When They Cry - Higurashi and Umineko

The preview version is now available.

It's just the first two or three scenes, but it gives us a good look at some of the main characters' personalities. Miyao and Jayden already exude Ho Yay by every pore.

But yeah… so far there's nothing indicating that it's part of the When They Cry verse outside of the title and Okonogi.

The title screen also mentions that "the difficulty is pretty high", so I assume there will be some involvement from the reader in one way or another.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 4th 2019 at 12:55:12 PM

Continuing my long-postponed play of Trianthology, I'm starting to get (slightly) into the "weird" aspects of the game.

The first weirdness is that the first story… is cut right in the middle and we dive directly into the second one after a brief interlude with Alice, with no choice in the matter. And speaking of choice… "School Love (If You Can Call It That) Adventure" is an almost parodic high school romcom with your usual antisocial First-Person Smartass of an MC with his one male pal and his many haremettes (probably). And in this game, you have choices! And if you pick the wrong choice… the camera zooms back to the point of view of someone playing the game, calling it crappy and turning it off, and it's a game over. There seems to be two kinds of "bad endings" − either the MC falls in love with a girl and they live happily ever after, or he decides to ditch everything and live his life as a slob playing games forever. Thankfully, if you click "continue" the game brings you back right before the choice even if you haven't saved.

SLA is pretty funny so far… but it's still a VN, so it takes a long while for stuff to happen. I have a feeling these kinds of Mind Screws are only gonna escalate though…

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 25th 2019 at 3:23:27 PM

Aaaand School Love Adventure part 1 is over. With a weird twist, or hint of a twist. First the MC wonders if he's in the freaking Truman Show because there's no way so many girls would be after him, and as I kept deliberately picking game over options (because any options but the first ones lead to happy bad endings), things started to get a little clearer… In several endings, we got a glimpse of the player's face which was none other than Mikihiko from the "Country Girl" story. And in case it wouldn't be obvious enough, one of this story's girls namedrops the name of a girl from Country Girl out of nowhere, to the bafflement of the MC. And just as things start to get really weird, we switch to the third story, Vespio 2438, a space opera.

I have no idea how they're gonna connect that to the first two stories, but now this game's got my full attention.

Regarding SLA, while the fact that new (Ryuukishi-drawn) girls appear out of nowhere every minute only to give you bad endings seems like a potshot at clichéd romcom games, I really dig said girls' designs, so I kinda hope they're not one-off jokes… but I doubt it, as they're clearly meant to be shallow clichés − you got the serious stuco president, the passionate sports club captain, the cool distant beauty, the Cute Clumsy Girl who's Late for School with a Toast of Tardiness, the Ojou, and the girl who's in an arranged marriage with the MC. Oh, and there's a Rika/Bernkastel expy among those girls, because of course there is.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 25th 2019 at 3:29:02 PM

Today, October 4th, also known as Umineko day, the first Phase of Ciconia has been released! It can be found on Steam or on Mangagamer. I haven't been following what it's about at all, but I'm looking forward to it.

I don't hang around these forums at all anymore but I felt it necessary to at least comment on this here.

Yes, I've bought it and read the first few chapters! You can select the language (English or Japanese) in the title screen, that's nice.

I'll comment on it in more detail later, but for now all I can say is that the themes are more reminiscent of Rose Guns Days than of other When They Cry entries, with only one scene so far to give me a hint of that WTC weirdness. And while there is there a shitton of background to absorb, the Loads And Loads Of Characters are entertaining enough to make it digestable. And those character designs, my god.

PS: I think it's time to add Ciconia to the title of this thread, no?

So I just finished Phase 1…

……

………

…………

I'll need some time to process everything, especially that fucking ending. This might be Ryukishi's most depressing story yet, and that's saying a lot. Well, so far. I don't doubt there will be some light at the end, but… yeesh.

I wonder if there will be a time-loop system like in Higurashi and Umineko.

Anyway, I still have a whole bunch of TIPS (or Archives, as they are called here) to read. I'll do a more comprehensive commentary when I'm done.

Edited by Lyendith on Oct 15th 2019 at 12:20:42 PM

Is the game horror? I haven't played Higurashi or Umineko but I've heard those are horror and I'm not a fan of horror but the image for Ciconia on Wikipedia is interesting.

I wouldn't say that Higurashi or Umineko are horror. I think it's more appropriate to approach them like they're murder mysteries to be solved than something deliberately trying to scare you.

Higurashi is definitely horror, except at the very end… Umineko has horror elements, especially in the first half, but they're more subsidiary − it's not exactly a "scary" story like Higurashi aims to be.

Ciconia also has horror elements in a few scenes (well, one in particular), but it's a sci-fi war drama first and foremost.

…Actually, thinking back on it I realize that Ciconia has a lot more thematic resonance with Umineko than I initially thought. Especially regarding the value of escapism.

