straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2017-10-24 04:56 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2017-10-24 04:56 pm
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168 | in which I make my way through the Oden Cart games
Lately I’ve been playing the Oden Cart games on my phone. I finished the first one, and now I’m making my way through the second. They’re...very soothing games? You basically just make sure your oden cart stays stocked and listen to whatever the customers want to talk/complain about. And each customer has a story, so the more you listen, the more you learn about them / their lives / whatever their secret/story is.
Oden Cart: A Heartwarming Tale
Ahhh, I love the Nice Girl so much. She’s just so...sweet? And cute? And her unknowingly being the Oden Cart Owner’s daughter is just the kind of relationship dynamic I thrive for. I was actually pretty ready to femslash her with everyone, and was initially disappointed when she first mentioned having a boyfriend… but then I realized that the Young Man was her boyfriend (I think it was his saying that neither he nor his girlfriend knew their fathers that gave it away for me), and the way he talked about her was so sweet, that I ended up shipping it in the end too.
...That being said, I’m still pretty ready to femslash her with everyone in a hypothetical “she never dated the Young Man/the girl he was talking about was someone else” AU. Glamor Girl/Nice Girl? They’re both from the country! And, more importantly, they both love the country! (I got pretty touched by the Glamor Girl at the end. The poor girl was so unhappy—I’m glad that she managed to go back home.)
And, more importantly, GHOSTLY GIRL/NICE GIRL???? She literally haunted the oden cart because she wanted to save her! Ghostly Girl was my other favorite character, actually. Ghosts. ♥
Speaking of which...I got pretty disappointed by the Mysterious Man plotline. Initially, I was firmly convinced that he was secretly yakuza, and started getting pretty excited when I realized that the Housewife was his wife, and also had no idea about whatever shady things he was doing. But I hit max excitement when I saw the Housewife’s max loyalty expression—it was just so creepy. I was half-convinced that their ending was going to be “he was hiding his involvement in the yakuza from her for ~reasons~ and then she found out about it and turned out to be much more up to joining him in crime than he ever would have thought”, though I was also bracing myself for a “she redeems him with the power of ~love~” ending.
But then...the way he talked about women got creepier and creepier, not to mention the evidence she started noticing, and I started getting worried that he was going to turn out to be actually a serial killer, and… I was right. :( I’m seriously squicked/disturbed by serial killers, even in fiction, so 1) that was disappointing and 2) all my thoughts about him now can be summed up with “EW EW EW EW EW”.
I also feel really bad for the Housewife, and the state she’s in at the end of the game. From all the customers, she really was the only one who ended up in a worse state after her oden cart visits. Poor woman.
Though, on a smaller note, I was pretty pleased that I realized that the Ghostly Girl had been his first victim even before the Ghostly Girl herself revealed how she’d died—mostly, it was his reference to long hair that tipped me off there. Though, the poor girl. :( Her relationship with the Oden Cart Owner was sweet, though. (Even more reasons to go for Nice Girl/Ghostly Girl, y/y?)
Oden Cart 2: A Taste of Time
I’m a sucker for both time travel and Edo Japan, so this game’s premise is right up my alley. I do love that it’s the same oden-cart owner from the first game here. ♥ Though I was surprised by the reference in the opening to him “living with his daughter”... it looks like he did tell her who he was, after all. Or maybe she found out on her own?
Anyways. I’m not finished with this one yet. I’ve seen...five of the endings, I think? Weirdly enough, I found the Breadwinner and the Matriarch more compelling in their past lives than I did in their present-day storylines. Especially the Matriarch—I didn’t like her at all when she was the Mother-In-Law, but here I thought her excellent. I think it’s because of the setting change; in the present-day, she’s so incredibly conservative about her ideas of what a daughter-in-law’s role should be, but in the past… she still has a lot of those ideas, but she’s also much bolder in her raging towards the system in a way that, as far as I know, women weren’t really encouraged to be in Edo Japan, and I delighted in that.
It was pretty clear where The Scribe’s storyline was going to go (all the pent-up suppression needs to blow at some point), but I was startled that she went so far as to become a courtesan! ...Though it did give me some The Scribe/Courtesan thoughts rolling around. After all, the Courtesan could show her some tips, right? ;) (I’m also kind of headcanon-ing that The Scribe does go back to writing, eventually...it just turns out that her new subject matter is a lot racier than what she previously wrote about. :D)
Speaking of the Courtesan, she managed to give me even more feelings than the Glamor Girl. I didn’t much care for her father, and kind of wished that she’d had a better ending in that regard, but I’m glad that she finally got the freedom that she’d been wishing for.
