Nice one! I will try to find the one that made me go like that, currently looking at the transcript but it’s big 
How many games are you playing at the moment by the way? Seems to me like a lot??
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Suikoden, Danganronpa and this one mainly.
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Ok I need to ask for confirmation about something because I’m really confused now. I apologize if this is discussed above but I’m not technically done with the door so I’m not reading spoilers yet:
Yukimasa is the merchant Pauline was in love with, right? But then why was there a different merchant with the same sprite being killed by Bestea early on? And why was the merchant nameless for so long only for Pauline to suddenly drop his name? That makes it even more confusing for me.
Or is a different character? But then who?
Maybe I should just finish the door and read the spoilers but I have no idea how much I have left and I need to make sure I’m not completely clueless…
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I think given where you seem to be it should be ok if I answer. Yukimasa is Pauline’s lover, yes. The structure of the door was very much intentionally trying to mislead us into thinking the first merchant killed by the beast was who she was looking for instead. I forget the details of the name thing you’re talking about, but the sprite is actually what I just posted and tagged people to mention because we were a little confused – it was Yukimasa all along. I just checked a video to see exactly how it’s presented and what the VN does is flash the Yukimasa sprite when he makes the decision to let the merchant in, it fades and then the merchant speaks. It’s a sleight of hand trick. What’s really going on is a flash of Yukimasa perceiving himself differently as he is acting and being treated like a person while he’s still not as firmly committed to the idea that he’s a beast for sure, yet.
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I was the same confused. 
(and a bit mad too that I got mislead). You are close to the end now I believe, hopefully it will all make sense then!
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Ok I’m finally done, time to go back through this thread reading the spoilers…
Before I do that, my raw impressions:
door 3
I expected that the beast was a normal human with mental issues that got ostracized by the villagers and turned feral. I definitely did not connect the dots with the merchant however, the sprite thing was enough for me to rule it out completely. I feel like maybe it was counterproductive in a way? Sure, it did make the reveal more surprising and impactful, but I think that if I had suspected that the beast was the merchant all along it would have made the whole Pauline arc more suspenseful and engaging for me because as it is I kept thinking “the guy you’re looking for is dead and you’re probably going to die too” and couldn’t really see the point of that.
Also maybe I missed it but the merchant is never referenced by name until the reveal and that made it all the more confusing for me. If you’re going to give him a name, why not establish that before? That added to my confusion. And to make it trickier, it’s sometimes spelled in katakana and sometimes in kanji and it took me a little while to connect the two. But that’s just 外国人 problems, can’t blame the authors for that.
I’m not sure what to think of the part after the reveal. I really did not enjoy how much time was spent on the death of Pauline and the torture scene in the boat after, that felt a bit much. The game is pretty stingy with original drawings usually but we did get 3 variants of the picture of Pauline agonizing! Priorities…
Also did we really need to go through all 10 broken fingers? I got the point before we were done with the first hand… I was worried that he would do the toes as well. That felt torture-porn-ish.
I also think that it would have been interesting if Yukimasa’s psychopathic tendencies had been hinted at earlier instead of being dumped on us at the tail end. Once again, the authors wanted to preserve their big twist so they decided to hide that stuff, but the story feels a bit disconnected as a result IMO.
I hope that the death of the 白い髪の娘 is not final and she’ll come back in future stories.
I think so far I actually preferred the first door. The story felt a bit more focused and tight.
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I agree a lot with your comments, though there were also some things I found interesting that you didn’t mention, now you just have to go re-read the 80 comments to find out!
And congrats on finishing door in hard mode, you get 5 stars 
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Yeah I think my current reaction is mainly based off of the last 1/3 of the chapter that I read this past few days, the rest I played a little while ago so it’s not quite as fresh in my mind, but I recall enjoying the start of the chapter.
I also remember wanting to make the joke that the least realistic part of the story was the beast learning fluent Japanese so quickly, but given the reveal I don’t know if the joke really works. I mean, in-story it’s probably not even meant to be Japanese anyway.
EDIT: oh, you’ve all made this joke already. Well.
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Yeah that worked well, which IMO makes the sprite trick unnecessary and cheap. I think even without it I would have naturally connected the dots when Pauline is introduced.
I do recall finding it strange how the sprite pops up briefly and not during the entire dialogue, especially given how so many characters are simply not given any sprite in this game, maybe that should have been enough of a clue that the game was pulling a fast one.
That really felt like a fairy tale, but the old-school version and not the Disney “clean” version. I enjoyed that quite a bit, I find these complex morals more interesting that the black-and-white americanized versions.
I don’t really agree with that, Bestea explicitly asks the 館・女中 for victims to satiate his hunger for killing. He’s not just acting in self-defence. He enjoys the murdering for its own sake.
I considered that too. Reminded me a bit of the movie Shutter Island for reasons I won’t explain in order to avoid spoiling this good movie for those who haven’t seen it. “Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”
New kanji too a bit later on: 刎
A slapstic comedy bit ensues where everybody messes up the decapitation and has to commit seppuku in turn.
Here it is on a random youtube video (starts around 14:15):
https://youtu.be/KlxkSmTbaC8?t=851
The sprite of the 幸正 is shown at the door, then it disappears and the other, sprite-less merchant says “ああ、良かった⋯人がいた。”
In hindsight it’s easy to see what trick they’re pulling here, still not sure if I find it clever or cheap.
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Ah well, it’s a bit of a pity to not be reading at the same time, but I guess it’s fun in a different way, I enjoy reading your comments and re-think about that door
I’ll have a two week break in my reading in July again, maybe you can catch up there, I still have hope!!
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response
That would be absolutely hilarious lol.
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Came back here to find this image again. Just arrived at door 7 and I really need it 
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Oh yeah I feel you on this one.
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