Part 39: You come on like a flame; Then you turn a cold shoulder

Update XIII: You come on like a flame; Then you turn a cold shoulder
Song Title Reference: Fire and Ice - By Pat Benatar

The whole "song reference as a title" thing is really biting me in the ass now that there's barely anything to base my references off of...



Let’s jump straight into it. Most of the side stuff I want to show off is better saved for after this next labyrinth is sealed up.

We’re going to Gemini this time. The Seasonal Labyrinths don’t really matter anymore, so let’s just clear out each one in order.



One thing I want to mention in advance, just as a little aside: You see how there’s an exclamation point symbol on Gemini that signals a quest item/monster is in this labyrinth? Well, that symbol will tell you what part of the labyrinth and even what floor a quest thing can be found on. What it doesn’t seem to tell you is which quest item/monster it is. I tried all the buttons and nothing seems to work. This will be semi-important for after the boss fight.



The Gemini Labyrinth has the trippy colours of the inside of Lillie’s hair. The columns also have the belts and costume colours of Lillith and Lillie. You can also see that the doors have the weird headband design that both Lillith and Lillie wear.



One thing of note that happened here almost immediately was Itsuki finally getting an upgrade to his armour. Shooting Star Clothes are a straight upgrade to the Great Spirit armour that I’ve been stubbornly refusing to get rid of.



It’s a big upgrade. Shooting Star Clothes maintains the speed boost from Great Spirit and manages to improve on it by a smidge. However, on top of keeping Itsuki nice and speedy, it also jacked up his defence by 2,205 (his physical defence is now over 6,300).

He also got another sword upgrade, but it’s just a slightly higher tier of Bio Gauche so I won’t bother to show it off.



I also worked on getting Katie caught up in levels. She’s hit her level cap, but she’s around the same level as the other Star Children, so it’s not a big deal. This group of Star Children are likely on their way out after this dungeon anyway.

Katie’s higher level improves Team Psycho Knight’s stats, but they are still lower than they were with Luna. Team Psycho Knight’s MAT has surpassed Team Canada 2.0’s and they’ve roughly tied them in terms of DEF, but that’s about it. Team Canada 2.0 still holds the edge in things like SPD and ATK. Meanwhile, Team A(wful) 2.0 has become the ace team, dwarfing Team PK and Team Canada in both ATK and DEF (Team A(wful)’s ATK is nearly 5,000) while also possessing higher MAT and SPD.



The only other piece of interesting equipment is the IM Ibrik, which I gave to Magnus. It’s a little weaker than Planet Rod+, but it gives a bigger boost to MDF. You may also notice that it’s the same staff that Clerics hold in their anime portraits (ID Ibrik is the Green/Red variant).



I also discover that it’s possible to empty out the item shrines in labyrinths. We have acquired almost all “Gift” items in the game by this point, so when I try to offer Gift items to the item shrine, it spits it back out. This doesn’t use the “charge” of the item shrine, by the way. You can keep trying to offer items/weapons/armor/gifts until one of them takes. Only when you get something in return will the shrine go dormant and be unusable.

I’ll quickly showcase some of the more interesting gifts later in this update. I think we’re still missing 2, but I’m unsure of how to get them if the shrine won’t cough them up (the item shrines are supposed to give you an item of similar value which you don’t already have).



All right, let’s get this over with. What does Gemini have in store for us?



Oh damn, that thing looks cool. I dig that design.



Let’s skip Mana’s generic pre-boss dialogue and just get to what’s important. Iniquitatis is Light element. That’s gonna be a problem. Mana continues on to say that its physical and magic defence are average but to watch out for direct attacks. That information is mostly accurate…



Maybe it’s because of the weird scaling of bosses, but that defence does not look “average”, especially when you factor in that it has Light element defences on top of that.

The Light element thing is going to be the worst part of this boss. Remember, unlike in CII, there is no element in CP that is effective against Light. The Null Element in CP is just weaker than everything, whereas in CII it at least had a use as a counter to Light and Dark elements.

