Heck, I love Poyo-Poyo's route. It was the very last
route I played, and it was so darn good that it somehow redeemed the whole game
in my eyes. It roused me from the comfortable slumber the other routes had put
me in, blew my mind and made my heart skip a few beats; and as far as I'm
concerned, it's the only route worth its salt in Period Cube. Let's get
on with the praise! (Spoilers ahead!)
Why Poyo-Poyo's route is the greatest:
— Of all the bachelors, Shiki is the one we get to know best — as a matter of fact, he's the only beau we get to know extentively before we can romance him, and that makes all the difference in the world. By the time his route becomes available, we've heard about him so much that we already formed an opinion about him and that he feels somehow familiar to us; yet at the same time, we can't help but be curious about what he's really like and what makes him tick. As a result, Kazuha's romance with him feels much more natural than her romances with the rest of the crew and flows much more effortlessly. Also, the whole story is kickstarted by Kazuha's strong desire to find Shiki; so it feels only fair that said story should end up with her getting her paws on him at long last — in all possible ways.
 |
| He's bringing sexy back. |
— Shiki is a vibrant mix of tenderness, affection, passion and lust — and so is his route and his relationship with Kazuha. This is the only route that explores the full emotional spectrum of a romantic relationship: the combination of Poyo-Poyo's kindness, cuteness and good-natured banter and Shiki's intense love and repressed lust for Kazuha creates a potent and heart-wrenching mix that has way more impact than anything you can find in the other routes. And talking about Shiki's intense love and repressed lust, this guy simply delivers the single best declaration of love I've ever read in an otome game. Every otome beau can come up with run-of-the-mill sentences such as "I love you so much" and "I want to be by your side forever"; but Shiki cranks up the passion and comes up with a declaration that makes you feel the love & the lust. Heck, I swear I fell in love with him for a split second when I saw him bare his heart in such an ardent way.
— This is a route that respects its peers. I usually
despise true routes for their annoying habit of casting all the routes that
preceeded them as redundant and pointless and making the player feel like
they've been betting on the wrong horse all that time — and I like Shiki's
route for abstaining from all that. As a matter of fact, all PC routes
have the exact same outcome, namely the destruction of the Period Cube and
World V and Shiki's return to the real world sans memories; the only thing that
varies is the beau that winds up on Kazuha's arm. Shiki's route is what all
true routes should be: a route that explains the story's ins and outs while
coexisting peacefully with its fellow regular routes. The fact that it can be
unlocked at the halfway point depending on which routes you played first is
quite telling: this is but a mere route amongst others, a route that ain't a
league of its own.
How Poyo-Poyo's route — and by extension the whole story — could have been
better:
— Scrap the whole Akashic Records deus ex machina. It's a fascinating concept I'd certainly like to learn more about, but it has no place in PC's story. If we assume that Shiki could have discovered a way to separate the soul from the body on his own, we have to admit that the Akashic Records have been implemented solely to allow Kazuha to go back in time, avoid the accident and spare Shiki the whole descent into madness he had to endure after said accident; and not only is it a frustrating plot device that comes completely out of left field, but it also cancels the whole Shiki route and makes it null and void. Now look, game: I don't want to be told that all the developments I witnessed and rooted for never happened, nor do I want to be fed a bloody ellipsis and told that Kazuha fell in love with Shiki this time around without getting the opportunity to see said falling in love with my own eyes. What I wanted was to see Kazuha uncover and acknowledge her love for Shiki in Shiki's route. If she fell head over heels in love with Hiroya in a couple of days despite never seeing him as anything more than a friend before that, then surely it would have been possible to do the same thing with Shiki, now wouldn't it? Just let her realise that her feelings for Shiki are deeper and stronger than she thought and come to terms with them, and voila! Definitely less far-fetched and more believable in the story's context than that whole time travel crap.
— Concurrently, tone down Shiki's endeavours in Arcadia and cut down on the insanity, so that he can live on without being tortured by remorse and doesn't require a reboot to live a happy life. Scrap the player killing, the nocturnal fondling, the experimentation on Natsu, the jealousy bouts and the overarching sick desire to preserve Kazuha's soul and memories forever like a twisted trophy — all the more so as it's highly improbable that someone could be driven over the edge so severely just because their stepsister landed in a non-lethal accident and lost a couple of trivial memories. Replace those twisted antics with more interactions with Kazuha in Arcadia, and let the girl realise that she sees Shiki as more than a mere stepbrother. Proceed then to reveal that Kazuha loves Shiki and that they can be together in the real world, and make Shiki drop his mad plan to focus on his dream come true. Arcadia players are spared, everybody is freed from Server V and can go on with their lives, Shiki and Kazuha become an item, The End. More romance, less craziness, and happier players — both Arcadia and Period Cube ones.
— Better still, scrap the whole World V, Amadeus and Period Cube shebang
entirely, and also scrap that lame accident while you're at it. Use the
following premise instead: Shiki is buckling under the pressure of his
unrequited love for Kazuha, and he's recently become an hikikomori that
plays some Arcadia all day long to get away from the dire reality of his life.
