Muv Luv

It's been a while since I played so I can't remember how long you have left, for sure, but the answer to your question is that You're somewhat close to the end. My guess is anywhere between 3 and 7 hours, depending on how fast you read and how shoddy my memory is.

edited 20th May '14 6:16:40 PM by nman

You're near the end. Your issues are addressed.

Yeah, I just finished it yesterday. Although, my concerns aren't really addressed from my standing, but they're not supposed to be. There's no telling how humanity is going to fare from this point on, but that's the same for Real Life; you just gotta' hope for the best.

Still, a very good VN at the end of the day, but I definitely can't call it perfect. For starters, Extra&Ultimate; Extra especially. I can get why those two were there, and if they weren't, (even Extra,) then Alternative wouldn't have had the full effect that it did. I just think that the developers could have told the general story of Extra in a much more competent and interesting way. Any story can be good as long it's told well; Extra just wasn't told very well. It does make Ultimate look like a masterpiece by comparison, though; Ultimate was okay, but still not that great. And even in Alternative, you still had to sit through an Ultimate rehash for 5-7 hours until the Coup arc started up.

And then the Coup arc started up. And then the Coup arc continued. And it was all worth it. That's not to say there weren't any other problems though, because there were. There were times when the pacing was a lot slower then it could have been, such as when Isumi was briefing Takeru on so much material. We didn't need to be told all of that information about the BETA and the HIVE's; I hardly remember it by now anyway. It would have been better had they just showed all of the aliens and what they could do rather than telling us about them first. (Which I guess you could argue did kinda-sorta' happen, but we didn't see much of them until after the briefing, so I think my point still stands.

Also, Sumika. She was still likeable and enduring, but at the same time, I can't deny that she isn't a very progressive female character; quite the opposite, really. Her entire existence, her entire reason for being in the story, is to be with Takeru. In fact, that literally turns out to be the case. And what makes it even more lamentable is that there are so many great female characters in the cast, though there's a bit of a problem with that too. I kind of felt just slightly uneasy when it turned out that every single one of the core female pilots had feelings for Takeru, but at the same time, they weren't defined by him. They still had their own problems, dilemmas, and lives outside of Takeru; Meiya especially. (Who is now one of my favorite female characters in all of fiction, by the way.) So while all of them having feelings for him did miff me a bit, it's not that big of a deal.

All of that said, when Muv Luv gets good, it gets really damn good. I won't call it a masterpiece because of reasons that I've already explained, but at times, it sure comes close.

edited 29th May '14 9:59:22 PM by kkhohoho

Answering the question of how humanity shall fare from that point on requires side materials, but here I go (spoilers to be safe):

BETA shoot themselves from world to world with those hive-railguns of theirs, so they travel at sublight speeds. As it happens after the second hive unit landed in Canada an orbital interception system (called SHADOW) was set up, which uses nukes to destroy incoming Hive units. BETA don't really have spacegoing units aside from the Hive landers, which function pretty much as Drop Pods. IIRC, SHADOW has intercepted at least one incoming unit from the Moon, so the system seems to be working. and there's no danger from that angle yet.

Since the BETA are technically autonomous carbon-based mining machines (think Von Neumann machines, complete with a Creator-centric 3 Laws of Robotics) I am of the thinking that the Creators just sent those mining pods out on a "fire-and-forget" basis, while raking in all those resources sent via railgun. Who knows what the war machines would be.

As for humanity in the wake of Operation Cherry Blossom, in another two years they capture the Korean Hive using only conventional weaponry (i.e. TSFs and lots of non-nuclear, non-G-bomb dakka), suffering fewer casualties than before thanks to Sumika's information on all the hives (by this time called Valkyrie Data and replaced the Volk Data from 1983) and are gearing up to capture another one in Siberia. XM 3 has been adopted by the world's militaries (the reactivated Zhar Battalion from TE has it in 2003), so things may be looking up.

These post-Kashgar Tactical Surface Fighters in Action side stories may be of interest (spoilers for the game, of course):

1. 24: Pissing Metals
2. 25: Heritage of Valkyries.
3. 26: Valkyries Hereafter.
4. 38: Continental Fighters.

edited 29th May '14 9:48:39 PM by HithertoAnIPAddress

^ Also, they have BETA derived tech now. I forget, have they learned how to manufacture that one element?

G-Elements? I don't think they've managed to synthesize them yet, although with Kashgar no longer having a reactor BETA will stay away, so there will be a rich stock of "G-candy" there. Since capturing Hives is no longer Real mode, a new cold war is brewing as nations are beginning to scramble to take as many hives (with their G-stores) as possible, so the UN is trying to take control of the whole Hive-capturing process.