The best you can do in this fight is to attack it with one of the base four elements, which will at least be neutral. Likewise, due to Iniquitatis’ Light attack element, you’ll want to try and have one of the base four elements as your team’s defence. This is unfortunately a problem for Itsuki, because I haven’t found any armour so far that changes his defence element (even weapons that change his attack element are pretty rare).





Like every boss, Iniquitatis has helpers. At least one of them has a support spell this time. Of course, that just means that Crater A will be the priority target.



Itsuki and Team A(wful) 2.0 immediately kill Crater A, but Iniquitatis is a fast little bugger and is able to outrun both Team Canada 2.0 and Team PK.



That’s going to require some boo-boo kisses later on. As shown above, Iniquitatis is able to strike two zones at once, but only two that are opposite one another. Keep this in mind when sending in your teams to start attacking it. Try and keep Itsuki/two of the Star Child Teams positioned in adjacent zones so that Iniquitatis won’t be able to score hits on multiple teams at once.

Also, I just want to note that despite it looking like Iniquitatis just attacked with Fire and Water/Ice attacks, it was actually Light. Iniquitatis has Fire and Ice spells, but its physical attack element is locked in at Light. Enemies can't change their attack element on the fly (thank god).



Team PK and Team Canada 2.0 power through the damage they received and make a hasty escape from the boss. Instead, they pop over to Crater F and strike it down. Iniquitatis is now left standing alone, so it uses its next turn to follow after Teams PK and Canada.



This is the tricky stage of the fight. The support enemies are dead, but Iniquitatis will likely have moved into attack position of one of your groups. It’s a prime moment to rush in and start dumping on it, but moving Itsuki in can be dangerous. It’s fairly easy for Iniquitatis to wipe Itsuki with two attacks or one well-placed critical. That damage output is no joke. You also don’t want to get caught with all of your teams surrounding Iniquitatis, because then you’re guaranteeing Iniquitatis multiple targets for its physical attack and getting caught up in a loop of constantly healing everyone.



The method I went with for in this fight was Chain Driving. Itsuki as well as a few of the Star Children have skills that can boost the CD gauge. Chaining Iniquitatis will slow it down and give you a chance to heal everyone up and get in a few free hits. You could also use the free turns to jack up defence if you felt so inclined.



Blitz Blow won’t do much to chip at Iniquitatis’ health, but it does fill the CD gauge by 30-40%. Team A(wful) unfortunately didn’t have a CD boosting skill, so I had them use Rite of Auras instead, in order to boost their damage resistance.



I get lucky with this move. Team Canada 2.0 was in a tough spot. Iniquitatis was directly behind them and they were low on HP. I could heal them to try and tank the backstab or I could just have them turn around and swing, hoping to get some damage in before they were wiped out. However, instead of Iniquitatis using its far more devastating physical attack, it decided to use one of its low-tier element spells. Even weakened, Team Canada 2.0 was able to brush off an attack like that. I’m not sure what the boss AI was hoping for here. Actually, I’m not even particularly sure why the boss has piddly magic attacks like this in the first place. I’m not even sure if it’s possible to beat this boss while also having an MDF so low that spells like this would actually hurt.

The only thing I can think of is that Impurity Bosses receive a bump to their level and stats when you defeat one of the other bosses, but their skills aren’t changed at all. That might cause some wonkiness if we go up against a magic heavy boss in the future (and there’s a good chance of that, because we’ve been fighting a lot of physically focused bosses so far). It’s going to be pretty sad if we end up facing a boss in the high 70’s that only has access to first tier magic.



Anyway, I take a gamble with this good fortune and risk Team PK moving in to join the fight. Their attack combined with another Blitz Blow from Itsuki is enough to chain Iniquitatis just before its turn comes up.