Edited by Lyendith on Oct 16th 2019 at 1:51:25 PM

I wouldn't say that Higurashi isn't trying to be scary, but it feels more like it's written as a mystery first and failure to solve it results in death. There's too much slice of life, comedy and all these hints that you don't actually understand what's going on yet. And it's not like there are any big scary monsters out to get you, just that some people occasionally go crazy and it's not clear why. It just doesn't read like horror to me the way that some Stephen King books do, for example, or the few cosmic horror works I've read. I think more than pure fear, decent horror also tries to inspire dread and I don't feel that in Higurashi.

...That being said, it's not like I found Stephen King to be scary even as a kid so maybe I don't really read horror stories the right way.

Depends how you define horror then I guess… When I feel like I'm trapped in someone's nightmare, that's horror to me, and that's certainly how I felt for a large portion of Higurashi.

Back to Ciconia, I finally wrote my overly long review of Phase 1!

tl;dr: a fascinating story with compelling themes and lovable characters, but dragged down by overly redundant writing at times.

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/01/higurashi-when-they-cry-new-anime-project-announced

So new Higurashi anime sure is a thing that they're making

Because we clearly haven't have enough of those already.

When are we gonna update the thread's name, by the way? It's Higurashi, Umineko and Ciconia now.

Edited by Lyendith on Jan 8th 2020 at 3:40:04 PM

Please let this be a reramp of the 2006 anime (ie same story different studio). Like Studio Deen FSN vs Studio Ufotable Fate Series.

Please let this get an english dub later.

Edited by magnum12 on Jan 31st 2020 at 10:05:28 AM

Sorry for the double post, but BREAKING NEWS!!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ViVnzjalOsc

It IS a full remake of the Higurashi anime.

Already looks better than the Dean version. Has some stuff that the original anime missed (a Satako trap on Rika).

July 2020.

Edited by magnum12 on Mar 21st 2020 at 12:19:57 PM

Not a big fan of the artstyle… it's sleeker than the Deen anime for sure, but it also looks more… generic?

Now I like that they redesigned Tomitake to look a bit more like Toujirou in Ciconia.

Edited by Lyendith on Mar 25th 2020 at 3:36:51 PM

Its far from Generic, its the Bakemonogatari guy. His art is not even close to the usual art that a lot of modern anime uses.

I started playing the first Higurashi game, Onikakushi.

I downloaded the 07th-Mod with the Console Sprites and voices.

I've been flicking between the two options (Remake/Console) when new characters show up, but is one of the sets of sprites accepted as generally better?

Also with how the game is divided into chapters, does that make each one a natural stopping point?

Each chapter is a full arc telling what happened in a brief span of time during the summer. The next arc will then be a "But it could have gone this way" arc and so on. Pick up pieces of information and try to figure out what's actually going on. The first four chapters are loaded with clues, the next three start actually explaining things and with the final chapter all the answers have been given out, so it's basically just the true golden ending with no more mysteries left to solve.

Gotcha.

I'll try not to leave too much time between each one then.

Although it looks like 8 is still a month or so off releasing on Steam.

Not really, the last arc/chapter will be out on the 15th according to my Steam. Planning to get the new batch actually.

I played the vn through previously with the console sprites as they look better to me and thoughts of replaying it again.

Each chapter in the 1st 3 arcs has its own mysteries to solve in addition to the questions regarding the bigger mysteries.

Other chapters can provide clues to the solutions to earlier chapters.

For example, you have until chapter 5 to solve the chapter specific mystery of chapter 2.

However, it is fully possible to solve a chapter specific mystery in the same chapter via finding the correct “smoking gun” clue provided in the chapter.

Higurashi is a very unique take on Jigsaw Puzzle Plot.

tbh I read Higurashi as a mystery novel, not horror.

Yeah makes sense actually. The kind of mystery you have to follow to the end because in hindsight it is so well built up and makes so much sense internally but without those last couple of pieces you'll never figure it out. In fact when I recommend the anime (my gateway into this universe) I always add "it's really good it's really worth it but only start if you can commit to two seasons because otherwise you'll be left confused and frustrated".

I'm about 60% of the way though Watanagashi and it definitely feels more mystery than horror to me.

Its just that the multiple versions of the story lets the main character unwittingly raise flags that get themselves killed. Which couldn't really happen in a mystery novel unless the author swapped characters halfway though.

I have a question about the extra arcs. 07th Mod has a flow Chart.◊

Should I try to play the others in order? Or just ignore them until the main 8 chapters are over with?

If I do read the extra ones I think the way it works is after Tatarigoroshi I play Taraimawashi > Tsukiotoshi > Someutsushi before moving onto Himatsubushi.

But I'm not sure if playing the extra ones is worth doing or not.