Oh wow, for some reason I was convinced the previous build was as far as public versions would go. Talk about a nice surprise to see an update!
All in all, the new content was very interesting, and it was cool to finally meet all of the contestants!
The various fixes to previous content help a lot too!
There are some errors I have noticed, or things that left me confused still, so I’ll just list these. I’m not repeating things that I had reported for the previous build and that have not been changed, since I consider it either means you consider them fine as they are, or that you simply didn’t get to fixing them yet.
Obviously, some of these things have spoilers for players, so yeah, the details will be hidden for space reasons, so I won’t be spoiler tagging them in addition to that, since these are feedback anyway.
When playing a reluctant "on the run" MC:
I had an error I didn’t have the first time I’ve played. I’m on the “on the run” background, but when Ross and Ryr go away (after the reveal of MC having to enter the games), I got that segment: “In the blink of an eye, both Ross and Ryr are gone. You smile a bit to yourself, glad to see your old Guard mates again, before it slowly drops. Sure, everything was easy and calm now, but there was no telling what the next weeks and months would hold.”
And right after:
“Get up, Odi,” you sigh, trying to keep a smile off of your face, but you just couldn’t manage it. It reminded you of being in the Guard too much to take seriously. “I don’t want to go, but there’s no point in whining about it too much, especially to you, since I know you’d kill to be in my position right now.”
It’s clearly from the guard background.
It appears as default when selecting the option that says MC definitely doesn’t want to go but doesn’t have a choice.
Also, while it’s WAY better now as far as a reluctant MC goes, I still feel saying “I don’t want to go, but there’s no point in whining about it too much, especially to you, since I know you’d kill to be in my position right now.” is a bit too much for a MC who really didn’t want that and is at risk of having their whole life ruined.
The early ending:
The early ending feels better now, though I’m still a bit sad it doesn’t get described a bit more in the actual story, prior to the meta part, but still, it’s not as abrupt as before! So yeah, I’m mainly putting this here because I did talk about that point a lot before
When meeting the heir:
I don’t rememeber if I had reported that before so I’ll write it just in case. When meeting the (aloof) heir, the shy greeting option doesn’t add to the “shy” counter for MC’s personality.
When coming back to the hotel after meeting the heir:
The scene starts with another “NOW PLAYING AS: (MC)”, but the PoV already transitionned after the garden visit, on the previous pages.
Jenna's card:
I didn’t think about it before, but it would be nice to get the option to decide what to do with the Odessenters card Jenna hands MC…
Like, my MC wouldn’t want to keep that thing - not only it doesn’t fit his ideology, but it would be bad to be seen with that card among the items he owns.
Impossible skill checks:
There are still some issues with impossible affinity checks with characters. I didn’t mark down the ones that I already reported the first time around, but I had a new one with Bex this time, when they select where to sit, during Arrival Day.
It's that instance:
*if (bex >= 55)
Bex opted to take a seat far away from you and Doodles once the Royal Family got the flowers, but did flash you a small smile while walking past.
*if (bex < 55)
Bex opted to take a seat far away from you and Doodles once the Royal Family got the flowers, barely giving you a passing glance as they moved.
I got all of the relationship + with Bex up until that point, and I’m at 52, since the increases are so small.
Another one is with Melanie during breakfast in chapter 3. I believe I have max relationship with her too, but it only reaches 59%, and it has to be 60 or more for the flavor text to change:
*if melanie >= 60
Melanie notices you watching her and gives you an inviting smile.
*if melanie < 60
Melanie pays you no mind as you look at the other open seats.
EDIT: I was told this one is not impossible when going for one specific answer at some point, that I did miss when checking if that one was impossible. But as I explained in my next post, I do think having to make a “perfect run” with her up until that point for her to simply smile at MC during breakfast is a bit much
Cass on Arrival Day:
This one is more subjective, but I still feel like it’s better if I mention it.
It’s a bit strange in my opinion that on Arrival Day we don’t get a genuinely friendly answer for Cass (I mean, when MC thinks Cass would have teased them). Something like that they would have laughed at their antics. My MC’s past relationship with Cass is best friends, so I can’t imagine them being really flustered by the teasing, but I can’t imagine them being mad or ignoring them either. As it is, the only option that doesn’t seem mean or indifferent to Cass is: “…would’ve welcomed the attention and teased back.”. But it adds to the “flirty” stat, so clearly it isn’t a really genuine, friendly and innocent thing. And well, the option about entertaining the teasing because of the cameras seem to imply (on the follow up page) that MC doesn’t truly care about Cass, but only about the cameras, so it’s quite bad too even if it’s a “friendly” option.
Morning preparations at the start of chapter 3:
If I decide MC has any special feature or does something special to stand out, then once it’s done it cycles back to that option, which in itself isn’t bad since it allows for multiple things, but the option to move on (“Nah, I’m just here to brush my teeth and leave”) sounds weird if something was selected before since it implies MC does nothing at all. Maybe it could change to “Nothing more, just brush my teeth and leave” or something like that, in case one or more of the options were selected before.
I think that’s it?
Aside from the genuine mistake about the background, it’s honestly the impossible skill checks that bother me, since well, because of that the way the characters act around my MC doesn’t really reflect how well they may get along if based on the conversations.
Also, a random thought I had while playing!
It would be funny if MC had a 99% compatibility not only with the heir, but also with the chosen RO if said RO isn’t the heir. What I mean is that if the player follows another romance, MC and RO would later discover they had a 99% compatibility, but nobody bothered to check that out since they were looking for a high compatibility with the heir only, and once they got it they made the candidates enter the games and that’s it.
Or well, at least, I think it would be pretty amazing if that was the case with Bex, since MC and them are the two highest profiles.
I’m so torn though. I like the (aloof) heir a lot, and I would like to go for that romance, but I’ll also admit Bex really stole my heart - now that we had more scenes with them, I’m even more sure than before… and I can’t really imagine not going for them as RO. Aah, hard choices…