This is what decides the battle. I take a split approach to the assault, having Team A(wful) and Itsuki go on the offensive with their turns while Team Canada uses theirs to heal up. Team PK’s turn is delayed for a while due to the magic attack they used to help chain the boss, so Itsuki and Teams A(wful) and Canada take over the damage dealing for this portion.



Iniquitatis’ speed isn’t amazing, so chaining winds up giving our heroes 6 or 7 chances to attack before it can free itself. It does not actually manage to get free.





The chaining also provides us with a sweet EXP bonus. Six of the Star Children gain levels, although that’s not super helpful at this point since they are all on their way to retirement. Itsuki gets another level though, which is good.



Also, I just realized that I don’t think I’ve ever highlighted this. Itsuki has a shield on his left arm that looks kind of like a mini riot shield. There’s no explanation of where it came from. He’s had it since the day he got here. I’m guessing that it was summoned at the same time he conjured up that sword when Mahiru’s impurity attacked. I wish we could get different ones for him.



Anyway, you know the deal. Itsuki does the thing and seals the labyrinth.



With that out of the way, let’s poke around with some random stuff. I am in no way procrastinating to avoid working on any upcoming update which I might be less than enthused about.



The shop has new stock, but it’s all equipment that’s one or two labyrinths outdated. At the tavern, I turn in two quests. One is for the boss we just beat.



And the other is a random one which gives us a few Matryoshkas in exchange for 5 Luck boosting Matryoshkas. Normally I wouldn’t do this, because LUC ones are harder to get your hands on, but I wanted to have this quest marked as clear in case it opens another quest.



Speaking of quests, I finally tracked down where to get the Sheer Lingerie item that was needed for the “Shock and Capture” quest (the one that gives us the mysterious “Polyoshka”).

So remember how I mentioned earlier that the game doesn’t tell you which quest is on which floor or dungeon section? Sheer Lingerie is a gift item that can only be obtained from treasure chests. You might have noticed that the Granvania City Level is maxed out at Level 10 now. Well, I did that in the hopes that the gift shop would start stocking this gift item. Turns out you can’t buy this one (there are a few other gift items that can’t be bought either).

So I had to run around various labyrinth floors with exclamation points on them hoping for Sheer Lingerie to drop, not knowing if the exclamation point I was chasing was for this quest item or something completely different. For anyone else that may be ripping their hair out about this in the future (I couldn’t find item guides for this damn game anywhere online at the time of writing), Sheer Lingerie is only found on Floor 10 of the Autumn Labyrinth. At least, that’s the only place I could get it. It’s possible that it also pops up in Scorpio and Sagittarius, but it doesn’t seem to appear in Libra.



This is your reward. As of writing, I have no fucking idea what the shit this thing does. Even the Japanese fan wiki for this game doesn’t know what it does (they just have ??? listed next to the Polyoshka description).



You can use it in classmating and despite what I initially thought, it turns out that the quest to get this thing is repeatable, so it is possible to get more of these (although it requires a bunch of item farming for more Sheer Lingerie).

That said, there’s no visible difference between a Star Child made with the Polyoshka and one made with a different Matryoshka.





Here is a side-by-side of two new Star Children (I’ll introduce the class after this). Dominic was made with the Polyoshka while Aria was made with a Star Matryoshka (gives a general stat boost. We have like 13 of those things though). As you can see, there’s nothing that stands out between the two. There is a little variation between stats, but that’s natural.

Soo…. yeah. Beats me. I still need to do a little testing, specifically with leveling the Star Children to see if maybe there is a difference in stat growth potentials or something. But as it stands, I have no clue what this thing is supposed to be for.



Moving on, here is the new Star Child class that was shown above. Ninja’s are fast and sturdy with decent attack. Not much for magic, though. The only way to unlock the Ninja class is to collect 9 unique “Book” items.



