The stopping point is before entering the bracer guild after checking all leads.
Side Quests and Missable Content
You can pick up 4 side quests this week.
来たれ食材ハンター
≪紺碧の塔≫の写真撮影
ヴィスタ林道の手配魔獣
メーヴェ海道の手配魔獣
灯台の試運転 found talking to the lighthouse keeper. (Turn off the high res fonts for this quest.)
All have a long deadline, so we’re ignoring them all to focus on plot and keep everyone together. They could all be completed this week if you wanted to. The photo one in particular you’ll want to wait for max BP though.
Your second hidden book is available as a prize in the casino.
Vocab Sheet, thank you to everyone who helps with this.
Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Discussion Guidelines
Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Posting Advice
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example
For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!
OR
Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!
Discussion Questions
What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
What are your theories on the case you’re investigating?
How are you currently feeling about ケビン and レン?
Who’s excited for the FISHING MINIGAME!?
Participation
Will you be playing along with us this week?
I’m playing along
I have finished this part
I’m still playing the game but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’m playing this game after the club has finished
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0voters
If you’ve already played this game but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”
Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!
Since things are a little less linear, this week got a little long to avoid dictating which way to go first. Tell me if you’d rather I change anything.
So @Sasabonsam should either come along with us or he’ll have to explore on his own with the drunk aunt? I presume that we’re going through the story in a different order.
Yeah, if you’d all chosen Agate I’d have let you keep believing it a while longer, but it’s fine. Could be interesting if we compare how they both react to the same story beats, half tempted to go back and choose Schera myself so I’m not leaving Sasabonsam to do that on their own.
I actually thought that it made sense for Agathe to go to Ruan (where he had this arc with the dock hoodlums) and Shera to return to Rolent (where we first met her and she seems to know a lot of people). So I never considered that the game would just shuffle them around if you picked the other way.
If you choose Schera, things rearrange so that Agate and Anelace go to Bose since they’re both from there, and then you and Schera end up going to Ruan.
I don’t mind being the only one with Schera. Though I’m also glad that it won’t be wildly different after all. When Agate says they’re going to Bose, the game reminds us that he’s from the village nearby and I thought oh no! I’m going to miss big Agate lore. That’s when I was half tempted myself to reload and choose him, haha. But you can’t go against a coin toss, it’s illegal.
I’ve played enough Ace Attorney to expect this to be some object flying through the air that people mistake for a ghost. The orphans talking about a mask and a bow made me question it, but then the soldier saying he shot it and it didn’t seem to react that significantly definitely brings me back to thinking it’s an object or something.
My biggest struggle this week is something that won’t apply to anyone else here. Since my version has us attack enemies on the field before battle, well, both Estelle and Agate have pretty bad attacks that come out slowly, making hitting them in the backs really hard. Estelle is a little better of the two. Normally I defaulted to Joshua cause his swings were quicker, and when Olivier was around his was great cause the gun was long range. Then the game gave us another ranged guy! And then took him away immediately, so it’s kind of a wash. At least Agate having some fire moves lets me have that status on my side for once.
I still remember how to navigate Ruan pretty well, which speaks to the way FC made us run back and forth here a lot splitting the world into chunks and holding us in each one for a while helped build familiarity with the environment.
Scenes with テレサ from the orphanage were sweet. I hope we’re about to get クローゼ to join us after progressing a bit further; I think she’d round out this team nicely from a gameplay standpoint. I want ティータ as well, but that’s probably not happening any time soon. It’s possible we get the traveling priest back, but I’m gonna guess when he joins longer term it’ll be later game. He’s absolutely up to something. I don’t think I’m suspicious of him, like, being a villain? He certainly does show up where Estelle is all the time which makes me think that wouldn’t be impossible, but I’m guessing he’s going to be very plot important but not antagonistic.
Really feels like we’re back into the same rhythm as in FC now, after the intro was quite different. For me that’s fine, I find the game really cozy and am enjoying every little diversion to have reunions with the people we helped and meet cute kids. And to fish! The timing felt a little tight; I missed a couple in my initial 5 tries.
No sidequests for me this week; I’ll wait til you say the word. I was happy with the length of this week, but you all already know that’s what I’d say.
The good thing is that the devs learned their lesson from the first game and realized that just aggroing a million enemies and turning every hard encounter into “just retry until you get lucky with the RNG” was not very fun.
Is it the fight at the warehouse with the gang? I haven’t lost a fight in SC outside that time I tried the boss with zero equipment, but when multiple of them full health rezzed each other it felt pretty bad
I’m on a bit of a different game than everyone in who knows what all ways anyway, though.
No, a side quest thing, but I realized reading your previous comment right now that @RebBlue told us to ignore those and I forgot since I waited until today to play… So that’s on me I guess.
I wonder how that warehouse fight is forced if you don’t have Agathe with you though.
Oh well. Honestly at this point I’m fine giving up on max rank if it means that I can play the game more organically. At some point I have to draw a line and stop entertaining the dev’s nonsense. Why wouldn’t I do the quest now, it’s when on the way to El Raten which I have to visit for the main quest!
this week
I like the “ghost” investigation, I hope the reveal won’t be too underwhelming. The election subplot could also be interesting, I wonder what part we’ll play in that.
That’s fair. It does feel like the game is designed that you’re not supposed to be able to max your BP first play through, and canonically Estelle doesn’t get to A rank here.. Several parts are designed for replaying with future knowledge in mind.
By the way do you know how much the text changes depending on what we’ve done in FC? Many quest givers return from the previous game, I presume that the text would be different if I hadn’t done their previous quest?
I don’t have a definitive answer. It should just be that some people remember you if you helped them last game and will talk about it, but won’t if you didn’t.
I agree with that. I dunno if I think all the ways your BP is determined are particularly great design – I’m kinda neutral, whatever, but as it is I think it’s for the best the game largely doesn’t draw that much attention to it. I think they tell you it’s a system in a general “do your best!” kinda way but it’d be way more maddening if I was being reminded that I wasn’t getting it on quest completion and stuff. I’m glad the system is largely invisible. Playing on my own I probably would’ve forgotten, if anything, and it seems like things should be smooth enough if you just do that.