Also, I ended up adoring the Fireworks Master and Apprentice storyline. I think it was meant to parallel the storyline of the Publisher and the New Guy in the first game, but… I found this one much more compelling? And, also, much more shippy. *_* When the game started pushing how the Fireworks Master had scared away all his previous apprentices, and the Apprentice was The Only One Who Stayed, and how the Apprentice worked so hard to get his approval…. Yeah. That worked for me. *_*
I haven’t completely finished the Samurai in White’s storyline (though I have completed her side of it), but she’s very much my favorite so far! (At least, I nearly certain that she’s a woman? As far as I can tell, she’s a woman who’s pretending to be a man [considering all her accidental references to “other girls”], and maybe was even raised as her father’s son, considering how the One-Eyed Man refers to her as a “him”.) I love how complicated her feelings about about her “honorable duty”, and how she herself isn’t quite sure what’s right. And while I haven’t finished the One-Eyed Man’s side of things, he’s starting to become pretty compelling to me too. He reached max-loyalty today, and his face there just looks so haunted. He’s been dropping hints about how he didn’t kill “him”, but he might as well have, and agh, I’m so curious about what exactly happened, and how this storyline is going to end.
I don’t have too much to say about the Reluctant Ronin—he’s a bit like the Hotshot, though slightly less grating. Slightly.
The Sweet Old Man, on the other hand… I’m pretty sure that he’s either a government spy, looking for signs of rebellion and unrest (in which case, his plotline is probably connected to the Reluctant Ronin’s), or he’s actually secretly that demon that everyone’s been talking about.
Evidence for the first theory:
1) his portrait’s right by the Reluctant Ronin’s, which has been the case for most of the linked stories
2) in the first game, the supernatural character was the one in the last portrait slot, and I haven’t unlocked that character yet.
Evidence for the second theory:
1) This conversation I just unlocked:
The last character I’ve unlocked is the Bearded Doctor. I don’t have too much to say about him yet? There’s clearly something that’s gone wrong in his past, something related to his practicing as a doctor. But who knows what yet. This conversation from him that I unlocked fairly early on did amuse me, though:
On a completely unrelated note, this game keeps making me hungry. The food looks so good!
Oden Cart: A Heartwarming Tale
Ahhh, I love the Nice Girl so much. She’s just so...sweet? And cute? And her unknowingly being the Oden Cart Owner’s daughter is just the kind of relationship dynamic I thrive for. I was actually pretty ready to femslash her with everyone, and was initially disappointed when she first mentioned having a boyfriend… but then I realized that the Young Man was her boyfriend (I think it was his saying that neither he nor his girlfriend knew their fathers that gave it away for me), and the way he talked about her was so sweet, that I ended up shipping it in the end too.
...That being said, I’m still pretty ready to femslash her with everyone in a hypothetical “she never dated the Young Man/the girl he was talking about was someone else” AU. Glamor Girl/Nice Girl? They’re both from the country! And, more importantly, they both love the country! (I got pretty touched by the Glamor Girl at the end. The poor girl was so unhappy—I’m glad that she managed to go back home.)
And, more importantly, GHOSTLY GIRL/NICE GIRL???? She literally haunted the oden cart because she wanted to save her! Ghostly Girl was my other favorite character, actually. Ghosts. ♥
Speaking of which...I got pretty disappointed by the Mysterious Man plotline. Initially, I was firmly convinced that he was secretly yakuza, and started getting pretty excited when I realized that the Housewife was his wife, and also had no idea about whatever shady things he was doing. But I hit max excitement when I saw the Housewife’s max loyalty expression—it was just so creepy. I was half-convinced that their ending was going to be “he was hiding his involvement in the yakuza from her for ~reasons~ and then she found out about it and turned out to be much more up to joining him in crime than he ever would have thought”, though I was also bracing myself for a “she redeems him with the power of ~love~” ending.
But then...the way he talked about women got creepier and creepier, not to mention the evidence she started noticing, and I started getting worried that he was going to turn out to be actually a serial killer, and… I was right. :( I’m seriously squicked/disturbed by serial killers, even in fiction, so 1) that was disappointing and 2) all my thoughts about him now can be summed up with “EW EW EW EW EW”.
I also feel really bad for the Housewife, and the state she’s in at the end of the game. From all the customers, she really was the only one who ended up in a worse state after her oden cart visits. Poor woman.
Though, on a smaller note, I was pretty pleased that I realized that the Ghostly Girl had been his first victim even before the Ghostly Girl herself revealed how she’d died—mostly, it was his reference to long hair that tipped me off there. Though, the poor girl. :( Her relationship with the Oden Cart Owner was sweet, though. (Even more reasons to go for Nice Girl/Ghostly Girl, y/y?)