I showed these off when we stumbled upon the first one. The different books don’t seem to be tied to certain areas or parts of the dungeon, but I think you have a better chance of finding them in later levels (Floors 10-15 for example). It is possible to get multiple of the same book, so this process has the potential to take forever if RNG truly hates your guts. Inner was the final book that I needed and I collected it while power-leveling Star Children to use as City Level fodder (and also scouring dungeons for Sheer Lingerie).

Ninjas have a special attack that has a chance of instant killing an enemy. They also have Invisibility, which is a field skill that you can use to make yourself undetectable by enemies for a while (helpful for when you just want to plow through a dungeon). They also have an auto-skill called Smoke Bomb that makes it easier to escape from battles that you do get caught in, although you could always just buy Star Bombs and use those instead (they guarantee escape).



Ninjas are also the missing piece of the “Killing Field” puzzle. Killing Field is a team skill that’s great for spamming against trash mobs. It hits from all sides and has a chance of instant death.



Next up is Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master is only unlocked once you have cleared 6 Star Labyrinths. They have a bit of a lopsided stat growth, but the stats they lean towards are definitely worth it. Well, except maybe TEC. TEC is mostly useless.

In terms of skills, they have Gran Chain for boosting the CD gauge and Trap Circus which is a very good attack. Special skills include Escape (same effect as the Escape Device item), Remove (All of our current SC teams have this. It temporarily prevents you from getting hit by certain traps), and most importantly Labyrinth Seer. Labyrinth Seer will reveal the map for each dungeon floor when you enter it. This is a godsend for blitzing through Labyrinths since you’ll be able to see exactly where the Next Floor portal is right from the get-go.



The final Star Child class is Bondsman, which you can only unlock by creating one of every other class in the game. They have a similar stat chart to Dungeon Master, but their growth rates are better.

Their skills are less useful, though. At least, that’s what I think. Temple Chain is always welcome, because it boosts the CD gauge. They also have Swift Thrust, which is an attack skill that also ups SPD by 5%.

Their unique skills are all centered around using BP instead of MP. Bond Breaker uses BP to deal damage equal to 30% of an enemy’s HP. Before you ask: No, it doesn’t work on bosses. The skill is nice enough to tell you this in advance. It’s not a great skill, but I can see it having some uses. There are some enemies in the game, even now, which are a bitch to kill (Micros will always be a pain in the ass unless you have stuff like Shine). Bonding Mind is completely worthless though. Bonding Mind uses BP to cast a mid-tier heal on someone. I have a backpack overflowing with mid-tier and better healing items at this point, not to mention that every one of our Star Child Teams right now is able to cast Grand Heal.



Now this skill, this one is pretty helpful. MECUNITE wasn’t really necessary in CII, but in CP it’s been fairly useful, especially for clearing out trash mobs. Cutting down on the amount of BP that MECUNITE uses will let us get more mileage out of it during grinding runs. It doesn’t seem particularly good, but that’s because you guys aren’t the ones grinding out EXP for new Star Children. God’s Poke only gets you so far before you need to start buckling down and actually fighting the enemies.



So that’s all for Star Children. When making Plus, the developers apparently didn’t feel it was worth it to include all the new classes that CII added, which I was disappointed to learn. I liked a lot of the classes that CII introduced. Oh well.

At this point, I will set up another vote for Star Child teams. I’m pretty sure that this will be the last one for the LP. You might have noticed during the Ninja class comparison that the level caps on the Star Children are now a natural 99. We also have access to every class and all types of Matryoshka, so I don’t see any reason for us to keep switching things up. Not like we’ll be seeing much of these new teams until we hit Ophiuchus anyway.

Anyway, that will be for after the update. We still have a few more things to go over before then. Such as…



Yes, it turns out that I didn’t horribly fuck up somewhere and screw us out of Alfie’s final bonding events. Apparently if you Rest/Labyrinth to skip some time, Alfie will be available at the Star God Academy. The game doesn’t give you any notification of this, you just need to go and check on her. However…



I guess I should go pray again today.



