Endings *Obvious spoiler talk*

[CLG]

Has anybody else finished both endings? In both endings there is a mysterious man that talks about the events that took place and talks about the world of the three gods At first I thought it was just teasing me to play the other route but the mysterious man shows up in both endings. Could this be a hint that there's a new fairy fencer f game on the horizon? He even says "I'll pay them a visit shortly." I couldn't find anybody else on the internet talking about these endings so I was curious to see if I missed something during the routes or if there was more meaning to this characters inclusion.

[VertVentus]

I beat both on Switch, while it was talked a bit on the biggest GameFAQs thread for Refrain Chord (posts #97 and #106) and its TV Tropes' Character page (Ctrl + F "Myster" twice under Al's very spoiler heavy tropes list).
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/368265-fairy-fencer-f-refrain-chord/80025116?page=9
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FairyFencerF

I don't remember this since it's been so long, but apparently Junown's reason for trying to use the Evil Goddess's power in the first place (Advent Dark Force, 0:00 ~ 2:06 of this video, sorry for the commentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m-W7RSdFWk
was to repel further interdimensional gods (the Goddess, Vile God, and Evil Goddess also count as them).
Skip to 7:09 ~ 8:24, the post-credits, and you'll see a scene with the Mysterious Man (don't know if this is the first one about him) teasing a sequel... that we didn't get with Refrain Chord, just more sequel bait. Grandfather and Anju are their names, and were working with Junown.
I guess they didn't show up at the end of Vile God, so that might as well have been their first appearance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPiKdlK5Txc&list=PL_3baL3ZhpP0KfPU9IfvOUoWfXfTdz-Ts&index=147

In the very first scenes of Refrain Chord (6:04 ~ 7:24),
https://youtu.be/lArPAep-mXk?list=PL-Hm3rGMVE2svH3tuF2i4P3Fc4qAF2rbE&t=365
the butterfly effect of the Mysterious Man shattering a Fury causes the whole thing with Al, Fleur, and Glace. I don't know if it's the same seiyuu as the one from ADF, but the intentions to sow chaos and be entertained here VS protecting the world back in ADF seem at odds here.

In the post-credits scene of the Flower route (1:16:08 ~ 1:18:18),
https://youtu.be/sCK1Rgt09nE?list=PL-Hm3rGMVE2svH3tuF2i4P3Fc4qAF2rbE&t=4568
Al leaves behind that shattered Fury for Fang to collect while the Mysterious Man talks about more sequel bait set up.

In the penultimate chapter of Refrain Chord's Ice route (1:01:40 ~ 1:03:35),
https://youtu.be/QE1dF1sn53w?list=PL2Q-H9Spmv-_itDzgoZ2vJsFDz-pbVW12&t=3700
Junown's sentiment is resonated again in Refrain Chord's Ice route / NG+ when Fang foils her plans by blowing up the wine factories.

I don't think there's any recorded footage of the Ice route's final chapter on YouTube, but basically the shattered Fury houses the power of a 4th god but the Mysterious Man steals it this time. So while the party is still screwed against the incoming threat due to lacking the power of Muses (they made the entirety of Refrain Chord revolve around Fairy Aria and Dramatic Resonance but dropped it for the next game, lmao) and having no info of what their threat is, everyone's at least alive to fight against it with the Goddess and synchronization (I forgot the exact term used, but it might as well be the power of hope and friendship).

• Sherman isn't dead, but he didn't get his Chiaki wife.
  
• Galdo isn't severely hospitalized.
  
• The Four Heavenly Charz are all alive and well (?). Apollonius died in ADF's Evil Goddess route I think, Zenke apparently became a wine addict.
  
• Pippin didn't settle things with his dad Pappin in Refrain Chord, there was only one side mission that even acknowledged him.
  
• Both Rinne & Ibfreet have joined the party.

So while Fang's ADF Evil Goddess harem was only 8 people strong (Fang, Tiara, Harley, Ethel, Pippin, Marianna, Noie, Lola), I guess Refrain Chord was to correct the number of deaths before the actual sequel (+6 with Zagi, Sherman, Galdo, Apollonius, Rinne, Ibfreet = 14, maybe +5 with Bernard, Zenke, Paiga, Pappin, Chiaki = 19, Emily is also alive but poor Hanagata).

To me, this draws similarities to Compile Heart's Mary Skelter 2 with a "new" game (Refrain Chord) that saved and introduced new characters (+2 with Little Mermaid, Otsuu = 13) alongside a remake of the original (Advent Dark Force), and then the actual sequel Mary Skelter Finale added more (+5 with Toh, Clara, Mary, Charlotte, Pyre = 18 / 3 parties = 6 each) to round out multiple balanced parties. Maybe that's what the actual next Fairy Fencer F game wants to do with its parties of 6 for combat, kind of like how Trails into Reverie also had a 3 party system. They could do something like...

