouble for Wake. She admits her feelings to the one she loves, but she isn't under any belief that Wake will return those feelings.
Serina only starts to apologize once she's been caught with her pants down. There's a crowd of people that just witnessed her change form, there's not really any way out of it other than to admit to what she did. She doesn't end up apologizing though, because the audience chimes in to absolve her of any wrongdoing. The Amusement Park stays open, Nazuna sets her up with the guy she likes and she gets him in the end, she takes over a cafe, and her sister goes off to run the Amusement Park that Serina wanted to save. Serina gets everything she wanted, and I don't really believe she did enough to really deserve it.
The brings me to Torri. I don't know if I hate Torri, but she's certainly the least interesting character to me, mainly because she largely lacks character. Torri is a very reactive character. She really only does things in response to others. Her only driving motivation is that she wants to fly, because flying is symbolic of freedom. What is she outside of that? Naive and honest to a fault since she doesn't understand anything about the world or social interaction.
Just look at her route. She routinely wanders around the city by herself, falls asleep on park benches, doesn't know how to manage her money, walks up and stares at food when she's hungry and can't afford it like she's a starving animal, is wary of strangers but will follow them if they give her snacks and treat her nice, the list just goes on. Kirks is right to be worried about her, because she is not prepared to be out in the world on her own.
Not to mention that she endangers herself and others. She builds a makeshift plane and nearly crashes it into a group of onlookers as well as the Academy, but manages to crash it somewhere else that doesn't cause damage but could have easily injured her. Twice during her route, when Wake makes a passing and innocent mention of something, Torri runs off and nearly dies in order to give said thing to him. Hell, if you felt like it you could probably count Wake as having saved her life three times. Remember that she stood outside in pissing rain waiting for a group of people that wouldn't arrive because the event got moved for weather reasons. Given the kind of person she is, she likely would have stayed there well into the night if Wake hadn't shown up.
It's honestly a real shame. Other than the weird hair split she has, I really like Torri's design. The Monokuma inspired monochrome look is pretty cool. It's just too bad she is such a poor character. I think I would have liked her a bit more if her route involved Wake becoming something of a father or brother to her and helping teach her the ways of the world so that she could live a regular life. That doesn't happen though. It's a dating sim, so the protagonist is meant to be a romantic partner to Torri, which honestly kind of creeps me out. I try not to judge people for what appeals to them, because to each their own, but this Rei/robot/barely functional human being character type thing is something I just cannot understand. It's like sticking an Alexa on a hug pillow.
Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately for a lot of you, I don't have room to get into the side characters. I've already gotten Ruby out of my system at least, which was the one I was most opinionated about. All that's left is a small wrap up about the game itself and this LP will be complete.