Oden Cart 2: A Taste of Time
I’m a sucker for both time travel and Edo Japan, so this game’s premise is right up my alley. I do love that it’s the same oden-cart owner from the first game here. ♥ Though I was surprised by the reference in the opening to him “living with his daughter”... it looks like he did tell her who he was, after all. Or maybe she found out on her own?
Anyways. I’m not finished with this one yet. I’ve seen...five of the endings, I think? Weirdly enough, I found the Breadwinner and the Matriarch more compelling in their past lives than I did in their present-day storylines. Especially the Matriarch—I didn’t like her at all when she was the Mother-In-Law, but here I thought her excellent. I think it’s because of the setting change; in the present-day, she’s so incredibly conservative about her ideas of what a daughter-in-law’s role should be, but in the past… she still has a lot of those ideas, but she’s also much bolder in her raging towards the system in a way that, as far as I know, women weren’t really encouraged to be in Edo Japan, and I delighted in that.
It was pretty clear where The Scribe’s storyline was going to go (all the pent-up suppression needs to blow at some point), but I was startled that she went so far as to become a courtesan! ...Though it did give me some The Scribe/Courtesan thoughts rolling around. After all, the Courtesan could show her some tips, right? ;) (I’m also kind of headcanon-ing that The Scribe does go back to writing, eventually...it just turns out that her new subject matter is a lot racier than what she previously wrote about. :D)
Speaking of the Courtesan, she managed to give me even more feelings than the Glamor Girl. I didn’t much care for her father, and kind of wished that she’d had a better ending in that regard, but I’m glad that she finally got the freedom that she’d been wishing for.
Also, I ended up adoring the Fireworks Master and Apprentice storyline. I think it was meant to parallel the storyline of the Publisher and the New Guy in the first game, but… I found this one much more compelling? And, also, much more shippy. *_* When the game started pushing how the Fireworks Master had scared away all his previous apprentices, and the Apprentice was The Only One Who Stayed, and how the Apprentice worked so hard to get his approval…. Yeah. That worked for me. *_*
I haven’t completely finished the Samurai in White’s storyline (though I have completed her side of it), but she’s very much my favorite so far! (At least, I nearly certain that she’s a woman? As far as I can tell, she’s a woman who’s pretending to be a man [considering all her accidental references to “other girls”], and maybe was even raised as her father’s son, considering how the One-Eyed Man refers to her as a “him”.) I love how complicated her feelings about about her “honorable duty”, and how she herself isn’t quite sure what’s right. And while I haven’t finished the One-Eyed Man’s side of things, he’s starting to become pretty compelling to me too. He reached max-loyalty today, and his face there just looks so haunted. He’s been dropping hints about how he didn’t kill “him”, but he might as well have, and agh, I’m so curious about what exactly happened, and how this storyline is going to end.
I don’t have too much to say about the Reluctant Ronin—he’s a bit like the Hotshot, though slightly less grating. Slightly.
The Sweet Old Man, on the other hand… I’m pretty sure that he’s either a government spy, looking for signs of rebellion and unrest (in which case, his plotline is probably connected to the Reluctant Ronin’s), or he’s actually secretly that demon that everyone’s been talking about.
Evidence for the first theory:
1) his portrait’s right by the Reluctant Ronin’s, which has been the case for most of the linked stories
2) in the first game, the supernatural character was the one in the last portrait slot, and I haven’t unlocked that character yet.
Evidence for the second theory:
1) This conversation I just unlocked:
“Once upon a time, I had the strength to go out hunting all day. That was my hobby, you see. Now it’s all I can do to enjoy a leisurely stroll at night!”2) This conversation that I unlocked earlier:
“I love this town most at night. It’s so quiet and still. I’m not much for the hustle and bustle of daytime, you see. I much prefer a nice, full moon.”3) his light-hearted refusal to say how old he is, and how he claims he doesn’t believe in the stories of a demon running around at night.
The last character I’ve unlocked is the Bearded Doctor. I don’t have too much to say about him yet? There’s clearly something that’s gone wrong in his past, something related to his practicing as a doctor. But who knows what yet. This conversation from him that I unlocked fairly early on did amuse me, though:
“My job? I’m a doctor, I guess. But I wouldn’t recommend me. Go get yourself someone who knows what they’re doing.”I'm also a fan of the setting details they've slipped in (like eggs being a luxury item, and so, more expensive, when in the first game they were free).
On a completely unrelated note, this game keeps making me hungry. The food looks so good!