What Makes Limbus Company's Characters Good And Where (A Lot) Of Games Fail

[@contextualnightmare]

Its nice to not play some silent badass, but instead a crew of misfits BECOMING the badass

[@lowresSandwich]

Badass misfits

[@notmitsukiyolol]

You were once a badass feared across the Wings, now you’re a (thankfully learning) well-intentioned collection of all of the Sinner’s time and average brainpower and stupidity

[@rotonek2887]

To be fair half of them were badass before Dante

[@isitchillyinahut5921]

Everyone wants to be a badass. But no one likes to be a bad ass.

[@isitchillyinahut5921]

I think my brain is rotting

[@Aeon_Productions]

I think the fact that PM as a company never made a gacha game, is helming a project that is essentially their first venture into the gacha space, with writing that is notoriously excellent makes this game all the more easier to recommend to people Are the chapters long? Sure Are they hard to parce at times? On occasion yeah But at the end of the day, this game doesnt put itself as a slot machine first. It puts itself as a story that it wants to tell, that it wants everyone to hear first

[@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477]

Everyone knows Ruina has the hardest most unfair gacha system ever

[@adrienlovera]

>Are the chapters long ? >Are they hard to parce at times ? Looking at Arknight rn

[@Valiwayfer]

​@adrienlovera most people dont even read the story I genuinely cannot be asked to play a round for 3 minutes max, then having to read for 10 minutes

[@samwan_9113]

​@@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477Fr, I love and hate ruina, wdym i have to fight Xiao 3 times to get her page

[@ocarinalover1214]

@@adrienlovera I love Arknights but haven't read the story since I first started during chapter 9 release. Anime helps to give some perspective but honestly I care little about the world lol

[@JannetFenix]

Also, i'd like to point out is that Ishmael's gripe was nested more in her "need" to have someone showing her a direction. In fact, all of sinners have something incredibly relatable, not "directly" bound to their traumatic past. Say, what is Gregor, if not story of a "gifted child", forced to live his life to fulfill ambitions of their parent - and, when let go, left with fear of people having expectations of him, and unable to hold expectations on his own? The war flashbacks had nothing to do with his fear - other than show us the true root of his wounds, the pressure of others demanding him to be a hero, and, ultimately, his mother's face. To degree that sheer idea of changing the status quo and becoming more terrifies us. Have you noticed? In TKT, Gregor was actually raising his hand to partake in investigation, and backed off as soon as he felt someone else's eyes on him. Game doesn't spell it to you like Paimon does, but it makes sense. Are there not people like him among us, prodigies at youth, cast away and feeling like parasites after we can not meet the expectations? What is Rodia? Is she running from guilt of killing her whole neighbourhood? Or is she running from the fact that what she did, she did for herself, rather than thers; that she cares not whether change happens for better, but whether she is the "Napoleon mind" that causes it to happen, getting praise from others? Is it not relatable to us, that we *want* to have significance in the world? That we feel down, when the world rotates without our presence in it? Is Sinclair's guilt all that powers his behaviour? Or iss he in liminal, unable to go back to childhood, but afraid of stepping into adulthood - pleading for someone to be a parental figure to him, making decisions for him and reaping consequences of said decisions; afraid of standing on his own feet and confronting the unpleasantries and adversities, and others' opinions about him. (While his canto was not fully resolved, you can actually see that he is slowly making progress... by clinging to Heathcliff! Because Heathcliff is everything Sinclair is not and he hates about not being: decisive, acting without waiting for others to tell him what to do, and controlling his violence towards protecting others and defending himself. I assume part of Sinclair still looks for parent, which might be why he sticks around Ryoshu, too, the only confirmed mother in the cast, while observing Heath' on how to be a man on his own). And that fear of transitioning into maturity is what is familiar to us, too. Yi Sang's sin was passiveness, and his pain - the burden of lethargy. Once he saw how much he lost because of being idle, he convinced himself that he lacks means to ever change his situation. The depession only adding to marasm, as he spend whole day staring into colourful glass screen, showing him reallity that is not. Subconsciously coming up with excuses preventing him from leaving the cage. One tiny detail i'd like to note is that originally, it is Sang Yi who tells him to get up and walk. And, at the time, that was an inception moment, as watching this occur on my "colourfull glass", was the nudge i needed to leave my own white room. Knowing well it will be cold, dificult and uncomfortable, but, slowly and stumbling, we move *forward*. You need not wings to fly, if you can walk. As for Ishmael, her obsession she had was a symptome, not the cause. You correctly noticed her behavious change after C2 but what REALLY her gripe was: her fear from sailing without a port on sight. She needed someone to show her the way, to lead, a direction and a purpose in her life, as stumbling without light on horizon was too frightening. Queequeg being in the future "anchoring" "some" vision of future was what she held onto, like a rope thrown to her drowning in open sea. And as you "fail" Ishmael as Manager, she realizes you, too, will not be her "lighthouse", not a "competent captain" to show her the way. Having no island to sail towards to, only *then* the obsession for revenge became what she cling to, as the only direction left to her. The scene of Ahab's crew going down infected with her madness solidifies that vision - to us, humans, it's much more preferable to hold onto somethign that might be wrong, mad or even self-destructive, rather than having nothing to cling to at all. To you or me it might be holding to a failing relationship, too afraid of breaking it and finding yourself with noone; or sinking into somethign without future, not wanting to having to start from scratch. We don't want to sail without having a firm, certain goal we move towards; but in reallity, even if we don't know where we're going, we're sailing *somewhere* all the time, and who knows where we find ourselves, as long as we have steady hand to not sink while voyage lasts. Finally, Heathcliff. There's a story of someone who, seemingly, pushed away everyone's downtrodding him. To whom the insults and spite dripped off like water off a duck. But who, in reallity, had those experiences carve deep, deep scars into his heart. He always called out to people to respect him, to see him, to stop hurting him. He craved affection so he cast out his self, in order to earn it, just so he does not end up drowning in darkness. And he ends up gettng the realization, that he's always been loved, and, hell, by the only person who's love he cared for. He lost it, but he gets to understand, that he DOES deserve happiness, that he has worth and that he matters - even if everyone else in the world claims otherwise. World around us will not be kind or compassionate, and we will with our own hands, carve out the path to our goals. Because the sheer fact we hold something dear is worth it. So, fellow children - shall we keep struggling together?

[@Not-noteworthy]

Bro cooked

[@JannetFenix]

@@Not-noteworthy thankies! I really love how those are things so familiar to us all, and to some degree we all relate to it. And, like Tsu~ said, it's all about growth and overcoming it, even if circumstances are unfair as the world won't have pity on us.

[@nameless6159]

Not gonna lie, this made me see how much I understand sinclair, currently im at my first year of college, im living in a city far away my home (im not from America btw, im from a country in latinoamerica), im afraid of becoming an adult, im prone to rage when I feel powerless and I crave for someone to guide me when there is no one, reading all this made me realize why I love this characters soo much more and why I understand Sinclair more than the other Sinners

[@Interstice1994]

Thank you for this brother.

[@Inferno_Engineer]

Thank you for writing this, the city may be cruel but we can find the hope to continue. As one person learned “The fearlessness to keep on living”

[@TheFatSlimeKing]

I know tsunul is clicking a pen for every second that passes until dons canto releases like kingpin from spiderverse

[@nutnut5708]

They've trapped themselves into a corner with how they keep coming up back-to-back absolute bangers for Cantos. I certainly hope our little gremlin gets a good Canto.

[@relatablecancer9899]

Or we could be getting a mid like canto 1-2 that doesn't get resolved and instead opens up for a possible sequel canto.

[@tahraki4918]

​DON'T CURSE HER WITH THAT @@relatablecancer9899

[@Hasieur]

i dont think "the dream ending" is getting a sequel...​@@relatablecancer9899

[@DepthVorpa]

Dons canto will literally ressurect me from the dead. I care not for mortality when I can hear her scream 'gallop on rocinante! Justice shall prevail!'

[@Robocrab-td8dr]

One thing I especially love about Limbus Company is that PM isn't afraid to have Dante be incompetent. In a lot of other games, the mc is just good at everything or is super talented and we just have to accept that, while Dante acts like they are introduced to us: an amnesiac that has been thrust into their position from the get-go; armed with only amateur wit, common sense, and the bare minimum of knowledge in the workings of the City. The chapter after that shows us then at rock bottom with losing the golden bough and low spirits, but we only go up from there as Dante grows to be a more competent leader (though with some failings still happening) and they learn to also help guide the sinners through their own apparent turmoils. (And that is one of the reasons why Project moon writing is PEAK)

[@silverhawkscape2677]

Probably because Dante is written as a Character rather than a Self Insert.

[@dicon108]

Perfectly Executed Amusing Kino

[@vladsoloshchenko5551]

​@@silverhawkscape2677 funny considering that heavenly comedy dante(which is one of the books limbus references) is a self insert

[@killaquen]

@@silverhawkscape2677 they really do perfectly balance dante as the self inser/own character, if anyone got suddenly dropped in the city they would be acting like dante like he does now becoming a better boss with time, but because we already know dante is his own thing and hes remembering things slowly it wont feel wrong for him to become fully his own thing and stop being the self insert in the future it would feel natural, thats why hes our beloved clock head manager.

