>It still surprises me no of these people ever thought to develop a Reason for a utopian world where everyone can live in peace while still having their free will.
The point of the Law alignment is that a utopia is impossible with free will and the Chaos and Neutral alignments don't think a utopia is even worth it with out it.
Tbf, true demon ending isn't any better. You are just ending humanity permanently, so that things even more violent can take over.
>It still surprises me no of these people ever thought to develop a Reason for a utopian world where everyone can live in peace while still having their free will. Very telling about our alignment representative’s views on other people, don’t it?
Tbf, I feel like there is meant to be some kind of implicit subtext that you can't just ask for everything to be perfect. You have to ask for something specific, and accept the consequences. Hikawa never said his goal was for people to not have free will. Its just presented as that a universal peace de facto means people are oriented to peace, which is interpreted as it making it difficult to do otherwise.
The issue of course is that the game never actually says what the limitations of what you can ask for are. So its left in this hazy realm where certain problems seem arbitrary.
That’s what I mean. I can understand why people may want to do the True Demon ending, but that is the ending where there is no restoring the world at all. We are killing off everyone permanently. That is not better. I only mean that being forced to choose between the three Reason holders might make the True Demon Ending more appealing by comparison… even though it is perhaps the most despair-inducing ending.
It doesn't help that there is a tonal clash in the writing. The reason endings are written as "these people are a bit unhinged and going for a radical shift in how the world will operate due to it" whereas tde is written as "you are a cool demon having a power fantasy." The negatives of that are glossed over at best. Whereas with the reasons, you barely see any positivity until the literal finale itself.
The problem with megaten is that it could explore ideologies in different situations, but it always tries to go back to the idea that the only options are supporting the modern status quo, or radical extreme stuff that is definitely okay with massive death along the way. That's fine for some stories, but they should switch it up a bit more. Nevermind that they are usually unwilling to show any of the extremism or violence inherent in the status quo. Except in the weird-ass contextless version in V that doesn't feel like its really making a real point about anything.
If you really could change the rules of the world itself to make something new the new baseline it doesn't necessarily have to act like only violent or unhinged people would want it. You could easily have a story of a fairly even tempered person simply thinking that some other dynamic would be better. But they keep going back to the idea that it is "pessimistic" to want this, because optimism means believing that the current way of things is already headed somewhere good.
Its just a thing with them and missed potential. They don't need to tell the same story over and over in different ways. We should honestly get a game closely tied to nocturne that actually inverts it. They use the same terms like vortex world and kagutsuchi, but in this story, the world left behind was actually unsalvagable to the extent that clinging to it can be depicted as the extremism, and the people wanting different things having a more reasonable take as a contrast.
Even *that* though would be hard, due to the very nature of how nocturne is written. Even though you are technically starting the world up again from the time it ended, and like devil survivor 2 it might have the same people come back in it, they pass it off as having to be willing to end the world to make a new one. Which codes it from the beginning as something only a crazy person who doesn't value life would do. No one ever even acts like they care whether it still counts as them being killed if you bring back a new world. So it codes hikawa as someone you can't easily sympathize with from the beginning.
One of the main ways they code who you are or aren't supposed to like is that some people will refuse to kill people (but not demons), and others will just not even address that wiping out huge amounts is killing. Its a bit disingenuous.
I think that Nocturne's reps were designed to be uncomfortable and unsettling. Basically everything in the game feels alien, and that feeling extends to the Reasons and their representatives. Personally I kinda dig it, I wouldn't want it for every single installment, but it feels right in Nocturne.
>With people like this, I can understand why many players opt for the True Demon Ending.
I feel like the simplest answer is that TDE has the most content. I guarantee you if Chiaki offered you several exclusive bosses and DANTE FROM THE DEVIL MAY CRY SERIES instead of TDE, she'd be just as "popular."
She's already the most popular Reason ending based on trophies and achievements. Been monitoring this since the HD remaster was released and she's remained in the lead ever since.
I was most in tune with the Shijima reason, but I rejected Hikawa at the last minute just because he was an ass that attacked me for no reason. For real, I think that if I'm rejecting eternal peace just because I didn't like some random dude, I was not cut for such peace at all.
I always read Isamu and Chiaki's extremism as getting lost in the sauce of the vortex word. They both have those personality tendencies of escapism and classism respectively but those negative aspects are amplified by their negative experiences in the vortex world. I do wish their relationship with you was built up more so their change would feel more tragic
I was never inclined to help any of the reasons. They all came of as crazy, narcissistic, or just flat out selfish. So combine lack of motivation with super hard end boss and content, and we have my preferred ending of True Demon.
