Finished Chiral Redundancy part 1. It's hard to explain what I liked about this event without big walls of text filled with spoilers about many of the scenes in the event. There is a very high amount of scenes, or even lines that stuck to me in this story chapter
Without going crazy about spoilers, this chapter feels like it finally gave a proper conclusion to the starting "Groza Squad". These original dolls which were basically abandoned in a corner as the story started to focus on fan favorites from the first game after the underwhelming reactions to the first 6 story chapters have probably gotten their strongest showing in the game so far. Questions from the very first chapter have been answered, puzzle pieces have finally found their place. The story also continues once again from all the previous events in a satisfying way and highlights how much better the campaign continuity is becoming. The voice acting was excellent, I always found the use of the soundtrack to be a strong point in GF2 and 1 (and even Neural Cloud) but I feel this time the team surpassed themselves, and the writing was so clear and vivid I could literally see the scenes described by the text come to life as I closed my eyes, in fact one of the things that disappointed me was the overall lack of CGs in the first half (and in general, although the in-engine cutscene at the end was amazing), in particular that one scene with Juno, Nemesis, Krolik and Sakura, and the follow up with Darture screamed for a visual representation of what was happening. Although I think there were some parts that dragged a bit too much. Faster speaking and a way to avoid pauses or repeating certain concepts a bit too much is still escaping the writers
The commander knows quite well dolls can be, let's say, peculiar, and he knows even more how important is to know which words to use and how to approach them (see Basti's event as soon as he learned which doll he had to convince to not blow herself up). But this time the main party truly had to deal with an actual mentally unstable doll. Dolls for all intent and purpose are terminators in a cute anime girls skin, but they are still terminators. It's because they know they are terminators they also know they must control themselves otherwise they could very easily break the commander spine with a hug, or rip his arm off while grabbing his hand. Hell we've seen it like when Jiangyu casually kicked some poor guys head off with a kick in chapter 8.75. And so here we are, a doll that's even more powerful than a terminator is having troubles controlling herself, and the story turns basically into a horror movie. "Ops, I just involuntarily ripped Nemesis to shreds and separated Krolik's torso from her legs, by bad tee-hee ; P ", "Oh, did I just throw my other self into an industrial incinerator? Well, things happen". This is the most terrifying story chapter in the game and this is the game where the average villain makes Mengele looks like a normal physician, but the genius part was letting the player actually see what's inside these mentally unstable thoughs by having so many scenes seen from the point of both Groza and "Groza". Such a small thing but it elevates the story so much, and it's also a reminder the commander is not some empty player avatar but a character in this world of his own. The ending is a complete actually everyone is fine cop-out, but fuck it, I like these type of endings
I do have some issues. First how did Groza get out of the incinerator and crawl back to the Elmo just like that? Why not just have those Oathsworn find her and have Vasily contact the commander about this? Personally I think this would have increased the "horror" factor even more. And while I get the answer can just be "the stars told me : )" what exactly was Nemesis plan here? Don't worry bro, I just really need to get myself killed for real at this very moment, in this very way, so that my actual super real original body with fully immune super powers which conveniently has all of my memories despite being stuck under some rubbles in a forgotten place can save the day and also save "Groza", which is why I planned the Android 16 gambit all along. Like uhh, good job Elif? It's not like we needed even more people "touched by god" on the Elmo
And man, I know I keep hammering this point, but geez, it's like Darture was perfectly engineered to be the most bullyable being in the world. I can't, in any way or shape, take these Gen 3 jobbers seriously. I can't stop thinking about how Dandelion just fried Cocoon in a second, or how Darture literally "blasted off again" out of the Elmo window. Please just put them out of their misery. Also, will Lentine and Lean S. Kennedy ever be more than a 2 scene cameo at this point? You could remove them from the story and nothing would change
Well, the story will continue again in 2.5 weeks, it's time to bring our favorite attack dog back. Oh, it's that what the final scene with Kalina was setting up?
Don't worry I will be back.