[@chronred8190]

honestly if i was a protagonist i would unironically be a talented one xd but the kind of talented protagonist that only shines in very *VERY* particular and nieche situations-they fade in the shadows and are outshined by everyone but when it matters most i suddenly surpass others or reach a similar level for a while

[@JannetFenix]

The staple of gacha is escapism. And PM simply does NOT do escapism. Every game they made is in one way or another focusing on FACING the things that you want to run away from, while staying real about the fact that it's *probably* going to be gruelling, endless struggle; emphasizing on the fact that it IS difficult, even if you know that it's right. But seeing characters like these get up and keep.. struggling.... makes you want to, too, at least keep trying. And there's something catharthic seeing that not only the game has narrative that resonates with problems that its audience is likely to have - but reminds that those problems have existed for people for ages, as the books were written long before we've been born.

[@mrrp405]

time ripper on its way to call ME out SPECIFICALLY

[@JannetFenix]

@@mrrp405 Think of it this way: let's be glad we live lives with luxury of having time to waste.

[@ultrio325]

faing

[@Edo_Ginting]

Well, Face the fear, build the future

[@firud468]

this is so real. even some inspired fans started making a few of those into fanfics. the most im fond of is that one Philip fanfic where he didn't distort and struggled himself into a slightly better ending from main LoR. the fanfic seemed pmoon level of worthy, as it stroke the drive of becoming a kinder person in me. dude was running and running and running away from his guilt, even his stay in Liu association did not help his survivor's guilt. he also had this fear from the feeling of complacency so much that it hits closer to home, and yes im still talking about that fanfic

[@sebastiansteppuhn3418]

First advantage is that instead of getting a hundred different dudes and dudettes to roll for the gacha we are focusing on the core cast of 12 sinners. This ensures that we can have enough screentime with all of them and avoid situations where one is just away for a couple chapters and then seamlessly returns. Them not revealing much about themselves is also a lot more realistic. They are our employees and we are some random jackass that's supposed to be their manager in a dystopian setting where higher ups are more conservative with their toilet paper than the lives of their employees. Why the hell should they trust us? Also, their combination of being total lunatics and dumbasses with an in-depth backstory and complex motivations fits very well in the setting. There's something really special about Project Moons setting. It's basically the Looney Toons of dystopias, a world so utterly horrifying and yet cartoonishly silly at the same time and somehow the writers make both sides fit together perfectly. Ricardo being a great example. A big cheese of a crime syndicate getting ultra pissed and dramatic over a coupon sounds laughable but at the same time it's horrifying. Imagine you accidentally annoy him. Even if it's something so small that real life Mafioso or Yakuza would probably just let it go but in this world you now have someone strong enough to crumple a car like a tin can hunting you down to the ends of the earth to liquify you.

[@desadograisedrobot515]

poor Heathcliff. dude 's blessing was a curse.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

I am Curious if we slowly grow to earn that Trust about them.

[@PAX-East]

It's absolutely easier to focus on twelve characters (13 with Dante) and flesh them out with interactions. Look at a game like Arknights that has just shy of 350 operators. You can only make me interested in so many of them at once. You have to hope your favorite fella gets to show up in an event or a side story to be expanded upon.

[@deedeedee5866]

Limbus Company is a gacha game made by the people with no experiennce with making a gacha game. And that's exactly why Limbus Company slaps so much i love these goobers.

[@InfinitySevens]

I have a lot of Project Moon mutuals atp, should I play this even if I don't really want to play that many gachas?

[@aure6796]

@@InfinitySevensyeah

[@stardanny]

@@InfinitySevensyes while the game is hard its also VERY beginner friendly which makes it very easy to get into

[@wy7177]

@@InfinitySevens I've abandoned most other gachas, mainly because their cast of characters have gotten so large, to the point that the story becomes boring each time you keep meeting new characters. I've honestly gotten bored of gachas that give a shit ton of pulls with a sub par story or a huge cast of characters, because personally I don't enjoy pulling for or reading about characters that I don't care about. Limbus company is a -dime a dozen- _one of a_ kind of gacha game that doesn't feel like a gacha and the character development in the game is so masterful that it's hard not to get attached to even more than one characters. Gameplay-wise there's a steep curve to understanding the mechanics, but once you get them the game becomes very enjoyable.

[@lechugacc3459]

@@stardanny yeah specially now that we have a lot more good IDs than before, you can really build the team you want and it's gonna work somehow xD

[@stuckerfan2563]

One of things i love about limbus compared to other gacha's is that there's no huge threat that if the sinners lose it will affect so many people. If they lose it will change nothing in the city.If kromer succeeded or won Sinclair will just be another person who just kills.If dongran won he'll just continue to perpetuate the suffering that already happens in the city.If ahab won or if Ishmael turns into another ahab the white whale would just die regardless but Ishmael will still continuously affected by her obsession.If erkling heathcliff won he would just continue kill heathcliff's from every mirror world and what's one death when deaths happen everyday in the city. The outcome of the fights do not affect the World but rather the characters themselves.That's what makes them so personal. I mean I have nothing against fighting to save the World or a huge threat but it much more gripping and emotional when the fight is very personal.

[@encryptkitsune341]

Fun fact, originally save the world stories were much more focused, Tomas odd fights in his series to get justice for people who were murdered, and ends up going against terrorists that want to kill a lot of people in his town. The world threatened in Tomas Odd is entirely just the town the main character grew up in. Save the world stories mean nothing if the world is to big for us to care about.

[@kitsun3223]

​@@encryptkitsune341That last sentence sounds like something Goblin Slayer would say

[@oilah-g5f]

kromer might affect more of the world down the line with the purging people of prosthetic l thing and having a cult dedicated to it

[@mitacestalia7532]

Basically mirror world

[@ebluegamer5397]

​@@oilah-g5f That's literally just tuesday in the backstreets.

[@prototypemaster1]

12 idiots fight SCPs and come to terms with their mid-life(and existential) crisis. Quite literally a story you don't hear everyday.

[@Dememenic]

Kim Jihoon himself says that he wants to make games with the main focus on them being story in mind, and for all of PM games you could see that. We've never really got to know how the story came along in the PowerPoint documentation of LobCorp's development, but you could very easily see that Jihoon wrote the story with the game's hard nature and heavy themes in mind. All of this contributes to why Limbus Company, even if it's a gacha game, has some of the most meaningful stories to tell and throwing it's gacha mechanics to the wayside. Sometimes it's to the detriment of the company's profits, but you could very easily tell that the main point of this game is to tell a story. This isn't saying that other gacha games has a poor story as well, but rather I'm saying it's why Limbus's story telling goes above and beyond in it's maturity.

[@halosammy14]

Honestly, Dante isn’t even the usual gacha leader archetype. I think there’s maybe just a handful of sinners that would obey a direct order from them if they disagreed with it. Dante’s more like their walking box of bandaids, and the fact that they can talk is a design flaw.

[@willofthewinds3222]

To be fair, the first part of the arc with Dante and the Sinners' relationship (especially in Canto 5) has been them treating them as a glorified save point and not only Dante learning to lead them, but them learning to accept that Dante is someone worthy of following

[@LimaBr_]

technically dante dont talk, he can only produce clock sounds and the sinners are the only ones that can understand him

[@Shimazumi]

I think in my opinion, the main reason the characters are so engaging. Is both 1, like you say, they aren’t idiots. 2, they are relatably human. One of the characters, perhaps speaks to certain people more. Whether it be liking their archetype or story and obstacles they overcome as an outside observer. Finding inspiration or admiration in it perhaps. Or feeling like you understand the character on some similar level. Having allegories in your own experiences which you can compare to then, the characters as they experience their own things. This is one of the many things I love about the world PM crafted. For as insane and non-sensical as it may seem, it is scarily close to real. While sure, it exhibits some traits of the usual fantasy story. With stuff bordering on magic. It feels so gritty and realistic, in it’s own world, that it translates over. For example, the recent chapter of Time-killing time, I believe is a great experience. While I didn’t care much for the Time Ripper himself. What I did care about, was the simple concept of killing time. Wasting away, not necessarily out of narcissism, or any malicious intent. But just, being bored that you aren’t doing anything, and proceeding to not to anything about it. Just killing time. It’s encouraged me to watch how I use my time more closely as well. These sorts of small relatable traits to an otherwise backwards and incomprehensible world, is what draws me in for the next chapter, and the next, and the next. The PM brainrot is real, so I know most of you won’t read this, as we are all illiterate.

[@cylnder]

I feel called out by that last statement, because I literally read up to the 4th sentence of the second paragraph of this comment, went "I ain't readin allat" and scrolled down to check if there were any comments

[@dekbimo9404]

i aint readin allat

[@-Ripica-]

TLDR: Character good & relatable, the City is realistic yet fantastical, story & dialogue has morals, me likely.

[@AsterWi]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@-Ripica-TLDR TLDR: char good, city real, story moral

[@ginsi936]

Honestly the PM city would be an intresting place to thing about living. You might not live long if you get unlucky enough to be born in the backstreets but in a nest it could be compared to some huge city.

[@lannguyenthi4776]

*"All **-heroes-** Sinners are humans."* I love them so much bro. Edit: After Warp Train event, _mostly_ human.

[@MegaBichiX]

"They are not heroes or champions, they are just humans, sinners like the rest of us"

[@AlexDanley]

About that

[@Mikolaio]

Well this didnt Age well 💀

[@ZingyangYo]

@@Mikolaiowhat happened could you explain please since I don’t get it???

