MK2 - Raze path completed! Final was a better fight than anything in MK1's maingame. Now, for Ulrika being retarded.
EDIT: Feel like a rant based on one path! Okay.
Remember how MK1 had basically no real pretentions and the fact it was surprisingly honest was actually pretty refreshing in spite of the stock lots of things?
Well, MK2 sorta follows on that lead. However, it has one glaring difference: the setting is even less serious in spite of the apparently more pressing situation overall. This brings us to the cast: instead of everybody being quirky as heck, everybody is -clinically insane-, and the game just sorta revels in the absurdity of it all. This makes the tropocalypse that is Gust writing even more pronounced, so I hope you don't come into MK2 expecting liking the cast off the bat. If you hate anime tropes, bring your venom, because the trope abuse makes MK1 look inspired by Jane Austen. On the other hand, on Raze path, the absolute insanity brings an oddly entertaining set of dynamics as long as you don't expect much in the way of heartwarming (or good writing). Raze, as a main, while bringing an entirely different personality than Vayne, fills the role of straight man far better, and is actually mostly a better character. But I think I should do a char-per-char breakdown to explain how this goes. So:
Raze - Remember how Vayne was sort of a doormat, way too normal and a bit of a moron (and far too skilled at everything he did to make this believable until the big reveal in MK1), and just sorta went along with the flow due to being so clueless about everybody else being unbalanced? Yeah, Raze doesn't really work like that. He is sort of a jerk. I'm not sure if Gust wanted, but lacked the writing strength to make him this overly sarcastic type with three billion one-liners to insult people with at first, thus settling with someone who's just generally non-plussed and effortlessly blunt, but the way he pans out interaction-wise is sorta refreshing. He doesn't try to own people by dropping sarcastic thirteen-year-old-GFAQs poster-sig-bait at all. He's just uncomfortably honest and so desensitized to the madness around him (after all, he's been taking care of his openly deranged master for over a decade now) that he just goes through the motions. He will complain about being dragged into shit he has nothing to do with, but he'll follow and finish the job, because, well, that's what he signed in for, and he doesn't mind it too much. In general, he's a fairly competent and self-aware guy who actually has common sense, and he keeps the entire cast from entering a deadly spiral of madness and destruction just by being the one with his head screwed straight. His "serious" plot was honestly a bit of a head scratcher due to not making a lot of sense, and Gust writers really need some bludgeoning for the handwaving around how he ended up getting the subdued dislike towards Mana, which was the catalyst to the whole plot, because that was admirably stupid. On the other hand, the way he bridges his party together is pretty good, and a main with that much common sense and such a hands-off approach to things is rather uncommon, let alone in a Gust game. Also, it doesn't hurt that the entire party acknowledges his lack of tact, instead of glorifying it as "zomg cool and badass". They keep around because Raze, even not being the best of human beings, is a pretty reliable fellow. Well, Lily pretends otherwise, but Lily is um special. Speaking of which!
Lily - Okay. First thing: she's a tsundere openly in love. As in, madly in love. As in, she -desperately needs to get laid- in love. She doesn't even pretend she doesn't want in Raze's pants, but gets embarrassed when she says it anyway. In precision, she's a tsundere who is almost entirely dere to her love, and entirely tsun to everybody else (and sometimes her love when she catches herself stuffing her foot into her mouth). This would be fine and dandy for a typical anime relationship, if it wasn't for one tiny problem: Raze just doesn't like her that way, if he even -does- like her at all (well, the fifth CQ does note, in a rather non-romantic way, that Raze does care about Lily, but she's just his master and sort of a friend. And the ending even lets you know that he actually noticed it a long time ago, but he just has too much fun pretending he doesn't). So, you have a girl who is prone to watch one romantic movie too many, who is exploding with hormones and with highly violent tendencies trying her hardest to get into the pants of someone who probably would first turn into a hermit than get into that whole dating thing. The whole dynamic has trainwreck written all over it, and Lily finds increasingly creative ways to put her foot stomach-deep into her mouth while involving more and more people in her insane antics, and Raze just goes through the motions because he's been dealing with Lily being crazy his whole life. The loop from karmic justice to gratuitous karma assholery in her CQs - and the fact that not only they're the stage for Lily to grow increasingly hilarious, but also the best chance for other PCs to get some spotlight in ways they wouldn't otherwise (Puniyo's fun factor is -made- by Lily CQs, for an example and everybody involved has entertaining interactions with her. She has quite a nice chemistry with the cast) - just made Lily the biggest surprise in Raze's cast for me. Probably one of the most entertaining examples of tsundere that I've seen recently, particularly because she's dropped into an atypical tsundere scenario where she's not fulfilling male fantasies via author railroading, but just getting herself into the kind of trouble that would be seen in a Looney Tunes cartoon due to PSL. In fact, this is pretty refreshing in Raze path: while you can spot the harem anime setup from a mile away, the deliverance ends up quite different mainly due to the focal character in it. Bottom line is: Lily is a barrel of monkeys. Her worth is mainly running off trainwreck value, but it's a pretty nicely assembled trainwreck.
