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anesidoraa · 6 days ago

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Critique of 2.6's story as a main story chapter

(I've been holding this back since CN release because I hoped Global would change my mind, but with translations out little has done to change it)

This will be a critique of 2.6's execution of story, its character writing and narrative structure, how it is largely style and literary references over substance, and finally how the nature of the patch as a main story serves as its detriment for the 2.0 series. I do think the premise and concept for the patch are interesting, especially themes around madness and literature, in general replaying the patch in Global did make me like Recoleta a little bit. However I think the way characters, pacing and story have been written ultimately are a disservice to said themes, and alot of my critique is based on treating 2.6 as an arc in an overarching story of the 2.0 series.

(Disclaimer: this is my thoughts over the patch, and I am not pry to all the literary references present inside the story, however I believe a strength of Bluepoch has been to approach complex topics in a way that someone with or without context to references can grasp overarching themes and characters in a story, something that is not present here in Chapter 9, but are present in Chapters 5 and 6).

Main issues with 2.6's story for me

Pacing and Structure

I would argue the patch suffers from terrible pacing, not only does this patch have a shortened length ---, pacing often feels clunky and often comes to a complete stop at some times. We spend a large section of the patch staring at two characters speak conjecture and jargon for extended periods of time with few and far inbetween battle sections to break it up. Pacing is especially suffering in the Urd sections; not only are they unvoiced for some reason, but pacing comes to a complete stop or interrupts the flow of the A Plot with Vertin.

The patch's story is organised like this - the A plot with Vertin and Sonetto alongside Recoleta exploring the] Prison, with the B plot following Urd's experiences in the Prison in 'The Weaving of the Shadows'. The execution of the parallel narratives for me felt like the story would grind to a complete stop, moment your following Vertin in the prison with Recoleta, then pulled back to Urd's section acting as exposition and greater context of the Prison. It feels as if Urd's sections could have been their own section, an anecdote or even a similar case to 2.4 with Ulrich's character story - however structurality it feels like Urd's sections are used to keep the chapter count low and provide context of the prison that really should be present in the A plot.

The patch is the shortest post-release main story chapter at only 20 parts, (Im not counting Prologue to Chapter 4 since once released all at once) it spends from p1 to p12 entering the prison, exploring how it works and how fundmentally this was another means of oppressing arcanists - writers and artists locked up under the guise of being 'criminals'. However the moment the story shifts to the central tower and towards solely Aleph and Recoleta, it feels the story built around the prisoners and how their are exploited and mistreated by the world around them becomes pointless. Aleph and Recoleta's joint story ultimately downplays the suffering of these people so much that until Garcia appears in Aleph's room, you likely forgot about these characters entirely.

Style over Substance - tell than show

Which leads to another major issue of this story - this style over substence feels like TELL over showing. How is this done? The numerous literary references the story hangs over the players that they HAVE to understand to 'get' the story; the implication that the story feels vague and messy because "oh you were not aware of viseral realism? Foucalt or Borges? Too bad you won't understand the story!".

Recoleta suffers from this issue of TELL than SHOW that for me, quickly diminished my interest in her as a character: constantly she makes literary references to character tropes and conventions in storytelling that feel forced and clunky. Her character as a writer is communicated by TELLING you over and over "oh hey thats foreshadowing! Yk, because Im writing a novel you see?", alot of her dialogue feels like her citings definitions and tropes and stories that don't explore her character beyond the archtype of a 'ambious writer who often doesn't listen to others'. And this isn't to argue that Recoleta needed to have a drastic breakdown or 180 of her personality, its instead that her character from point A to point B, start and end of the patch does not learn, change or progress in any meaningful way. The plot reveal with she is a ghost, a construct from an unfinished novel then feels hollow, and the quick recovery from her near 'death' experience is over so quickly the impact is not there. The story has to TELL you she made friends with Sonetto and Vertin, rather than showing any genuine connection, often times you constantly watch Sonetto and Recoleta disagree and argue.

Her 'friendship' to Sonetto and Vertin is extremely weak and arguably non-existent, the dynamic between them feels extremely unatural especially since Sonetto and Vertin in this patch become walking signposts of expostion and lore; their lack of reaction to the events of Comala and much of their screentime is spent reminding you this is a main story. This can be highlighted in the part where Recoleta explains her novel 'The Rise and Fall of Sanity' - here characters talk AT each other than WITH each other, Vertin flips between either extremely apprehensive to weirdly accepting of Recoleta's novel throughout the patch. Her responses and reactions are reduced to simply accknowledging what Recoleta says, before promptly shifting the conversation to something else entirely. This is the dynamic of the three for the whole patch written as 'friendship'.