• Hero Party: Fang, Tiara, Sherman, Harley, Galdo, [New Relevant Main Character] (like Jack's group in MSF)
  
• Dorfa Party: Bernard, Marianna (& Zagi), Ibfreet, Paiga, Apollonius, Zenke (like Toh's group in MSF)
  
• Oddball Party: Pippin, Pappin, Rinne, Noie, Ethel, Lola (like Clara's group in MSF, down to Rinne and Ethel not knowing to live normally like Pyre and Rapunzel)

Tiara, Marianna, and Lola is at least one healer per group, and if they reuse Refrain Chord's sub-fairy classing for more diverse roles, you could have more support characters.

[CLG]

The grandfather and mysterious man could be different entities entirely too. The mysterious man was given given a very different silhouette and voice. For all we know a sequel may be hack and slash like what compile heart has been doing with all the new nep games now. Either way I don't think refrain chord sold very well so they may just shelf the series again which is unfortunate given the recent developments with the plot.

[VertVentus]

Originally posted by CLG:

The grandfather and mysterious man could be different entities entirely too. The mysterious man was given given a very different silhouette and voice.

Oh, good catch with noting the difference in Refrain Chord's Mysterious Man having bunny ears and a different voice: Keito Okuyama. They're also credited under ADF but not attributed to a specific person, but Grandfather certainly sounds different when you compare the JP voices here in ADF's Evil Goddess's post-credits scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55PUKAL564

For posterity's sake, I decided to beat the Ice route final boss again and transcribe the post-credits dialogue since it's available nowhere else but essentially the canon route leading into whatever the sequel would be.

Originally posted by Mysterious Man:

Dangerous, quite dangerous indeed...
If only I could have found this Fury before... All the pain o'er these hundreds of years would be gone... [CG of a test tube]
Well, we've done it yet again. Thanks to them, the wine factory was destroyed.
And that woman became a vessel for the Evil Goddess. Quite a different end for her..
But still, was it really worth going all the way back to fix that single mistake?
No, it was what bought me to this place.
So, what next? Let's start with the Goddess. She's made things difficult for far too long.
Now, I'll show you what I can really do...

So we have 3 different interests here,

1. Fang's party with reviving the Goddess. Al screwed them over by being vague about where he left the gifts for them (top of the Stairway to Heaven = a chip, papers for Harley, three test tubes with genes from the Goddess, Vile God, and broken Fury of the 4th god, but the third test tube was stolen by the Mysterious Man) at the end of Ice route. During the Ice route ending, Fang says, "Ahhhh! Does that mean from now on we're going to have to fight without the power of song?!" and "Ah, and we've still got the resonance effect. If we strengthen our bonds, we'll be stronger too. I guess that'll just have to do, then.", and is brought up again in Eryn's ending.
   
2. Advent Dark Force's Junown, Grandfather, and Anju trying to use another god to protect the world. Junown did leave in Refrain Chord, but I guess turned into an Evil Goddess vessel off-screen according to the Mysterious Man. Either way they're well-intentioned extremists.
   
3. Refrain Chord's Mysterious Man who's trying to stir things up. I also didn't notice he broke the Fury in Flower route's ending, but he's gonna immediately target Fang & Eryn seemingly based on what he said at the end of Ice route.

Maybe it'll also start out like Mary Skelter Finale: the party confronting that fourth god & bunny hooded Mysterious Man, getting scattered to the winds due to the power difference, and recuperating within their groups to growing stronger to finally take it down while tackling multiple perspectives / points of view / party dynamics. Anju could also join Fang's group to inevitably betray them or still work with them, but yeah, we might never know from a sales perspective. Even if they did, IFI isn't keen on full English dubs anymore and it felt like enough people didn't buy Refrain Chord over that, so RIP.
The cast size is very bloated now with like 15 fencers and a equivalent amount of fairy partners, much like Trails of Cold Steel IV & into Reverie between the Liberl, Crossbell, and Erebonia casts, so I can really see split parties being a thing in a future sequel.
The SRPG gameplay didn't really add anything, in fact removing the cutscenes for non-special attack skills, and was too defense-oriented since it was better for Fleur to stay stationary while the enemies seppuku into your song range. Since she's gone now, it could go either way back into turn-based Neptunia/ADF gameplay or more recent action RPG Neptunia gameplay (3? person parties in Sisters VS Sisters, 4? person parties in Game Maker R:Evolution). Hell, there's enough similarities between Fencers & Fairies and Xenoblade 2 Drivers & Blades they could do MMO action like Xenoblade 3's 6 person parties too.