Yun - I put him third because there's not much to write about him and a break from WoTs is nice. He's pretty much sorta there. He's sort of a straight man at base, but Raze path didn't need a second straight man. On the other hand, his later CQs are pretty entertaining and a bit endearing, but that's mostly due to the character that starts showing up there. Entirely inoffensive, at least, although Et CQ4 showed a side of him a lot of people probably wish it didn't exist - on the other hand, when the sanest character in a CQ is LILY (and purely out of spite and jealousy to boot), you know everybody's gone clinically insane. Although you have to wonder about Lily when she hires someone for five million bucks for the sole reason of wanting to get into Raze's pants.
Et - Ah, Etward. She is the reason why you don't give inhuman strength to a world-class ditz. Et is a walking earthquake disguised as a typical anime girl. Remember how Anna turned into this force of nature that needed a country-sized army to stop when she got the wrong idea in her head? Well, Et is more or less like this, but she does it without any sort of catalyst. She's the type of person who would walk into a wall and unwittingly break it down (actually, I'm sorta surprised she never did). Her CQs mainly focus on how much torment she puts her little brother into without noticing (although I really have to wonder how Enna is still alive. Man, Et kidnapped him to play with him and forgot him inside a bag for -six days-. What the christ) and on how braindead she is. While it boggles the mind how freaking stupid she is and how hazardous the combo of inhuman strength and mental retardation in a pretty teenage girl is, she has her moments. Particularly, CQ4 and especially 5, where you finally realize that she might actually not be as stupid as you think, even if she is far from bright... because of how badly she led on the whole workshop just to have some fun. And that led to a few absolutely hilarious moments between her and Lily to boot. Didn't expect to like her, but it was just funny to see her antics escalate.
Puniyo - The other cast surprise. I expected her to be a simple "look girl with punis and she can't talk! Look at her be cute and boring" type that anime tropes tend to churn out every now and then. Then Lily CQ2 kicked in and Puniyo, Master of Love was born. And they kept going with the idea. Puniyo is very entertaining due to how she has a lot of ideas and insight that no five-year-old should have even if she had a sister who was into yaoific. Actually, I honestly think she has her Punis read WAFF fanfiction for her at night (and they cut the naughty parts out), because nothing else explains those CQs. Her own CQs were honestly underwhelming, because the Puni gang picking on her just isn't good material for her to be insane at, although Raze being turned into a honorary Puni was cool. On the other hand, Puniyo CQs also meant more Lily screentime. So, not too bad. Puniyo is actually fairly fun, and she shines as a support character on other people's antics. Her Punis were underused, though.
And that's more or less it. Gameplay-wise, the dynamics sorta changed a fair deal. You get less skills, and subsequently less variety. However, the skills you do get also last you a whole lot longer, and Common Skills stopped being a complete ripoff as well. The focus seems to be on how there are two distinct parties with wildly varying dynamics, and that should be neat to see unfold (Raze's party is quite cohesive in its offensive strength and it has very good timed sphere cannonning, for an example. Raze has strong ST offense, a very cost-efficient timed sphere skill and some turnhaxing with the Jade Shift clone. Et is what happens when you give Anna timed sphere skills, better attack and buff up the Quick Dream clone enough to keep it high-profile at practical offense for the whole game. Lily is a highly cost-efficient, offensively versatile ice mage who has cheap, adequately damaging skills of the ST, GT, MT and timed sphere variety, along with good speed. Yun specializes in fire offense+knockback, along with having Defense-busting. Puniyo is a healer whose healing skills are probably the best in the whole game due to also doubling up as revival and full status healing, and she is also the best CS user in the game due to party-best M.Attack and CS doublecasting, which puts her offense into skyrocketing standards). Not to mention the PCs' base stats now matter a lot more than equipment boosts, and your equipment now plays subtler roles on your effectiveness, which ties into Alchemy being more involved and detailed. I dunno, but I liked the distinct dynamics presented, and they feel quite elegantly done. The way they handled carryover can die, though, and they fumbled up some item availability. If you don't do carryover, you don't get the Grow Book entries from the first playthrough to the Extra scenario, and there are a couple items in Ulrika route that are insanely rare in her playthrough and are required for some of her synths, so you need to carryover to get those before the Extra scenario. That was a gj.
Currently a 7/10 or so? Would be 8/10 if not for the retardation of carryover and how forcing two playthroughs for the true ending is a poor design decision. Could change.