[@starlenestilltouringyoutub2116]

@@ZingyangYoone of them is confirmed to be ain’t human at this moment

[@MylesMoore]

The thing that locked in how special the character writing is was when I noticed how much Heathcliff was developing as a character even when the spotlight wasn't on him. He sees Ishmael at her most rabid through her Canto, and starts to worry about how his "stop" is going to effect him. This sort of comes to a head when they pull up to wuthering heights and tells everyone that things could pretty bad for him. He gives people the heads up that he might not be equipped to handle things, and pleads with the group to not hesitate to knock some sense into him. It's such a breath of fresh air as oppose to stuff like Persona, where everyone acts like a looney tunes character outaide of their main arc

[@lonelynerdmly]

Something i really like about pm's writting in general is that you dont discover every part of the world at once making feel quite large you got the syndicates and wings as two different groups yes but each going into smaller and smaller groups in any other gacha game you would instantly talk to the head of the group and everything feels just so smallin comparison

[@2265Hello]

Lot of the world building is also done in previous games lol

[@celtorwastes]

started the game HATING don and heath and also simping for ishmael, ended with heath and don being my top 5 favourite characters and i simp for yi sang now. truly ideal.

[@YanYanicantbelievethistakenffs]

Same i started by simping for don. Then i began loving mersault, heatcliff ishmael yisang. Gregor and don. Game is great.

[@NotLawless_ButUnruly]

started loving Don until I saw fuckin der freischutz …I fucking love magic bullet

[@celtorwastes]

update, sinclair.

[@YumiRen]

Started with disliking Heathcliff and Don and Outis and liking Ishmael and Yi Sang, ended with loving Ishmael and Yi Sang even more and liked Heathcliff and Don and eventually I disliked no character

[@Windeee5176]

@@YumiRenThat blue guy from canto 1:

[@maxoublue1]

One of the reasons why I can't wait for Canto VII is because I want to see more of Don Quixote's "serious" self, that was briefly showed when the Mariachis called out her dancing for being "insincere and lacking a pure heart".

[@xanabomb0]

I also want to hear about/see the friends she said beat her face in when she was doing the same to Sinclair in C3

[@vladsoloshchenko5551]

Wait till she loses to a windmill🗣🔥🔥

[@plutonix5792]

I can't wait to see how they tackle Meursault... And I just want to hear him sing Sarajinae.

[@Time_Ripper1]

Well…. The theorists were more than right

[@ph_phylons]

The sinners have faults. And we like it!

[@WARPCORPoration]

But whose fault lie with?

[@Sky_darts]

@@WARPCORPorationsay it with me now! *ISHMAEL*

[@add2926]

​@@WARPCORPorationishmael

[@iambumbo7534]

@@Sky_darts 🐟MAEL

[@EYji_]

​@@iambumbo7534🐟✉️

[@dedcet634]

because they only focus on 12 sinners

[@Farnciss]

People also love ids/EGOs (pregor🤤)

[@nakoamechi]

UOOOHHHH PREGORR

[@lefttoe3937]

Yeah like how tf do you expect a game like genshin have a cast full of good and well developed characters when they are like 80 and keep multiplying

[@lolwarrior2181]

@@lefttoe3937 I mean it's not like they did even that good of a job when handling half the amount of number of characters in each region's arc. The game peaked at sumeru where the region's cast got good development and care overall, but then fumbled fountaine with the 4.1 update that does nothing except for the last 20 minutes or so. At least that's much better than inazuma where there were only 3 actual characters

[@punishing_birb]

That's exactly other gacha games problem. They're don't know when to stop releasing new characters and not focus on any of them. For example, let talk about GI, specifically Albedo. Up until the end of Inazuma (that's when I stop playing) the dude is so irrelevant to the story and so little screentime that I forget him existed most of the time. I know there's dating sim quest but most of them if not all are so boring that people just speed through them for the primo. So many characters yet so little screen time and irrelevant to the storyline made them boring as hell. Mihoyo absolutely could have made them interesting like they did with Dainsleif. Even though he has little screentime but the fact that he has interesting backstory, motivation and actually pushed the main plot unlike those useless archon made him so much more memorable than other characters

[@kairowkuroshi1371]

Sinners: Have flaws and aren't perfect. Us as humans: Have flaws and aren't perfect. They struggle like us, and that's why I love them. The story focuses on those 12 sinners. Compared to so much more characters spread out in gachas with hardly much substance. And you know the writing is on another level when you don't expect much from them at first just to see their canto and want to hug them immediately and say "It's alright"

[@Robots2124]

I agree. Heathcliff was my least favorite character when I started playing and after a Canto VI he graduated to my favorite.

[@gnat6216]

First part of story is. Purgatorio will prob be danteh and Heaven no idea honestly.

[@tapseymoth803]

This is a lovely little video but I think that what makes Limbus so peak character wise is honestly quite simple. Even on a cursory level with no context all of the full art pieces are fit to bursting with personality and charm. You could show anyone even without them ever have heard of project moon a screenshot of the seagull biking scene or Sinclair going maraca mode or Ryoshu being the wicked tongue witch and they would immediately get a strong sense of what each character is like and why going on a massive adventure with them is going to be so entertaining. Limbus is just one of those rare pieces of media that even with very little narrative analysis you can walk away with an immensely entertaining story and only gets better the more you want to think about it. Just its been so narratively satisfying that it almost feels selfish to want more content. That the game could blip out of existence and never get any new content or be impossible to play again, and I wouldn’t be that upset because of just how satisfied it made me feel.

[@Tsunul]

I entirely feel every single word you said, couldn't have put it better

[@ClockLock]

It's my personal opinion, but I feel like every Canto that has come after 3 has gotten better. And the fact Don Quixote's is next is probably going to finish killing me off by giving me a heart attack. I don't know if I'm ready for this!

[@mitacestalia7532]

tfw I'm reading don quixote book before her chapter. I'm doomed, it's 700 pages. I'm only at 200 pages. the book barely has paragraphs space. help.

[@wonderfulworld2746]

@@mitacestalia7532its worth it tho, i read the two of them (1400+ pages) but I enjoyed every chapter (I’m a big reader so no problem for me).

[@pedrorosa9893]

Are you alive?

[@arcturus64]

Imo it's because Limbus (and Lobo corp/Library of Ruina) uses some character tropes but has them grounded enough so they feel more human. Also the stories usually don't have the obvious "happy ending" that many games go for and you can feel that the main cast has a relatively thin plot armor. People die and they don't come back or get ex-machinaed, if people do stupid things, they get some serious consequences for their actions NPCs or Protagonists alike. In addition, while every sinner will usually "do what they have to do" they often will do things their way, the group be damned. This adds individuality to each sinner as it's quite obvious that not everyone is going to magically become friends and tolerate each other's anthics just because the main character said so. The fact that there is no "karma" system is also great as some characters can be absolute asholes and get away with it scott free, you can't catch up to every person that badmouthes you and get your satisfying revenge on them because that's how life works and you have more important shit to do. Which by the way, you also often FAIL in the story despite being the protagonist and having plot armorm you can't rewrite the past or magically resurrect people that are gone. Also having great VAs and music helps a lot.

[@boinbozo]

hmmm tsunul making this whole video because of sinclair for sureeeee

[@shiromiyaalexander3332]

Bro definitely losing against the bisexual allegations

[@smolestoverlord1819]

@@shiromiyaalexander3332 bro was never fighting em

[@grimmtroup2324]

Another interesting thing to comente for the first 3 cantos is that one could argue that the simplicity of them is prove of peak story telling. Gregor is the first one and also he is the most 'sane' and 'estable' caracter, he has alredy go througth all the depresión, anger and stuff, we can see some of the damage and trauma but he is able to funtions properly. So his canto feels more like another bad chapter of his live that he knows how to deal with. Also for true vengan e he would have to deal with his mother and that is something he cant do now. For Rodion we have a character that goes with the Flow is up beat and always tries to move forward, but she is always consume by the memories of her crime and refuse to take any option of healling taking it as her punishment for it. She is just a Woman with a very good coping mecanism to hide her problems to other People, one that crumble for moments and shows how empti she really feels for not being special or a good person. And finally sinclair his canto is the middle point Between what is Rodion and Gregor to the likes of ishmael and yi sang, were he adchieves do deal in big part of his traumas and heal for the best while also leaving some unfinish things

[@venpirethevampire]

Main Idea: Amnesiacs are fucking overpowered

[@Naepic]

I won't pretend like the past three cantos haven't all made me cry, but Canto IV, for all its faults, is the only thing that consistently makes me break down whenever I revisit it, except maybe Path to Nowhere. You brought this up in your review of what made Canto IV so amazing, but Yi Sang, Dongbaek, and Dongrang all being facets of the inability to move on struck a deep chord in me. From being chained to the past to hating it, each person's coping mechanism inevitably destroying their lives, and the swell of yearning as these former friends clashed - all culminating in Yi Sang learning to move on and rediscover a desire to live, yearning for another chance, one provided by Dante Dongbaek's theme makes me cry whenever I hear it, full stop. Amid its beautiful melody, almost like audible nostalgia, you hear desperation as Dongbaek tries to realize her goal of tearing everything down, to return to an era where they were all happy, a dream Yi Sang also held. Whereas Dongbaek's hate consumed her (rightfully so, since they were outright betrayed), Yi Sang's guilt resonated with me just as well. In my lowest points of my life, I would swing between hating the circumstances I was in and the events that led to them to wallowing in depression over the cold realization that it was my choices, my inactivity that made me miss out in life, that I did not go down the road not taken, no matter how bright it looked. This song, not just reminiscing over better days but also crying over them, seemed to exemplify this dichotomy on regret, while the morose yet cold notes of Dongrang's theme feeled to echo his desire to hide or wipe it all away, to try to forge a future without acknowledging the past. This too have I experienced, and the ending of Canto IV, with Yi Sang finally rekindling a desire to live, felt almost beautiful, as the first story to be considered fully realized within Limbus. That's not to say that Ishmael or Heathcliff's stories don't strike a chord with me either, and any time I see interactions between Queequeg and Ishmael I break down, but as someone who has sought counseling after the depression of not being able to overcome the guilt of not taking different actions was taking a physical toll on my body, it just holds a special place in my heart, for all its flaws.

