/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>17146644
Just finished it in fact, I think?

Overall I liked the game, the twists were satisfying, foreshadowed and some stuff like how you enter the third route were pretty novel in my opinion. If you like twisty scifi, infodumps (lots of it based on actual science) and trapped mystery stuff like other games in this medium you're bound to enjoy Dei Gratia as well. I personally also liked the connecting themes and such. Practically zero romance as well if you're looking for a change of pace. Some initial parts had the stupid kind of "we're trapped but SoL activities yeah" stuff and I was initially afraid they'd fall back to those on a regular basis, but they ditch that kind of filler quite soon and it's mostly constant plot back to back. It does utilize some tried and true plot padding cliches like characters obviously knowing something important (and the protagonist realizing it as well) but not telling due to not trusting others or being plain dicks or interrupted at the critical moment by someone else or "it's probably nothing" excuse, often resulting in some later drama that feels like it could've been avoided.

Presentation wise the game could've used more many more CGs and music tracks (though the music itself is pretty good), and in case of CGs for some reason many trivial moments got them, while many actually plot important / dramatic moments that could've used some didn't. While the game itself was pretty great, I felt blueballed by the finale or the lack of one (?).

tl;dr good game, well foreshadowed twists but a bit weak or "2deep4u" ending

- Bigger spoiler territory, questions and complaining for others who finished it -
The final ending could've used one last push, though I'm not entirely sure if I just missed something. I felt pretty let down by how the simulation stuff doesn't get brought up again at the end of the third route for some reason, and while rereading the first scene of the game after playing through the final extra scenario is really clever, I couldn't wrap my head around how contradicting it was to the rest of the game.

Wasn't the basic premise that only Hitoha and Yukari survived and the two were replaying the accident in a VR simulation (for unknown purposes?) and the latter constantly mentioning how the former can't change the past no matter what and has to live with the choices they made, yet the third route has no simulation stuff at all, very clearly contradicts only two of them surviving, yet it's also the route that best connects to the last unlocked extra scenario and the game's first scene: Hitose (protagonist's sister) finding the Argo float and the wind turbine island exploding, killing Hikari. I was expecting one last explaining scene in real world or something else with Hitoha and Yukari in the white room, but nope apparently that and the extra scenario are the final content in the game, unless there's some actual truer true route or epilogue that no one has found yet. I read some reviews afterwards and some mention it's literal meta 「生存者を決めるのは、あなたです」 message, therefore "lol the players themselves decide which one of the routes actually happened", but if that was the actual intention it feels extremely cheap.

I replayed the ending of the second route since it has the last white room scene and personally think the fictional alternate events were about keeping the memory of the survivors alive (hence comparison to the actual ghost ship), and was expecting it to get brought up again plus Hitoha coming to accept his guilt over not being able to save the others in some last theoretical final epilogue scene that never actually came. Personally I would've also preferred the game to flesh out the mysteries of COOS and Alice more. Stuff like the former's supposed intelligence (f.ex. COOS disappearing of its own volition in past case that Yukari explains to others) and the even more mysterious shit with Hikari contracting Alice by being bitten by something which she thinks was a mermaid or something. Still not as gear grinding as the previous, much more plot important stuff I complained about being left hanging in the air.