I don’t know if you’re in the minority. I doubt many people ever saw Masa as a RO and instead saw them more as a comic relief/ morality pet. I saw them as an RO for two main reasons.
Their gender changes to your preferred gender. In every choice game and some other narratives like Episodes and What’s your Story characters change based on your sexuality. And those characters are always love interests.
Masa is the first person to truly care for the Ronin. It’s expressed in a Tsundere “you Baka” way but most other romantic characters are enablers. Masa tries to help us be better while everyone else is willing to jump in our bed no matter how much of a shit we are. Junko tears us down, everyone else let’s us stagnate, but Masa tries to build us up.
Yeah I get they are put in a potential RO slot, I won’t be going that route though; too weird for me. Also, I don’t like the ‘build you up’ thing, more like change the Ronin to how they want them to be. The Ronin is who they are, in the end despite everything they go through the Ronin is always a good person, doesn’t matter where their personality is aligned. Also it is subjective whether who is the one who wants to build you up and who is the one who wants to tear you down. Masa and Jun/ko have a lot of parallel’s with each other, both like to put the Ronin down. It is shown throughout the series Masa gets annoyed whenever the Ronin actually able to prove they are clever and not the idiot Masa likes to treat them as. At least Jun/ko knows the Ronin is smart, but feels that aspect of them that gets lost in their thoughts is in direct opposition to their way of life. From their perspective they are helping the Ronin no different than Masa. Although Jun/ko actually knows what they are doing and Masa only succeeds in following Tosh to literally tear down the Ronin. Throughout the Jun/ko arc it is obvious they have their own issues, at least you can confront them, and as you progress the story you see their dynamic is one of twisted equality. The whole treating you like a dog gag, was mainly punishment for allowing yourself to be Satsuma’s dog all this time. Frankly the Jun/ko relationship is the only one you see that actually changes within this story, everyone else treats the ronin in the same way as when they are first introduced.
First playthrough i was like “time to pick the worst choices lets get wild and suicidal” and now im badly feelin for jun bc wowow Kill me please im empathising way too much help
Yeah, I was still handling my heartbreak moment last night. My mistake was playing samurai of hyuga 4 by being loyal to Junko. God I was also very emotional at the last chapter. To make it more worst, i felt like am handling the cut bone with junko more seriously than with my real heartbrake
The writing is great. The minute to minute adjustments in the Attunement section are complete and utter b.s. (mechanics suck, too many checks and too much God-Hammering plot)
The romances are fantastic, The politics are great, but playing a character that gets humiliated over and over is not fun and frankly is annoying. The overall writing quality is very good it’s obvious that the writers are skilled at their craft but it’s their vision that I disagree with . The attunement mechanic is heavy-handed and used on every choice which frankly is ridiculous.
In my opinion there should be attunement checks every chapter or twice per chapter rather than being forced into a ridiculous plot where choices are simply thrown at you but they don’t matter to the overall story because your character is a chump And you’re written that way. I’d love to see the attunement section overhauled and adjusted. Overall this is a great series but this mechanic ruins the experience and doesn’t make it worth any reply which is a shame because this series begs to be replayed with all of the different options. Hopefully this is adjusted.
The Lack of my girl Masami made me too depressed to play it. I was once ready to kill junko for hurting her and now I’m junkos bitch and masami is off doing nobility stuff. I got as far as sake tasting then didn’t have energy anymore.
That would be horrible. It’s bad enough Devon had to put trigger warnings before the actual triggers which completely broke the realistic feel for me. The triggers should be set in stone at the beginning of the books periodt, but that’s just my personal opinion
Attunement can be really frustrating ,I have been trying to get it to 0% since book 2 but the lower it goes the harder it becomes.
If I make a correct choice it takes about 3-5 wrong ones to get back to where I was…
Let me give my feelings on this Part of the SoH Saga:-
First off to be clear I dislike Junko (not necessarily as a character but in character).
That being said perhaps the most major flaw for Part 4 is that the PC is stuck Junko whether they like it or not. This is jarring and off-putting if you have been especially if you have been playing your PC as one who hates Junko and is NOT looking fondly on the past.
Other parts of SoH may focus on one character but not to this extent and you had a number of other comrades to provide relief. In SoH4 it’s Junko, Junko Junko… SoH4 should be renamed as the Junko Saga. Nothing to really provide any sort of relief if the PC (or the player) hated Junko or was even just neutral.