The whole point of Nocturne (and most of SMT in general) is that everything but neutral is a trash bad ending and you're wrong for picking it. The only games with multiple endings that subvert this trope are the new endings in SJR as well as the DeSu sub-series. All the reasons in Nocturne suck because that's the point, they're all bad people and you're wrong for following any of their ideologies. Freedom is objectively the best ending and the only truely "good" ending. You even get to keep your powers but they are sealed away until another threat arises so you can live as a regular human. True Demon in Nocturne is just the edgelord secret ending and is just the White Ending from SMT4 and people only pick this one because it has a ton of bonus content. If you could do the Labyrinth of Amala to unlock something like True Freedom rather than True Demon by punching Lucifer in the face and rejecting his offer, making you the servant of the great will/axiom who will free all worlds from corruption and evil, turning the markings blue and granting you inherent pierce and auto-crit almost everyone would go for that ending instead of True Demon since it has the same content (Amala+Dante/Raido+buff+True Final Boss) but with a better ending. The Sun is just a computer anyways that accepts any proposal for a new world no matter how bad that world is, it's not God. The actual God, (Axiom) not the Sun-shaped computer, wants to return the world to normal because the conception is only supposed to happen once humanity reaches a breaking point when the world was fine in Nocturne's timeline.
Yuko isn't *quite* fraternizing inappropriately with her students that I can tell, but I always found it very creepy that Chiaki and Isamu seem aware she has a crush on you. Her student.
Sagahaki is quite evil, but technically has more integrity than Chiaki, who isn't strong before Gozu-Tennoh bequeaths his power to her, or Isamu, who is anything but independent.
There IS an avatar for the Reason you are describing, and it's Futomimi. The Manikins are the "meager," in the Vortex World, and their champion represents the flags for equality. This is opposed by all of the elites being championed by "real," humans, as well as by Lucifer and the more self-interested Sagahaki.
YHWH approves of the equality Reason, but not the True Demon one.
I think it's deliberate that the other potential champions all have serious shortcomings, with perhaps the exception of Futomimi, who I saw as simply too good to live.
No ending in Nocturne has a real upside.
Yosuga ends in a world of fear and endless wrath
Noah ends in permenant isolation
Hikawa ends in a world of complete stillness
Aradia/Yuko just prolongs the inevitable
Neutral ends in another world of stillness
TDE means the direct end of all existence and theoretically can just lead BACK into Yosuga
>It still surprises me no of these people ever thought to develop a Reason for a utopian world where everyone can live in peace while still having their free will. The point of the Law alignment is that a utopia is impossible with free will and the Chaos and Neutral alignments don't think a utopia is even worth it with out it.
Tbf, true demon ending isn't any better. You are just ending humanity permanently, so that things even more violent can take over. >It still surprises me no of these people ever thought to develop a Reason for a utopian world where everyone can live in peace while still having their free will. Very telling about our alignment representative’s views on other people, don’t it? Tbf, I feel like there is meant to be some kind of implicit subtext that you can't just ask for everything to be perfect. You have to ask for something specific, and accept the consequences. Hikawa never said his goal was for people to not have free will. Its just presented as that a universal peace de facto means people are oriented to peace, which is interpreted as it making it difficult to do otherwise. The issue of course is that the game never actually says what the limitations of what you can ask for are. So its left in this hazy realm where certain problems seem arbitrary.
That’s what I mean. I can understand why people may want to do the True Demon ending, but that is the ending where there is no restoring the world at all. We are killing off everyone permanently. That is not better. I only mean that being forced to choose between the three Reason holders might make the True Demon Ending more appealing by comparison… even though it is perhaps the most despair-inducing ending.
It doesn't help that there is a tonal clash in the writing. The reason endings are written as "these people are a bit unhinged and going for a radical shift in how the world will operate due to it" whereas tde is written as "you are a cool demon having a power fantasy." The negatives of that are glossed over at best. Whereas with the reasons, you barely see any positivity until the literal finale itself. The problem with megaten is that it could explore ideologies in different situations, but it always tries to go back to the idea that the only options are supporting the modern status quo, or radical extreme stuff that is definitely okay with massive death along the way. That's fine for some stories, but they should switch it up a bit more. Nevermind that they are usually unwilling to show any of the extremism or violence inherent in the status quo. Except in the weird-ass contextless version in V that doesn't feel like its really making a real point about anything. If you really could change the rules of the world itself to make something new the new baseline it doesn't necessarily have to act like only violent or unhinged people would want it. You could easily have a story of a fairly even tempered person simply thinking that some other dynamic would be better. But they keep going back to the idea that it is "pessimistic" to want this, because optimism means believing that the current way of things is already headed somewhere good. Its just a thing with them and missed potential. They don't need to tell the same story over and over in different ways. We should honestly get a game closely tied to nocturne that actually inverts it. They use the same terms like vortex world and kagutsuchi, but in this story, the world left behind was actually unsalvagable to the extent that clinging to it can be depicted as the extremism, and the people wanting different things having a more reasonable take as a contrast. Even *that* though would be hard, due to the very nature of how nocturne is written. Even though you are technically starting the world up again from the time it ended, and like devil survivor 2 it might have the same people come back in it, they pass it off as having to be willing to end the world to make a new one. Which codes it from the beginning as something only a crazy person who doesn't value life would do. No one ever even acts like they care whether it still counts as them being killed if you bring back a new world. So it codes hikawa as someone you can't easily sympathize with from the beginning. One of the main ways they code who you are or aren't supposed to like is that some people will refuse to kill people (but not demons), and others will just not even address that wiping out huge amounts is killing. Its a bit disingenuous.