Moreover, Bluepoch have shown in the past they can tell compelling narratives with complex concepts - see 1.4 and 1.7: those patches were completely understandable and equally enjoyable to anyone not similar to mathematics or operas/ the play of Tosca. These patches organically introduced the audience to see these ideas in tandem with its characters in a way that the characters shine first and foremost: you don't need to understand Freud or his concepts to grasp Kakania, or have an indepth understanding of Tosca. The story is able to stand on its own with the references serving to enhance the story. In the case of 2.6, the entire backbone and forefront of its story is entirely based on these literary references and jargon that characters ultimately fall flat without them. Recoleta's character cannot stand without the inspirations to her character and the literary references - she embodies the "ghost that can only exist the story" to a detrimental degree.

Any time the story gets remotely close to explaining the ideas it presents, either another completely different idea is introduced, or especially in the case of the Idealist proceed to bombard you with even more literary jargon. In the case of 1.5, the mathematics explored ties into the system of Aperion, but equally is used to explore 37, Sophia and 6's connection to each other and crucially ties to the Storm Immunity Ritual - however in 2.6 retaining anything the Idealist, Octavia or really anyone in the prison is meaningless and its quickly discarded by the end of the patch.

In general, 2.6 presents ideas around Viseral Realism and the Latin American Literary Movement but does not attempt to explore them in greater depth or explain to the player - I believe the confusion many players have been feeling in not understanding the story stems from a central issue this patch has putting knowledge of context and reference foremost than the actual story and characters. Once again, I have no issue with the ideas presented, I have in issue in HOW they were and the LACK of diagetically explaining these ideas.

This is a main story chapter

Argubly, this patch being a main story feels like an afterthought: the inclusion of Urd's sections as not an anecdote but intercut unvoiced cutscenes, the the gimicky and ultimately useless inclusion of the Comala Die as one of the five objects mentioned in 2.5 and the boat at the end leads to me seeing the patch as originally a event patch, but changed to a main story (speculation this part, but it feels it should have been 2.4 as the main story patch and not this one).

In isolation, if this was an event story I wouldn't be as critical of the writing and characters: however the fact that this is the progression of the 2.0 main story and the prelude to 2.8 the finale of 2.0 series makes this patch worse. In what way you ask? The fact that so little impact and information provided by this patch means it is easy to just skip this patch with the most vital information provided being from 2.4 especially. The patch provides little to no critcial information about the ritual happening in Antarctica, anything on Urd that couldn't be guessed by the player already or anything on the Manus activities. Rather the patch invalidates its own reason to be a main story patch - it doesn't take you long for the story to tell you there is not reason for Vertin or Sonetto to be there. Urd had already left for Antractica, the Manus sans Diggers have abandoned the prison because the Die of Komala no longer was important - leaving the sole plot of the patch resolving around Recoleta and Aleph being penpals and the eventual burning of the Prison.

Vertin and Sonetto are non existent in the patch as well, there relevance to the plot fades almost to npcs and bystanders to Recoleta and Aleph despite once again being a main story patch focused on Vertin finding Urd - already this is the second insistence of the two being sidelined in the plot by patch characters. While the focus playables should be given the forefront of screen time of focus in a patch, the problem with 2.6 is that Vertin and Sonetto almost COMPLETELY disappear into the background so much that hearing a single line from them reminds you oh yeah this is a main story patch.

Their characters also suffer as well, despite the earlier connection Sonetto and Recoleta share before entering the Prison over poetry, this connection is never expanded upon or even addressed again because the story shifts gears and becomes purely focused on telling and reminding you Recoleta is a writer and her penpal Aleph is somewhere in the Prison. Alot of points, especially in the cell when Recoleta tells Vertin and Sonetto about her novel the dialogue feels forced, character are talking AT each other and WITH each other. It rarely feels like the trio have any chemistry outside of being a method of exposition of Recoleta's novel.

Alot of my interest in Vertin as MC has not her agency in the story and motivations that carry through each patch, however this is not the case here. Vertin barely speaks unless it is to provide exposition and to move the plot from point A to point B - you would effect a character who spent their childhood treated as an outcast by her peers, often sent into the guardhouse and constantly told to conform would have any opinion on the state of the Prison's systems, but no. Vertin becomes reduced to an NPC in the background pushing the plot forward. Chapter 9 could have easily been used similar to 2.1 Tuesday's motel exploring Vertin's fears, here it could have explored the ramifications of her being a black sheep of SPDM that could mirror treatment of the arcanists in the Prison. Instead over time in the patch Vertin starts to feel like a movement from Point A to Point B.

