Side Character Level-Ups! - An VNture Podcast

[@blaa6]

I appreciate Princess Evangile getting into the slideshow. W Happiness was a fantastic fandisc.

[@__m.r.]

Well it was an interesting read paired with the most... overt example I remember of the characters deserving an ending that get sidelined instead :D Fandisc, W Happiness, was... well quite the W to remedy that situation! Going from 4 to 9 was quite the increase in routes.

[@blaa6]

@__m.r. The routes for Mitsuki, Konomi and especially Tamie were highlights of W Happiness for sure.

[@Some_Guy_87]

New apartment, M.R., or where is the reverb coming from :O. The snarky "usually waifus" remark also was my main thought about this: Irrelevant characters being made relevant or a fan-favorite is often times a badge of honor for the artists. More originality or beauty than a throw-off character deserves essentially :D. In FGO the irrelevance of characters is often times also reflected with their art quality. That also goes beyond just VNs and games I suppose, e.g. there's a band called Vildhjarta who had very sophisticated, beautiful art accompanying their latest album. In one of those, there was this random, odd duck that stood out for many fans, which led to it being meme-d, some even tattooed him on themselves. In the end, the band even released beanies and hoodies with that duck. Saya no Uta fandisc is probably coming at the same time as the official Sharin no Kuni translation. Thanks for bringing that hope up again, I forgot about this VN! :')

[@__m.r.]

> New apartment, M.R., or where is the reverb coming from :O. I am still learning "how to audio" okay 😢Recently I've been tinkering with filters for the recordings and haven't changed my office (yet). I've always recoded from a very spacious empty room. > Irrelevant characters being made relevant or a fan-favorite is often times a badge of honor for the artists. True, but wouldn't You say similar can be said about scenario writers when they make a side-character compelling enough they get a "levelup" from just a sideliner to a main character? I recognize the fact that people gravitate towards "obtainables"/romanceable characters therefore it leans heavier on the "usually waifus" side of things. This is why I mentioned Konomi (the little samurai) from Princess Evangile that was pivotal in the common route. A challenger to obstruct protagonist in a quest of proving himself worthy in eyes of the all-girls school. Yes it does line up with what You spoke of in "waifuism", but I'm adamant in that she deserved "levelup" far more due to the story impact and development that transpired in the common route. Also I had to bring the example of Sengoku Rance where characters levelled up from literal "who" to "side character". Give them few more titles and maybe even a "main character" title is within grasp! I was tempted to bring a male representative for the levelup in Rance, but nah, the above was way funnier. :D I have prepared a screenshot running in the background from Libra of the Vampire Princess featuring a character that suffered the reverse fate - advertised everywhere and pretty much the face of the game, yet did not possess a dedicated ending/route :D Talk about level-down!

[@VNturePodcast]

Speaking of F/GO: While Nasu was writing the script for lostbelt 7, he had the character Oberon in a minor role. But later, the character artist showed him how the art was shaping up for him, and Nasu was so awestruck that he trashed the script and rewrote it to make Oberon far more important. The power of an artist! lol