straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2019-11-23 03:17 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2019-11-23 03:17 pm
216 | Lake of Voices
I finished playing Lake of Voices today, after having started it yesterday. It’s a short visual novel that’s available for free on Steam, and overall, I’d say it’s worth the time I invested in it. The mood and atmosphere are fantastic, and though not every route stands well on its own, I found the characters and overall story to be compelling, especially once all the secrets of the story were revealed.
Interestingly, the fact that I knew that it was literally impossible for every character to survive the game had a very freeing effect on me on my first playthrough. I have a tendency to get hung up on making the “right” choices the first time, which is bit ridiculous, seeing as I always go back to play the bad endings anyway. Knowing that I couldn’t have that perfect playthrough in this game made it easier for me to play without worrying about any of that.
...Which was a good thing, because my first playthrough was a disaster in terms of lives lost, haha. I decided fairly early on that my first priority would be to try to keep Kikka and Bemelle alive. I lost Margret almost immediately, at the point where you have to choose whether to turn or not. In any other game, I probably would have reloaded the file there, because I liked her a lot, but since I knew that someone had to die, I kept going. I also left Lu behind, since the Guide implied that taking him along would be a risky venture and, like I said, my first priority was to keep Kikka and Bemelle alive. Which, barring my having to reload a few Kikka deaths, I did succeed at.
...Getting the Bemelle ending, on the other hand, took a few more tries. After that, I went for the Margret ending, then Lu’s first ending, then the Guide’s, and finally Lu’s other ending(s)/the hidden endings.
From the four characters who Kikka interacts with during the game, Bemelle and Margret are the two whose routes are the least important to the overall plot. They don’t deal much with the secrets of the lake: rather, they’re more about the characters surviving and growing along the way, as well as the relationship that they build with Kikka on their respective routes.
In Bemelle’s case, his route still really worked for me. He might have not had a connection to the mysteries of the overarching plot, but he did have a history with Kikka. They’re both guards from the same village—coworkers, essentially—and know each other fairly well. Bemelle’s respect and trust in Kikka is super clear, even from the beginning—even when you don’t choose any affection options. And when you do go for his affection options, it ends up feeling like the deepening of a bond that was already there rather than the creation of something new, which, considering the compressed time frame of the plot (it takes place over two nights), is a definite plus.
Watching their transformation into becoming partners who support and bolster one another and make up for the other’s weaknesses was incredibly satisfying to watch, and of all the relationships in the game, theirs was the one where I was the most convinced of their feelings for one another, and it made for what was, imo, a very satisfying story arc, even if the secrets of the lake wasn’t addressed.
Margret’s route, on the other hand, fell flat for me. Which is a shame, because I did like Margret a lot as a character! But I was just never able to fully buy the development of her relationship with Kikka. Liking, yes. But them becoming that important to one another just over the course of a single night? A single night where their only special interaction was Kikka asking Margret a question and her being slightly more encouraging when telling her to run to the guide? (I know that the game takes place over two nights, but the “special to one another” moments start once the characters get to the island at the halfway point, so.) I just couldn’t buy it, and because of that, the rest of it didn’t work for me either.
I found her desire to become a guide fascinating, though later reveals definitely colored my view. When I played through the Guide’s endings, I wondered about how he felt about her desire to be a guide—whether it was a hope turned disappointment, or simply a burden all along. And then the hidden route came along and I realized it was basically a worst case scenario for him, which the bonus scenes from Lu’s perspective basically confirmed.
Which makes me have thoughts about 1) how, if the Guide doesn’t take Bemelle and Kikka, Kikka later hears about how Margret didn’t survive the crossing, and 2) that hairpin turn he takes when Margret’s following directly behind him. She’s also really crushed and distraught by the time they get to the island, and I feel like that must have been intentional on his part: either she has to die, or be so traumatized that she gives up on the idea of becoming a guide.
