Post by Kingmog13 in A Hellish Journey comments

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NGL i really want to like the VN but the fact that the characters what you to sympathize with them when the commit monstrous acts annoy me

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like Thayne annoys me as his demon told him full well that he'd have to kill everyone in his village his mother and uncle included to save himself and he went along with it then is surprised when his act of self-centeredness/self preservation gets his mother and uncle killed and he murders the innocent.

how then MC kills a WHOLE KINGDOM because he had a grudge with the king and the knights(even though he was the one that fucked up and broke a rule and if he along with the king he might have gotten exiled instead of dying) but wants you be sad for him cause he was abused as a kid.

or

Red who is sad his old friends and lover was killed by holy knights when demons kill like that for no reason at all and the holy knights were justified as demons are well know do bring havoc wherever they go. but the game constantly shows this as an traumatic and undeserved event that happened to him when my dude you have no qualms killing others for fun.

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i don't mind evil characters or anything as i find them really fun and interesting but i have problems with that when they refuse to acknowledge their actions as evil and try to appear sympathetic when they arnt.

note im only in the arena part of the game but i have a feeling this wont change in the future

JustPassingBy1 year ago(+4)(-4)

I would say I enjoy the visual novel right now as I find the qualiaties working for it arent really enough to put me off but I do agree that I think the story would highly benefit from actually standing by and admitting that its characters are not good people and some very much evil in nature.

One of the first things our MC does is destroy a entire kingdom and several innocent people in it, I can very much enjoy a not ideal hero like MC leaning or being evil but the story should stand for the fact he did infact do these things.
Later on we learn his backstory and its tragic and sad sure but... he killed literally a countless number of children be it directly or indirectly he did that whole "Killing a Kingdom" thing does include very much children so he is kinda becoming the type of person he oh so hated yet the story makes it out to be a thing we should be celebrating and then cry when we learn his sad backstory.

You can not have both a killing cold blooded monster murdering people easily but following its own goal and a tragic misunderstood figure we should feel bad for because they lost 1 single person or 2 they were close to and not address the underlying hyporcrisy in his actions.

So while I do enjoy this VN and I consider it just some fun not to get tooooo deeply carried away in over interpreting I do recognise its flaws in not fully realising the characters actions and how much of a horrible person they are being.

Kingmog131 year ago(-1)

I agree with most of what you said but I think "Just having fun" and not interpreting the characters does a disservice to the story. the reason we play is to get to know the characters(and the NSFW parts) and if the story does that poorly in a way it should be pointed out. the moral hypocrisy makes me not want to see half of the characters succeed as to me they are terrible people that refuse to acknowledge that. like being hot can only get you so far when killing a whole kingdom women and children included is on your resume and your reasoning was "for the lols" but still expect people to be sad for you when you talk about your backstory (yes im talking about aki). I cant force you to pay attention to the characterization but the fact that you need to UN-immerse yourself instead of getting invested shows issues in the writing. at least in the morality department. My overall opinion of the game is much higher but still.

RandomAccountIUse1 year ago (2 edits) (+1)(-1)

(this is my second account as my PC is like 2000km away so I made a new one)

I am not trying to say it does the moral aspects well or that Aki or his companions are justified in their actions or even that this part of the story is one that should be ignored.

The flaws are present and should be acknowledged and I may have not expressed myself very well in my first comment.

I do recognise these issues in the writing and characterisation of the characters and how they are being very much terrible people but hypocritically expect everyone to feel sorry for them because “I lost TWO people close to me!” Or “The Knights murdered ONE person close to me!”

I am saying that despite that flaw I can still find enjoyment in the visual novel in the aspects I find work well or even great. So despite this being a pretty obvious flaw it does not ruin MY enjoyment as much.

If this is however something you can not get over or find to be impossible to look past for the moments that do work then that is totally justified, you read/play whatever you like and whatever you think works. I am just saying how this is for me not a total deal breaker and I can enjoy it.

It is however really simple to fix the moral issue.

Just remove Aki destroying the whole kingdom bit with 0 issues in a instant just let him kill the king himself and that’s it.

It would still keep the aspect of the ruler of the gladiator city hearing of the kings death and that creating some issues with the black ice Aki ever so openly uses but it would also fit more with how they behave in the rest of the story and their characters.

Aki had acquaintances in the kingdom and people who were nice to him as seen in his flashbacks and he when in other cities or kingdom or even immediately after meeting the other demons behaves nothing like this city devouring sociopath or this very cold person so I really do not see the characterisation of him in the beginning fitting with the rest of the story.

These tiny fixes can be applied to every other character and all just makes more sense except maybe red who may need a bigger rewrite making him not a literal psychopath who multiple times tried and would have totally killed us if we didn’t give it our all to LIVE.

itch.io

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