As an aside,

• https://youtu.be/4m-W7RSdFWk?t=197 3:17 for Advent Dark Force credits
  
• the ADF scenario being Toshiki Inoue of Kamen Rider fame
  
• https://youtu.be/JmpcObKvx9k?t=1686 28:06 for Refrain Chord credits
  
• and Refrain Chord's scenario being Kanako Kitamura from Idea Factory + Main Scenario being Yukinori Kitajima & Takayoshi Muto from Synthese Co.,Ltd. (Fire Emblem Fates & Engage, Senran Kagura series, Ace Attorney 5, Sentimental Death Loop, 428: Shibuya Scramble)

explains why Refrain Chord's story was so weak. We really didn't get any room for Fang or Sherman to develop as foils (kind of did with Sherman deciding to spare Zenke offscreen and in Flower route where Fang reflects on helping Al), but the whole sister Iris/Chiaki thing for Sherman and various ADF routes for Fang enriched them because of the deaths... that Refrain Chord did away with (Sherman in Goddess & Evil Goddess, Galdo in Vile God). I hope they bring him back, but I'd rather not have anyone die too...

[CLG]

Either way it will be interesting to see how they continue the story if they ever decide to get a sequel. For all we know they could just ignore refrain chord since it was made by sting. I'm not sure how they could introduce Al and the muses in an ADF style of gameplay unless they take the omega quintet approach and just do the live concerts again.

I would like to see some sort of continuation of the harmony system though. I'm not a real big fan of tactics games but the concept of songs harmonizing on top of eachother mid combat is really interesting. I would love to see this system be used in another type of jrpg, it would fit perfectly in ar tonelico with hymnnos but that series is probably not ever coming back.

[VertVentus]

At the very least, the sequel should have a story recap function to read like Trails of Cold Steel III and IV and Mary Skelter Finale, as that's now 5 routes (Advent Dark Force's Goddess, Vile God, Evil Goddess & Refrain Chord's Flower and Ice) to keep track of with 2 of them (Evil Goddess and Ice) having the most important story bits and the other 2 ADF routes having good character development.
As is, Refrain Chord started off in the middle of the pre-route split like around when Sherman joins but Zenke got spared (otherwise Sherman and Galdo can't co-exist due to mutually exclusivity in the ADF route), so the next sequel game taking place after the Ice route with everyone alive would need a lot more clarification to people who only played the original (there's more than 2 gods?) or ADF (how are all these dead people alive?).

Since Al, Fleur, and Glace all lived happily ever after and died in the past, the power of song can't be used but I agree that Dramatic Resonance was a cool gameplay mechanic and musical treat with the 6 x 6 dual vocal tracks. Admittedly, it was very player-favored, overrode the Fairize music, and I didn't need to use anything more than the opening song Notes of Faith for Physical Attack Up +20%, so it could've been executed better. The only other song-related RPG I can think of is Stella Glow on 3DS, which had like 10 impactful song effects, but imageepoch is dead...
Refrain Chord kept All Our Might Tonight (2nd Fairize theme) exclusive to Fang's second transformation while everyone else got Full Contact (1st Fairize theme), so maybe they could attribute exclusive vocal songs for everyone's Fairize*, and then you assign a leader and sub-leader within your party to prioritize their songs and act as your "Muses" with ranges you'll want to overlap (like Kuro no Kiseki's S.C.L.M. or scrum ranges I suppose, if they stick to turn-based combat) and continue having the dramatic resonance effect. Having Fleur steal your 6th party slot was a little annoying, and since her song gauge was immediately filled at the start of battle unlike Fairize gauges or Stella Glow's song gauge, there was no real comeback factor to it since you can just use it turn 1, so doing this would address its accessibility and team composition issue.

*On the JP website and with Google Translate, just Refrain Chord's 36 mashups was challenging enough but certainly not impossible to replicate again, I hope.
https://www.compileheart.com/fairyfencer_f/rc/sound/

Originally posted by Yoh Ohyama from ZIZZ STUDIO:

An unprecedented challenge of "6 songs x 6 songs mashup".
Is that possible? Even though I was worried about it, when I made the test version, I thought, "This is amazing!"
Pleasure that the song of a different diva cuts in! I feel the joy of being involved in this project, with an unprecedented shock every time the number of combinations increases.
I hope everyone will enjoy this shock! We hope that you will fully immerse yourself in the game world with the song of the diva.