Only gripe with the plot (Chapter 5 Spoilers)

[Rowley]

Having finished the game a short bit ago, I can definitely say I enjoyed most of the story, even if a lot of the twists seemed a bit predictable (I'm looking at you, Chihiro!) Here's hoping more of the games get ported over to Steam.

That said, it seriously seems to me like Makoto should have died when the Mastermind paid him a little visit in his room. There is an argument to be made that the Mastermind only wanted him to see the mask, though just as likely is that he was going to be killed to frame Kyoko I suppose. Her ingame excuse for being able to "see death" coming towards his room struck me as kinda bull**** given that it's the only real supernatural nonsense that crops up. Also, this is convienantly the only time this ability crops up.

One could also say he just got really, really lucky--but still, it's really too convienant for the plot that Kyoko had that almost deus ex machina-esque ability.

Thoughts?

[Phantron]

I thought the point was that Junko was trying to kill him (since she was breaking the rules anyway, who cares how you go about breaking them) but backed off because she's not sure if she can beat Kyoko when she arrived on time. Of course this makes the notion that the cast didn't immediately overpower her in chapter 6 when she revealed herself to be utterly ridiculous, or the fact that you're supposed to believe that the masked figure was supposed to be Mukuro even though she failed to kill Kyoko.

Kyoko showing up conveniently is one of the less crazy things she did. There's nothing particularly wrong with someone who can sense death coming. It's not an unusual trait for many genres and certainly far more believable than how Kyoko can magically deduce things she literally has no knowledge of.

[Rowley]

One of the possibilities that Makoto discusses during the trial proper is that she just wanted him to see the mask and make the connection later. But it is entirely possible that she intended to kill him then and there--knocking off both him and Kyoko would have been the best outcome she could hope for after all. The thing that gets me is just that Kyoko showed up at all to save him.

[Phantron]

I got the feeling that Junko somehow knew Kyoko was coming (maybe she read the same spoilers that Kyoko did) so she had to abandon her first plan of killing Makoto, since killing Makoto (and possibly Kyoko too) was obviously the best outcome she can get, given the entire chapter 5 was already rigged to the point of unsolvable so if you can knock off two annoying students at the same time, why wouldn't you do it? I'm pretty sure someone said that if Kyoko didn't come, Junko certainly would've just flat out killed him, and there certainly isn't a reason I can think of where killing Makoto would somehow interfere with Junko's plan.

I read some of the Kyoko novel summaries and I got the feeling that the author always intended her to be some kind of super spy that infilitrates the Illuminati of the week and take them down by herself, so 'sense death' looks like an appropriate power. She had no problem with being locked out of her room in chapter 5 or that she's sleeping with her door open in chapter 3 to be able to hear Alter Ego, so I can buy that she is supposed to have some kind of sixth sense. It'd have made a lot more sense if she was actually the Ultimate Soldier, since her profile really doesn't explain why she'd have a power like that. Still, sixth sense isn't exactly a hard ability to get in the realm of fiction, and compared to the other crazy things she somehow knows about, I can live with Kyoko having an utility awesome ability.

[Rowley]

Originally posted by Phantron:

I read some of the Kyoko novel summaries and I got the feeling that the author always intended her to be some kind of super spy that infilitrates the Illuminati of the week and take them down by herself, so 'sense death' looks like an appropriate power. She had no problem with being locked out of her room in chapter 5 or that she's sleeping with her door open in chapter 3 to be able to hear Alter Ego, so I can buy that she is supposed to have some kind of sixth sense.

Sixth sense is plausible, but they didn't just leave it at "I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach," she outright went on to say something like; "I saw the white spectre of death going down the hall towards your room..." Which is what I take issue with.

As for the author's intention...I don't quite agree. Kyoko was apparently supposed to die in an earlier draft of the story's plot. Though her character certainly grew into the direction you speak of.

[Phantron]

Originally posted by Cloaked Destiny:

Originally posted by Phantron:

I read some of the Kyoko novel summaries and I got the feeling that the author always intended her to be some kind of super spy that infilitrates the Illuminati of the week and take them down by herself, so 'sense death' looks like an appropriate power. She had no problem with being locked out of her room in chapter 5 or that she's sleeping with her door open in chapter 3 to be able to hear Alter Ego, so I can buy that she is supposed to have some kind of sixth sense.

Sixth sense is plausible, but they didn't just leave it at "I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach," she outright went on to say something like; "I saw the white spectre of death going down the hall towards your room..." Which is what I take issue with.

As for the author's intention...I don't quite agree. Kyoko was apparently supposed to die in an earlier draft of the story's plot. Though her character certainly grew into the direction you speak of.

The game hypes up Kyoko a lot and I'm sort of used to it. Like I said the whole scene can be explained as sixth sense and I don't actually care if Kyoko claimed that she sensed a disturbance in the Force or whatever her reasoning was. It's far fetched but certainly within the realm of fiction.

The Kyoko novels came out considerably after the game so I'm not using them as a reference material. I'm just saying throughout the whole game I got this vibe that Kyoko is meant to be a super spy kind of character and that the later stuff on her seems to be consistent with this assumption. I mean she's pretty much poking around random corners of a mysterious facility that's patrolled by a death robot at night, and she also knows when Makoto tried that he got clubbed in the head by some mystery guy but she's apparently never worried that the same can happen to her. Even if she's absolutely certain that she couldn't die because she didn't break any rules, getting clubbed on the head by a mystery guy still sounds pretty bad, so the only conclusion I can get is that she's somehow sure that it'd never happen to her. I don't see any reason to believe she should have that kind of skills, but if the game says she's got them I can't really argue against it.

[Lots Of Blue]

A lot of it can be explained by the fact that Makoto's Ultimate Luck is in fact the Ultimate Plot Armor.

[Phantron]

Originally posted by That Nearsighted Guy:

A lot of it can be explained by the fact that Makoto's Ultimate Luck is in fact the Ultimate Plot Armor.

Luck is fine as a special power. Luck would be that he got sick in the first place, and plot armor would be how he survived an execution. It's actually a pretty good thing to be physically incapaciated in a murder mystery because you'd assume the rest of the guys would put the most trustworthy guy to watch over him while he's out sick, except that for some reason the rest of the students don't actually care he's out cold and a sitting duck and left him to die.