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utsumirai · 5 months ago

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Cineris Somnia: Part 2

Continuing my thoughts on Cineris Somnia. :'''3

I played "The Black Butterfly: Ophelia" this time around.

Gonna ramble below the cut as usual. Spoilers ahead obviously!!

Ok where do I start. I continued with the 2nd chapter.

The tonal shift scared the shart out of me. One minute you're roaming a tranquil hospital ward--with no apparent threats in sight-- and the next, you're running from a girl in black with a scythe she drags along.

She was really fast.... why can't we run faster..... this idiot was USELESS and I did restart my file many, many times.

**If you play this section just know she catches up to you FAST in tight cornered layouts because she gravitates towards you, so keep your saves up to date... I'm not joking i was so stupid!!!**

Throughout the 2nd campaign you meet the new protagonist. Her name's Ophelia and she is the daughter of a very wealthy couple. Aside from being cripplingly lonely, Ophelia rejects the idea of getting wedded to a man she has no feelings for.

I think his name was Davis?

It doesn't help that her father regularly insults her appearance. She curses her "dirty" black hair.

The various notes and journals scattered around the mansion suggest the hatred Ophelia's parents harbor for her goes beyond pettiness and is fueled by spite. This is, of course, further exacerbated by the fact she brought home a cat behind their back. Her only friend and sense of comfort. : (

The mansion we roam is really gorgeous, and it undergoes subtle changes to reflect Ophelia's heightened emotional state.

In contrast to the hospital in Charlotte's story, the portraits and the walls ooze out blood and the decor gets replaced with entrails and eyeballs. It's pretty interesting, somehow the gore elevates the beauty of the environment.

Anyway, later on her beloved cat dies.

Realizing her cat has been brutally taken from her, Ophelia lashes out. It's at this point in the game where you realize "Okay, maybe I get why she killed everyone."

You are often prompted to interact with a black door adorned by a wreath of mourning white lilies. This is the door to Ophelia's bedroom. So through the keyhole you observe important events such as her arguments with her abusive father, and the moment she murders her fiancée. OH, and the conversation her mother has about how much she hates her daughter. ewwww.

Her life just really sucks, and she doesn't have a voice.

^^^ My theory is: this is a manifestation of her victims putrefying in a very dimly-lit room. Idgaf.

Girl DID YOU DO THIS.......

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She really, really, really hates this guy Davis. Her betrothed. Something about women brutally murdering their oppressors is so good and I will never tire of this trope... I think that's specifically why I really like this game. It's very straightforward.

Ok moving on... Ophelia proceeds to embrace the hat box that holds the remains of her beloved friend, and we're instantly transported to a memory before the events of the nightmare.

TOP: How her Bedroom originally looks vs. how it's presented in the nightmare dimension.

You walk towards a confessional booth in a cathedral, retracing the steps of Ophelia who was likely driven to go there by the guilt of killing everyone involved in abusing her and killing her cat. Or so we think. She slowly confesses that no one was involved in killing her cat. It was her all along.

So in the end, Ophelia's soul is finally at peace and she moves on. I cried like a baby because I have a black cat too. I was like noooourrghhh, her baby!!!!!!............ she didn't mean it.

That's the worst part of it all. She actually didn't mean to.

The constant psychological abuse pushed her over the edge that day, and in a fit of rage, she throws the hat box on the ground, unbeknownst to her that her kitty was curled up inside.

She couldn't cope with the loss, she couldn't understand how her oppressors weren't behind the death of her friend, despite being horrible, awful people.

I just wanna give her a hug, man.

END

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utsumirai · 5 months ago

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Starting off my first entry with Cineris Somnia yippeee.

I started this yesterday (Jan. 21) because my friend had it in his steam library and I had seen a Jp user on twitter mention it as well. (I'm still on the 2nd episode so this is just my general thoughts abt the first one.) Right off the bat, the environments are really soothing, and the music isn't overpowering--it plays in short bursts in between the ambience--so it's actually quite relaxing to play even if it is like, 90% backtracking and going from room to room, roaming the hard-to-navigate map. I got so lost y'all.......................

the game's very visually striking, so I really don't think the monotony of the gameplay does it a disservice. Game's janky in other areas but I honestly didn't care. I wish I was being paid to be stupid because I did spend an hour trying to find the map (it was in the same room I kept inspecting.)

Anyway this specific episode takes you to what looks like a 1940s sanatorium, where you meet a terminally ill girl named Charlotte who's in treatment for an unspecified illness whilst her dad's deployed. She mentions he's a tailor though, so her cute dress was probably made by him <3

Idk who we're playing as, he's just a nice fella.... I like him.......... He seems to be able to enter these "memories" or dreams.

Charlotte sent me on various quests to have her letters delivered to a nurse's desk (to have them sent to her father) but you do eventually learn that *****spoiler******** they never get sent out.

The doctor treating her eventually reveals through a conversation with this nurse, that her bills are not being paid. This leads to the nurse concocting a new "medicine" in an attempt to comfort Charlotte in her last days, because her treatment gets suspended. Also, I should mention she's really lonely here--her friends get discharged except her. hmmmmmmmm-- so the game reflects her emotional and mental deterioration in my favorite way ever.

YESSSS the environment changes, it's so cool. It starts off subtle, and later on our nice fella finds himself in what I assume is the present state of the sanatorium. Still within her memories?

I'm obsessed with changes in the environment so I took pics to compare lmao

That's the patio by the end of the story, the first place we meet Charlotte so it made me a little sad...

Before she dies, the nurse comforts her by telling her that there's a rose garden right outside the building, so we take her there at the conclusion of the story, closing this chapter and putting her soul to rest. :''3

I haven't finished ep 2 so I'll come back to this :salutes:

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