Similarly I feel that the game did not give enough control to the Player both in how they reacted to some stuff and how they felt about it. Strictly speaking as a novel it would be good but as a Choice Game? Sorry, it failed a bit.
It has been fairly consistent in the way it works. You never really had an option to decide whether or not you want to travel with someone, so it wouldn’t make sense here especially when narritively it is necessary to associate with Jun/ko to regain the jigoku.
Like I don’t trust Tosh at all, but you had to travel with them in the other games.
These games have always put you in the mind of the character rather than have the character match your perspective.
True. I don’t mind travelling with Junko but even if you disiliked one character in the other games (as you mentioned), you still had other characters to provide relief.
Similarly you had greater control as to how your PC felt and reacted to that character. In SoH 4, the game does not have the rest of the party around and my PC is forced to ‘like’ Junko and give her a pass to an extent that feels forced.
While it is true you had more variety of characters I don’t agree with the notion you had a greater variety of how to react to them. The dynamic the Ronin has with each supporting character is always a constant in each play through. You are always Hatch’s friend, you always have a Tsundere thing with Masa, you always are Tosh’s fool, there is always Sexual Tension with Momoko.
I don’t feel the way Jun/ko is handled is any different save you don’t have other characters as a buffer.
@Sareth
There’s a lot of readers who have a similar sentiment around Book 4. It’s interesting because as @ghost3337 states, the relationships between the characters have never been up to the player throughout the series. The character MC that we’re roleplaying as has their own opinion on just about everything in Hyuga, and that includes their relationship with the other characters in the story.
We get to decide the romances, but as far driving the plot is concerned, the relationships are much more meaningful.
The impact of “betraying” your best buddy Hatch, the feeling of failing Masami/Masashi as a bodyguard, the frustration of being manipulated by Toshie/Toshio–these are all important dramatic moments that would’ve been weakened if each character had a “like”/“neutral”/“dislike” variable attached to them.
I respect choicegames that offer players the ability to fine-tune your opinion for each character, but I knew that to make the most impactful and emotional interactive novel series I could, I couldn’t choice-ify relationships. This issue really didn’t come up until Book 4, and it’s not because I’ve changed the way I make these things.
Junko/Jun is a controversial character and readers often have strong feelings one way or the other about them. This was perhaps the first time MC’s relationship with a character differed from the reader’s. That’s really the long and short of it!
Hey, just wanted to say that this is my favorite Hosted game and this book was definitely worth the wait! I’m sure everyone will be waiting for the fifth installment with bated breath!
As far as the recent replies, in the beginning of the book I was ready to get rid of Junko, but the narrative was so beautiful and helped me understand where she was coming from and her feelings. By the time I was three quarters of the way done, my MC was head over heels for her once again. Although, I had a feeling that balancing things with Toshie was going to be complicated.
I have a question, originally did you plan to make the Ronin a disgraced Samurai? In the first game it reads more like they were a Samurai in the past instead of what we now know to be true.
I’ve always intended for ronin to be seen in a negative light, as disgraced samurai. From chapter 1 of book 1, Kin Oyama is hesitant to even call the MC a ronin because it’s such a negative term. They’re basically seen as sellswords or mercenaries who used to be samurai.
In MC and Junko/Jun’s case, they were never really technically samurai, but since they wield and carry katanas, everyone assumes they’re ronin (including themselves). The ideals behind “what it means to be a samurai” is something MC doesn’t understand but (considering the title of the series) we can rest assured that our hero will learn!
By the way I would like to say I actually really like the characterization of Jun/ko and the dynamic between them and the Ronin. Also like how a terrible flaw can be found every romance option available to you, I think the blowback here might be because Jun/ko’s particular flaw strikes a chord with the readers who don’t like them.
Also for me I found myself opposed to MC’s relationship earlier with Tosh. My severe suspicions of Tosh have been no secret and I am baffled that after the Ronin regained their memories they weren’t angry with Tosh in particular for being a deceptive hypocrite taking advantage of the ronin in a weakened state.
By the way did anyone else notice that the names of the Ronin’s childhood friends are the same names given as optional choices for the Ronin in book 1?
Yep, someone mentioned it before! And that there’s an extra kid if you choose your own name. Kinda cool aspect to think that any one of you as orphans could become Ronin, just by simply eating your friends
lets get wild and suicidal” and now im badly feelin for jun bc wowow Kill me please im empathising way too much help