TSFIA 14 (can't find my copy of its TL) has the UN brass wanting to acquire Takemikazuchis after seeing their performance at Kashgar. It also implies that the Shogun herself will take the field when the grand offensive to take back the Eurasian mainland starts.

It's also implied that with the 20 more years Takeru&co bought for humanity now they have the time to downscale the Rutherford Field generators to TSF size and maybe even reverse-engineer the Lux/Magnus Lux lasers. Plus Yuuko now has the 120-mm railgun field tested and presumably close to mass production.

edited 30th May '14 8:12:34 AM by HithertoAnIPAddress

I though Takeru bought them 30 years. That's a bit more than 20.

If I remember correctly, Yuuko had estimated that mankind had ~10 years left if Alt IV doesn't succeed. Thanks to Takeru, they now had ~30 years.

edit: revised text to clarify it's 20 more years.

edited 30th May '14 8:13:30 AM by HithertoAnIPAddress

Looks pretty cool.

edited 12th Sep '14 10:34:50 PM by danna45

What's it about? New anime or something?

I think it's a Visual Novel adaption of the Total Eclipse anime, which came out last year. (And was widely panned across the board, incidentally.)

Oh yeah, I watched a few episodes of that before getting bored with it. The first two episodes were great, and I was looking forward to Yui, who actually seemed pretty interesting, being the main character. Then they made a mess of things by making some generic boring guy into the protagonist and turning Yui into "generic tsundere #1729".

Interestingly enough, TE started as a series of light novels; what we're getting now is, essentially, an adaption of an adaptation. I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to work. (Or, they might just ignore the anime and go straight from the light-novels, but I somehow doubt that.)

Adaptception.

Are the light novels much better than the anime? I heard almost nothing positive about the show, but if it's just a case of trying to compress a lot of books into a few episodes, then maybe I'll check out the books.

No clue, but I'm almost positive that the light novels haven't been translated into English. Unless you can read Japanese, you're kind of screwed.

The vid I posted in particular is a newly VN announced adaption of the first two episodes of Total Eclipse, presumably with expanded characterization and other stuff. Take that as you will. The music's pretty nice at least.

Also, all that 'plot' and 'backstory'...

edited 13th Sep '14 7:20:38 PM by danna45

The translation's been out for a good while actually but, how's everyone's impressions of The Day After episode 1? Just started playing it myself but I kinda like the new squad. The Canadian is hilarious, the loli is not too annoying, flower hairclips is alright but so far I don't like her as much, and Hibiki, stranely enough, resonates with me pretty well as a protagonist.

Some recent news:

1. A Kickstarter for an official English release of the trilogy launched on the 25th, and swept past the base goal target in just under seven hours. It's now chomping its way towards the second stretch goal at 500k (Android / Vita releases, something Japanese readers are apparently keen upon, as well), five days into the campaign.

2. Part 1 of a VN duology adaptation of the prequel Light Novel Schwarzesmarken is coming out next month, with Part 2 in December at the earliest. Three main routes are confirmed. An anime adaptation will come out as part of the winter season lineup, in January.

edit: Schwarzesmarken PV:

edited 30th Sep '15 10:59:22 AM by HithertoAnIPAddress

A Vita release, huh? That's kind of tempting even though I've realized I have no real desire to ever read Muv Luv again.

I myself is in it primarily for the likelihood that large portions of the settings and fluff books (Integral Works and the seven Lunatic Dawn volumes) will be officially localized and released digitally (Stretch Goal 3). With any luck, the fourth stretch goal will be reached and official translations for nearly all the sidestories and fandisc segments (ML Supplement, Altered Fable, the MLA Chronicles segments...) will be had. Those who pitched in for at least a collectors' edition (trilogy + artbook + OST master collection, each in both physical and digital format + some other ML - related stuff in a grab bag) automatically get the stretch goal contents (if they are reached) for free too.

Oh, and also a real - world Destroyer - class plushie.

edited 30th Sep '15 11:45:54 AM by HithertoAnIPAddress

I really, really want that TSF jacket.

And likewise, I probably won't buy the Vita versions(or at least, anytime soon) but I'm glad it's getting ported as well. Or will once the kickstarter reaches that much.

Well, it's already at 554k or so right now, so hitting the 720k mark for the max stuff released seems like a pretty safe bet.

ML beated Clannad for most funded VN of all time, 's pretty cool.

ML kickstarter reached $600k, it's pretty damn insane. $720k and we get Photonmelodies and Photonflowers. And they're considering adding a new stretch goal too...

And there is a big chance that the Codex will contain the entirety of Integral Works and the 10 volumes of Lunatic Dawn. There may be a physical release too.