On the other hand, there is a version of events where she continues on with her determination to be a guide: if Margret and Lu make it to the island, and Lu later disappears, she changes her mind about giving up. Yet the ending slide about her is no different than it is in any other route where she survives but doesn’t form a romantic bond with Kikka, which felt really unsatisfying at the time. Even now that I know why her becoming a guide is an impossibility, I still feel like something should have been done with that plot thread, even if it was just a note about, idk, her mysteriously disappearing or something.
The Guide’s route was interesting, and has become even more so after I played through Lu’s hidden route. Learning the truth about the lake, the Nixis, and his role in it all has put such a fascinating slant to everything that he says and does in that route. We get to see behind his mask—but so much of what he tells to Kikka in that route turns out to be a lie.
The first ending I got with him was the one where he (seemingly) pulls Kikka with him into the lake for a murder-suicide, and I admit, I was just as surprised as Kikka was by that. At the time, I wondered if it was because he couldn’t accept or deal with the prospect of a future which didn’t confirm with the narrow confines of his worldview, and so Javert-style, simply ran from it in the most permanent way possible. But with the added context of the final reveals, it makes perfect sense: he couldn’t risk having anyone linger around the lake, regardless of whatever type of bond might have formed between them. He gave her every chance to back down, to live, but once it was clear that she wouldn’t, he took care of the risk she posed in the most straightforward way possible.
There’s this bit in the interview bonus where he refuses to confirm having any feelings for Kikka. In the process, he says something about how he only knew a little about her, but she knew nothing about him, which was really interesting to me.
Which brings me to the above quote: the Guide dismisses the possibility of their having a relationship and (more importantly) tries to dismiss their having forged any kind of bond because he lied to her; because nothing which he told her about his life and situation were actually true.
But at the same time, Kikka did see into the emotional truth of him in that route. His words were a lie, but the emotions driving them weren’t. They did genuinely connect there, even if the Guide doesn’t want to admit it.
(He also says this bit about how a relationship should be with someone who is willing to sacrifice for you, rather than with someone who is willing to sacrifice you for something else, which was also really interesting to me and does nothing to convince me that there weren’t genuine feelings there, even if he tries to deny it.)
I said above that Bemelle/Kikka was the relationship that I was the most sold on within the game, but Kikka/The Guide fascinates me and has so much potential; it’s simply that what we see in the game can only be the groundwork that they then have to work from. One of the things that fascinates me about their relationship is about how they’re actually fairly similar people who have diametrically opposed world views. Both of them feel very deeply, but show “steady” or “unfeeling” countenances to the outside world. But how they see the world and handle the problems they face are very different and it’s only in working towards bridging those differences that they'd be able to build a real relationship.
Weirdly, I think that the ending where they have the most potential is not the good ending from the Guide’s route, but rather the ending in Lu’s hidden route where Kikka 1) decides to accept Lu’s offer to stay with the Nixi and 2) tells the Guide that she made her choice because she believes that they can find a better way. She didn’t get to see as much of the emotional core of him as she did on his route, but she saw much more than she did in the other routes, and it’s in that ending they’re actively and openly communicating with one another with no secrets between them.
I initially had a similar problem with Lu’s route as I did with Margret’s, in that I just couldn’t buy the development of their relationship. (I actually really disliked Lu's first route; it was easily my least favorite.) When I got to the hidden route and the all the reveals contained within, it did manage to sell me on Lu’s feelings, but I never did buy Kikka’s. I love it, but I love it for the story, the secrets it reveals, and what it does with Kikka’s own story.
Also, fun fact: my brother called me right at the moment when I got to the part where Lu reappears after disappearing into the water and Kikka realizes that he’s bleeding silver blood, and so I spent a solid half an hour believing that the “twist” in the game was that all the people who died in the lake were then transformed into the prowlers which then fed on other travellers like themselves. Then I got back to the game, and a few lines later I realized that I’d completely misinterpreted it, haha.
