slop damage

 

I have no expectations after my boyfriend has been shitting on slow damage since he started it in february (still hasn't finished it after 10 months he dislikes it that much). Before that I feared it might become my favorite N+C game and it would make me look basic. So far I have no major complains. I really like the world building and how it's shown and we learn more about it slowly. I'm sweating over the gameplay elements, my boyfriend said how impossible it is to do without a guide and I should not play blind and I of course said to that that I really dislike playing with guides first time around and I will not need one. Now my pride won't allow me to take that back no matter how many times I'll have to go back and redo exploration. Guess that's going to be fun........

Forward to over a month later, It's January 19th, I have finished slow damage in late December and I'm only writing this one. We had a few technical issues, I was pretty set on finishing it before christmas and I was playing Fujieda's route on 22nd and when I was getting to the good part my game kept crashing in the same scene, I ended up reinstalling the whole thing and when I did turns out my saves got deleted and I was so done with it. I had to come back to it after I came back from Christmas to finally finish the last route. It was something. 

I think that the fact I had to take a break might've worked in slow damage's favor since I had some time to sit with my thoughts and feelings especially for the first route. Up untill I finished Madarame's route I thought yeah slow damage isn't bad but it's definitely not my favorite n+c game, it's whatever 6/10 at worst maybe I could give it a 7 if the last route delivers. Then ARKTA hit me, I will forever and ever be a n+c bitch holy fuck. HOLY FUCK.

Madarame's route was the worst one but it did something in my brain. My boyfriend says a lot how n+c needs to go back and slow damage is the only game they did wrong and how shit it is and different but to me it feels exactly like n+c feels like, despite how drastically diffiferent it seems, how modernized it is it still managed to make me remember why I like n+c so much. Togainu is one of my two favorite n+c titles despite it's countless flaws. I outright dislike two out of five routes in it and I still think very highly of it and it doesn't bother it. Shiki's route is insufferably boring despite being I believe the shortest one. Madarame's route really reminded me of Shiki's, it's pretty much that, MC gets locked in a building, forced to be there, do shit etc. Fundamentally the same except Madarame's route is actually good. Not in a way I enjoyed it (At least it didn't bore my like Shiki's and I read it in one sitting) or liked it but it made sense. It wasn't forced and edgy for the sake of being edgy, it isn't here because they wanted Towa to get raped more and for fujos to simp over Madarame like they do for Shiki. Madarame's route shows a different outcome of how Towa's life can go in. It's realistic and fits with Towa's character, he doesn't develop a stockholm syndrome, he gets back to his old life and feels like he belongs here, that that's how it's supposed to be. It's not romantizied or eroticized, it's there to serve a purpose and does it how it set out to do. Then you load a save file to do the madness ending and you die. HOLY FUCK ARKTA

Damaging you in slow damage is what STILL was for me in Togainu. Recently I have a few realizations how music is much more important to me in games than I thought. I would always say it could be silent or the most shit music I've heard but if the story is amazing it could still be my favorite game and that's still true but I have a feeling a lot of alright or just good things leveled up in my head because of how amazing the music was. I still can't get it out of my head and listen to it a lot and I had really no expectations for music in slow damage since Kanako Itou isn't there and I really dislike the opening, I hope jazz dies one day. A turning point in my view of slow damage I feel like. 

Before I get into the last and the best route, the meat of slow damage. After all the things my boyfriend said about the gameplay and how I should play with a guide and I'm really going to struggle to beat it on my own I was pretty sure I will regret my decision to not use a guide. I really enjoyed the gameplay. It did scare me at first since I thought you had to guess which option to choose to be able to later finish the euphoria episode successfully but pretty soon I realized the game gives you pretty obvious most of the time hints that tell you which option to choose and once I figured that out it went really well I didn't need to reload and make a different choice at all and really enjoyed the gameplay. Especially during euphoria episodes. A shame the first one was the only one that felt so emotional and excited me but I still enjoyed the rest and figuring out how to do both endings for each.

Fujieda's route was something completly different focusing on towa more than anyone else and finally dwelving more into his trauma and childhood. When they get to euphoria is when I actually got chills, Very fitting actually my game crashed on that red sequence with Mei and at first I thought it was intentional (sucks it just delayed me finishing the game by an entire week). My jaw literally dropped when later in the route Towa gets abducted by Eiji I was certainly not expecting that. When they talk about it later his role in the whole thing makes much more sense but still a very interesting moment. Don't get me started on the one, only bad ending in a n+c game that I actually like and find satysfing. I wouldn't say I like it more than the good ending since it wasn't as expanded upon but during the gameplay segment with Towa and Sakaki I was praying to god that there would be an ending where Towa becomes Maya but I thought nah I doubt it and MY GOD. I don't like doing bad ends first usually because they could mess the pacing up but I purposely chose what I think could lead to that bad ending I was hoping for because my god it's so fitting and just drives me crazy. I can't explain how I felt but It's definitely one of my favorite moments in slow damage. Not to mention the ending song. It's the second best track (which other than the op is the only song I heard before playing) and I had to literally stand up and walk around my room not to explode.

Also the entire game I thought it just glitches sometimes weirdly, turns out it does that everytime someone says the word "okay". I love little meaningful details like this. N+C never change.

My only issue with Fujieda's route is Fujieda himself, I know it's a blge and whatever they need to fuck but I think this route would've been so much better if they didn't make it romantic. I'm not opposed to Towa getting with Fujieda down the line eventually but despite how Towa might've connected with Fujieda I just wish it ended more with them being just friends and being there to support each other and get better in life. The rape scene was very unnecssary and out of nowhere but I guess it wouldn't be n+c without it or something. I did also have a bit of an issue with them finding Maya's diary and what was written in there showing how she did actually love Towa but couldn't show it and was sick in the head was kinda meh, I would've preffered her being a heartless monster with no redeeming qualities (she's still not forgiven and redeemed for what she has done) but I get the choice to write her like this and I don't mind it after finishing the game and thinking about it a little.

It is not even close to being my favorite n+c game but I can see why so many think of it as such and like it a lot. I have too been deceived into becoming a slow damage fan. Nitro+chiral will forever be in my head deeply. Save me n+c, I need any sign of what they're working on next (other than shit gacha, I hope mobile games die off in my lifetime), any sort of reveal I might actually go crazy if I don't have anything new to play from them once I'm done with clean dishes. I do already plan on playing throught Yukihito's route in togainu since true blood got released on steam last year (got it on release date) and I wouldn't be surprised if I replay sweet pool sometime sooner than later. My personal request for n+c please bring back Kanako Itou. I need more songs that kill me inside a little especially when they're paired with toxic yaoi.

On a side note. For the longest time I was sure that Shiro from clean dishes is Towa just because somewhere sometime before the english release of slow damage I saw that Towa gets blonde hair and I made this whole narrative in my head that he goes blond probably when he gets untraumatized and all good, sto
ps being a whore, gets his life on the right track and I thought clean dishes just continued from there. Pretty ironic.

Because this post is already very overdue I won't wait any longer untill I finish clean dishes, if I do have anything interesting (or anything at all) to say I'll just shove it into another post most likely. It's fun so far, I'm intrigued and looking forward where the story goes, despite it lenght it feels rather slow because of how much divided each part of the game is. Life is awesome, live laugh love guys