I think that Nocturne's reps were designed to be uncomfortable and unsettling. Basically everything in the game feels alien, and that feeling extends to the Reasons and their representatives. Personally I kinda dig it, I wouldn't want it for every single installment, but it feels right in Nocturne.
>With people like this, I can understand why many players opt for the True Demon Ending. I feel like the simplest answer is that TDE has the most content. I guarantee you if Chiaki offered you several exclusive bosses and DANTE FROM THE DEVIL MAY CRY SERIES instead of TDE, she'd be just as "popular."
She's already the most popular Reason ending based on trophies and achievements. Been monitoring this since the HD remaster was released and she's remained in the lead ever since.
I was most in tune with the Shijima reason, but I rejected Hikawa at the last minute just because he was an ass that attacked me for no reason. For real, I think that if I'm rejecting eternal peace just because I didn't like some random dude, I was not cut for such peace at all.
I always read Isamu and Chiaki's extremism as getting lost in the sauce of the vortex word. They both have those personality tendencies of escapism and classism respectively but those negative aspects are amplified by their negative experiences in the vortex world. I do wish their relationship with you was built up more so their change would feel more tragic
I was never inclined to help any of the reasons. They all came of as crazy, narcissistic, or just flat out selfish. So combine lack of motivation with super hard end boss and content, and we have my preferred ending of True Demon.
The whole point of Nocturne (and most of SMT in general) is that everything but neutral is a trash bad ending and you're wrong for picking it. The only games with multiple endings that subvert this trope are the new endings in SJR as well as the DeSu sub-series. All the reasons in Nocturne suck because that's the point, they're all bad people and you're wrong for following any of their ideologies. Freedom is objectively the best ending and the only truely "good" ending. You even get to keep your powers but they are sealed away until another threat arises so you can live as a regular human. True Demon in Nocturne is just the edgelord secret ending and is just the White Ending from SMT4 and people only pick this one because it has a ton of bonus content. If you could do the Labyrinth of Amala to unlock something like True Freedom rather than True Demon by punching Lucifer in the face and rejecting his offer, making you the servant of the great will/axiom who will free all worlds from corruption and evil, turning the markings blue and granting you inherent pierce and auto-crit almost everyone would go for that ending instead of True Demon since it has the same content (Amala+Dante/Raido+buff+True Final Boss) but with a better ending. The Sun is just a computer anyways that accepts any proposal for a new world no matter how bad that world is, it's not God. The actual God, (Axiom) not the Sun-shaped computer, wants to return the world to normal because the conception is only supposed to happen once humanity reaches a breaking point when the world was fine in Nocturne's timeline.
Yuko isn't *quite* fraternizing inappropriately with her students that I can tell, but I always found it very creepy that Chiaki and Isamu seem aware she has a crush on you. Her student. Sagahaki is quite evil, but technically has more integrity than Chiaki, who isn't strong before Gozu-Tennoh bequeaths his power to her, or Isamu, who is anything but independent. There IS an avatar for the Reason you are describing, and it's Futomimi. The Manikins are the "meager," in the Vortex World, and their champion represents the flags for equality. This is opposed by all of the elites being championed by "real," humans, as well as by Lucifer and the more self-interested Sagahaki. YHWH approves of the equality Reason, but not the True Demon one. I think it's deliberate that the other potential champions all have serious shortcomings, with perhaps the exception of Futomimi, who I saw as simply too good to live.
No ending in Nocturne has a real upside. Yosuga ends in a world of fear and endless wrath Noah ends in permenant isolation Hikawa ends in a world of complete stillness Aradia/Yuko just prolongs the inevitable Neutral ends in another world of stillness TDE means the direct end of all existence and theoretically can just lead BACK into Yosuga