[@richardomilos8686]

Based canto IV opinion detected. I still think its the most "real" and personal one.

[@Rieavi]

13:04 Wuthering waves? Like Wuthing heights? CATHERINE-

[@kaiendus]

i personally love the fact that the stories are so well thought out (being inspired by inferno and other literary works) and fitting so well with the setting and mood of the city, the characters are so easily likeable and unlike most games, project moon actually has a reason as to why the sinners just comeback from dying which is actually extremely overlooked in a lot of other games, even the predecessors of limbus have reasons as to why our characters can just comeback like nothing happened. limbus was a game that i thought i would never play mainly because of the genre its associated with, even the first time i played the game i was limiting my vision on the fact it was a gacha game and never really tried playing the game, which i regret a lot (missed out on a lot of events) but after playing library of ruina and lob corp i felt inclined to play limbus, even then i didn't really expect the game to grow on me so quickly. i love all of project moon's games and hope they release more bangers, thanks for readin :>

[@shadowball5295]

We all know hes just making this to distract us from him still needing to make a whole apology video to vergilius

[@IceboyMyName]

The one character that I really connected with the most so far was Ishmael, how she didn't felt like she had any direction in life and didn't want to live through the usual cycle of study, work and retire... Then at the random whale's belly when she was inside the whale oil and thinking about how insignificant and fragile she was at the end of it. By the end, she event tries to push Dante away saying he is just doing it for his own satisfaction, to feel like he is a good person. The way she just gets angry at the sudden "it'll be ok" mentality of everyone once they reach U corp feeling like what is really important for her doesn't matter to them and they see all of them like a liability or even enemies at some point. It just spoke to me in a really deep, personal level that I can't help but feel like she will probably be my favorite character of all time. "This is how I will chart my own path..."

[@mehmeh8415]

Characters aside, what hook me up gotta be the world building is this game. All things are compacted and shrouded in the City and it really lits me curiosity of what beyond the City border and within the hierarchical system of the City like what will corp A or B looks like.

[@justblue576]

I think the fact that there's only 12 characters instead of making new character every patch is one of the reasons they're so good A lot of other game have interesting characters but they can't give them too much screen time or they'll overshadow other lovble characters But in limbus company situation they can be comfortable with developing them and having their time with fleshing them out and give everyone the time they deserve And this is more of a personal preference but I love how the game don't depend on fan service and boobs to attract more fan

[@Loser-jh3tq]

Im disappointed in myself that i stopped playing Limbus Company in the first part due to me being more liking Arknights. I compared the two games and told myself that AK was better. than after canto 4, 5, 6 I was now more obssessed with LC than AK. To the point I didnt care for the events in AK I just skipped all their stories and just get the rewards. I was so invested with the lore of AK back then but now I got bored. I like how the worldbuilding in LC didnt make the people edgy or be not completely insane. The fact that act somewhat human. Even the cannibal chefs in Library of Ruina act normal in their own way despite literally eating people.

[@Rawr1752]

So I'm an outsider looking in; just saw this video randomly in my recommends. I have friends that play the game, but I am already cosmically overburdened with Gachas, so I don't play anymore than the ones that I do. What I've gleaned from this video is: A lot of games have a tendency to tell the story of the world over the story of the characters. For example, one of the games I play, Granblue has this problem really bad with their main cast. We're a group of seven traversing the world, but outside of very early events--the main cast is very stagnant, you don't delve into their wants, needs, or fears much, if at all, and they're mostly there to provide us backup in the moments that we require it. Which sucks because the narrative itself is very good, but the characters don't do anything beyond what they're needed to do. Whereas, here, the characters _do_ and the story is tailored more towards what their actions, wants, desires, and fears, causes for them in this world. It's a much stronger way to endear people to characters because you get to _feel_ what the characters are. It's something that you can really engage with when the cast is smaller; you're allowed to say, alright, I can wait to develop this directly more because I have so much more time with this character. It's something that a lot of other gacha struggle with specifically because of the nature of Gacha--you _need_ to endear people to your characters in order for them to roll, or something. So you tend to frontload things, you want your characters to have their big moments, or failures, and sometimes that warps what makes logical sense within the narrative. I struggle to say that's always a bad thing; there are a lot of meaningful moments where there are just more logical ways for things to go, but a lot of games take it to an extreme where realistically they could have gotten everything they still wanted to do, but neatly packaged instead of the slapdash. I think it really comes down to the structure of things--Limbus, at least from what I've seen, feels like a story that is written like a story, and they built a game around it. The game and the gacha are secondary to the story, whereas a lot of other gacha are gacha and game first, story second. All in all, as someone who has, _no_ idea what's going on, I really liked this video.

[@stormy_person7530]

I really enjoy Limbus Company - and Project Moon as a whole - because of how game mechanics are basically always intertwined with the story, especially with how Abnormalities - things that are well known to be physical manifestations of peoples' subconscious thoughts - are basically constantly linked back to major characters due to sharing overall themes. Dante is partly so interesting to me because they're both symbolically representative of Carmen's WhiteNight (a healer with 12 followers) AND Ayin's One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds ("to be willing to bear pain is half the atonement", Dante revives Sinners by bearing all of the pain of their injuries and deaths over and over again). The Sinners have such depths to them that people are writing dissertations on how the Sin Affinities of their base identities symbolize their surface-level, shallow, and deepest levels of characterization - like how Rodya is a surface-level hedonist (skill 1 gluttony), seems to have a protagonist mindset under that (skill 2 pride), but ultimately just wants to stand up against societal injustice (skill 3 wrath). It's a story with so many layers and so much thought put into it that you could probably spin a wheel consisting of every character present for at least 2 scenes in the story and put together a whole analysis on how their story at the very LEAST serves as a foil to someone else and has thematic importance - for instance, Hubert's regular attire was present for maybe one minute of story and already I can see how his attire and color scheme are meant to contrast Dante as two wielders of time-based powers, with Dante being red (also associated with Kali, Vergilius, and Rodion, very much people who try to actively aid those in front of them even if it hurts them long-term) and Hubert being blue (also associated with Argalia, Demian, and somewhat Sonya, people who don't actively pursue good in front of them but try and pursue the greater good, even at the cost of the short-term).

[@theflyinghandofloob2062]

The stance Project Moon takes to writing their characters is very reminiscent to how some of the creators of some of my favorite fictional stories write their characters. Namely Royal Scandal (extremely underrated series. It’s kinda like Limbus but with fairytales and music videos instead of classical literature and cantos) and how they’ll foreshadow certain characters and motifs before they’ve even been introduced. I can’t really name one without spoiling it so I’d recommend checking them out. The series, like Limbus is still ongoing and it’s peak fiction.

[@theflyinghandofloob2062]

Admittedly it is a bit hard to get into because the series is primarily in Japanese.

[@casstone4132]

OMG ROYAL SCANDAL FAN SPOTTED ❤❤❤❤

[@The_King_Of_Bugs]

@@casstone4132ROYAL SCANDAL SLEEPER AGENTS RISE UP

[@PiaInTheHouse]

the saddest thing about wuwa is that they had to change the whole hostile treatment because the CN players complained and wanted that specific messiahs treatment...

[@Jardrin]

And guess what? They still ended up complaining about it. Tbf, The devs thinking they needed to change 90% of the story when they just needed to tone down some parts while keeping it's core intact was just stupid.

[@pbyn153]

Knowing that makes me disappointed. I like Wuwa's gameplay but damn, the story's pacing is too fast and lack depth

[@mitacestalia7532]

​@@JardrinOh God, changing the story because the audience asked for it is the worse decision ever. I've seen so many good series destroyed because the developer forced to listen to their idea.

[@Hasieur]

​@pbyn153 fr there also many plot holes too, like wtf is yuanwu, why did we remember him in the dreamless boss fight, we didnt even meet him once

[@pbyn153]

@@mitacestalia7532 Precisely, I still don't get how Kuro caved in like that

[@tsumugishirogane2300]

Canto comes from how the parts of The Divine Comedy are divided, the prologue "selva oscura" (obscure forest) in the story was where Dante lost himself to the 3 beasts who incarnate sin, the wolf, the lion, and panther, and is how the poet enters hell, and shortly after meets Virgilius, who will guide him through hell and purgatory, and then his role is taken over by Beatrice in heaven. I also don't think it's mentioned enough how Charon in the comedy is the old ferryman who transports dead souls to hell through the Acheronte river

[@nulls5408]

My favorite thing is the fact that (being that I am in charge of leading a group of people irl) the game is extremely accurate to how your employees couldn’t really care what you or anyone else wants till they grow connected to them. We have to earn there respect, and till then they’re gonna treat you like sentient luggage they have to carry around. With my favorite scenes being mersault food critic scene since that’s when the group really starts acting like a team. And the scene were the sinners roast us out of genuine concern for our wellbeing for going into the outskirts with only heath and don.

