Okay, by popular demand* here is my review of the Planarcadia arc
*four likes
so, I'm going to start this by saying my expectations were odd. I don't talk about it much, but 3.8 shattered my confidence in the game's writing. I may be that patch's biggest hater among Firefly fans, I certainly am among Stellefliers. You can probably see why I don't talk about it much.
So I made the decision to put the game on the backburner for a bit. If it was getting to me that badly emotionally, it would be wise to stop taking it so seriously (an attitude I really wish other people would get on board with tbh).
Amphoreus was, to me, the best the game has ever been. I loved how it was trying to be an actual adventure RPG, full-on legend of zelda dungeons and everything. it was amazing. It irks me that they backtracked on so much of that cos of people wanting to binge the whole patch story in a few hours.
But I won't deny it was exhausting.
So after Amphoreus, I just wanted a less intense, lower-investment story, and I wasn't hugely invested either way. The 'elation' storyline seemed like a good one for that, so I was holding onto a little hope at least.
And I'd say 4.0 delivered on that hope. It helps that I love sparkle, fucked up little creature that she is. I enjoyed her silly monodrama with Sparxie and how that was delivered. It didn't rely too much on twists, which was a surprise to me. What twists there were just felt in keeping with the feel, and not over-egged.
Plus, a couple of little well-delivered Evangelion references in there. Hoyo sticking to their roots.
I would be lying if I said a large part of my enjoyment wasn't the Starch high school AU. Fanservice is only bad if it doesn't cater to me I guess.
The elephant in the room though. The ending with Ryusuke. I thought it was amazing. Ooh! Finally some mystery! A little scene-setting patch with some silly Sparkle Bullshit solved with a comic book level of depth, ending with the real plot hook. That's great!
So why the fuck did they immediately reel it back at the start of the next patch? Why do the whole 'just a joke' thing to defuse the whole tension of the cliffhanger! Why do a cliffhanger if you're just going to pull them back up off the edge like that! And worst of all, the 'just a joke' was a joke! The cliffhanger was a legit one! Why elbow drop the pathos of your story for no reason at all?!
So we're off to a great start on 4.1, my least favourite patch drop since I started playing.
So right after that we start looking at the Abundance. This puts me on edge because, obviously, now I need to put my nuance cap on. I'm not as anti-xianzhou as some (I could clarify but that's a whole other post and mostly just amounts to me not wanting people to be mad at me so... oops), but a good Abundance story needs nuance.
I notice the recurring trend that the Abundance works through cults. I also notice a recurring trend of the Abundance going wrong because the IPC keeps trying to exploit it. The former makes sense - immortality as a grift makes sense from a Chinese historical perspective to my understanding. The latter feels like them setting up an important plot point, and I just hope they deliver on it at some point.
The Abundance being here at all felt completely out of place, but it makes sense in retrospect. The three paths of Planarcadia, Voracity Abundance Elation, tell a story: Unending consumption. A constant, never-ending stream of what makes you happy. Voracity is consumption, Abundance is infinity, Elation is happiness.
So the abundance being there is essential for the story after all. Evanescia as a mouthpiece for this, I think, was actually very good. The promise of the Abundance isn't eternal life per se, it's the infinite opportunities for happiness that brings. In that respect, the Abundance and the Elation are aligned.
So back to the story. So the story here is that Fulwish has a cult with the promise of eternal happiness so she can get her own vengeance on Planarcadia and, I think, convert everyone into mindless happiness-drones? I think that was part of it? This is where it starts to lose me.
See, this story could have done it well, but why does 'getting the happiness surgery' make one an acceptable target for murder? There was a great character moment where Ashveil unceremoniously executes three people on the spot. Stelle's like 'don't you fucking dare' and he's like 'what are you doing to do, stop me?' and then does it anyway. Actually I change my mind, mid-way through writing this, I realised this is actually a bad character moment. She says that but. She does fuck and all to stop him. She could have at least tried.
And then this is just swept under the rug for the rest of the story. We watch as three people get murdered for something we're just told cannot be undone despite that not really making sense with the rest of the setting. We're still buddies with Cinderborne (I love him btw) despite this. hell, he still follows ashveil around. The fuck?