Everybody is at a loss, but ingenious little Kazuha comes up with the idea of
creating her own Arcadia avatar to reach out to Shiki from inside the game.
Proceed then to slowly reveal Shiki's feelings and make Kazuha realise the true
depth of her love for him, which she had never dared to acknowledge in earnest
because of their family situation. Then crown it all with a good ending in
which they end up together and Shiki goes back to his happy straight-A student
self, and a bad ending in which he doesn't dare to confess to Kazuha and
retreats even deeper into his room and Arcadia. The beauty of that premise is
that it would also make the other routes more interesting, by allowing Kazuha
and her beau du jour to interact both in Arcadia and the real world and get to
know each other over a much longer time period. Cherry on the cake, you don't
even need to alter Shiki's destiny in these other routes: just make him loose
his memories because of the sheer shock of seeing Kazuha fall in love with
another man, and you're covered. (Heck, it's not even that improbable IRL.) Call the whole thing 'Arcadia: Shackles of
Love&Despair' and you're good to go! Such a straightforward and unfussy
story would flow much more naturally and spare us the many plotholes PC bristles
with.
So, you may ask, you declare your love for Shiki's route yet claim in the next
breath that it should have been entirely different? Yup, that's totally what
I'm doing. I loved Shiki's route, the passion and intensity of it; but had it
unfolded the way I just described, I would have adored it. I would
certainly have adored the other routes as well and ultimately purchased a
physical copy of Period Cube, which is something that's definitely not
going to happen with the story being the mess it is. That's sad, because there
was some potential for stellar love stories and even — let's dream wildly —
dashes of RPG-inspired gameplay. Well, maybe the next romantic VN will prove
better — because indeed, I got my paws on a couple more of these during the
January PSN sale; and since I'm still very much in the mood for love, I'll put
them to the Shall We Get Physical test without delay. Better strike while the
iron is hot, indeed! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
Kumiko13 February 2018 at 12:12
Oh, the story
you made is so much better! I must admit that despite liking Shiki's route, I
also felt the whole deus ex machina thing was horrible. And things like the
nocturnal fondling almost ruined the route for me. Especially since it's so
darn obvious that Kazuha is already in love with him...just remember how her
friend at the beginning of the game says that she's always texting her brother,
or how Hiroya jealously remarks that Kazuha cherishes her brother more than
anything after she murmured his name while sleeping. Pretty obvious there's
something going on there more than sisterly love, so there was no reason for
poor Shiki to torture himself so much...
If you want a game that does good on the whole Akashic Records thing, play
devil survivor 2, and pick the best route for your best friend. That's all I'm saying.
Kumiko13 February 2018 at 12:47
I just realized
your story could have made Hiroya's story so much cuter. Imagine Kazuha uses an
avatar that does not look like her (so as to not tip Shiki off), and meets up
Hiroya in the game. She recognizes him and, since she's new at games, pesters
to join his party because she finds his familiarity comforting. The plan is to
get good at the game so Shiki (an MVP at this point) actually looks her way
in-game. Obviously this is gonna take a few months.
Now, Hiroya does not know it's her, and begins to fall for her. Which makes him
really happy, since it means he's getting over Kazuha. Eventually, he schedules
for them to meet in real life, and Kazuha accepts because at this point she
realizes how much she missed Hiroya after middle school. Hiroya is very shocked
that it's her and doesn't react the best at first, but ends up realizing that
he can never escape falling in love with Kazuha, so after a while he stops
being so cold and confesses to her (maybe after popping in the middle of the
game to help her take out a boss that was out her league, since after their
disastrous meet-up she was forced to go solo).
Give us a few more scenes (so we can see them acting cute to make up for that
brush off) and Hiroya eventually convinces Kazuha to go confront Shiki in real
life. Shiki is not happy she's with someone else, but since it's Hiroya, who
has been together with her since childhood, it makes the rejection a bit easier
to swallow. He keeps his feelings to himself and attempts to go back to his A+
student life, though it's clear that he's still depressed.
And that's it! Way better than what we got. I usually like complicated stories
with supernatural or sci-fi themes, but sometimes the simpler route is the
best.
Rei's story could have also been so much better. Scrap his woobie story and
make it so he likes solo'ing because it's an escape for his idol life. He ends
up relenting to teach Kazuha the game after he sees her mess up so many times,
but only temporarily you see! It ends up turning into months though, and he
keeps leaning on her more and more to keep his mind of the stress of being an
idol. His career ends up taking a turn for the worse, which leads Kazuha to
meet him in the middle of the streets while he's emo'ing and cheering him up,
but neither of them realizes who the other is.
Thanks to the support of "both" Kazuha's, he works up the guts to
quit his idol career and pursue something better for him, and ends up wanting
to encourage Kazuha to confront her brother as well. They meet up in real life
so he can accompany her, then he realizes his gaming buddy was also the same
naive girl who kept encouraging him, and romance flies.