Alfie…







Despite the developers removing the Touch Communication feature for this version, it was brought in for a particular use in Alfie’s route. To my knowledge, this is the only time it’s ever used in PLUS. A screenshot exists of it being used in Tarua’s route, but I think that may have been a pre-release screenshot because it’s never happened outside of this moment (unless Tarua’s Level 5 events do it).

It doesn’t matter where you touch the Matryoshka, just hover the hand over it and click.



When I touch it here… it reminds me of our first kiss. That was how Alfie’s Star Maiden powers were released… And yet… because she protected me, she’s turned into this… I’m so sorry… Please… come back to me and show me your smile…

And that’s it. We’re taken back to the Star God Academy after that. If you skip another week and come back, you can do the event a second time. The event, including Itsuki’s dialogue, is identical.



But the Alfie Matryoshka’s reaction changes slightly.



Doing this event a third time will result in this message popping up after the Touch Communication portion. The event will also cut off after this (Itsuki won’t do the “When I touch it here…” dialogue).



Heading over to the Church will then reveal that Alfie is available for Classmating again. Her Bond Gauge has also been maxed out from those events (each “Touch the Matryoshka” event gives a pretty major boost to the gauge).

Buuut… we’ll have to hold off on this for now. Alfie’s bonding event is tied to her Classmating event, so we’ll have to wait until the Bond Level 5 update before we find out the conclusion to Alfie’s route.



Next up, let’s have a quick look at some Gift items that have been collected in my laborious travels through the labyrinths. Some of these come from quests and others can be bought from the Gift Shop once Granvania hits max level, but I got a lot of the harder to find ones from the Item Shrine (until it stopped putting out Gifts anyway).



Both the Mirai badge and the Sho Terashima badge are references to a recent Spike Chunsoft title: Zanki Zero. Zanki Zero was released in July of 2018 for Japan, but it didn’t get its English release until a year later (April 2019). It came out on the PS4, Vita, and later the PC in Japan. English audiences can only play it on PS4 or PC though, since the Vita has been long dead in the West.



”God created the world in seven days. It only took one day for humans to destroy the world. Life as we knew it sank to the depths of the sea...until yesterday. We do not yet know the broken world and the reasons left behind there. An earth where ruins drift about. Buildings, houses, light posts. Cars, traffic lights, asphalt... Modern civilization was destroyed, becoming nothing more than debris wading in the sea. New ruins drift one after the other before the protagonist, who lives on one of those decaying islands.”

Zanki Zero follows a group of eight survivors who are stuck on Junk Island. These “survivors” are actually clones that only have a lifespan of 13 days. They rapidly age and then die, only to be reborn as a new clone through the Extend Device (basically a cloning chamber). Each character is based on one of the seven deadly sins, as well as one who is based on original sin. Gameplay is Survival-RPG, so you run around battling animals and human-looking creatures while trying to collect resources to stay alive and improve the livelihood of the clones. How the clones die determines what kind of bonuses they get in their next life cycle. Mirai and Sho Terashima are the hosts of an animated TV program in Zanki Zero that give guidance to the clones (like how to make shelter, or cook food, that kind of thing).

The game (at least its premise) sounds really interesting. It’s sort of like 7 Seeds. I haven’t played it, though. While I really like the sound of the game, I’m not in a great emotional/psychological state in life. Games about the post-apocalypse and watching characters constantly die, either through player fuckups or rapid aging, are not a great way to help depression. Let’s not even get started on the existential questions that cloning brings up when it comes to whether or not the character you’re looking at is the same person or a completely different individual that just looks the same and shares some memories/experiences with their previous life (like a nature versus nurture thing).



Monokuma is a character from the Danganronpa franchise, which is also made by Spike Chunsoft (and produced by Yoshinori Terasawa, who is also the producer of Conception and Zanki Zero). Monokuma made a guest appearance in CII as well, but his badge was a lot meaner than what we see here (it said something like “It’s not my fault I’m stupid” on it). He was also a bonus boss in that game. I’m not sure if he reprises that role in CP, though.