That said, I loved the Voracity tease, I've been super excited for the voracity for forever. Plus Evanescia is great. Once I realised she's kinda pathetic (and not just obsessed with the MC (leaks are evil btw)) she really grew on me.
But all-round, not how to do an Abundance story. Boo.
4.2 was a lot better, but it suffered a lot for that foundation the previous patch lay for it.
So, Fulwish. An absolutely fantastic villain, I'll say that. Very much how I like my villains: with very understandable motivations, but I still want to stop them. I'm baffled as to how they made me actually sympathise with a media mogul in a classic 'the media misrepresents the main character's actions and statements' plotline, but they did it. It probably helps that like... she kinda had a point. I'll get back to that later.
I loved Silver Wolf...'s advertising. Really fun backstory and vibes. Plus, Mikuwolf, which I unironically love. I like a lot of her little moments, but she hasn't really gotten any big moments? Like I don't need characters to get big moments in their patch because that's extremely limiting for the story. But I'd like them to get big moments at some point? Especially if we're revealing emanator-tier powers?
I was hoping at least she'd get something in Blade's plotline, but then, Blade didn't really get anything in Blade's plotline either.
Which leads us onto 4.3! Which was... nothing? The vibes were really fun, and I enjoyed learning about Graphia, but Blade's story was offensively bad. So he spends the whole patch brooding and then just... what? Lives anyway? What was the point of his entire story up until now then?
If I'm feeling charitable, I would say it's like that phenomenon where someone attempts suicide and, mid-attempt, realises they want to live anyway. If so, that happened off-screen. If they were going to do the tired old 'male character gets therapy from a projection of himself' thing, why not have him struggle with his desire to live with his desire to die? A handful of lines could have turned a terrible plotline into a great one.
His flashbacks were fun, but they conveyed 'I am' or perhaps 'I was' and nothing about 'I want'.
There was so much potential in there! Silver wolf begging with him not to kill himself was a great moment, fake idgafer takes off the mask to show how she feels. It kinda means nothing though if his 'near-death' had no stakes though does it?
There's so much potential in this story that they just didn't deliver on! For no reason!
And it pisses me off cos we could have had so much in there. Silver Wolf moments. Blade actually having character development rather than just a flip of a switch, especially after the reconciliation with Dan Heng which i thought was actually really good!* It could have been an amazing patch! Why was it mid-to-bad?
*Blade recognising that Dan Heng finally gave up Dan Feng and no longer trying to kill him was what I'd hoped for, and tbh they delivered exactly what I wanted. Two guys bad at emotions just. Giving each other a nod and moving on, despite immense history.
So let's go to 4.4. At this point my main hope is that the even-numbered patches seem to be the good ones. The Himeko advertising gives me a lot of hype too. Plus, obviously they were going for a lot of the same stuff that I love Firefly for.
I won't lie, I think they delivered on Himeko's story. I don't think there's much I can say that the story doesn't say better. Plus, it shows a more relatable, human side of illness than Firefly's does. Also, I actually quite liked the twist here. Himeko not being the real Himeko was obvious. Himeko being the real Himeko who feels immense guilt that the life she created sacrificed itself for her? Now that's where it's at. I think it was actually delivered well too, like it actually justified it being a twist.
Except for one thing. Why had she never spoken about her past before? Like not a word? I can understand why not to the trio, that's kinda just how it goes. Being in my thirties I can 100% relate to 'not telling the 20 year olds anything unless it's dramatically appropriate', that's standard, but not even to Welt? Was she worried she'd re-traumatise him?
The Doylist interpretation is, of course, that they hadn't written her backstory yet (sigh, but typical). If I had to be charitable with a Watsonian interpretation though? I guess guilt and depression. She hates to think about it because it's all bound up in her guilt about Motoko. She brought to life this real being with an inner-self, who then give its life for her.
