#while it was amusing to read a new asra tale and see some cute official art

[fifthpilot]

So About the New Asra Tale by Dorian...

The plot was, not great. It was pretty boring, but it did touch up on a few interesting points from Asra's main story; like how much of his memory did he loose, his past before MC's death, and what extremes he had to go through because of MC's death like erasing his own memories of certain spells, which in my opinion is a very interesting scenario. Things did seem rushed considering the fact that the story had two endings depending on whether you chose to use the spell or not; and how the supposedly "bad ending" kind of implied that you and Asra somehow may have brought back the plague? or Lucio i.e the plague? It was left up to interpretation. The writing was, not good. I think they did try their best to stay true to Asra's tone even if it was a bit too on the nose at times and a little overbaord. But it was mainly the MC and the Magician that felt most off note to me.

That all being said, I like many others don't consider this a part of canon, it does ultimately give off a very wattpad feel. But in all honesty so did some of the main content after probably halfway through the main 3's routes. I think many people forgot just how erratic and disorganized the Nix Hydra Team was and how many people who came up with the original storyline had left the company before the end of the M3 routes. But a lot of people don't seem to notice that because all the content was in one place, the arcana app. Which brings me to my next point.

I think a good portion of the hate Dorian is getting is mainly due to the fact that their app is terrible. The UI is confusing, the app lags a lot and it's very slow. The game looks different on the dorian app, the font is wrong, there's no music, the character sprite animation is messed up, and the LI never says your name. And a lot of people have demanded that Dorian uploads the new conent to the Arcana app. But after thinking about it I personally think it's a good thing that the Dorian content and the "original" content stay physically seperated, so we know where one starts from where one ends. And I know a lot of people would disagree because using the Dorian app is a hassle, but like I mentioned before. Dorian is making fanfiction (but worse). They're using whatever's left of the arcana fandom to make some cash. This whole thing with Dorian creating new routes and new content is just another marvel-like tactic of beating a dead horse with a stick. And, they're even using the same Nix Hydra trick of placing the best content behind a paywall.

I'm personally not even upset at how terrible the app is, or how rushed and boring and generally just bad the tale was, I think I'm more upset that we won't put the Arcana Game to rest. And instead we have to watch as corporation after corporation uses the story for whatever means it wants to make money. I'm more upset that things can't just end and be celebrated for being. And how the way we engage with media has mutated into something more greedy and gluttonous.

What I'm saying is, we had a beginning and ending, we had prologues and epilogues and hidden scenes. We had plenty. We don't need more. Sometimes enough is enough.