[@JannetFenix]

*Inhale* And finally, i NEED you to play Your Turn to Die. It's a simple game, sort of lovechild of Zero Escape and Ace Attorney, wearing a Danganronpa-shaped hat, but you will LOVE it for the way characters feel. Exactly like in Limbus, they're not just cardboard boxes carrying out dialogues for sake of story - they act, interact, reason and clash based on their personallities; incomplete information leads to mistakes, they'll be wrong and fall for bias - but will never act "dumb", every line underlined with reason.

[@atlas1951]

Thanks for the recommendation

[@Tsunul]

Oh dw, I've already played it. Good ass story(even tho its not done yet)

[@BagelBagelBagelBa]

OH MEIN GOTT I USED TO BE A BIG FAN OD THAT AND I EVEN FOUND A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE IN THE DISCORD SERVER OF THAT GAME!!

[@JannetFenix]

@@Tsunul How'd you like it? YTTD has a lot of sideplots going on behind your back, just thanks to characters taking action outside of Sara's influence :D Like, have you ever figured out what was Keiji and Alice up to in monitor room?

[@syam_nijiidfans]

Ah yes, another GOAT game with fascinating story-writing and great characters introduction and developments.

[@Zynkypria]

You made an excellent point about how other gacha games try to cram the characters' good points into their limited initial screen time. Part of what immediately hooked me on Limbus Company is that Limbus actively introduces the characters *by their flaws.* I love how instantly recognizable the characters' dialogues are from their worst traits.

[@macaroll]

"Introduce the character by their flaws". That is a great writing tip, thank you!

[@오주환-b1n]

One of the other neat things about the Sinners is that they’re so distinct it even translates to writing - as in, the in-game Abnormality entries are written by the Sinners, and it doesn’t usually say who wrote one, but it’s pretty clear who did nevertheless because each and everyone has their own unique personality. Which is much more impressive considering there are like twelve of them.

[@ReRoji]

i was always bad with names, both when reading a book and irl, but from the moment the sinners introduced themselves i havent forgotten their names even once.

[@lorenzomeulli750]

Because they are actually characters and not void designs without a soul. They have a story to tell as much as a backstory defining then. They have a personality. They have likes and dislikes. They fight at times and support each other at others. They are written as people. Weird, over the top and traumatized people, but still people. Not archetypes. I would really like to know how many would have guessed thet Rodion, the apparently "arara oneechan" with a fixation on money belonged to rebelious communist organization in the past, that she is a cold blood murderer and that she is aware her actions were dictacted by ego rather than her positive ideals

[@mightaswell]

“I’ll only explain worldbuilding when its inherently neccesary” When has PM worldbuilding NOT been necessary unless you say, well, “Don’t worry about it”.

[@smugofbishamonten1447]

Fate moment

[@anusaukko6792]

What is it with asian companies that have Moon in their name overlapping so damn much 😭

[@elontusk9167]

There's something about companies that have Moon in its name having nearly unexplainable lore and worldbuilding to outsiders

[@BrandiPrime]

Thank you for putting into words what had caused me to just start skipping dialogue in Wuthering Waves. At some point there was this one conversation where it felt like they were reiterating the same point like 3 times over and it felt like they were insulting my intelligence, and I can't even remember what that conversation was about now since it didn't really amount to anything. Meanwhile I overanalyze every line of dialogue in Limbus for foreshadowing of future chapters.

[@YumiRen]

My brother likes WuWa but I cannot for the life of me get into the story of WuWa. It's always the same tropes with overpowered MCs, characters just liking the MC right off the bat (especially in a post-apocalyptic setting where it's hard to trust people) and people depending on the MC to save them even though they are capable of defending themselves. It makes the characters look incompetent and cowardly. I know the writing team of WuWa can do better because I was touched from the writing in Kuro Games' first game Punishing Gray Raven.

[@Theseasonedgamer1]

I can’t wait for Hong Lu’s Canto, from what we’ve seen so far definitely has more to tell, Behind his oblivious upbringing. Especially with the scene of Saude in Canto 3 and his connection Young-ji in Canto 4, being the one to realize Yi sang needs help.

[@mitacestalia7532]

I only know a bit about Red Chamber, but I hope it has that love triangle because I'm disappointed they erase Isabella in Heathcliff canto

[@vitogunnhilder]

@@mitacestalia7532I think Isabella might come back in Purgatorio, actually. There’s a mystery behind her still, that we haven’t gotten the chance to explore. I think it’ll be crucial in Heathcliff’s quest to bring back the “flower” that had wilted during his long journey.

[@AzureBlazes]

What's interesting is that pretty much *every* Sinner is hiding a facet of themselves beyond the surface, and yet, they don't *tell* you that directly. Limbus does so much "show, don't tell". It gives you the pieces of them so you can come to the conclusion most people are thinking...before it all crashes down and tells you the "why are they like this" in their personal Canto with enough time to process with a compelling story. We can see that with Don Quixote, for example. She's a goofball, a screw up in the beginning. But she learns from that, but also doesn't completely change -- she's still very hyper, but tries to keep herself together, and we are shown that she is much more knowledgeable than we realized, regarding Fixers. She provides information about obscure Fixers such as Butlers. She rarely slips from this nature, but when she does, it's jarring. But I think we'll see exactly *why* she's like that once we get to her Canto.

[@justalurker3143]

I feel that this game really puts you into Dante's role very well. Dante has no memories and even if you have played all PM games, we as an audience dont know everything there is to know about The City. Having it focus on the sinners, who have lived and experienced different areas, gives the audience more to learn and love about the lore that is being meticulously laid out. PM may not be the best about gacha mechanics, but they are great at thoughtful writing.

[@user-garnet]

I think Limbus partially works because it looks at gacha tropes and actually questions them Why should the MC be overpowered? What does it mean to be a good commander? Why should the MC be silent? Why should the gacha pull for new characters? Why not different versions of the same units? Why is the emo edgy character emo? And most importantly What makes sense for this character to say?

[@ITAndroMedian]

>Why should the gacha pull for new characters? Why not different versions of the same units? Honkai Impact 3rd was doing it at the start, but then gradually stopped. My guess is that's a poor man's way to fill the gacha, and my answer - I like it, even if it is a poor man's way.

[@enyalim1535]

12:05 Thats why Fontaine arc where we see furina go through her 500 years of solitude is so peak, bc Paimon is completely absent from this scene. Like imagine if the traveller was with Paimon while that stage sequence is happening, it will utterly ruin it with her occasional yapping. Bud thinks shes Dora the Explorer

[@pbyn153]

The fact that PM made me care for 12 stooges as a clockhead and made me care about their book counterparts, especially knowing that this is loosely based from the Divine Comedy, is amazing

[@Levyafan]

I think what really helps Project Moon in that regard is how they set the gacha. See, whenever you roll gacha in other games, you do so to get whole new characters, so whenever the gacha needs more schmoney, it'll need to make up (or dredge) a guy and then sell you the guy - give you a motivation to get that guy. That leads to the problem Tsunul mentioned in the video, where games try to sell you a character right out of the gate, and also creates some kinda bloat down the line - there's just too many guys in the roster, how the heck are you going to care for each and every single one? Meanwhile, Limbus Company has exactly twelve guys in the gacha. That's it. You have your established cast to explore personalities of throughout the game, and the plot will focus on those exact characters. The gacha, instead of rolling for brand new guys, instead gives you VERSIONS of your twelve guys, literally weaponising AUs. This allows them to turn what's usually a source of character bloat into a source of additional character depth: what would your twelve dudes be like if the circumstances were different? What kinda choices would they need to have made to end up in that particular situation? What does that say about them? What does that FORESHADOW about them?

[@hfrost3460]

i Blame the CN fans for the wuthering waves story. they complained that in cbt1 the story was dark and all other characters were hostile and wary of them and didn't immediately start to treat them like some sort of hero or god.

[@user-si4vx6rr9u]

Limbus company is the first game that required me several breaks during the story bc it was too emotional and my heart was exploding every lines. Truly one of the best casts I’ve ever seen❤

[@afterglowing]

Me personally, I never found "gacha games" very entertaining to me as a long time thing. They'd captivate my interest for a week at most and then a new character comes out that seems interesting and that makes me spend a few hours total grinding for that character to eventually win or lose. Limbus doesn't make you continuously get new characters. You have the ones presented to you with their abilities and you can configure them however you'd like. There's no "pointless" side tasks for the point of gaining more money. Hell, there's hardly a currency outside of lunacy (No, I'm NOT counting the watches from TKT right now. Those are temporary.) while games like Genshin and HSR have multiple forms of currency that they make you get and it feels tedious. Of course, yes, I wobble and cry when I run out of enkephalin for a few hours but it's also necessary to have that limit because you can't just speedrun the entire story in a few hours. The stories behind each character are so captivating to me; I even CRIED during Yi Sang's chapter (I hardly ever cry. I ended up looping "Fly, My Wings" for over a day straight. Thanks Project Moon and Mili) and I already know I'm crying during Ishmael's as she's one of my favorite Sinners. They even make Dante so complex. They're not just supposed to be another version of the player that you can name, but their own person with their own struggles. I felt for them so bad during Canto V because they're getting attached to the Sinners as a whole and want everyone to be able to get along when it doesn't feel that possible since it's becoming apparent that each Sinner has their own gains from joining Limbus Company. "I was wondering if all the times I've spent thinking, hoping, and contemplating about our futures together were... pointless. This thought lingered in my head for a while." I took a step back right there. Dante's supposed to be a super firm manager, everyone relying on them for their power (and even at some point, it seems Dante themself is implying that they feel their only use is the power to turn back the clock.) and here they are getting sad at the thought that what they have won't entirely last forever. The funny moments also save the game from being so entirely serious and honestly I get a good laugh out of some of the stupid shit they do too. So yeahhhh this game's had a grip on me for longer than the other gacha games could hold my attention span thanks Project Moon.