We also find out that on top of photobooks, Seiya has his own line of pins in production. Seriously, how was this character not made into a rival/foil to Itsuki?



There’s also a Granvanian Medal of Honor or whatever the hell this thing is for.



Finally, I included this one because it looks Sailor Moon as fuck and I love it. All Star Maidens will like this gift.



…There’s also some weird non-accessory gift items. Like this. I don’t know exactly which Maidens like to receive this and I’m not sure I want to find out. Chances are that Mirei is included in that list, though.



~The Sounds of Conception… the game I mean, not sex~

To finish the update, I wanted to have a look (or I guess technically a listen) at some of the music in this game. I originally intended to plug in the tracks as the LP came across them, but I had trouble finding an uploaded playlist of all the songs. One does exist for the original PSP title, so I’ve decided to just use that.

Now, the OST is included with the Steam version of the game. It’s just a dump of mp3s (there’s also FLAC versions as well, but those total up to 1.5 gigs), so I could have uploaded them, but I don’t like risking my account by doing that. Some companies are like bloodhounds when it comes to that stuff.

Generic Event Music: A Story Beginning in the Future

Granvania Map Music: Navi-GATE

Dungeon Battle Lv. 1

There’s also the fact that the general tracks are largely forgettable. The Lv. 1 Battle Theme is okay, but it’s a big letdown compared to Conception II’s (I will forever defend CII’s battle theme. The one that goes “You guys, bring it on! They say that you’re a God”. It rules).

Dungeon Battle Lv. 4

The Level 4 Battle theme is a little better, but I feel like it never breaks out, if you know what I mean. The guitar builds up, but there’s no break out moment where the track feels like it really kicks in.

Victory Theme: Sweeping Victory

And the Victory Theme sounds like something straight out of an N64-era racing game.

Boss Battle

The Boss Battle isn’t much better. It’s just noises jumbled together that does nothing to build the excitement or tension.


That stuff isn’t really why I’m doing this segment though. I was hoping that this game would have a few weird gems in the common music (like the “Congratulations!” Star Child making theme in CII), but the Conception/Conception PLUS soundtrack seems to be far less vocal and catchy than CII’s. So let’s skip over the ambient stuff and look specifically at each Star Maiden’s theme.

Note: I’m using the title of the tracks as they appear in the OST included with my Steam copy. The ones I’m linking to on Youtube may have slightly different titles, but they are the exact same song. Also note that I am not a musician at all. I love listening to music, that’s about the extent of my “expertise”. I can’t even play any instruments. Keep that in mind while you read through my pretentious sounding impressions.


Alfie’s Theme: To a Star That Will Shine Someday

I had to upload Alfie’s Theme myself because it doesn’t appear to be up online (it wasn’t part of the Conception PSP Soundtrack, obviously). I don’t have a lot to comment on when it comes to Alfie’s Theme. It is fitting, don’t get me wrong. It sounds like a backing track that an Idol would skip on to stage to. I’m honestly not sure what I wanted from Alfie’s theme. She’s always had the idol personality of being cheery and upbeat and a little goofy. There’s been a few moments where she’s been feeling down or upset (the Bond Eater stuff), but nothing really keeps her down. I think this theme is perfectly fine, if a bit generic.


Arie’s Theme: Turquoise Pilgrimage

Arie’s Theme reminds me a lot of starting villages in JRPG’s. It’s slow and gentle with a bit of an underlying pulse to the tune. I suppose it’s fitting for Arie. She’s a nun and normally soft-spoken, so her theme backs up the gentleness. Personally, I was expecting something a little more choral, or maybe something with a bit more focus on the organ. You know, something with a “Church” or “Holy” sound. Maybe that would have been too predictable though.