Since I was also playing this on the heels of the Guide’s route, I also really misinterpreted his reaction to Lu revealing that the lantern lights didn’t keep the prowlers away, but rather told them where the people crossing the lake were. The “stunned” look + the “what have I been working for all these years” reaction made me think that he genuinely didn’t know and was about to have “another” Javert-style breakdown;;;;;; Of course, that wasn’t the case—he was reacting to Lu spilling all their secrets, not to the breaking down of his worldview.
I went with the ending where Kikka refuses Lu’s offer/chooses to die in the lake first, because at the time I couldn’t see how the other option could be satisfying. And it was a satisfying death! Probably the most satisfying way Kikka could manage to die in that game. But the other ending(s) was even better.
My initial resistance was because I saw her accepting the offer it as her choosing life over her values, which I just couldn’t buy for her. But the game didn’t play it that way—rather, it was her choosing to live on in the hope that she might find a better solution to the Nixi’s dilemma in the future, which really worked for me in terms of both story and her character. The only thing which didn’t quite work for me is how Margret’s death was handled in that ending: Kikka mourns her, but they never really deal with the fact that Lu was the one who killed her. But other than that, I loved it.
The other thing I ended up loving more than I ever thought possible: the relationship between the Guide and Lu. You spend the whole game thinking that the Guide deeply dislikes Lu, and then it’s revealed that it’s not the case at all! He’s furious with him, because he loves and is worried about him! He cares! So much! Everything about it, down to the way he expresses that care, was like catnip to me. And then two of the three bonus chapters gave me even more! *_*
Some final thoughts:
I would love to be a fly on the wall for the conversation between Lu and the Guide on the routes where Kikka throws her lantern to help the Guide and then later tells the Guide to take Lu with him to the shore. Especially since… those are the only two who are in literally no danger from the lake… all the tension is from the Guide’s Disappointment rather than them being in actual peril.
...shit, I just realized: in the bonuses, it’s stated that the Nixi have no parents, but the Guide was like a guardian of sorts to Lu.
One of the first things that Lu tells the others is that his father was always disappointed in him.
...Lu was definitely talking about the Guide there, ahaha.
Interestingly, the fact that I knew that it was literally impossible for every character to survive the game had a very freeing effect on me on my first playthrough. I have a tendency to get hung up on making the “right” choices the first time, which is bit ridiculous, seeing as I always go back to play the bad endings anyway. Knowing that I couldn’t have that perfect playthrough in this game made it easier for me to play without worrying about any of that.
...Which was a good thing, because my first playthrough was a disaster in terms of lives lost, haha. I decided fairly early on that my first priority would be to try to keep Kikka and Bemelle alive. I lost Margret almost immediately, at the point where you have to choose whether to turn or not. In any other game, I probably would have reloaded the file there, because I liked her a lot, but since I knew that someone had to die, I kept going. I also left Lu behind, since the Guide implied that taking him along would be a risky venture and, like I said, my first priority was to keep Kikka and Bemelle alive. Which, barring my having to reload a few Kikka deaths, I did succeed at.
...Getting the Bemelle ending, on the other hand, took a few more tries. After that, I went for the Margret ending, then Lu’s first ending, then the Guide’s, and finally Lu’s other ending(s)/the hidden endings.
From the four characters who Kikka interacts with during the game, Bemelle and Margret are the two whose routes are the least important to the overall plot. They don’t deal much with the secrets of the lake: rather, they’re more about the characters surviving and growing along the way, as well as the relationship that they build with Kikka on their respective routes.
In Bemelle’s case, his route still really worked for me. He might have not had a connection to the mysteries of the overarching plot, but he did have a history with Kikka. They’re both guards from the same village—coworkers, essentially—and know each other fairly well. Bemelle’s respect and trust in Kikka is super clear, even from the beginning—even when you don’t choose any affection options. And when you do go for his affection options, it ends up feeling like the deepening of a bond that was already there rather than the creation of something new, which, considering the compressed time frame of the plot (it takes place over two nights), is a definite plus.