[@liliox]

I love my band of dumbass misfits and I appreciate the care PM has taken in the storytelling 💕 I personally don't mind that we don't have constant main updates so I don't burn out and have time to digest the story. The idea of the intervalos-minis is great because they can be seen as appetizers of information while we wait for the main dish and also progress through the story. Thanks as always for the wonderful vid Tsunul! ✨

[@keimomochi6824]

BEACH VOLLEYBRRRE

[@su4682]

Chokolat 😰😰

[@110montauk8]

LIMBUS COMPANYYYYYYYYY

[@samwan_9113]

Vecaccion

[@Rayleighoftheskies]

Even abnormalities had stories.. with slight meanings.. I love abnormalities more than anything in this game.. abnormalities had some sort coming story’s here and there like queen of hatred but atleast some got a better rewriting in the next games.. and new abnormalities.. with their own special stories.. their own meanings.. and yet not a single resolution.. it’s a painful loop that you can be satisfied from.. “abnormalities are the essence and the agonies of humans” they are stuck in a loop they can’t be satisfied from because abnormalities aren’t exactly human.. infact maybe even more lower then humans.. think of them like primal beasts and astrals as humans.. in Granblue.. it’s sorta the same thing.. primal beasts are kinda stuck in a loop of duty, just as abnormalities are stuck in a loop of human flaws.. that’s what makes abnormalities beautiful.. and the fact E.G.O. weapons represent an extension of those mistakes.. though as hard as it is to overcome.. when defeating abnormalities it’s like telling yourself a truth and a virtue upon you.. though if only abnormalities had their own sense of freedom..

[@pining_tree6788]

Honestly canto III is neat cause there’s even more moments beyond the mentioned that builds character. Meursault’s past with N corp being mentioned and Don beating the shit out of Sinclair to calm him down saying that’s what her friends would do to her. Everything is slowly building

[@user-gp8ty7ri1i]

I love your analysis videos. Yeah, it’s nice to feel that writers actually care about what they’re writing. Makes me really appreciate my time/money spent on a game that wants to tell me something. With how big the gaming industry became, a lot of games feel more like a commercial product which sole purpose is to get my money, rather than an art piece that wants to share an idea or show something interesting.

[@Ysevetyfive]

The man has cooked once more with the video essay! Seriously, these are always so rediculously high quality, keep on cooking man. My favourite story moment is probably still when Queequeg's spirit joins Ishmael when she pulls her harpoon out of the whale's heart's heart, that scene always makes me tear up no matter how many times i see it. But the entirety Canto 6's final fight is an easy second place, not only is the fight itself one of if not the most fun fight in the whole game (I CANNOT wait to get my teeth kicked in by it in the next railway) but that whole fight is just one gigantic cinematic masterpiece, and the parallels to the Black Silence fight back in Ruina just make it even better.

[@Doza444GreyBoy]

I feel like there’s two different types of chapters, ones where the sinners do resolve their issues and use their ego at the end and ones where the sinners didn’t resolve their main issue, I also feel like heathclifs in the second category because something I noticed is that in the theater yi sang’s and Ishmael’s chapter covers show their ego bg while Gregor Rodion and Sinclair just show a shot from their chapter near the end just like heathclif’s does, only showing a shot of the rooftop of the mansion and not his ego bg, also noticed that the characters are gaining new issues after their chapters, Rodion feels bad about Sonya’s plan working good so far in the most recent chapter, Ishmael will have to deal with ahab again, yi sang is being forced to fight against like all of his old friends, and gregor’s mom is basically the cause of most of our issues, also anyone else notice the rubber duck in the image of Ishmael calling out for her crew after the ships destroyed

[@YumiRen]

As someone who doesn't often cry to games, Limbus Company is the first ever game to make me cry over almost every single character. Cantos 1 and 2 might not be as memorable as other Cantos but the inner and personal turmoil that each character goes through (that we see so far from Gregor to Heathcliff) is written very well. You can clearly see the priority placed more on the storytelling than the characters and the Gacha mechanics. It's why many people are drawn to this game (the OSTs made me cry...). Even though I love games like Wuthering Waves and Honkai Star Rail, the storytelling will never touch me as much as Limbus Company and I stand by this opinion.

[@Pryflim]

"since its for new and current players i will explicitely mark out spoilers" -Tsunul 10 minutes after explaining canto 5 (and somewhat end of canto 6 in the introduction of the video)

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

Not shoving their entire backstory is what made me LOVE Don. At first she was some hyper idolizer, which annoyed me as it seemed fake. But as I pried her identities for the free lunacy I started to realize that is exactly why. And I can relate to that well. Hell I used to forget about Yi Sang, now I based my TTRPG character off him I love him so much!

[@MHMarky0908]

Blind Obsession? Heh... All hands, full speed toward where the lights flicker. The waves… will lay waste to everything in our way.

[@АлександрСергеев-б9б6в]

Самое лучшее здесь в том, что грешников нельзя просто так подвязать под какую-то определенную классификацию личностей, они не являются просто персонажами архетипами, несмотря на то, определенные архетипы в них явно прослеживаются. Спасибо за видео, чудесный анализ!

[@TheIrishpsyco]

Best example of these character's not being idiots. Canto 1 and 2 have their two characters very closely related to the current story, in either parallels to their backstory, or just straight up people from their past being involved. That is all the time for the characters IN GAME realizing, "well damn, each time we deal with this McGuffin, one of us will be going through some character development." They literally have conversations on the bus about who they think the next mission will have to work through trauma!

[@zappoe7875]

Man, the old Wurthing story was so much better. Chixia was actually worried about her friends.

[@WangAon]

You can say anything that is wrong or suck of PM as a studio or Limbus as a game; I might even agree with a few. But no one can say Kim Ji-hoon doesn't take the story and the character he created seriously in any capacity. Heck, no gacha company will ever go out of their way to fix a texture misplacement or recast a character just because it could give players a wrong interpretation of the character. Despite being a gacha game, you can feel that almost all of the main cast up to their EGO and Identity are all well thought-out instead of hot sexy anime waifu/husbando just to seduce the player into paying money

[@randomguypi-uf2jc]

And yet they still haven't changed Don's combat sprite vs her dialogue sprite. Maybe jihoons cooking something. Maybe jihoons fucking with us. Idk

[@voidbg7017]

Update: i just got to that part of the video talking about my comment 😂 Context on WUWA's story beginning initially we were seen as a threat and was held at gunpoint by chixia But cn didn't like that we didn't get "the chosen one" status so kuro had to scrap a more interesting beginning with the usual generic "HERO YOUR AWAKE!!!!! LEMME SUC DAT D"

[@yake4885]

Imo, just like you said since we follow the story of only 12 characters, over time we get emotionally attached to it escpecially with how each canto we go deeper into their story. Most gacha games just release new character for the sake of cash grab. after they released and we are done with the inkling of their character story, they just become...a unit to use, a means to fight things. And their story is just mostly shallow where you can get into it, feels the wow of it, and then forgets about it. While in limbus, we only get different version of sinners but on a basic level they are still them, a character that we invest into emotionally because they are the only character that we can get.