Femiruna’s Theme: The Lion’s Heart Beyond the Meadow

This sounds like the theme of a JRPG City/Capital City. You know, the first big city you get to after leaving behind the (likely) burning wreckage of the protagonist’s hometown. This theme screams Femiruna. It has the constant sound of marching drums in the background and the rising orchestral moments that make it sound like Femiruna’s family has a full band on standby with a red carpet wherever they go. What I appreciate about this theme is that it sort of relaxes after the big buildup which stops the music from drowning out Femiruna (remember, these themes tend to play during events with the Maidens, so if the music is too loud or busy then it starts to overpower their dialogue).


WARNING: The video I’ve linked to has CGs we haven’t seen yet for Ruka. Some of it may also be fan art. Probably best to tab away after opening the video.
Ruka’s Theme: Praying to the White Clover

I don’t have a lot to say about Ruka’s. It’s definitely fitting for her “Shrine Maiden” look, I’ll give it that. I’m not sure if it really fits her character though. It sounds like a tranquil song, which Ruka is most certainly not (at least, not for the first half of her route). She spends a lot of her route agonizing over her status/powers as a Tsukuyomi, her alienation from the kids at the orphanage, and her frustration at not being able to connect with that little barefoot girl. Her route has turned around recently and things seem to be going fine, but even then I don’t think this is quite the right sound for her. I guess you could say that it’s gentle and that Ruka is a gentle and caring person at heart. Outside of that, I think this theme fits more with Ruka’s appearance than her actual character.


Farun’s Theme: Stage Full of Shooting Stars

Farun’s theme starts off very appropriate to her. It’s got a dance/electronica beat to it which Farun would be all about. What ruins this theme for me is that it then shifts into a very piercing high-pitched sound. It’s honestly hard to listen to and it drags on for a big portion of the theme. As for how it is related to Farun, I don’t think it matches up to her especially well. The first part is just fine, as she is a dancer and her clothing looks like it would fit in just fine at a club. But the second part of that song doesn’t seem to relate to anything. Farun does have a few moments where she does excited squealing, but it’s not a big part of her character (she usually does it at the Tavern, where it’s possible that she’s drunk on something, given how weird she tends to act there). But given that she’s a traveler, I was expecting something with a bit more worldliness to it. Maybe some more variety in the sounds/instruments.


Mirei’s Theme: Moonlight Magic

This is way too upbeat and energetic for Mirei. It has that spacey/future sound that fits with her scientist/researcher thing, but I think it has a bit too much peppiness for her. Mirei’s theme is one I was expecting to be quirky and weird sounding, to match that whole “weirdo” appearance she has to outsiders like the Granvania citizens. On the other hand, it kind of reminds me of Phantasy Star Online a little bit, and there’s nothing wrong with remembering the good old days of PSO (except for the painful memories of SEGA dangling PSO2 in front of the West for the past 7 fucking years. 2020, SEGA! That’s what you said. Don’t pull any funny business).


Mahiru’s Theme: A Maiden’s Circumstances

I thought this was the same as Alfie’s theme when I first listened to it. It is different, but it shares Alfie’s “Idol backing track” feel. I guess that’s sort of understandable for Mahiru though. Mahiru isn’t a pop idol, but she is the school idol. I’m not sure what I can comment on here exactly. Remember that the Mahiru we’ve been getting to know is some twisted up version of the original. The developers adjusted her personality to make her kinder and slightly less of a jerk to Itsuki. I guess this theme fits the Mahiru that we know a bit better than original Mahiru, but it’s hard to say for sure. User Polsy has been documenting the changes made to Mahiru over the course of the game, but it’s hard to get a direct comparison of personality from that, mainly because there was no localization done on the PSP title.