Narratively it's beautiful: her ideal feature giving herself up for a real future. In-universe? Yeah I can't exactly blame her for being wrecked by that incident. It was kinda obvious that she struggled to get on with anyone but Motoko, who was her closest friend. It also raises a question of 'if one could just create an imaginae to take the curse, surely muratas could just do that down the ages?'. I have to assume they didn't know.
But that makes it worse, right? If I were in Himeko's shoes, that would just pile on the guilt. It would feel like I just made a real person to sacrifice them.
And that's all well and good, but even the slightest hint would've been nice. 'Ah long hospital stays are unpleasant' 'how do you know that' 'don't worry about it'. Even within the plotline itself. Sigh.
As for the main plot of 4.4, I loved Asat pramad. A+ villain. Despite being cut from the same cloth as Lygus, he had a very different vibe, and honestly the patch was really funny all throughout. Overall I'd have to say I enjoyed it, but there's a few sticking points I keep coming back to
Himeko's death scene. Obviously I got really emotional, cos it was a really well-delivered death scene. And I get what they were going for. But I just don't get what the Stellaron actually did? I mean if someone can explain please DM me but like. The 8 seconds immediately following the time-pause ending was just the trailblazers rushing in to save Himeko which felt... normal? Like that felt like it could have happened anyway? Basically, it was a lot of tell and not a lot of show.
The Trailblaze as Imperialism. This is the second time they touched on this in this arc, and it's a really fascinating topic. I think it's been handled well with previous arcs (in Belobog and the Luofu we deliberately fight to help people keep their local culture, in Penacony and Amphoreus we were invited deliberately). But in this one? It was brought up in this patch (which was interesting), but mostly, it was used as a bludgeon to beat the Nameless with by Fulwish. And then we disproved it by... Killing the people in our way. All the while working with the planetary governer. Please do something with this? Please?
If Yao Guang comes back I'm gonna be annoyed. Well, more of a 'when'. But if they commit to her being gone, or make her return an actual Big Fucking Deal then I'll let them have this one. The latter feels more likely, but currently the only time it's felt right for a dead character to come back was Firefly. Odds aren't great.
Oh so we're not done? We're having a brief 'meanwhile, on a beach planet somewhere/in the holy grail wall' right at the end of act fucking 2 of the story? I guess that's one way to allow you to defuse tension so you can build it up again but really? They're really asking a lot with this pacing I tell you.
Even with that, though, I have to say I enjoyed the patch. A lot, honestly. it's just a shame that the crucial action moment fell... not flat, but just disappointing, to me.
More on Asat Pramad cos I could write a whole post just about him. Now, some people who know me will know that I'm a LARPer. Like in the real sense, not in the stupid fucking internet slang sense that boils my piss. I LARP as a main hobby, and I write LARP for others first and foremost.
So I loved how they approached the way he played roles. Hell, he even throws himself into the role of playing a door at one point, which tickled me (being a door for an encounter is a time-honoured small LARP tradition). He fully embodies the roles he plays, living those lives genuinely, even if his ultimate goal is destruction. He was genuinely a father to Himeko, and unironically passed the torch to her for a new generation of the Trailblaze. And I love that that was played straight.
I can't talk about the patch though without mentioning the music. Great song, but it's more like the Penacony song to me. Nice to listen to, was epic for the fight, but didn't touch my very soul like Wildfire and Proi Proi did.
God the Proi Proi moment was so good. Fuck I loved that patch. I love Hyacine.
*ahem* sorry I thought about Hyacine. Anyway, I guess it's time to say my overall thoughts.
So I think Planarcadia is currently the weakest story-wise the game's been. There's some fantastic moments, and honestly I'd really liked the cast, but the actual narrative and its delivery leaves a lot to be desired for me. And it's a shame, cos really, some more polish or a little time refining things could make it so much better. I think if it were worse I'd be considering quitting, but it's still got SO much of that spark that made me fall in love with this game to begin with.
It's a weird place to be in. I enjoy the game a lot. But it frustrates me that it could be so much better.
If you've made it this far, I love you. Thank you for reading. I don't like discussing things out in the open, but if you want to talk more, my DMs are open.