[@13_iq]

33:09 lobotomy corp is very effective because it makes you feel the hell that the facility is

[@ayinlc]

ryoshus chapter will prob include a conflict with all the fingers or the introduction to the pinky (based on how its depicted in her art its prob the most scary of powerful)

[@mitacestalia7532]

also death kid

[@NotLawless_ButUnruly]

what kind of person would have every finger mark them as their biggest opp 😭

[@ayinlc]

@@NotLawless_ButUnruly i mean she has hinted how much she hates the middle and the ring

[@vyx_the_grole]

I think one of the reasons it works is because of the limited cast. Other gachas have like 34900 waifus and husbandos and only few are really important to the story, and so if you pull a character is mainly cause you dig their design etc. Many of the characters do not even appear in the main story and they are just in some events. Instead limbus is like "ok here. The main cast is these losers. Like them or else go fuck yourself or something". Now don't get me wrong, i do also like gacha where my main reason to pull is "daum she hawt" but limbus story is just something else. The fact it restricts to the sinners allows to focus on them and to see their evolution, and like them not only cause of design but because you can understand them and grow to like them. For example a person from a discord server told me she did not like ishmael, and after her canto now she is one of her favorites because she says she relates to her. I think for me the character i want to see more is Dante themselves. I think they are the greatest example of the "characters make slight changes throughout the cantos and not just suddenly change when their time has come". At the start Dante is the fucking antithetis and mocking of the average gacha MC: many gachas have an amnesiac mc or a person who knows nothing of the world of the game. But like WuWa often they just treat them like a fucking god, like "omgggg. You have a super great powuuuurrr. You solved in seconds something we struggled with although we should be wary of you" and also the MC knowing to do stuff although they should be confused about the situation. Instead in limbus, Dante wakes up and is basically clueless in front of this unknown world, and they immediately task them to do stuff. Usually the first mission in gachas ends well and everyone is like "ommmggg you are so cool and a great leader", instead here it ends in utter failure, and verg is angry at Dante because they couldn't do a task they weren't ready for. Dante is treated by the sinners as just a convenient tool to revive not caring every time they revive dante suffers. Everyone sees him and the sinners as a bunch of losers and have no problem to insult them. But while the other people still see the sinners as a bunch of misfits, Dante is growing to be more competent as a leader and the sinners are beginning to trust them and not see them as just a revival ticket. From canto 4 on they try to help the sinner and they begin to do that more and more and now in canto 6 they even discover one of their powers. That makes curious to how Dante's story will develop and what will happen when we discover their backstory. In general i think now LCB is my golden standard for gacha story, like for example when everyone said HSR penacony arc was peak i thought "very good but not a masterpiece" because my standard is limbus. Of course it is not the best game ever but still i believe it is a game people have to play even if they dislike the gacha system

[@letolegaosaure]

Nice to see some love for the writing in this game ♥ On top of everything you said, something I admire in Project Moon's writing is that while they do reference books for the different characters, they manage to strike an impressive balance: you never need to know the books to understand anything, but when you happen to know things about the "original" story it only adds things, and never removes impact. It could easily make Limbus feel less intense because we think we know already what's going on, but they change just enough to keep us surprised, while keeping just enough that we feel like we're seeing something bigger. I tried to open the link to the Dante's Inferno breakdown doc, but it's a link to a twitter post with no link... and given that I don't have a twitter account, I can't see the replies, so I can't access to doc. Would it be possible to add the direct link to the doc?

[@Tsunul]

Oh I gotcha docs.google.com/document/d/1n9B2N26jBtXOY2oEndm8VdWWAf5SxCMOOhEW09HzALY/edit

[@letolegaosaure]

@@Tsunul Thank you ♥

[@Anon_Spartan]

*me when I deal 20000 damage with spicebush Yi Sang* I'm starting to really like this guy

[@juggalochaos]

7:16 a little context; the book she’s based on is about an amazing artist (considered the best in the land) commissioned to paint a brutal, brutal folding screen depicting the Buddhist hell for a Lord. Unfortunately for the artist, they can only paint what they see, and so inflicts brutal torture upon their apprentice. Eventually, the artist asks the lord to “burn a beautiful lady in a carriage so they can finish the screen.” (Thank you Wikipedia) and their daughter is the one burned. It ends with the screen being finished and the artists suicide by hanging. (Little clarification, the artist is male in the original story, but I’m using they/them because Limbus’s interpretation is female, so I’m mashing them together.)

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

: )

[@Entity69]

Index ahh request

[@enitsu-142]

Just seeing Queequeg’s ghost made me cry again. Damn.

[@thitharaudiya8033]

Limbus character will always better than any gacha out there, the reason is simple. They're characters that exist solely for story meanwhile in other gacha characters are product first before their significance in the story. You can literally add or reduce any sinner and it won't change anything gameplaywise since the product in this game is the ID's stat and art. It's actually a concept that used by a lot of otome game with gacha system. I always wonder though why non otome gacha never seems to try it. It's honestly not that fun pulling for waifu that only appear in like only one event.

[@lazy_apples1018]

i learned to love how canto 1 and 2 handle gregor and rodion after rewatching the cutscenes, it's just like what rodion says to sonya, "i oughta bathe in this cold a little longer" this slow burn style makes every single bit of new story content more fun, and hit even harder like when ryoshu just randomly throws it out there; "so many things in this world presuming they deserve to call themselves family" and hong lu even responding with "ive never seen you talk like that before" that part just broke me inside and their cantos arent even out yet

[@blehh_mae]

i find it very funny how my only issue with PM characters isnt the characters themselves, but that the way the games are structured we usually just meet a cool character for a little bit and then never see them again, or we get a glimpse into something super cool like U corp or the sweeper-head deal or Rcorp or any wings or syndicate or office or Anything but now we probably wont see it explored again for a while

[@perseusfateprototype]

I think my favourite part of Limbus story/lore/mechanics compared to other gacha games is how tight everything is One example is the gacha system itself, most gacha games this feel like just a formality, just an expected mechanic to getting more characters. Most games barely explain what even is going on when you "pull" for a character. But in Limbus not only is it explained, the Mirror Worlds are not just a gacha mechanic but also a core aspect of the game's story and lore With Canto I they explained the basics both as a gacha mechanic but also how it works in universe (I don remember if it's touched on Canto II) Canto III Kromer mentions how she saw an alternate world with her and Sinclair, which is almost directly connected to the playable N corp Sinclair ID Canto IV had Yi Sang and his ideal self from a mirror world Canto V I think only hints at the Mirror Worlds, with Hermann promising Ahab that she'd get to "hunt down every Pallid Whale" But what I think is cool is how in Canto VI, we not only get the Erlking, a literal identity directly related to the gacha mechanic as an antagonist, this is also a version of Heathcliff who has been travelling Mirror Worlds to hunt down every other version of Heathcliff, showing us that Hermann's offer to Ahab last Canto wasn't just an empty promise

[@YanYanicantbelievethistakenffs]

You then pull a erkling heatcliff and lose all you other heat ids.

[@simonelovino4021]

A small but super cool detail is that if you use The One Who Shall Grip Sinclair during Kromer's Canto III fight she'll start the fight staggered and has a line like "are you... My Sinclair?" (this doesn't work in Mirror, and I don't know if it worked in Refraction Railway 1, since I didn't play at the time). Having the pulls tied into the lore/plot and then gameplay again is something I've seen only in Limbus and I wish more games did this.

[@YumiRen]

@@simonelovino4021 Wait that's so cool. I never got The One Who Shall Grip Sinclair, so I didn't know about this detail!

[@Deserit]

​@YumiRen Another similar example is when you fight Nelly, if you have the Ryoshu id where she's the Nelly of that universe, she has dialogue. Same if you have the Ahabmael id when fighting Ahab

[@Exozealots]

For those wondering whats the song at the End it's called. Dreaming of Patricia: Witches Heart

[@Exozealots]

34:26 For the song starts.

[@legioneras4576]

What a nice characters review. It make me wanna read story again

[@BurningTNT]

The characters feel like people who live in the setting, horrible as it is in how it shapes them. And they are often defined by so many little moments. Ryushu teaching a seagull to pedal whilst Mersault holds the other end if the string packs a lot into it. Though, something that enhances the character writing that I think PM is one of the best for is the mechanics having narrative explanations and then twisting that. We saw it a lot in lob corp and library and we see it both in Ishmael’s finale and how dante’s newly discovered time dilation is both discovered in the narrative and then immediately has consequences for using it. And you know that there’s going to be more like it coming.

[@joshuadelministro3104]

7:24 "You CANNOT fix her." I never intended to, I am scared shitless of this badass woman.

[@stellarischloride7522]

The reason why Limbus characters work better is very simple. Other gachas treat their characters as merchandise. It's their main and only selling point and their goals for making the game is mostly just for profit. Limbus simply has a story to tell, while they are also driven by profit, I imagine they're using the profit to keep themselves alive and tell more stories than just to boost their bank account. I really hate Wuthering Waves because how sheerly idiotic the writing is. As if one walking encyclopedia is not enough for info dumps, they added TWO, and whenever any exposition is required, Encyclopedia 1 speaks in a really fancy manner nobody really understands and Encyclopedia 2 repeats the exact same thing but in the most bland, straightforward way possible. I find several issues with its characters too. Yangyang straight up said that working in backup support is much more difficult and exhausting than fighting on the front line. As a Gregor simp, I took that personally. I'd really love to see her go to the front line and "simply need to fight bravely". The moment when Jiyan chickens out for Yangyang to have her Big Hero Moment™ is clearly not thought out well enough. It turned him into a complete laughingstock. Many people I know interpreted his actions as one of cowardice. I just can't look at him with a straight eye when a certain other war hero gets downtrodden and traumatized and this chicken becomes the most respected guy ever. I really don't think the writers of WW knew what they were doing, I can tell what they're aiming for in these moments, but the end results are simply horrendous.

[@Renko324]

PM sold a lot of LC Sinners merchandise at cons and stuff. 😅

[@stellarischloride7522]

@@Renko324 That's not exactly what I mean. They produce sinner merch and all that but at the end of the day they still treat them like good characters, unlike many other gachas where they just stockpile design elements for a quick waifu/husbando material and/or a strong unit to leech players' wallets. When games like Genshin produce like 20 new characters per season, we only have these 12. I know there are ids, but the ids are still variations of the sinners we know and love. This makes it easier for them to focus on building these characters that we follow through the entire game without having to sacrifice the abundance of side characters that just exist to encourage players to pull the banners. Besides, this releases tension between gameplay and plot. You can see this from, again, Genshin. I mean, though you might have pulled certain characters for your team, you can't realistically expect them to actually follow you through your journey. You might have pulled Raiden Shogun to help get past a boss, but she's still staying at Inazuma (think that's the name, not sure tho) plot wise. This creates conflict between gameplay and plot, and I didn't like this. Compare to Limbus, where if a character is unavailable due to reasons, you actually can't select them to fight. Sucks to be that guy who have no good Rodion and Hong Lu ids in the TKT event (which I am), but it makes sense for the plot and I'm all for it. To summarize, I don't like it when games treat characters as less than characters, which is what I mean by treating them as merch, and is unfortunately frequent in gachas. And while it's certainly profitable, this approach can lead to serious drama and disaster, look at what happened to GF2...

