G-Senjou no Maou

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Child soldiers are obviously a thing. Realistically it's implausible, but in Japanese media, Improbable Age is such a routine occurrence that I don't think ruling him out on the basis of his age makes that much sense.

He's already improbable enough at 19 that people have only just begun taking him seriously when doing Yakuza crap. For Usami's grudge against Maou to make sense, Maou would have to be the one in charge. That happened seven years ago, thus he was actually twelve at the time, not thirteen. That isn't consistent with the setting.

Alternately, Maou was not the leader of the terrorist attack, but he was the one who killed Haru's mother (And, with his big ego and motivation, he went and gloated about it.) It is a possible assumption.

Maou being Kyousuke for the earlier routes requires warping what has happened in the story. However, let's think about what must have occurred. First, Maou killed Usami's mother during a terrorist attack ^note I think this is confirmed during either one of their early conversations or at some point involving Mephistopheles and gave away his identity at the time. He has neither seen nor heard from her since then. For Maou to be Kyousuke, he would have had to have been twelve years old at the time. At this age, he would have had to be have been in control of a terrorist group capable of hitting a large Russian city and getting away clean despite actually being at the scene and incredibly identifiable. He has to have known how to actually kill people successfully. Furthermore, he must have known how to do this all without any training since, remember, Kyousuke was a normal Japanese boy, confirmed by early family photos and his thoughts of his early life.

The details just don't add up. Hell, I'm pretty sure we have confirmation that he was back freezing and starving with his mother after the terrorist attack! What happened to all his power, status and money?

...I think one of us (It'll probably end up being me because I'm the one trying to prove a point here) will need to go into this thing and actually record what is known by certain points in the story.

Would the end of each of the first three chapters be good markers to go off, or should I check the related routes, too?

I don't think any important details come up in the sideroutes.

Ugh, didn't like the last (Haru) chapter though everything else was fantastic. Seems like they dumped all the intrigue and mystery from the first four in favor of a riot and a bunch of guys with guns. Not only did it make everything that had happened until then feel utterly pointless, the situation resolves itself independently of the protagonists' actions; in fact, they actively made the situation worse by almost allowing Maou to escape. It felt like watching a martial arts movie where the hero fights his way through waves of mooks, slowly improving his skills, only to be challenged to a chess match by the big bad once he gets to the heart of his stronghold. The big bad kicks his ass at chess, and when all seems lost, Gary Kasparov shows up out of nowhere, wins the chess match, and saves the day. Unsatisfying. :( Also the zero publicity gambit at the end made me really sad, dammit.

^ Wat.

He's saying that the tone of the story just suddenly took a one eighty from plotting and mind games to rioting. Which was kind of the point, really, but understandable.

Moreover, the fact that all the built up skills and talents of the protagonists had no impact in the conclusion, after all the police would have resolved the crisis in a similar or better way even if Haru and Kyousuke had stayed home and watched tv instead. Their single "contribution" if it can even be called that was to lead the police into a trap and set up an escape route for Maou. Thus my analogy: they are forced into a situation where the skills that were central to the plot previously are useless, only to suddenly have everything resolved by another party.

It bugged me alot, probably because I liked everything else about the story so much.

Back to reading this after Tsubaki's chapter nearly killed my desire to continue.

Currently up to chapter 4, Yuki has just transferred and is quite fun to watch. Also, Maou just giving up and leaving in the middle of Kanon's path, definitely wasn't expecting that.

And "poorly translated porno game"? I really should start counting the jokes about V Ns.

Routes about girls not named Usami are kind of terrible. Tsubaki's was probably the best of the three.

I enjoyed Kanon's more than Tsubaki's, though that was probably more because of the fact that I find Tsubaki boring.

And Mizuha's route is even worse!

I don't know, it's starting up with a revenge plot set to ride of the Valkyries (Chapter 4 is, at least). That's a fairly promising start.

You've got about half an hour of decent story to read left then. Something like that, anyway.

A bit further into Chapter 4 and Mizuha is a Tsun Dere while Yuki is great fun to watch.

I agree, Mizuha's route was super-disappointing. And I like Tsunderes.

Finished Mizuha's route. Mizuha is good at getting other characters to act in entertaining ways.

So...Maou is Kyousuke's older brother, knew that the hints about him being Kyousuke were a red herring. Didn't expect Kyousuke to start thinking that as well though. Also, who the heck did he fall in love with and run off with in the earlier paths?

Didn't expect that from Gonzou either, I would have thought that he would simply let Kyousuke die.

Haru's sex scene was amusing.

Also, I get the feeling that Yuki was intended to have a path at some point during development.

edited 14th Oct '13 1:16:32 AM by TheCuriousFan

You mean, who did Maou fall in love with? Clearly must have been Yuki!

Yuki is on the box art, yeah, so that's a reasonable guess. Then again, giving her a route would probably interfere with the story developments. Yuki actually being interesting is probably why Mizuha's route is bad: All the conflict of that arc has almost nothing to do with Mizuha.

Plus Yuki has an amazing voice. Just hearing her talk was one of the best parts of G Senjou.

Just got to the end of the game, Maou burned to death and everyone seems to have come out unscathed. Listening to the credits music now.

Maybe. And Mizuha is good for making other characters act in entertaining ways at least.

True.

edited 14th Oct '13 2:18:05 PM by TheCuriousFan

...Son of a bitch.

And that's the game properly finished this time.

I should probably write up a more detailed review of this some time in the future.

edited 14th Oct '13 5:23:42 PM by TheCuriousFan