Shiki ends up the same way, maybe a bit worse since she rejected him for a
stranger, Rei and Kazuha end up going out, the ending shows that Rei ended up
finding something he really loves. Much better than his woobie crap.
Kumiko13 February 2018 at 12:58
Oh, and Rei
also uses a different avatar since, you know, he's an idol in real life and he
doesn't want to get caught in the game. Seriously, the fact that he didn't do
that in the actual game is so retarded.
As for Toru, it could be that they meet in the game, Kazuha joins his party to
get better, and ends up getting a crush on him. They start dating in-game, but
Toru is relutant to meet up in real life...and Kazuha understands why once she
actually meets him. After the shock of how different he is from his game
persona passes, she keeps wanting to meet him, and eventually realizes that she
still likes him, which gives Toru a great confidence boost and he ends up
cleaning up his bitter attitude some. Blah, blah, confront Shiki in real life,
etc.
As for Riku, uhhh...I have no idea. Make his in-game avatar actually look like
a girl? Zain and Minato just get cut from the game, replace them with Silent or
a new character altogether.
Isleif14 February 2018 at 11:55
"It's so
darn obvious that Kazuha is already in love with him": That's exactly what
I was thinking too, right from the first scene you mentioned. There's also that
scene where the Forte crew teases Kazuha for being so possessive of her
good-looking aniki; and Kazuha's general dedication to finding Shiki just
speaks volumes, just like the fact that the writers made them stepsiblings
rather than blood siblings. I mean, it's obvious that there was something fishy
there right off the bat.
The stories you made for the other guys are really neat, and I'd have loved to
play them. There was just so much potential for a simpler and more efficient
brand of story that would have preserved the MMORPG setting, which is the
game's main draw and asset. Pity the writers wanted to go the convoluted way
and ruined everything in the process.
Hate to post
here again, but I actually replayed the game today (trying to wash away the
pain of spending 300+ hours on story of seasons) and I realized that despite
all its flaws, I would actually not want a more realistic plot. Not only
because I adore fantasy and supernatural games (in fact, I might have ignored
this game if not for the setting), but I absolutely love dark moments.
And holy crap, for a game that feels so innocent most of the time, this game
gets really dark. Those bad ends are absolutely delicious, and there's no way
we can have them in another setting. Zain trying to merge with her was also
awesome in that sense, so I can't think ill of his route too much. It stays
purely for the creep factor.
There are ways it could be improved, mostly by doubling the length of the
routes and having more time skips so Kazuha spends at least a month in Acardia
with each guy. Another thing to do is to just write out the Akashic Records
entirely; yeah, what Shiki and Natsu accomplished without them would seem to be
a bit much, but it could fit this world without that much more fanfare. Whereas
the Akashic Records are just a full on Deus Ex Machina.
Also, despite liking dark stuff, Demento is absolute garbage and his route
should be cut. Zain and Shiki fulfill the creepy criteria much better than him,
whereas he just comes off as an abusive psycho. Not delicious at all! Plus, on
my replay, I just realized that his route branch is completely messed up...I
mean, Toru, despite his flaws, just spent that whole time being super nice to
her but Kazuha falls in love with a man who did nothing but threaten and hit
her? Ugh.
If we must have another bachelor, just make a route branch off of Libera's so
we can chase either Mergo or Jocus (because I don't think Sirent is the type to
fall for Kazuha but those two, especially Jocus, are). Speaking of Libera, his
route wasn't bad, but he was kinda useless to the plot...I'd rather have a
Natsu route somehow, or have him also be replaced by one of the guys from Forte
so we can have them both! And if Libera is gone, we can have Hiroya come up
with the lag solution in his route, so we do not need the Akashic Records Deus
Ex Machina to fix his ending. There, now just change Shiki's route a little and
the game is a lot better.
(I just really want a Jocus route. Why is it that the one time I want a route
with the playboy, the game denies me and gives me a psycho instead? I had to
suffer through the garbage that was Ikki's route in Amnesia but no Jocus, this
world is unfair!)
Ah, well; the
game is what it is anyway, so better make the most of it, right? ^^
Overall, it's always awesome to replay a game one had mixed feelings about and
reassess it positively in the process. It happened to me lately with
Code:Realize; and holy crap, was I happy to find some good in that game after
all. Apart from the obvious desire to make the most of one's gaming purchases,
I think there's some deeper instinct at work there: as someone who loves owning
and playing games, I have this deep-seated desire to love all the games I buy
and play, hence that feeling of joy and relief when I give a game I didn't like
a second chance and end up loving it. ^^
That's not to say that I always give games I don't like a second chance or that
I always end up liking them when I do, mind you. I pawned Xenoblade Chronicles
3D and Ever Oasis without a second thought; and after replaying Pokemon Mystery
Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and still not liking it, I got rid of it without
regret as well.
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