Watching their transformation into becoming partners who support and bolster one another and make up for the other’s weaknesses was incredibly satisfying to watch, and of all the relationships in the game, theirs was the one where I was the most convinced of their feelings for one another, and it made for what was, imo, a very satisfying story arc, even if the secrets of the lake wasn’t addressed.
Margret’s route, on the other hand, fell flat for me. Which is a shame, because I did like Margret a lot as a character! But I was just never able to fully buy the development of her relationship with Kikka. Liking, yes. But them becoming that important to one another just over the course of a single night? A single night where their only special interaction was Kikka asking Margret a question and her being slightly more encouraging when telling her to run to the guide? (I know that the game takes place over two nights, but the “special to one another” moments start once the characters get to the island at the halfway point, so.) I just couldn’t buy it, and because of that, the rest of it didn’t work for me either.
I found her desire to become a guide fascinating, though later reveals definitely colored my view. When I played through the Guide’s endings, I wondered about how he felt about her desire to be a guide—whether it was a hope turned disappointment, or simply a burden all along. And then the hidden route came along and I realized it was basically a worst case scenario for him, which the bonus scenes from Lu’s perspective basically confirmed.
Which makes me have thoughts about 1) how, if the Guide doesn’t take Bemelle and Kikka, Kikka later hears about how Margret didn’t survive the crossing, and 2) that hairpin turn he takes when Margret’s following directly behind him. She’s also really crushed and distraught by the time they get to the island, and I feel like that must have been intentional on his part: either she has to die, or be so traumatized that she gives up on the idea of becoming a guide.
On the other hand, there is a version of events where she continues on with her determination to be a guide: if Margret and Lu make it to the island, and Lu later disappears, she changes her mind about giving up. Yet the ending slide about her is no different than it is in any other route where she survives but doesn’t form a romantic bond with Kikka, which felt really unsatisfying at the time. Even now that I know why her becoming a guide is an impossibility, I still feel like something should have been done with that plot thread, even if it was just a note about, idk, her mysteriously disappearing or something.
The Guide’s route was interesting, and has become even more so after I played through Lu’s hidden route. Learning the truth about the lake, the Nixis, and his role in it all has put such a fascinating slant to everything that he says and does in that route. We get to see behind his mask—but so much of what he tells to Kikka in that route turns out to be a lie.
The first ending I got with him was the one where he (seemingly) pulls Kikka with him into the lake for a murder-suicide, and I admit, I was just as surprised as Kikka was by that. At the time, I wondered if it was because he couldn’t accept or deal with the prospect of a future which didn’t confirm with the narrow confines of his worldview, and so Javert-style, simply ran from it in the most permanent way possible. But with the added context of the final reveals, it makes perfect sense: he couldn’t risk having anyone linger around the lake, regardless of whatever type of bond might have formed between them. He gave her every chance to back down, to live, but once it was clear that she wouldn’t, he took care of the risk she posed in the most straightforward way possible.
There’s this bit in the interview bonus where he refuses to confirm having any feelings for Kikka. In the process, he says something about how he only knew a little about her, but she knew nothing about him, which was really interesting to me.
Which brings me to the above quote: the Guide dismisses the possibility of their having a relationship and (more importantly) tries to dismiss their having forged any kind of bond because he lied to her; because nothing which he told her about his life and situation were actually true.
But at the same time, Kikka did see into the emotional truth of him in that route. His words were a lie, but the emotions driving them weren’t. They did genuinely connect there, even if the Guide doesn’t want to admit it.
(He also says this bit about how a relationship should be with someone who is willing to sacrifice for you, rather than with someone who is willing to sacrifice you for something else, which was also really interesting to me and does nothing to convince me that there weren’t genuine feelings there, even if he tries to deny it.)
