I suspect that In Ending,why Mayor still order to take down Sidestep (Kill Blaze) even Sideste take side with HG? or She doesn’t know about their meeting ?
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To be fair their team was pretty lazy so now the mayor is trying to fix the dam mess we made. Blaze got careless so it kind of his fault but someone like step is the wake call they need to get their act together.
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In the interview with the reporter, I got the achievement that she thinks I am hero undercover. While I have not killed anyone because I am aiming to be a moral villain, I wonder of we can manipulate the media to show us as the real hero and the Rangers as a puppet organisation of the government and force public opinion to hate the Rangers
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To bad it’s doesn’t matter if the rangers get u since they think we are bad despite not killing anyone and helping steel save the people at carters place. Especially the fact that one has a grudge and couldn’t drop it which is petty since it’s not like we can do anything with dampers around. Maybe some bad words but that should of been it. At least we could use the injury or our missing eye as leverage for the media in the next book that one of them is a loose cannon
Other interactions you can get from both Argent and Steel when suspicion is high/Sidestep comes clean to them without getting caught show they’re both sympathetic. Neither of them tell on Sidestep and Steel actually offers to help them in some endings.
And in the Rangers defense, Sidestep has caused a lot of property damage, gotten a ton of people hurt, and specifically hurt and humiliated the Rangers, even if you play a Sidestep that doesn’t kill anyone. That doesn’t at all mean that the Rangers are right or that each one of them hasn’t done their own things that are honestly just as bad (excluding maybe Herald, we know all the Rangers have killed people), but Sidestep hasn’t actually come clean about why they’re doing what they’re doing and there are a lot of reasons why the Rangers would be disapproving.
This isn’t even considering that you can get literally any of the Rangers to bust Sidestep out (based on relationship stats, I think, tho I dunno how willing any of the characters are to break out a murderous Step).
Like everything Sidestep has done is honestly pretty understandable, particularly if you play them as trying to do the least harm to people as possible because we’re getting it from Step’s perspective.
But having reasons to hurt people doesn’t mean those people are any less hurt. Sidestep took over Lady Argent’s mind, blew up a museum (hurting people in the process), and beat up Herald and Ortega enough to land them in the hospital. Of course they think what Sidestep is doing is bad…it is. We, as readers, may feel it’s justified (I do), but the Rangers don’t know even a fraction of what we know about Sidestep and their motives. They only even get a glimpse of this in certain endings when Step has no choice but to come clean, and even then they’re still not completely forthcoming (there are things readers clearly aren’t privy to, too).
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Well in my play through I’m trying to show the farms true colours and training heroes by fighting as a villain to prepare them. Steel might be the nicest about it murder or not but he is just a another puppet along with the rangers. All step wanted was freedom and I’m trying without bloodshed.
If you are a repentant killer and haven’t massacred anyone, than Ortega will break you out if you otherwise fill the checks, I can’t remember about the others right off the back but it’s either ((nokill) or (repentkill)). Given that I assume most of the others will break you out if you feel sufficiently terrible about your act of killing and have full intent to avoid repeating your actions.
I could be remembering wrong, though, I’d have to check and I don’t feel like diving into code today.
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The fact that this game allows you to go full killer route is so refreshing, and that path is so much fun as well. Kudos.
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I can’t stomach it but I think the fact that it is there definitely adds a lot. I wonder what percentage of people actually do a full killer run. I still haven’t managed (I have Steps who will kill, but only those who directly stand in their way of their real goals. They otherwise will attempt to save civilians and keep people out. There is a difference between their enemies and those who just are bystanders in their mind.)
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In one of the scenes (depending on choices) you smash a cowering Devereaux’s head in and then proceed to knock Blaze unconscious and impale him on a flag pole. It’s fking metal.
Gonna point out while the game allows you to kill scores of people and do things like above, the “civilians” involved in all scenes are still never common people and the game states they’re all at least somewhat crooked/evil (yk this through telepathy).
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Yup. I wouldn’t be such a big fan of this game if it forced to play only positive character.
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I still don’t know if my Sidestep refuse to kill civilian because empathy or because pragmatic villainy
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The choice being there is key, IMO. Even if you don’t take that path the fact I know Step could makes it feel more like active efforts by good natured Steps rather than it being just Steps’ ‘innate being’ or whatever.
Also, Step claims everyone they killed was evil in a moment where it would be prudent for them to not allow anyone to think innocent lives could have been taken. Step is not a reliable narrator, and is probably lying, either to themself or to everyone else. Step can delude themself into thinking all sorts of things that are hardly true, I doubt that thinking everyone they killed must be evil is beyond their capacity.
Response @Rinnegato :
Reasonably, you could say it’s a mix of both, or that they claim pragmatic villainy but there is a slight tugging at their heart strings when they see normal people potentially at risk.
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I remember my Sidestep killing mods with the nanovores when I was cheking out other paths and freaking out about it since they were the first time I killed and Argent being upset about the fact too, I’m pretty sure those mods working for HG in a casino filled with villians and their ilk were not innocents at all.
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At the least, they’re all rich. So it’s not a bad guess to say that they are all crooked without thorough telepathy. Not exactly a lie, he genuinely feels that way. Not that I think a full killer sidestep would care that much more if genuine innocents were collateral. He is honest about his feelings of needing people in general to be victims and cower before him, if you choose that option. You can choose to not care about Steel dying (hypothetical) for example, and I don’t think sidestep ever thought he was intentionally complicit in the evils of the world.
Yeah everyone in that casino is a bad person. You can get the guards to massacre them too.
I’m speaking more broadly, like if you killed people at the museum, or with bombs, you can hardly account for who ends up getting ‘taken out’ as it were.
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Steel will break you out even if you don’t regret killing, provided you didn’t cause a massacre. I can’t remember the exact conditions for Argent though.
I guess Herald might be the only one who doesn’t tolerate killing no matter what then. I didn’t know Ortega could break you out even if you were regretful though, I thought it was the same as Herald for them.
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Oh I wasn’t calling you out or anything, I agree Sidestep deludes themselves so they can justify it to themselves and others, but the fact that characters judge me for killing pretty much villians or at the very least their followers as if I killed an innocent bystander is weird.
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I think the only one with a right to call you out for killing the mods at the museum would be Herald, because I feel he’s the only one who wouldn’t do what you did in a similar situation. 
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I guess, without looking the code, the order would be something like:
- Ortega: He/she is the closest person to Sidestep;
- Steel: he probably feel guilty about his past behavior, even if he don’t admit it;
- Herald: Sidestep was his childhood hero;
- Argent: the only one to not have any ties whatsoever with Sidestep
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