Yuzuha’s Theme: Rainbow Paint

I think Yuzuha’s theme is perfectly suited to her. It has the vibe of something that would play in the atelier of a painter. It’s also a little slow, which fits her sickly/sleepy nature. It also seems to maintain the core of the track while switching up the other sounds every ten or twenty seconds (although you could say that other tracks do that a lot too. This music is meant to loop after all). Nothing really jumps out at me though.


Reone’s Theme: Scorpion’s Law

Reone’s theme starts off with more generic music similar to Alfie and Mahiru, but it eventually brings in some of the sax that I was anticipating from an “erotic” character. Not in the way that I was hoping for though. I thought Reone’s theme would have more of a smooth jazz sound. Her whole deal is being the “mature sexy teasing” character. This theme sounds more like an idol song surrounding a saxophone solo. I’m not a fan. It’s already blending together in my mind with Alfie and Mahiru’s music. Let’s not even get into the fact that no part of this song fits with Reone’s dead-brother/hospital for the poor/street fighter subplot. It also doesn’t sound forceful enough to be called something like “Scorpion’s Law”.


Sue’s Theme: World Sniper

Sue’s theme is strange… Not quite sure how. It’s slow and sounds “tribal” or “woodsy”, like something you would expect from Sue who keeps to herself and runs a ranch. I think this is a similar case to Ruka, where the music seems to match the appearance (or in this case, location) rather than the character. Sue is quiet, but she’s also quirky and a little excitable. She’s also holding on to a lot of emotional baggage from the death of her parents. I don’t know. I can’t think of much to say about this.

Also, what the hell is with that title?


Collette’s Theme: Water of Destiny

I’m similarly lost with Collette’s song. It sounds like the same kind of theme that Alfie and Mahiru have. It’s perky and upbeat, which I guess fits Collette’s character. It’s meant to be cute, which is a card that Collette likes to play whenever she wants to make things creepy by highlighting just how young and small she is. …That’s all I got. It’s definitely a song. Keep in mind that I’ve never been particularly invested in Collette because of the creepy loli factor.


Lillith/Lillie’s Theme: Peerless Twins

This is a weird song that gets a little weirder as it goes on. It starts with a flowing harp-like sound, maybe a bit of synth, then it gets a quicker beat added on top of it, then around the 1 minute mark something else takes over that I can’t even describe. The underlying theme (the one that the song starts off with) seems more like something that would match Lillith while the rest sounds like something closer to Lillie. I can see the twins thing they were going for, but I think the kinds of sounds they are using are a bit too close. I think the song would have been better with a bigger difference in sounds/instruments that could play up the “two things fusing together” angle. That would have made it more fitting for Lillith/Lillie. In terms of how this song fits with Lillith/Lillie, I think it’s another case of appearance instead of character. I’m not really sure what I was thinking for Lillith, but for Lillie I imagined the sound to be more fitting for a prankster.


Tarua’s Theme: Sunflower’s Dusk

I know it would never happen, but I was secretly hoping that Tarua’s would just be the title theme from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Anyway, joking aside, what is there to say about Tarua’s theme? It’s quick and matches well to a girl whose major character trait is “likes to run”. About 40 seconds in it also does this start-stop thing where the track fades out and it goes back to the sound from the first few seconds of the track (I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like a rapid tiny sound, if that makes sense), then it just starts blasting the main track again before cutting off a second time and repeating that. I think that fits Tarua’s manic/”inability to sit still for five seconds” nature. I also think it’s upbeat enough for her. That’s really all that can be said. We know very little about Tarua as a person other than her love of letters, running, Boss, and head pats. Other than running, none of those things lend themselves to music very well.


That’s it for the update. Now that everyone is thoroughly bored out of their skulls by me showing off Itsuki’s various knick-knacks and then talking about music that you either didn’t listen to or have already forgotten (I know I’ve already forgotten 8 of those songs at the very least), there is something a little different on the horizon. Next Update: We take a look at the first three episodes of Conception: The Anime.



Oh hell yeah, this is how I wanted to spend my winter semester break. Look at those 1-Star ratings, baby.