I said above that Bemelle/Kikka was the relationship that I was the most sold on within the game, but Kikka/The Guide fascinates me and has so much potential; it’s simply that what we see in the game can only be the groundwork that they then have to work from. One of the things that fascinates me about their relationship is about how they’re actually fairly similar people who have diametrically opposed world views. Both of them feel very deeply, but show “steady” or “unfeeling” countenances to the outside world. But how they see the world and handle the problems they face are very different and it’s only in working towards bridging those differences that they'd be able to build a real relationship.
Weirdly, I think that the ending where they have the most potential is not the good ending from the Guide’s route, but rather the ending in Lu’s hidden route where Kikka 1) decides to accept Lu’s offer to stay with the Nixi and 2) tells the Guide that she made her choice because she believes that they can find a better way. She didn’t get to see as much of the emotional core of him as she did on his route, but she saw much more than she did in the other routes, and it’s in that ending they’re actively and openly communicating with one another with no secrets between them.
I initially had a similar problem with Lu’s route as I did with Margret’s, in that I just couldn’t buy the development of their relationship. (I actually really disliked Lu's first route; it was easily my least favorite.) When I got to the hidden route and the all the reveals contained within, it did manage to sell me on Lu’s feelings, but I never did buy Kikka’s. I love it, but I love it for the story, the secrets it reveals, and what it does with Kikka’s own story.
Also, fun fact: my brother called me right at the moment when I got to the part where Lu reappears after disappearing into the water and Kikka realizes that he’s bleeding silver blood, and so I spent a solid half an hour believing that the “twist” in the game was that all the people who died in the lake were then transformed into the prowlers which then fed on other travellers like themselves. Then I got back to the game, and a few lines later I realized that I’d completely misinterpreted it, haha.
Since I was also playing this on the heels of the Guide’s route, I also really misinterpreted his reaction to Lu revealing that the lantern lights didn’t keep the prowlers away, but rather told them where the people crossing the lake were. The “stunned” look + the “what have I been working for all these years” reaction made me think that he genuinely didn’t know and was about to have “another” Javert-style breakdown;;;;;; Of course, that wasn’t the case—he was reacting to Lu spilling all their secrets, not to the breaking down of his worldview.
I went with the ending where Kikka refuses Lu’s offer/chooses to die in the lake first, because at the time I couldn’t see how the other option could be satisfying. And it was a satisfying death! Probably the most satisfying way Kikka could manage to die in that game. But the other ending(s) was even better.
My initial resistance was because I saw her accepting the offer it as her choosing life over her values, which I just couldn’t buy for her. But the game didn’t play it that way—rather, it was her choosing to live on in the hope that she might find a better solution to the Nixi’s dilemma in the future, which really worked for me in terms of both story and her character. The only thing which didn’t quite work for me is how Margret’s death was handled in that ending: Kikka mourns her, but they never really deal with the fact that Lu was the one who killed her. But other than that, I loved it.
The other thing I ended up loving more than I ever thought possible: the relationship between the Guide and Lu. You spend the whole game thinking that the Guide deeply dislikes Lu, and then it’s revealed that it’s not the case at all! He’s furious with him, because he loves and is worried about him! He cares! So much! Everything about it, down to the way he expresses that care, was like catnip to me. And then two of the three bonus chapters gave me even more! *_*
Some final thoughts:
I would love to be a fly on the wall for the conversation between Lu and the Guide on the routes where Kikka throws her lantern to help the Guide and then later tells the Guide to take Lu with him to the shore. Especially since… those are the only two who are in literally no danger from the lake… all the tension is from the Guide’s Disappointment rather than them being in actual peril.
...shit, I just realized: in the bonuses, it’s stated that the Nixi have no parents, but the Guide was like a guardian of sorts to Lu.
One of the first things that Lu tells the others is that his father was always disappointed in him.
...Lu was definitely talking about the Guide there, ahaha.