Urd's sections had the potential to explore her character and potentially give vital lore information about her - instead her sections become extremely pace breaking with the lack of voicing. In a patch that already spends much of its time in the same rooms and hallways with characters purely talking to each other, her sections drag out the runtime to only confirm to the players that Urd had already leave the prison for Antarctica. Despite being sections seemingly dedicated to her, Urd feels like an afterthough in these sections, more designated to flesh out the characters and community in Comala and to some degree this works in exploring Octavia's change and eventual opposition to the Idealist.

Moment in the final volume of Urd's the culminates in the fracturing between Octavia and Idealist, and Urd challenging the perverse nature of the Die as fate was so fascinating ... and then it ends. This patch has a trend of introducing concepts but ultimately stops itself from exploring it further once again, reinforcing that feeling of an afterthought. This is more apparent because these sections feel connected but so removed at the same time as we the players once Urd's section is over, understand and may sympathise with Octavia, but ultimately this goes nowhere since Vertin and Sonetto have no way of knowing what happened between Urd and Octavia .

I don't like the idea that because viseral realism does have the central concept of "taking life as it is" therefore everything should be taken almost at surface value and not beyond, this must extend to everything in this patch as well. Telling us ultimately us not exploring the prisoners, the Jailer, Aleph and Recoleta is intentional feels like shallow writing because this is a MAIN story patch, meant to be an arc in a larger overarching story that progresses the plot. All this patch has done over and over tell you the player that nothing can be gleaned from it.

The ending revelation that Recoleta's conversation with Urd wasn't Urd going to Comala, but instead it was her leaving to Antractica - communicating to the player had Vertin not run into Recoleta, the whole plot of the patch likely would not have happened. Even worse when you realise the only importance of the patch was Aleph's boat in all seriousness.

The situation looks worse if you consider the experience of a newcomer, it will take a year for the 2.0 event patches to be archived and rerun so only 2.2 and 2.6 and 2.8 might be their only exposure to the 2.0 series, and that is alot of missing context and lore that 2.6 simply does not provide.

I argue that the concept and premise of the story is fascinating: exploring the nature of literature to madness, the premise giving the potential to explore the suffering, oppression and mistreatment of arcanists and overall mental health. However I feel this story struggles between reconciling it being a main story patch and not an event, juggling concepts around viseral realism and Latin American literary movements that it fails to explain to players by using to simply throw them into the deep end that the narrative and characters feel less in quality.

Extra thoughts

What about the character stories? You have to read them to understand Recoleta and Aleph! - I disagree with this take, character stories just like the references serve to enhance the narrative of the patch, be places to provide and explore more context to a character's wants and needs already present in the main story but give a separate or new angle to view the character, 2.5 Noire's and Liang's stories highlight this. Back to 1.6 - Isolde's character story for example is argubly not vital to understanding her character, the main story of Chapter 6 explores her extremely well. Her character story therefore serves to enhance that understanding through the context of her family already alluded to in main story. It should be a place introducing new contexts and not an attempt to salvage their character.

I also take issue with how Aleph's actions as the overseer of Comala are not addressed for the implications and sufferings they caused the prisoners of Comala: the story's central conflict argues how the prisoners are all arcanist ostracized and cast out by society unjustly into this prison and labelled as insane and as criminals. The story establishes how Aleph, via The Idealist and The Physician effectively exploited the population, conducted experiments including lobotomies yet the story ultimately brushes everything under the rug because of course nothing matters but the boat and his friendship with Recoleta.

I'd argue the blame is constantly shifted towards the arcanists instead of Aleph the human: "Its the Manus interference", "its the Idealist and Merlin", "Its Octavia's fault (she constantly is antagonised by the story as being the only one early on speaking out against the Idealist) and landing on "its Recoleta's fault and her novel". The patch seemingly tries to create sympathy for Aleph by suggesting his desire to seek the "transcendental truth" went out of his control alongside external factors caused what happened in Comala; avoiding any and all acknowledgement that he was to the highest degree responsible for most of the suffering but this is immediately swept away to focus on Recoleta and his' friendship and suddenly "I have a boat", we leave a burning Comala and barely indication is given that his actions are address thereafter.

Conclusion

In conclusion - I don't like 2.6. I gave it a second shot in Global because of how much unvoiced dialogue was present in CN, and I will argue Global made me dislike Recoleta less, for me, interesting concept and really fascinating reveal that ultimately fell flat because of how exactly she was in the story. But I do think the story, even if it was event or main story overall is one of the weakest in the game for me so far.

(Im feel free to ask me about patch, I am curious about how people see this patch if you want to discuss)

#interesting #i mostly agree #i don't really feel strongly about whether the main story should be 2.4 or 2.6 #but some points have been made #this articulates some of my issues with the story #r1999 #r1999 spoilers #r1999 2.6 #r1999 analysis

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