[@VanVungNguyen-he9mt]

@@stellarischloride7522 limbus have more merchandise than any gacha. Hell, they even have a litteral restaurant base on their games and somehow they still have the best writing in the gacha industry

[@YumiRen]

As a Kuro Games fan, Punishing Gray Raven was legit peak, so I have no idea what is going on with Wuthering Waves. I like some of the characters and some of the plot points, but nothing touches me because none of the characters are relatable to me at all. Meanwhile in Punishing Gray Raven, they have a lot of characters but they do manage to develop them well enough. PGR Chapter 17 was seriously peak. I'm convinced that the writing team for PGR and WuWa are different people because they could do better with WuWa. I KNOW they can do better than that, but it just begun, so I cannot say much yet

[@YumiRen]

@@VanVungNguyen-he9mt That means that other gacha games have to do better in their storytelling.

[@alayashiki1768]

Regarding Wuthering waves. CN didn't like the original script about all of the people including the red headed girl being sus about the MC, heck the red hair girl even pointed a gun on the MC for being sus

[@pbyn153]

And the result, Wuwa's story lack depth.

[@ilikethebluesky101]

Pretty sad innit?

[@WARPCORPoration]

The fault lie within CN, after all.

[@alayashiki1768]

@@pbyn153 in exchange for being a coomer bait, CN removed the lore and will continue listening to CN than the global fanbase.

[@potatokle1791]

Honestly in the end, the fault lie with Kuro. They change 90% of the story and look how that goes. It not like they have to change all, just tone some hostility down (cuz 10hrs in and nothing improve) or make story that compliment the hostility of character.

[@L_Nivale]

one of my favourite moment is in canto 4.5 you can see yi sang trying to change and you don't know how happy I am while reading through that

[@justacatwithasadface2692]

The fact that CBT Wuwa sounds infinitely more intriguing just by having Chixia hold you at gunpoint is making me so mad, I didn't know about this before.

[@theundeadgamer4714]

32:59 THERE I AM GARY THERE I AM!!!!! Memes aside this was a nice video to see, a nice way to put into words why I love limbus, and PM's writing as a whole in a nice 32 minute package in comparison to most things that come out these days. Nice work dude, hope the Sinclair cosplay isn't too uncomfortable

[@jup9618]

10:31 "the reason why"? like like through patches of violet?

[@gimmeyourrights8292]

This game honestly reminds me lf Disco Elysium, you play as an idiot in a cold and brutal world who also doesn't remember how he got there and then you meet a cast of characters with their own traumas and ideologies.

[@dreameater8548]

I have to personally thank you, Tsunul, for making a video that summarizes why this game is so good because now I can actually hold my point when people tell me "but it's just another gacha, probably just hollow predatory business with just a little less boob on the surface, what's there to like" because people normally dont wait for you to type out a paragraph of reasons before dismissing the conversation. Genuinely good analysis, at least on a introduction level. I feel like, in a way, everyone can make a heavily detailed explanation of some characters more than others because, well, there's always someone in between these that you CAN relate to. They feel real, among the whole disastrous monolith of suffering that is the City, these feel like real people with problems. And Idk. It's just. Yknow. It's just really good. I've come to realise over the years I'm not as much a thinker as I am a transmitter, I can understand pretty well and remember too but my thoughts aren't nearly as deep as this analysis or some of the comments (shoutout to the one with the deep explanation of each Sinner, you're so cool), so I'll use your video next time I gotta explain. Again, thanks for doing such a good intro analysis. Best of luck with all! P.D. Also I'm fully biased with PM because Limbus made me cry with every Canto after 3, including some of the Side Stories and events. It's so visceral, you can't just watch it from afar. It pulls you in.

[@hanchengjun275]

Hoo boy. As a limbus, genshin and hsr player (with a bit of fgo in the past), i realise the three games are very different from one another, and limbus unique structure help separate its characters. I am about to go on a lap. Of the three games, our main character is the least involved with thr universe, the universe and the aeons are the real MCs. It makes the galaxy feel evey vibrant, and makes each character group their own independent bubble that interacts, enhancing their realism. EG after leaving belobog, the planets and its PCs begin on restoration while we are off trailblazing. While this keeeps individual planets, it comes at the cost of making playable characters feel very distant from us. Character writing may be individually good, but our POV is too brief, so it's harder to bond with playables. Star Rail also has an even worse case of info dumping than genhsin. Now genshin is an RPG that has the skinsuit of a gacha. Do you need to pull? No, less than in star rail, not that your primogem sources allow you to be flippant. But FOMO and 5 star char strength will make you wabt to pull. Anyways, regarding, i unironically feel more connected to the nations and playables than in HSR. When we solve world quests and exploartion objectives, the world physically changes. Characters may not be jn the open world, but their effects are felt through the nations they live in, eg the fortress being well lit and a bustling factory prison represents wriothesley's successful reform of the prison. Also, we spend a lot more time with playables in quests and main stories which allowed me to feel more for them. Eg, i know more and care more about Neuvilette and furina, Nahida and the Sumeru Crew than Sunday and Robin. Genhsin also has awesome lore, worldbuilding and character themes....if you're willing to sit through it. Sure it's not all perfect (cough Inazuma middle part cough, NPC doninated story quest, bad desert bla bla bla) but Genhsin between it's more open world, and it's more tightly knitted characters even back jn Mondstadt is just better executed for me. We actually trsvel interact and catch up with playable characters more meaningfully. It's still my preferred among the two mihoyo games. But Limbus is unique. It's barely a gacha, because PMoon are absolute angels when it comes to game design. If selling new characters degrades old characters value? Set the playable cast in stone for the foreseeable future. Dante (us) is also even closer to the sinners, verg and the City. The City as a backdrop allows the dystopian atmosphere to be set up, but its not so overbearing as to drown out the characters in fornt of us. We pcik up on Sinner quirks and interaction (yi sang more happy postCIV, sinclair having a new aunt in the form of Ryo, Sault's rapping) and Dante is all the way there when confronting obstacles form the City (them pushing and encouraging Heathcliff throughCVI to give him the support needed to face Catherine). It's a lot more personal, and you can always adjust them with diff versions of teh same lovable sinner, which is the one of the most well executed usage of multiverse in any media i have seen. It helps that Dante has a lot of pwrsonaliy on their own, and that limbus has less grinding to prep your chess pieces (just lvls and thread) while the two games above need you to win 5050 pull the character get artifacts get weapon and so on and more). ID strength is important but won't affect ppl's vire on original LCB sinners while the hoyoverse characters perceptions are warped by kit strength, which can lead to ludonarratuve dissonace ( why can't a god pull robots into his tornado, but a random samurai can? This charctee sucks, i shouldn'thave wasted time on him.) All three games have long stories, but limhus has the most concise info dumps, and borrowing from literary works allows for experimentaion and modification (wuthering novel-> C6) which puts less burden on writer capabilities. Visual jovel style also means avoiding awkward dry conversational cutscenez, and saves animation for important moments. All in all, the gameplay between these three is up to personal preference. BUT, ljmbus relative conciseness helps retain player interest and story stakes between charcters, and then it hooks us in with small character moments. The other two games are great as a games (i dun mind paimon lmao), but soemtimes their scale is too grand, and some charcters have great backstories and don't get utilised. The ones that don't have the tupical backstory or utilise backstory are teh most popular hoyo characters (arleccino, neuv, scara, archons). At the end of it, these are just my personal two cents as someone who loves all three games.

[@mitacestalia7532]

I agree. We know Paimon is important figure but it's been four years and there's NO SIGN of at least dropping hin regardless of her true identity. And yeah, Limbus only has 12 characters are best idea in gacha game. Smaller pool characters mean you will get attached to one of them faster and longer. Look how I end up loving the gremlin when i don't even pay attention to her deisgn.

[@hanchengjun275]

@@mitacestalia7532 tbf to hoyo, paimon's lore would quite literally be endgame lore, like ascending celestia for final confrontation endgame . they have already massive lroe and world building about literally everyhting else (irminsul, loom of fate, constellations and visions, dragons and archons) and tevyat as a result feels alive and ancient, moreso than other fantasy games I have played

[@Halfcrabs]

800 views within 21 minutes…man never fell off, EVER.

[@Yuri_Burger]

Unlike GuardianZet lmaoooo

[@WARPCORPoration]

​@@Yuri_Burger who?

[@Yuri_Burger]

@@WARPCORPoration project moon creator who is weirdly far right, reposts some really weird right wing stuff on Twitter and hates pride stuff

[@WARPCORPoration]

@@Yuri_Burger Well He didn't on KZbin so I don't know, my X(Twitter) account is suspended so I definitely don't know him. Might as well I could remember if I saw him on Reddit though.

[@Halfcrabs]

@@Yuri_Burger he’s far right?